Practice in the Face of Laziness

A reader raised a very good point regarding the November 19^th entry “A Change of Heart”. To summarize, she wrote that she finds that while “we are somehow, with great concentration, able to control our speech and what we do but it is the THOUGHT that is hard to control. Even minor bad thoughts will arise even though we are able to control our speech and actions…I have the belief, and I had vowed to go to Pureland but it is the practical effort that I lack in chanting due to my LAZINESS....and even though I know its a hinder to my cultivation.”

In response, Master Chin Kung (in Changing Destiny) talked of the difficulty of changing by trying to catch each thought in. The problem is that there's just too many of them. (A copy of the book is available here.)

Essentially, the best way to change is from the heart. To do this, we need to replace our old habits, like that of laziness, with new ones. If this were easy to do, we'd be sitting in the Pure Land having this discussion!

Like everything that is worthwhile, we need to keep working on breaking those bad habits. We can think of how we feel when we practice and contrast that with how we feel when we don't. As with any good habit, we feel much better when we’ve done what we knew to be right. And yet, even knowing this, we still give in to laziness.

As I mentioned in practice on the meditation cushion, we can set aside some time in the morning for chanting. Or perhaps at night when we’re done with our work and household chores and enjoyed time with our family. It’s fine to start our practice of chanting, or other meditation, simply and just for a little while, say five or ten minutes. As we feel good about having met our goal, we can gradually increase the time.

Today, we are used to quick fixes, immediate gratification. I don't know of an easy way to break our habit of laziness. It takes work, and it takes patience. If we have vowed to be reborn in the Pure Land, we can think of why we made that vow. We wanted to help all beings end suffering. Since it's difficult trying to get our mind around "all beings," we can think of those we love. Thinking of how much we want to help them can motivate us to do our cultivation.

A Public Opinion Poll

I began this blog a little over a year ago. The initial reason for its formation, the reduction in the time I could spend away from my mother who was not well, ceased the day she passed away. The initial goal of the blog, to help in the propagation of Pure Land Buddhism and to suggest a less self-centered way of living, has remained the same.

As an example of the principle that everything changes, I've gradually included other's writing and added more categories. I've periodically tinkered with the layout, appearance, organization. (To those who were reading the blog while I was trying different color combinations and banner images, I send a big apology. I thought I was working just on the template, but discovered the changes were appearing in the actual blog. Oops!)

When I give a lecture, I can see from the faces in the audience, how I'm doing. With a blog, it's more difficult to gauge. Comments are great for feedback, but I know people often don't like to write for a variety of reasons. That leaves me trying to guess what's working and what isn't, what I could add and what I could focus less on.

So what would help me is to hear from you. Are there topics you want to read more about? Or less about? What are your thoughts of the blog's focus, its organization, categories, appearance, or anything else? Are there any questions you wish someone would ask?

Your feedback is much appreciated.
 

Missing the Chance to Know the Truth

A young tradesman came home and saw that his house had been robbed and burned by bandits. Right outside what was left of the house, there was a small, charred body. He thought the body belonged to his little boy. He did not know that his child was still alive. He did not know that after having burned the house, the bandits had taken the little boy away with them. In his state of confusion, the tradesman believed the body he saw was his son. So he cried, he beat his chest and pulled out his hair in grief. Then he began the cremation ceremony.

This man loved his little boy so much. His son was the raison d’etre of his life. He longed for his little boy so much that he could not abandon the little boy's ashes even for one moment. He made a velvet bag and put the ashes inside. He carried the bag with him day and night, and whether he was working or resting, he was never separated from the bag of ashes. One night his son escaped from the robbers. He came to the new house built by his father. He knocked excitedly on the door at two o'clock in the morning. His father called out as he wept, still holding the bag of ashes, "Who is there?"

"It's me, your son!" the boy answered through the door.

"You naughty person, you are not my boy. My child died three months ago. I have his ashes with me right here." The little boy continued to beat on the door and cried and cried. He begged over and over again to come in, but his father continued to refuse him entry. The man held firm to the notion that his little boy was already dead and that this other child was some heartless person who had come to torment him. Finally, the boy left and the father lost his son forever.

The Buddha said that if you get caught in one idea and consider it to be "the truth," then you miss the chance to know the truth. Even if the truth comes in person and knocks at your door, you will refuse to open your mind.

~ Thich Nhat Hanh, no death, no fear

Thanksgiving

 

Today it's Thanksgiving Day in the US.

A day to visit family and to feel grateful for the good things we have: the freedom to travel to see distant loved ones, to eat the foods we like, to say our thanks to God or to Buddha or whatever being we wish to thank. We may have a great deal to be thankful for or we may be grateful that someone cared enough to simply be kind in a world that often forgets kindness.

It's also a day to regret that our good things came at the expense of others: the people who lived here centuries ago who did not know their way of life was about to be destroyed, the turkeys that were raised on factory farms who never got to see the sky over the sheds they spent their entire lives in, the people who live in the Congo who are being systematically wiped out so mining companies can dig up the minerals we need to run the remote to watch the parades and football games.

Thanksgiving—a time to feel profound appreciation and an opportunity to decide to live in a manner that will enable more beings to be grateful next year.

A Buddhist Perspective on Animal Rights

The following is an excerpt from a talk by Professor Ronald Epstein given at San Francisco State University at a conference called "Animal Rights and Our Human Relationship to the Biosphere" held March 29-April 1, 1990. The talk was called "A Buddhist Perspective on Animal Rights".
 

NEWS

I want to relate to you two striking examples of animals acting with more humanity than most humans. My point is not that animals are more humane than humans, but that there is dramatic evidence that animals can act in ways that do not support certain Western stereotypes about their capacities.

About fifteen years ago there was an Associated Press article with a dateline from a northern Japanese fishing village. Several people from a fishing vessel were washed overboard in a storm far at sea. One of the women was found still alive on a beach near her village three days later. At the time a giant sea turtle was briefly seen swimming just offshore. The woman said that when she was about to drown the turtle had come to rescue her and had carried her on its back for three days to the place where she was found.

In February of this year, also according to the Associated Press a man lost at sea was saved by a giant stingray:

A man claims he rode 450 miles on the back of a stingray to safety after his boat capsized three weeks ago, a radio station reported yesterday.

Radio Vanuatu said 18-year-old Lottie Stevens washed up Wednesday in New Caladonia. It said Stevens' boat capsized January 15 while he and a friend were on a fishing trip.

The friend died and after four days spent drifting with the overturned boat, Stevens decided to try to swim to safety, Radio vanuatu reported. There were sharks in the area, but a stingray came to Steven's rescue and carried him on its back for 13 days and nights to New Caladonia, the radio said. (AP, San Francisco Chroncicle, Feb. 8, 1990)

BASIC BUDDHIST PRINCIPLES

Unlike the Judeo-Christian tradition, Buddhism affirms the unity of all living beings, all equally posses the Buddha-nature, and all have the potential to become Buddhas, that is, to become fully and perfectly enlightened. Among the sentient, there are no second-class citizens.

According to Buddhist teaching, human beings do not have a privileged, special place above and beyond that of the rest of life. The world is not a creation specifically for the benefit and pleasure of human beings. Furthermore, in some circumstances according with their karma, humans can be reborn as humans and animals can be reborn as humans.

In Buddhism the most fundamental guideline for conduct is ahimsa—the prohibition against the bringing of harm and/or death to any living being. Why should one refrain from killing? It is because all beings have lives; they love their lives and do not wish to die. Even one of the smallest creatures, the mosquito, when it approaches to bite you, will fly away if you make the slightest motion. Why does it fly away? Because it fears death. It figures that if it drinks your blood, you will take its life. . . .

We should nurture compassionate thought. Since we wish to live, we should not kill any other living being. Furthermore, the karma of killing is understood as the root of all suffering and the fundamental cause of sickness and war, and the forces of killing are explicitly identified with the demonic. The highest and most universal ideal of Buddhism is to work unceasingly for permanent end to the suffering of all living beings, not just humans.