First to Last: Chanting "Amituofo"

In the Avatamsaka Sutra , we read about Sudhana, the young seeker of truth in the sutra. Under Manjusri Bodhisattva’s guidance, Sudhana eliminated a part of ignorance and attained a part of Dharma Body, thus gaining fundamental wisdom. The Zen school calls this state complete enlightenment. The sutra-study schools call it perfect understanding. At this time, Manjusri allowed Sudhana to travel around to visit other teachers. The purpose was for Sudhana to attain acquired wisdom. What followed is the famous “Sudhana’s visit to fifty-three wise teachers.”

The method used to cultivate fundamental wisdom is completely different from that used to cultivate acquired wisdom. To cultivate fundamental wisdom, the practitioner must delve deeply into one method. The practitioner has to be immersed in that method for a long period of time. His mind must be focused. Through deep meditative concentration, he lets go of wandering thoughts, discriminations, and attachments, and uncovers his true nature.

After he has uncovered true nature, the teacher will permit him to come into contact with anyone and get involved in anything. Instead of delving deeply into one method, the practitioner can now learn extensively from many teachers. This will help us understand the Four Great Vows of Bodhisattvas.

Sentient beings are innumerable,
I vow to help them all.

Afflictions are inexhaustible,
I vow to end them all.

Ways to practice are boundless,
I vow to master them all.

Enlightenment is unsurpassable,
I vow to attain it.

The second vow, “Afflictions are inexhaustible; I vow to end them all” is to cultivate fundamental wisdom. The third vow, “Methods to practice are boundless; I vow to master them all” is to cultivate acquired wisdom. Having attained fundamental wisdom, one does not study with just one teacher. Everyone is one’s teacher. Everything can be learned, so we will know everything.

The first teacher that Sudhana visited was Cloud of Virtues Bodhisattva. What was the method this teacher practiced? The method of being mindful of the Buddha!

Sakyamuni Buddha attained enlightenment and Buddhahood at the age of thirty. After he had attained Buddhahood, he started to propagate the Dharma and benefit all beings. He did so for forty-nine years until he entered nirvana at eighty.

During the forty-nine years, Sakyamuni did not have a day off. Why? Because what he taught—ending the cycle of rebirth and transcending the Three Realms—was very important. So he could not take any day off. Had he done so, his students’ learning would have been interrupted, and they would have regressed. Learning is like going upstream in a boat; if you do not move forward, you go backward. It is the same in cultivation; if one does not make progress, one immediately regresses.

To ensure that one does not regress, one has to keep making progress. One should overcome one’s afflictions and residual habits. How does one do so? By being eager to learn. When one has a strong will to learn, one will not regress, and it will be easy for one to learn the teachings.

Cloud of Virtues Bodhisattva diligently chanted the name of Amitabha Buddha, and vowed to attain rebirth in the Western Pure Land. He made a strong first impression on Sudhana. After this first visit, Sudhana visited other wise teachers, and every one of them practiced different methods.

It was the fifty-third teacher, Samantabhadra, who taught Sudhana the Ten Great Vows and urged him to vow to attain rebirth in the Western Pure Land. The first teacher taught the method of being mindful of Amitabha Buddha, and the last teacher vowed to be reborn in the Western Pure Land. So from the beginning of the Avatamsaka Sutra to the end, Sudhana practiced the method of being mindful of Amitabha Buddha and vowed to be reborn in the Western Pure Land.

~ Based on Ven. Master Chin Kung's 2003 lecture series on the Amitabha Sutra 

Seeing with Real Insight

 

If you see things with real insight, then there is no stickiness in your relationship to them. They come—pleasant and unpleasant—you see them and there is no attachment. They come and they pass. Even if the worse kinds of defilement come up, such as greed or anger, there’s enough wisdom to see their impermanent nature and allow them to just fade away. If you react to them, however, by liking or disliking, that isn’t wisdom. You’re only creating more suffering for yourself.

~ Ajahn Chah

A Matter of Conscience

Greed, anger, and ignorance—the three poisons. The first and the third have landed us in a “muddle” of epic proportions. We’re overwhelming the fragile planet we live on and living as if there’s no tomorrow.

I don’t want to come across as so negative that readers become overwhelmed at the enormity of our situation and give up even trying. Nor do I want to make light of our situation and have the message dismissed as not urgent yet. So I’ll try for the middle, the balanced approach:

We need to start changing, and we need to start today.

From the Buddhist perspective, every cause will have a result. If we treat others with thoughtfulness, we will in turn receive thoughtfulness. If I conserve water and food, I will have water and food in my future. If I consume and continue to toss the product’s containers, wrapping, and earlier models they are replacing into the garbage, I’m going to have a lot of garbage in my future. And we don’t have to be Buddhist to understand this.

Hearing about climate change and all its resultant evils can, very frankly, become overwhelming. We can easily get to the point where it seems that we’re too far down the road to change our direction. But we know from the butterfly effect in chaos theory that small changes do matter.

According to Wikipedia, in the Butterfly Effect “small variations of the initial condition of a nonlinear dynamical system may produce large variations in the long term behavior of the system.” In other words, small causes can have major results. Very Buddhist. And very true. A flutter of a butterfly’s wings (a small cause) can produce a hurricane on the other side of the world (a large result). So small actions can have large results.

Acting out of ignorance, not understanding that our actions will come back to haunt us, and greed, thinking we can buy happiness, has to stop. It’s our responsibility to try our best to undue what we, in blissful ignorance, began. Just buying CFLs for our lights and recycling a bit more and stopping there won’t do it. We can’t buy ourselves out of this one.

What can we do? A whole bunch. The Internet can be a wonderful tool. Instead of using it as the Cyber Monday version of Black Friday, we can use it to educate ourselves. There are wonderful blogs and websites written by people who have decided they would make a difference. I invite you to spend some time reading and learning. I’ve listed some of my current favorites in the sidebar to the right under the heading: A Matter of Conscience.

We have no way of knowing exactly what will come of our efforts. But if we each try our best to live more simply and wiser, we’ll at least be part of the solution instead of the problem.

Earl Grey or Dragon Pearl Jasmine?

 

To learn something new, we must let go of the old.

Picture in your mind a teacup. Imagine that is filled with tea, Earl Grey tea. Now imagine wanting to try another tea. This time, Dragon Pearl Jasmine. If the cup is full and we try to pour more tea into it, the cup will overflow. Even if it is not full, if we pour in the Jasmine and it mixes with the remaining Earl Grey, the mixture would not taste right.

Learning is like this. If we try to take in new teachings but our cup is already full, we’ll take in more than we can handle. Even if our cup is only partially filled, if we had different teachings we may become muddled—an intellectual version of conflicting tastes.

Sometimes, we need to clean the cup—let go of former ideas and notions—to fully and purely appreciate that which is new and different.

The Four Immeasurables

"Rahula, practice loving kindness to overcome anger.
Loving kindness has the capacity to bring happiness to others without demanding anything in return.

Practice compassion to overcome cruelty.
Compassion has the capacity to remove the suffering of others without expecting anything in return.

Practice sympathetic joy to overcome hatred.
Sympathetic joy arises when one rejoices over the happiness of others and wishes others well-being and success.

Practice non-attachment to overcome prejudice.
Non-attachment is the way of looking at all things openly and equally. This is because that is. Myself and others are not separate. Do not reject one thing only to chase after another.

I call these the four immeasurables.
Practice them and you will become a refreshing source of vitality and happiness for others."

~ Buddha, to his son Rahula, from Old Path White Clouds by Thich Nhat Hanh