(Re)incarnation?

Hi.

There are some who would say that Buddha did not teach reincarnation but instead spoke of rebirth.

Reincarnation, literally "to be made flesh again", is a doctrine or belief that some essential part of a living being survives deathh to be reborn in a new body. This essential part is often referred to as the spirit, soul or "I".

Rebirth refers to a process whereby beings go through a succession of lifetimes as one of many possible forms of sentient life, each running from conception to death.

It is important to note, however, that Buddhism rejects concepts of a permanent self or an unchanging, eternal soul, as it is called in Christianity or even Hinduism (and therefore reincarnation, which require it).

As there ultimately is no such thing as a self (anatta), rebirth in subsequent existences must rather be understood as the continuation of a dynamic, ever-changing process of "dependent arising" (Pratītyasamutpāda) determined by the laws of cause and effect (Karma) rather than that of one being, "jumping" from one existence to the next.

So, sorry, no reincarnation for you, unless you plan on being a ZOMBIE.

May the force be with you
Fugen

What does buddhists eat?

Hi.

Some Buddhists today are vegetarians.
But Siddharta, in his time, ate and drank what was given to him, as was his way.
To understand this we need to look at the nature of early Buddhism and the dietary habits of the population at large then that we can understand why the Buddha allowed meat-eating.
Buddhist monks and nuns were mendicants; that is, they begged for their food from householders.
They didn't have the opportunity to grow their own food.
That is to say they ate what they got from people.

There are some texts in the matter:

"I say that in three situations flesh can be partaken of - when it is not seen, heard, or suspected (that an animal has been killed for a monk)."
- the Jivaka Sutta

At that time, Arya(sage) Mahamati(Great Wisdom) Bodhisattva-Mahasattva said to the Buddha:

"Bhagavan(World Honored One), I see that in all worlds, the wandering in births and deaths, the enlaced animosities, and the falling into evil paths, are all caused by meat eating and cyclical killing.
Those behaviors increase greed and anger, and make living beings unable to escape from suffering. That is truly very painful."
Bhagavan, people who eat meat are destroying the great merciful seed of their own, thus the people who practice the holy Way should not eat meat. "
Bhagavan, the Exterior-paths practitioners preach the incorrect theories which may fall into the mundane views, nihilism, eternalism, existentialism, or non-existence-ism, however, all of their theories forbid meat eating, they do not eat meat and do not allow others to eat meat.
So would it be possible that, for the cultivators who practice Brahma-behavior(Brahma-carya) according to the pure Dharma of Tathagata(Thus Come One), there is no rule to forbid meat eating?
The Tathagata, the Bhagavan equally gives his mercy and compassion to all living beings, how could he allow meat eating?
Virtuous Bhagavan, please tell us the offences of meat eating, and the meritorious virtues of not eating meat.
Once we have heard it, all the Bodhisattvas and I will faithfully practice it, widely preach and spread it abroad, to make all living beings of the past, the present, and the future be aware of it."

The Buddha told Arya Mahamati Bodhisattva: "Good, good, Mahamati, you are greatly compassionate, having pity on all living beings, you asked this question. Now listen attentively and I'll tell you."

Mahamati Bodhisattva said to the Buddha: "How virtuous, Bhagavan! Yes I'll accept the teaching."

The Buddha told Mahamati: "Meat eating has countless offences.
All Bodhisattvas should cultivate their great mercy and compassion so that they should not eat meat.
Now I am telling you in brief the merits of not eating meat, and the offences of meat eating, please listen attentively.
Mahamati, I see that from the beginningless time, because of the habit of meat eating and the greed for flavors of meats, living beings kill and hurt each others in never ending cycles, thus they are apart from sages and suffering from births and deaths."
Those who renounce the flavor of meat can taste the flavors of the true Dharmas, truthfully practice the Bhumi(stage)s of Bodhisattva, and attain Anuttara-Samyak-Sambodhi quickly.
They can then make all living beings enter the resting-place of Sravaka(voice-hearer) and pratyeka-buddha(self-enlightened one), and after that make them enter the stage of Tathagata."
Mahamati, these benefits are based on the merciful heart.
People who eat meat are destroying the great merciful seed of their own, then how could they get these great benefits?
Mahamati, I see that living beings are in the transmigration of the six paths, being together in births and deaths, they give birth to and foster each others, and cyclically become fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters of each others; They may be men or women, may be the direct line of descent, may be cousins, affinities, uncles, aunts, sons, daughters, grandsons, and other various relatives of each others; They may also be born in other paths(of animal, ghost, god, and so on.), whether virtuous or evil, they frequently become the relatives of each others.
Because of these relationships, I see that all meats eaten by living beings are of their own relatives.
Due to the greed for flavors of meats, the living beings circularly eat each others, then they always have the thoughts of hurting each others.
Their painful karmas are always increasing, so they are wandering in cycles of births and deaths and unable to escape.""

- Lankavatara sutta


My advice in the matter?
A term that matches "the middle path" with is "moderation".
Take everything in moderation is what Siddharta came to realize.
In the case of the Lankavatara sutta, the "evil act" lies not in the eating, but in the causes behind the eating, (view the last lines, the underlined...) and so are in violation of the spririt of the precepts.

Conclusion?
You can eat but don't eat in excess.
You can watch what you eat but don't starve yourself
Just be mindful of it.

May the force be with you
Fugen

Hakuin poem

Hi.

All beings are Buddha by nature,
just as water and ice are the same.
Without water there’s no ice,
outside of beings, no Buddha.

~Hakuin Ekaku

May the force be with you
Fugen

The problem of two truth's

Hi.

Often in Buddhism there's talk about "the two truths".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_truths_doctrine

http://www.dhammaweb.net/dhamma_news/view.php?id=390

http://www.lotsawahouse.org/patrul/two_truths.html

http://www.mandalamagazine.org/1996/twotruths.asp



As i see it, most talks on the "two truths", or on the "relative and ultimate" or the "universal and the particular," are talks on general Buddhist teaching for beginners and for introduction to the non-Buddhist public and they are beneficial in that regard.
Another way of sayin mostly the same is reading the Five Ranks and its interpenetration of the "absolute and the relative".

http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O108-FiveRanksofTsaotung.html

http://books.google.se/books?id=smNM4ElP3XgC&pg=PA93&lpg=PA93&dq=Five+Ranks+buddhism&source=bl&ots=ZKvxVex0eq&sig=3hc13YAbzgiR6WHD3Yi7sf13K9Y&hl=sv&ei=PIufSdWaFIaS0AW38LiCDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=7&ct=result

http://www.kaihan.com/fives.htm#2


http://civet-cat.skandinaviskzencenter.org/civet-cat/zen-writings/five-ranks.htm

http://www.angelfire.com/realm/bodhisattva/five_ranks.html


The problem is that people are led to believe that there are "two truths" that exist as objects of the mind.

The teaching of the two truths is somewhat fundamental to Zen Buddhism.
What is also fundamental to Zen Buddhism is the teaching of the "one-truth" of "no-truth."
This is the Diamond Sutra's "Dharma of No-Dharma", and the Lankavatara Sutra's "all things are discrimination of mind."
The essential difference is that the teaching of the two truths stays within the field of conceptualizations about the Dharma while Zen points (using terminology such as "no-thought") directly to the One Mind.
But there really is no difference.

Any pointing (whether via the Two Truths Doctrine or some terminology of One Mind) is in consciousness, and hence concept-based.
It is all a concept.
Furthermore, consciousness is incapable of knowing anything about that which stands prior to consciousness.
And so we have the various teachings, including Zen, which utilize concepts to suggest that which only direct experience can verify.
Moreover, this "verification" itself appears in consciousness.
And it is translated into concepts for communication purposes.
That's simply more interpretation on perception.
When interpretation ends, thought ends.
When thought ends, there is "silence".
"Our" "actual" "condition".

Or to put i a little better...

Those who do not understand
The division of these two realities
Do not understand the profound true reality
Of the Buddha's teaching.

Without reliance on conventions,
The ultimate cannot be taught.
Without realization of the ultimate,
Nirvana will not be attained.

~Nagarjuna

And to top this one off.

Many mind, many matter.
One mind, one matter.
No mind, no matter.

May the force be with you
Fugen

Dogen's secterianism

Hi.

Let's talk about Dogen and secterianism.
I have often wondered how to interpret what people have called Dogen's sectarianism.

On the one hand Dogen was a consumate Ekayanaist (for ekayana, see here).
He was very opposed to Buddhist sectarianism and always said there is only One Buddha Venicle.
Then on the other hand he would criticise what some other teacher would say, or the interpretation of what another teacher (or school or lineage) would say.
Combining these two views his "One Buddhism" could then be seen as his saying only his lineage's teaching was real Buddhism. I think this last conclusion has been vastly overrated and overstated to come to the conclusion that Dogen was sectarian.

My conclusion is that Dogen was Ekayana in his view and that he always said that sectarianism in Buddhism was to be avoided -- and -- that when he criticised, he was not criticizing as a sectarian saying "follow me" or "follow my sect" but as a teacher trying to pull out the subtle roots of delusive views.
An important point is that being critical doesn't mean being sectarian.

May the force be with you
fugen

One Dharma...

Hi.

There's only one world out there; one universe.
It's the same for all beings.
Of course, beings see it differently, and Buddhist practice, as I understand it, is geared toward seeing it as it is.

I'm not really interested in Buddhist dogma, doctrine (even though I do study Buddhist texts), or knowledge, but in seeing (or experiencing directly), and understanding.

I've found, however, that seers, or mystics, or whatever you want to call them, of many different religious persuasions, and even some scientists nowadays, see things in the same way as Zen Masters and other Buddhist adepts, and also in the same way as I see them.
Some examples are: Eckhart Tolle(Catholic), Rumi (Sufi Muslim), and Kabir (Hindu).
There are many, many more.

As I mentioned, experience is more important than book-learning, especially in Zen Buddhism, for Zen is "beyond words and letters".
But to think that "practice" alone is enough, is not right, you also need "theory", they "compliment" each other.
When people experience things as they are directly, they name what they've experienced according to their own vocabulary.
A Christian might say, "I have experienced God."
A Sufi Muslim might say, "The dark one has come into my life."
A Native American might say, "The great spirit has entered me."
A jedi might say " i have felt the force within me."
And so on.
The experiences people have are frequently quite similar, but their ways of verbalizing them are quite different, for they stem from what's current in their own cultures.

Some of these cultures have practices that cultivate awareness and insight; some don't, and awareness and insight come haphazardly, for there are no meditative techniques or systems that cultivate it.
I chose Buddhism, Zen Buddhism specifically, because it resonated with me, and it provided me with the practices I needed to cultivate awareness and understanding.
More or less all I can say about Zen Buddhism is that it is right for me.
Other spiritual traditions can be right for others and can cultivate awareness and understanding.
This is obvious to me.

I am more interested in what unites people than what divides them, and I feel (or hope) that human beings are moving away from separateness to unity.
Things are moving at a more and more accelerated pace these days.
The world is getting smaller and smaller.
Communication is quicker and more comprehensive.
So maybe we're coming closer and closer to where we were in the first place -- no separation; no gap.
Actually, the only gap is in the mind, which individual human beings created in the first place.
The only way to erase this gap is for each person to wake up ( In buddhist-lingo), and this is done person-by-person.

May the force be with you
Fugen.

What is buddhism?

Hi.

People often come to me wondering what buddhism is.
And this is my take on the matter.
Buddhism is not some kind of high and fancy prancing around in robes, singing and chanting.
It is a way to try to see for yourself (and maybe do) what there REALLY is.

In a sense what “reality” is…

It is not somekind of religion where you praise to this or that deity.
Buddhism doesn't have those, just "things" you offer things to in a grateful way…

Sure, there’s lot of “buddhiststories” about deity’s god’s and suchlike, and even Gautama Buddha (the “founder” of Buddhism) “met” or talked about them.

But, as he also said, don’t believe in what you haven’t realized yourself.

Buddhism is a “religion” in which you have to work yourself.

No “Old man in the sky” will do it for you.

Or maybe he will.

I don’t know, I for one have not “seen” one as of yet…

"The Way is spiritual Truth and was originally without name or title. It was only because people ignorantly sought for it empirically that the Buddhas appeared and taught them to eradicate this method of approach. Fearing that nobody would understand, they selected the name 'Way.'
The Way of the Buddhas and the Way of devils are equally wide of the mark."

~Huang Po
(from the Chun Chou Record of the Zen Master Huang Po (Tuan Chi), a collection of sermons and dialogues recorded by P’ei Hsiu while in the city of Chun Chou)

Another thing people often ask about is “suffering”, is Buddhism a religion about suffering?

Well, yes. But not in the way you think.

Buddha talked about “Dukkha”, a word early on in the translations to english we’re translated as suffering and wham, the “sufferingreligion” were born.

I mostly give this example when asked about it:

“ Samsara is when you have the knuckles of your hand put together. Nirvana is when your palms of your hand is put together. Dukkha is when you move your hands.”

Dukkha is more related towards “the indifference, incompability of things" than "suffering”.

Buddhism is a way to try and realizing things as they are, but it implies and gives you more than that, as I will hopefully try to convey through this blog.

Although words are not enough, I will have a go…

May the force be with you

Fugen