The Buddha We Are

The Buddha We Are by Josho Pat Phelan

As many of you know, Shunryu Suzuki Roshi was the founder of the San Francisco Zen Center. He was a Japanese Buddhist priest who came to the United States–to San Francisco–in 1958 to lead a Japanese American congregation. After he arrived he began sitting zazen by himself. I heard that he put a sign on the door listing the times he did zazen, and, slowly, others, mostly young westerners, began joining him. The book Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind is a collection of some of Suzuki Roshi's lectures. Suzuki Roshi offered his teaching to encourage us to practice and to take care of our lives, and he did this without emphasizing the differences between various schools of Buddhism, and without any particular emphasis on Buddhism as a religion. However, Suzuki Roshi was trained in the Soto school of Zen Buddhism in Japan.

One of the fundamental teachings in Soto Zen, or the starting point for the Soto teachings, is that we are all Buddha, we are already Buddha. Suzuki Roshi said "...to be a human being is to be a Buddha. Buddha nature is just another name for human nature–true human nature." This means that being Buddha is intrinsic or essential to being human. If we were not Buddha, we could not be human. The word "Buddha" means "an awakened one," one who is awake to things as they really are, without the coloring and attachments of our individual conditioning. So another meaning of Buddha is our unconditioned nature. In the book How To Raise An Ox, Francis Cook talks about the Buddhist term, "intrinsic enlightenment." He said it "refers to the idea that all living beings are Buddhas. It does not mean that beings possess a Buddha nature, or that beings are containers in which a seed form of Buddha can be found, as if there were two realities, beings and Buddha. It means that beings are Buddha, but they are blind, stupid Buddhas who are ignorant of their true nature." Soto Zen teaching starts with the premise that since we all are Buddha, that we are already complete, and that we already have everything we need. I think most of us are drawn to practice meditation out of a sense that something is missing from our lives. We may feel a lot of stress or tension and want to become calm. We may have a bad habit like smoking that we want to stop and think that meditation may give us the support we need, or we may come to practice out of mental or emotional pain and frustration. I think if someone told me that they had a strong conviction that they were Buddha and that they wanted to begin practicing zazen in order to realize their "Buddhahood," I would be suspicious. From our human point of view, most of us are motivated to practice out of pain or a deep need to change our lives. But from Buddha's point of view, we are already Buddha and when we practice we are just expressing our true nature. We have unconditioned nature, we are unconditioned nature; but at the same time, most of us are ignorant of our unconditioned being. Our habits and conditioning hang like a cloud over our awareness. One way to characterize our conditioned nature is by saying that there is something that we don't have that we need. From the time we are born, the way we are treated, the things we are told, the way our language and our society is constructed, supports the notion that there is something that we don't have that we need. Whether we think we need new clothes or a new car or other gadgets, or happiness, or fulfillment, or peace of mind, or even realization–whenever we feel that there is something that we need that we don't already have–we are ignoring our inherent completeness and are setting up a duality between who we are and who we want to be. Right now, in this moment, if we are dissatisfied, we are rejecting a moment of life. If we reject our life in this moment, in what moment will we accept it? Practice and realization can only be experienced right now. There is no other time. Because we are inherently complete, it does not follow that we should just lie back and enjoy it. We need to take care of ourselves, to support ourselves and take care of our lives, and, as much as possible, to take care of the environment and help improve the living conditions of all people. But the Buddhist attitude is that we take care of our activity and so we take care of the world as our selves, which is different from trying to obtain something outside ourselves, which, once we get it, will make our lives better. This kind of dualistic grasping can never be satisfied. There will always be something newer or something better available. Our sixth ancestor in China, Hui Neng, taught in the Platform Sutra: "...the Wisdom of Enlightenment is inherent in every one of us. It is because of the delusion under which our mind works that we fail to realize it ourselves....You should know that so far as Buddha nature is con cerned, there is no difference between an enlightened person and an ignorant one. What makes the difference is that one realizes it and one is ignorant of it." Soto Zen Buddhism was brought to Japan by Dogen Zenji in the first half of the 13th century. Dogen trained in monasteries in Japan and then travelled to China searching for a more original or pure form of Buddhism. He was born into an aristocratic ruling family, but when he was two years old, his father died, and five years later his mother died. At his mother's funeral, he noticed the incense smoke rising and curling and disappearing into the air. This reminded him of his experience of the impermanence of life, and, out of this deep sense of impermanence, he decided to become a Buddhist monk. When he was older and began his serious training, he had the persistent question: if we are already Buddha, or already enlightened, why do we need to put so much effort into practice? Buddhism teaches that we are already Buddha whether we realize it or not. "Realize" means "to make real". In Buddhism the realization that is referred to is not something that happens just in our minds or to our perceptions. It is said that realization must penetrate every cell of our bodies, down to the marrow of our bones and out to each tip of our hair. This realization that penetrates our body and mind goes beyond our thinking process. When we practice zazen, our attitude shouldn't be to try to stop our thinking, but rather to set aside our belief in our thinking, or to set aside our belief that our point of view is right so our intention to practice can settle into our flesh and bones. Suzuki Roshi emphasized practice through Right Effort both in zazen and in our everyday activity. He emphasized wholehearted effort, by bringing our whole body and mind, bringing ourwhole attention, our undivided attention to whatever we are doing. In this way, there is no separation between ourselves and our activity. When our attention is undivided, our experience of ourselves and of the world is undivided. There are some instructions called "The Way to Practice Throughout the Day" that were given to laymen when they visited Zen monasteries in the 14th century: "the way to practice throughout the day is to throw yourself completely into each activity." When you do zazen, do nothing else but zazen; do not think about enlightenment, do not think about Buddhist teaching. When you go to service, hold the sutra card with two hands and chant wholeheartedly; do not think about the meaning of the sutras, do not think about zazen. When you go to breakfast, fully attend to the food in front of you and realize the mind of eating; and when you rest, just rest. So when you sit zazen, just do zazen; and when you work, just work. This spirit of just sitting or just working becomes common to all our activity when we practice. In this way, wherever we are, whatever we are doing, we have the opportunity to practice. We don't have to be in the meditation hall or in the mountains to practice. Our practice isn't even dependent on meditation. Since we are already Buddha, we can never leave the environment of practice. Buddhism teaches that it is not even "we" who practice, but the Buddha we are who practices. We just resume our true nature, or our true nature resumes itself. Suzuki Roshi, quoting Dogen, said, "So we say, we practice our way not for ourselves and not for others. We practice our way for the sake of our way. There is no other reason why we practice our way. We just want to go back to our home as a duck wants to return to water... like a traveller who comes back and lies down in his own bed."

DEALING with INSULT....Lord Buddha

WISE TEACHINGS 

DEALING with INSULT….

Lord Buddha

The Buddha explained how to handle insult and maintain compassion.

One day Buddha was walking through a village. A very angry and rude young man came up and began insulting him. "You have no right teaching others," he shouted. "You are as stupid as everyone else. You are nothing but a fake."

Buddha was not upset by these insults. Instead he asked the young man "Tell me, if you buy a gift for someone, and that person does not take it, to whom does the gift belong?"

The man was surprised to be asked such a strange question and answered, "It would belong to me, because I bought the gift."

The Buddha smiled and said, "That is correct. And it is exactly the same with your anger. If you become angry with me and I do not get insulted, then the anger falls back on you. You are then the only one who becomes unhappy, not me. All you have done is hurt yourself."

"If you want to stop hurting yourself, you must get rid of your anger and become loving instead. When you hate others, you yourself become unhappy. But when you love others, everyone is happy."

Beautiful Quotes

If you are right then there is no need to get angry
And if you are wrong then you don't have any right to get angry.

Patience with family is love,
Patience with others is respect,
Patience with self is confidence and
Patience with GOD is faith.

Never Think Hard about PAST,
It brings Tears...
Don't Think more about FUTURE,
It brings Fears...
Live this Moment with a Smile,
It brings Cheers.!!!!

Every test in our life makes us bitter or better,
Every problem comes to make us or break us,
Choice is our whether we become victim or victorious !!!

Search a beautiful heart not a beautiful face.
Beautiful things are not always good
but good things are always beautiful.

Remember me like pressed flower in your Notebook.
It may not be having any fragrance
but will remind you of my existence forever in your life.

Do you know, why God created gaps between fingers?
So that someone who is special to you, comes and fills those gaps by holding your hands forever.

Sogyal Lakar - Lama sex abuse claims call Buddhist taboos into question

Lama sex abuse claims call Buddhist taboos into question

Allegations against Sogyal Rinpoche highlight the dangers of Buddhist injunctions against gossip and insistence on loyalty

• 
• • Mary Finnigan
  • guardian.co.uk, Friday 1 July 2011 12.41 BST
  • Article history

An exiled Tibetan Buddhist nun prostrates around the main temple and the residence of Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama. Photograph: Ashwini Bhatia/AP


In November 1994 an American woman known as Janice Doe filed a $10m lawsuit against the Tibetan lama Sogyal Rinpoche, charging him with sexual, mental and physical abuse. The case was dealt with out of court and Janice Doe signed a non-disclosure agreement in return for a cash settlement.
Sogyal denies allegations of abuse, but fresh evidence against him was recently aired in an investigative documentary called In the Name of Enlightenment, broadcast on Vision TV in Canada. A beautiful young woman identified as Mimi described an abusive sexual relationship. She was the first person claiming direct experience of Sogyal's exploitative attentions to go public since the 1994 lawsuit.
Sogyal (surname Lakar – Rinpoche is a title that means "precious one") is the frontman for a Tibetan Buddhist organisation called Rigpa, which has a worldwide reach with 130 centres in 41 countries. He has a bestselling book, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, to his name and he starred alongside Keanu Reeves in the movie Little Buddha. Sogyal is a formidably successful guru – probably the best known Tibetan after the Dalai Lama. His trajectory into Buddhist superstardom suffered only a temporary setback following the Janice Doe lawsuit – despite the fact that lurid rumours about his sex life circulate on the internet with increasing volume and persistence.
The allegations raise a wider question: why are victims of sexual exploitation by charismatic religious leaders reluctant to denounce their abusers? In the Canadian documentary, Mimi highlights the Stockholm syndrome – a term used to describe the paradoxical reactions of individuals who bond with their abusers. "The person beating us, she says, "is also the only one giving us affection – and food and a roof over our heads."
Sociologist Amanda van Eck is deputy director of Inform, the cult information resource at the London School of Economics. She says fear is probably the main reason why women stay silent: "In some groups there has been fear of retribution," she says, "which means they don't want to speak publicly. In other cases, which may overlap with fear of retribution, they are fearful of negative consequences – damnation, of not being saved, of possession by evil spirits, of being attacked by negative forces and so on."
If the outside world has been demonised by cult leaders, Van Eck says, women may also be fearful that no one can be trusted.
Many women who have described abusive sexual relationships anonymously on internet forums refuse to come out of hiding because they want to move on, rather than relive traumatic periods in their lives. Some also feel a need to protect their families.
In my personal experience, there are two taboos in Buddhist organisations, both of which have merit and both of which can be used as manipulative tools. One of them is an injunction against gossip – useful when trying to establish a calm mental state, but also useful to prevent the circulation of critical comment.
The second is samaya – the bond of loyalty that is one of the key tenets of Tibetan Buddhism. It supports the relationship between teacher and neophyte, but it can be deployed unscrupulously as a threat – break your samaya and attract dire consequences to yourself and your loved ones.
Another factor is that acceptance into the inner circle around an important guru delivers high status within the organisation. Women are persuaded to view the master as a deity and to be compliant with his wishes and whims, to undertake a punishing workload and be available for sex on demand. They are separated from family and friends, discouraged from contact with the outside world and persuaded to see the organisation as family with the guru (confusingly as father-lover) in absolute power and control. By the time women realise they are being abused, exploited and embedded in a coercive cult, it is often too late for them to extricate themselves. Their investment is total and their chances of making lives for themselves beyond the organisation have dwindled into non-existence.
Whether or not Sogyal's relationships were abusive, as claimed, they raise another question: how does a short, overweight, Tibetan lama manage to attract beautiful young western women? The answer is rooted in the mystique of tantra – the only Buddhist tradition that includes sexual union in the path that leads to enlightenment. Professor Geoffrey Samuel from Cardiff University explains: "In the third initiation of the highest yoga tantra, sexual union is introduced as a parallel to the experience of enlightenment. It creates certain sensations that help towards experiencing the state of ultimate realisation – in other words Buddhahood."
But Samuel says that although this arcane version of sacred sex is present in Tibetan Buddhist scriptures, it should not be confused with the modern neo-tantra movement and nor is it appropriate for recent converts to Buddhism."People should have a health warning" he says. "An elderly guru seducing a young woman probably isn't doing it to assist her towards enlightenment."
Tibetans outside Tibet are refugees who feel constantly under threat from forces beyond their control. Their social conventions include a taboo against criticising lamas. The Dalai Lama is constrained by this and so too are the majority of other lamas teaching in the west. They have closed ranks around Sogyal, regardless of their misgivings about the allegations against him. A more cynical view of this apparent conspiracy of silence hinges on the fact that Sogyal pulls in a lot of money – some of which is channelled into Tibetan worthy causes.

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