Buddhism As Education

Impermanence is a keynote in the Buddha's teachings. Down to the smallest dust speck, nothing is permanent. If it was't so, the Buddha had said, then there is nothing to practice for. Everything is conditioned, due to cause and condition joining together to create an effect, different combinations of different conditions giving rise to different effects. In many of His suttas, He tell us to reflect on our condition: Subject to parents who have died or will die one day, how could we ourselves then be permanent?? We therefore cannot progress any further in right understanding without first understanding the first of the Four Noble Truth: The Truth of suffering. The Buddha never used words casually. In this case His choice of the word dukkha had a purpose to show the cause of life. Here it means not so much the suffering of aches and pains but "du" (to be disgusting) + "kkha" (nothing, empty): that is what we assume to be doesn't exist. What we take to be a...

Problems in life start when we are born. Otherwise, if we had not been born, would we be subjected to aging, sickness and death? Instead of seeing life's unsatisfactorily, many of us see its problems as something good, even desirable. Many people and even monks during the Buddha's time saw no fault in enjoying sensual pleasures as much as possible. Such indulgence in one's desires is very easy to practice, even animals can have their enjoyment too. By choosing to ignore such problems, they only look to fulfill their happiness. But their apparent happiness is just an illusory, a cover for a host of unpleasantness such as worry, anxiety, boredom, jealousy, anger, grief and depression that permeate their daily life and relationships around them. This way like a millipede walking around and round along the hoop, we will not be able to find an end to life's problem in the cycle of rebirth, which is never ending. Ignorance is the problem that is the starting point of the prob...

Let us go back to the teaching of Dependent Origination. The first link on the chain is ignorance. This is not a culpable ignorance. For example, the driver who pleads that he did not know he wasn't supposed to drive through a red light. He ought to have known it. But if a child sets fire to a house, it would be hard for the court to convict him for an arson. Perhaps a better word is nescience, simply "not knowing". Nescience is the state of not knowing that we all begin life with. What does the fetus or the new born child know? The development of that knowing is the flourishing of our pure awareness and intuitive intelligence. These are the 2 qualities of the enlightened mind, the Buddha within, which develops both gradually and in quantum leaps. An obvious stage when we enter into a different level of awareness, a different way of relating to the world, is that passed by most 7 year-old kids. Although the child steadily grows in understanding, all of a sudden at 7, the...

This is another of those points that we need to look at. First, we need to distinguish between can't when it means I am unable and can't when it means won't . Parents know when their child means won't rather than can't - such as when they can't sleep because they want to stay up. If they are honest with ourselves and if we have come to truly understand that the hurt inside us is created by us, then it is never a case of can't but always a case of won't forgive. We then need to change the internal dialogue and open up a chink of possibility: "Maybe I can forgive......" What is happening when we can't forgive ourselves? For most of us, this is the hardest thing to do. On a television programme about the "bag people", a late middle aged woman was interviewed. She had taken to the streets and began compulsive collection of rubbish, mainly papers. When asked why, she replied wistfully that she had been involved in the death of a...

Tomorrow 11 December 2011 is the 17th day of the Eleventh Lunar Month is the Birthday of Amitabha Buddha. Amitabha Buddha is the Buddha of Infinite Light. One of his great vows was to establish a Pure Land known as Sukhavati, the Western Paradise. One who is able to call on Amitabha's name with "an undivided mind" will be reborn there, and never have to endure rebirths in the cyclic suffering of samsara. The Maha Twin Lotus Ponds, the siddhi (fruition) of the True Buddha School Dharma, are an extension of the Western Paradise. Pure Land of Ultimate Bliss This is the Buddha Land of Amitabha Buddha. In Amitabha Sutra, there is full description about this Pure Land. This is the world of utmost joy without suffering. With the spiritual power of Amitabha Buddha, all beings in this world will understand Buddhism easily and practise diligently, and attain enlightenment eventually. Therefore by reciting Amitabha Buddha's name, Buddhist followers hope that they will be born in...

By Lama Zopa Rinpoche 1st December 2011 Kyabje Lama Zopa Rinpoche gave this teaching on animal liberation at Shakyamuni Center, Taichung, Taiwan on March 4, 2007. Transcribed by Thubten Munsel and edited by Ven. Ailsa Cameron. Master Hai Tao first gave a 35-minute Dharma talk in Chinese. This was followed by a group recitation of manis until Rinpoche began his talk. Good morning to everyone. I would also like to offer my respect and greetings to Master Hai Tao and to everyone else, my brothers and sisters. I think that the activities that Master Hai Tao has been doing in this world up to now, liberating many millions of animals, are really incomparable holy deeds. There’s no one else in this world who could do this. His incomparable holy deeds are of incredible benefit to the most precious, kind sentient beings, the animals. Liberating animals is one of the best means to bring peace in this world, not only peace to the animals but also peace to the human beings, with thousands of huma...