Tag Archives: mindfulness

Verse 21, Relative Bodhichitta

Leave a reply

Ken McLeod:

Sensual pleasures are like salty water: The deeper you drink, the thirstier you become. Any object that you attach to, right away let it go—this is the practice of a bodhisattva.

Dalai Lama:

The nature of sense pleasures is like that of saltwater: The more we drink, the more our thirst increases. To abandon the objects towards which desire arises is a practice of the bodhisattva.

Good food, good sex and beautiful fabrics are wonderful, but when they become so important that we crave them, we’re in trouble. The experiences pass, and we can’t “get them back, duplicate them, make them happen again.” Do you know that song by Sade? “It’s never as good as the 1st time…” Pretty much that’s the truth.

And, we can’t disavow sensual pleasures either. That kind of ascetism is just as harmful, and just as addictive. It’s not the answer to our suffering.

The Buddha said that the middle way is the answer. Enjoy the wonderful things in life without thinking they’ll always be the same, that they’ll always satisfy us, or cure the suffering we feel. We will be full for a moment, but our hunger will return. “More” is not the answer.

The suffering of craving is in the mind… Obsession is in the mind. So this verse says, Any object that you attach to, right away let it go!

His Holiness the 17th Karmapa briefly discussed interdependence, one of his favorite topics … He said, “Living in this world of the 21st century, which we’ve come to call the information era, we are able to see more than ever before how each and every one of us is interconnected with each other. The intimate and deep connection between every person and place has become more evident than it ever was, due to our technology, social media, and so forth. This enables us to see clearly how much of an effect we have on one another, and how we all rely on each other…. Each person is not really independent because our happiness and suffering depend on the happiness and suffering of others.”

THE SECOND NOBLE TRUTH

Leave a reply

Stephen Batchelor wrote in ‘Buddhism Without Beliefs,’ “Anguish emerges from craving for life to be other than it is. In the face of a changing world, such craving seeks consolation in something permanent and reliable, in a self that is in control of things, in a God who is in charge of destiny. In yearning for anguish to be assuaged in such ways, we reinforce what creates anguish in the first place; the craving for life other than it is.”

Buddha identified craving as the cause of suffering. The Pali word for craving is tanha, which is a state of incessant, never-ending, unquenchable thirst. We continually look for something outside ourselves to make us happy, secure and content. We attach to people, places and things, ideas, concepts and opinions about ourselves and the world.

Change, impermanence, is one of the most difficult things for us to handle and accept… even though everything changes all the time.

ALL the time.

ALL the time. Faster than we can ever see it. It is the absolute constant of life. Life and we are always changing. Batchelor goes on to say, “Our attachment and our identification with what we want cause us to suffer deeply.  The objects are not the problem – our attachment and identification are.  The objects are not the problem – our attachment and identification are. When we expect to have and be the same or better forever we suffer.”

EGO

Leave a reply

Adyashanti said, “Ego is a movement. It’s a verb. It is not something static. It’s the after-the-fact movement of mind that’s always becoming. In other words, egos are always on the path. They are on the psychology path, the spiritual path, the path to get more money or a better car. That sense of ‘me’ is always becoming, always moving, always achieving. Or else it is doing the opposite—moving backwards, rejecting, denying. So, in order for this verb to keep going, there has to be movement. We have to be going forward or backward, toward or away from. We have to have somebody to blame, and usually it’s ourselves. We’ve got to be getting somewhere because otherwise we are not becoming.”

Does that make sense? Our mental states are constantly changing and flowing, just like a river. Thoughts, emotions, and perceptions arise and pass away ksana to ksana, without a fixed or permanent “self” to anchor them. Everything is impermanent—especially thoughts, emotions, and perceptions. Buddha taught that because the “mind is always becoming” it is anatta—not-self. Since there’s no inherent, unchanging self, only constantly arising and passing phenomena—each moment is distinct from the last and constantly moving forward with us. There’s no going back… although we often live in the past… review, review, review… endlessly going over and over what happened. Revising, reworking, endlessly. We are actually only moving forward. No matter how much our thoughts are stuck in the past.

By practicing the Dharma and mindfulness meditation we can stay present, not only noticing but experiencing the arising and passing of all kinds of mental states… and even sometimes not getting caught up and identifying with them. Having a deeper understanding of the impermanent nature of the mind.