You Are IT

To keep the body in good health is a duty, otherwise we shall not be able to keep our mind strong and clear.

– Buddha

Enlightenment is awakening from the dream of being a separate me to being the universal reality. It’s not an experience or a perception that occurs to a separate person as the result of spiritual practice or cultivated awareness.

It doesn’t come and go, and you don’t need to do anything to maintain it. It’s not about being centered or blissful or peaceful or any other experience. In fact, enlightenment is a permanent non-experience that happens to nobody.

The separate person is seen through, and you realize that only the supreme, universal reality exists, and that you are that.

– Adyashanti

The energies that keep us alive are joy, generosity, compassion, curiosity, truthfulness, serenity, equanimity, wakefulness, one-pointedness, and impeccability—the qualities of mind that Buddhist teaching sometimes calls paramitas, or perfections, or sometimes bojjhangas, the factors of enlightenment.

They are qualities of awakened mind as well as qualities that can be cultivated to aid awakening.

– Jack Engler

This mountain has neither ugly rocks nor clumsy trees.

It raises itself ten thousand feet towards the cold heaven.

Even a stray cloud does not cling around the mountain.

Only the moon showers its pale light abundantly over the summit.

– Jakushitsu (1290–1368)

The Buddhist master Thich Nath Hanh has formulated The Five Mindfulness Trainings, which are an adaptation of the first five Buddhist precepts. These are practised by Buddhists of the Lam Te Dhyana school. By virtue of their sensible phrasing and their relevance to modern lifestyle, these “trainings” provide a valuable foundation of ethics for all of humanity.

The Five Mindfulness Trainings

(according to Thich Nath Hanh, www.plumvillage.org)

-First Training-

Aware of the suffering caused by the destruction of life, I am committed to cultivating compassion and learning ways to protect the lives of people, animals, plants, and minerals. I am determined not to kill, not to let others kill, and not to condone any act of killing in the world, in my thinking, and in my way of life.

-Second Training-

Aware of the suffering caused by exploitation, social injustice, stealing, and oppression, I am committed to cultivate loving kindness and learn ways to work for the well-being of people, animals, plants, and minerals. I am committed to practice generosity by sharing my time, energy, and material resources with those who are in real need. I am determined not to steal and not to possess anything that should belong to others. I will respect the property of others, but I will prevent others from profiting from human suffering or the suffering of other species on Earth.

-Third Training-

Aware of the suffering caused by sexual misconduct, I am committed to cultivate responsibility and learn ways to protect the safety and integrity of individuals, couples, families, and society. I am determined not to engage in sexual relations without love and a long-term commitment. To preserve the happiness of myself and others, I am determined to respect my commitments and the commitments of others. I will do everything in my power to protect children from sexual abuse and to prevent couples and families from being broken by sexual misconduct.

-Fourth Training-

Aware of the suffering caused by unmindful speech and the inability to listen to others, I am committed to cultivate loving speech and deep listening in order to bring joy and happiness to others and relieve others of their suffering. Knowing that words can create happiness or suffering, I am committed to learn to speak truthfully, with words that inspire self-confidence, joy, and hope. I am determined not to spread news that I do not know to be certain and not to criticise or condemn things of which I am not sure. I will refrain from uttering words that can cause division or discord, or that can cause the family or the community to break. I will make all efforts to reconcile and resolve all conflicts, however small.

-Fifth Training-

Aware of the suffering caused by unmindful consumption, I am committed to cultivate good health, both physical and mental, for myself, my family, and my society by practising mindful eating, drinking, and consuming. I am committed to ingest only items that preserve peace, well-being, and joy in my body, in my consciousness, and in the collective body and consciousness of my family and society. I am determined not to use alcohol or any other intoxicant or to ingest foods or other items that contain toxins, such as certain TV programs, magazines, books, films, and conversations. I am aware that to damage my body or my consciousness with these poisons is to betray my ancestors, my parents, my society, and future generations. I will work to transform violence, fear, anger, and confusion in myself and in society by practising a diet for myself and for society. I understand that a proper diet is crucial for self-transformation and for the transformation of society.

Concentration should be regarded as a tool. Like any tool, it can be used for good or for ill. A sharp knife can be used to create a beautiful carving or to harm someone. It is all up to the one who uses the knife.

Concentration is similar. Properly used, it can assist you toward liberation. But it can also be used in the service of the ego. It can operate in the framework of achievement and competition. You can use concentration to dominate others. You can use it to be selfish.

The real problem is that concentration alone will not give you a perspective on yourself. It won’t throw light on the basic problems of selfishness and the nature of suffering.

– Bhante Henepola Gunaratana, Mindfulness and Concentration

One of the main pursuits of Buddhism is to bridge the gap between the way things appear and the way things are.

That approach does not come just from a curiosity to investigate phenomena.  It arises from the understanding that an incorrect perception of reality inevitably leads to suffering.

Grasping to solid reality and to the notion of an independent self in particular engenders a host of afflictive mental states and afflictive emotions that are the primary cause of mind-made sufferings.

– Matthieu Ricard, “Why Meditate?”

If you want to be free,

Get to know your real self.

It has no form, no appearance,

No root, no basis, no abode,

But is lively and buoyant.

It responds with versatile facility,

But its function cannot be located.

Therefore when you look for it,

You become further from it;

When you seek it

You turn away from it all the more.

– Linji (d. 867)

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul!

– John Muir

There is only one caste – the caste of humanity.

There is only one religion – the religion of love, the religion of vedanta.

There is only one dharma – the dharma of truthfulness.

There is only one law – the law of cause and effect.

There is only one God – the omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent Lord.

There is only one language – the language of the heart; the language
of silence.

– Sri Swami Sivananda