Words

Disciples should be on their guard against the seductions of words and sentences and their illusive meanings, for by them the ignorant and the dull-witted become entangled and helpless as an elephant floundering about in the deep mud.

Words and sentences are produced by the law of causation and are mutually conditioning,–they cannot express highest Reality. Moreover, in highest Reality there are no differentiations to be discriminated and there is nothing to be predicated in regard to it. Highest Reality is an exalted state of bliss, it is not a state of word-discrimination and it cannot be entered into by mere statements concerning it. The Tathagatas have a better way of teaching, namely, through self-realisation of Noble Wisdom.

(Buddha – The Lankavatara Sutra Chapter II, from A Buddhist Bible, 1932, Copyright Not Renewed. http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/bb/index.htm)

O Protector, you renounced the kingdom of a universal monarch,
Casting it aside as if it were nothing more than poisoned food,
And, all alone, you departed for the quiet of the forest,
There to accomplish single-pointed meditation—thus we’ve heard.

Therefore, these delightful mountain solitudes,
Are like the family estate to the supreme guide’s heirs,
And, as the best of protectors himself has said,
To rely on solitude is indeed the pinnacle of joys!

Forests, hermitages and isolated dwelling places—
These are the outer solitude of the Victor’s heirs.
Avoiding selfishness and faint-hearted fears—
This is the bodhisattvas’ internal isolation.

Keeping, therefore, to outer forms of solitude,
Tame the inner afflictions through tranquillity and insight,
And aspire to the supreme conduct of Samantabhadra—
Possessing such good fortune one is truly the Buddhas’ heir.

From: Advice for Alan Dongak, by Patrul Rinpoche

http://www.lotsawahouse.org/tibetan-masters/patrul-rinpoche/advice-alak-dongak  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.

Translated by Adam Pearcey, 2014. Originally published on adamspearcey.com.

 

273 Of paths the Eightfold Path is the best; of truths the Four Words; Detachment (Nibbāna) is the best of mental states and of bipeds (men), the Man of Vision.

274 This alone is the Path; there is no other for the purification of insight. Follow this Path, and you will confound Māra (the Power of Evil).

275 Following this Path you shall make an end of suffering. Declared unto you is the Path by me having learnt the process of the removal of the arrow (of lust).

276 You yourselves should strive; the Buddhas are but the pointers to the Path. Those who enter the Path and cultivate meditation, free themselves from the bonds of Māra (the Power of Evil).

From The Dhammapada Sayings of the Buddha, With Introductory Essays and Notes as Translated by Piyadassi Thera, Buddhist Publication Society, Kandy * Sri Lanka 1974

https://www.bps.lk/olib/bl/bla0s_Piyadassi_Selections-from-the-Dhammapada.html

Meditate!

282. Wisdom springs from meditation; without meditation wisdom wanes.
Having known these two paths of progress and decline,
let a man so conduct himself that his wisdom may increase.

From The Dhammapada: The Buddha’s Path of Wisdom, Translated by Acharya Buddharakkhita, Buddha Dharma Education Association Inc. https://www.buddhanet.net/pdf_file/scrndhamma.pdf

The Three Poisons

Greed/Clinging/Attachment

Ill Will/Hatred/Aversion/Anger

Delusion/Confusion/Ignorance

What are the opposites? Generosity, loving-kindness, and wisdom.

All that is seen in the world is devoid of effort and action because all things in the world are like a dream, or like an image miraculously projected. This is not comprehended by the philosophers and the ignorant, but those who thus see things see them truthfully. Those who see things otherwise walk in discrimination and, as they depend upon discrimination, they cling to dualism. The world as seen by discrimination is like seeing one’s own image reflected in a mirror, or one’s shadow, or the moon reflected in water, or an echo heard in the valley. People grasping their own shadows of discrimination become attached to this thing and that thing and failing to abandon dualism they go on forever discriminating and thus never attain tranquillity. By tranquillity is meant Oneness, and Oneness gives birth to the highest Samadhi which is gained by entering into the realm of Noble Wisdom that is realisable only within one’s inmost consciousness. (The Lankavatara Sutra, from A Buddhist Bible, 1932, Copyright Not Renewed. http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/bb/index.htm)

What, O Monks, is the origin of suffering? It is that craving which gives rise to ever fresh rebirth and bound up with pleasure and lust, now here, now there, finds ever fresh delight. The Buddha (Digha-Nikaya XXII)

There is hope. There is a way out because:

Whatever is subject to origination is all subject to cessation. (“Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta: Setting the Wheel of Dhamma in Motion” (SN 56.11), translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu. Access to Insight (BCBS Edition), 30 November 2013, http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn56/sn56.011.than.html .)

 

The Food of Delusion

1. Sensory desire (kāmacchanda): the particular type of wanting that seeks for happiness through the five senses of sight, sound, smell, taste and physical feeling.
2. Ill-will (vyāpāda; also spelled byāpāda): all kinds of thought related to wanting to reject, feelings of hostility, resentment, hatred and bitterness.
3. Sloth-and-torpor (thīna–middha): heaviness of body and dullness of mind which drag one down into disabling inertia and thick depression.
4. Restlessness-and-worry (uddhacca–kukkucca): the inability to calm the mind.
5. Doubt (vicikicchā): lack of conviction or trust.

These are the the five hindrances :[1][2][3][web 1][web 2]

Problems

“Whatever problems there are in the world
Are created by the afflictions in our own minds.
A mistaken attitude is a cause for the afflictions,
Yet the pattern of our thoughts can be refined”

(Jamgön Mipham Rinpoche as quoted in The Collected Works of Dilgo Khyentse, Volume 2, Shambhala Publications, Boston  2010).

The Problem’s Not Out There, The Solution’s Not Out There

Yeas ago, one of my mentors shared the title of this post with me. Then yesterday, in the latest book I’m reading by a Tibetan Buddhist lama, I read “…everything we experience, big and small, will always lead to disappointment because we perpetually forget that everything we perceive is a product of our own minds, and … we fixate on perceptions ‘out there’ that we are convinced truly exist” (Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse, Not for Happiness, Shambhala Publications, Boston & London 2012).