Buddhism As Education

If we see someone in need and we unreservedly give him a dollar or more, then the merit of this accords with our true nature because at that time we did not discriminate between others and us. We did not distinguish between the receiver and the donor. We were not attached. In this way, the merits from giving a dollar or more are infinite for they are the uncovering of our virtuous natures. Jealousy and hatred are indeed thoughts of stealing. Why is that so? Because one does not like seeing others doing better. This mindset is abnormal. Wishing others would be worse off or becoming displeased, critical or slanderous when seeing virtuous people or good deeds being carried out - these are all thoughts of stealing. A virtuous person delights upon seeing other virtuous people or good deeds and will wholeheartedly assist these good people and help them accomplish their good deeds. A virtuous person will set a good example for whatever community he is in and his good deeds will certa...

According to this criterion, the minimum standard to achieve attainment in Mahayana Buddhism is to rid ourselves of a portion of our attachments, to sever the eighty-eight kinds of deviated thoughts and views. If we cannot sever these, we have not yet achieve attainment. Mahayana practitioners, who successfully sever them, reach the Initial Belief Stage. Theravada practitioners who sever various wrong views reach the stage of Stream-entering. Without these accomplishment, we will still be reincarnating within the cycle of rebirth, still having to repay our debts. However, there is still another way here: to seek rebirth in the Western Pure Land. Otherwise, attainment is not possible. If we cannot go to the Pure Land, we will have achieved nothing at all. Seeking rebirth in the Pure Land is actually much easier than severing the eighty-eight kinds of improper thoughts and views because we do not need to sever all of them, but we can carry our remaining karma with us. As long as...

Let us all examine how the Buddha solve this problem for two person who, through attachment, were both deeply grieved by death of their love ones. One person is Kisagotami. Her only child hd died after being attacked by a serpent. She went to the Buddha carrying the dead child in her arms to seek for help. The Buddha then asked her to bring a few mustard seeds from a family where no one had died. But she could not find such a family everywhere. Every house that she had visited was either in mourning or had mourned over a death at one time or another. Then she realised the bitter truth: that death is universal. Death strikes all and spares no one. sorrow is the heritage of everyone of us. The other person whom the Buddha advised was Patacara. Her case was even sadder. Within a short period, she lost her two children, husband, brother, parents and all her possessions. Losing her sense, she ran naked and wild in the streets until she met the Buddha. The Buddha brought her back to s...

Men are disturbed not by external things, but by beliefs and imaginations they conjure up in their minds with regard to the form of their future lives. For example, death is not by itself that dreadful: the dread or terror exists only in our minds. It is not often that we are brave enough to come facing with the thought of our own mortality. Insistence upon the truth of suffering may seem horrible and unacceptable to the mind which is unable to face realities, but it surely helps to reduce or eliminate the dread of fear realities by knowing how to actually face death. Once life is launched, like a bullet, it rushes to its destination i.e. death. Realising thus, we must bravely face that natural occurrence. To be considered free in life, we must also be free from fearing death. Fear only comes to those who are not able to comprehend the laws of Nature. "Wherever fear appears, it appears in the fool, not in the wise man", says the Buddha in the Anguttara Nikaya. Fears ar...

The term "floods" speaks for itself : the overwhelmed, swept-along feeling that comes as we get plunged into stress and suffering. In the Buddhist texts, the word is sometimes used in the broad sense of the mind being overwhelmed by sorrow, lamentation and despair in full-blown dukkha or to the existential dukkha of our being carried along in the flood of ageing, sickness and death. On occasion, the floods refer to five key hindrances that clog the mind :  sense craving, ill-will, dullness and torpor, restless worry and doubt. Meditators in particular know how any of these five can hinder the mind from realizing the clarity and peace that they are aiming for. In the most specific use however, the floods (ogha) refer to four currents, also called "outflows" (asava), that run underneath the bubbling stream of mental activity. There they remain unseen but yet direct the flow of that stream. Sounds eerie? Well if you sit still in silence for a little while, with ...

According to the Buddhist tradition, the subtlest workings of karma are evident only to the omniscient minds of the Buddhas; ordinary beings have no way of understanding karma as its deepest levels. Therefore, in order to be deeply convinced of the truth of the law of karma, you need to have a deep conviction in the validity and efficacy of the Three Jewels of Refuge; the basis of your spiritual practice must be strong faith in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. This faith is not developed from the words of the Buddha alone but, as we have seen, on the basis of your own critical analysis. If you look at the Buddha's teachings, you can discern two basic objectives: the secondary, temporary objective is to help sentient beings gain upper rebirths, but the primary, ultimate objective is to lead them to complete liberation from samsara. When you examine the Buddha's teachings on the complex issue of negative emotions and how to counter them, you can see that these matter are evident...

How do we know that it is possible to transform our mind? There are two basis for this. One is the fundamental law of impermanence; that all things and events are subject to transformation and change. If we examine this deeper, we will realize that at every instant, everything that exist is going through process of change. Even though, for instance, we speak of yesterday's person as existing unchanged today, we are all aware at a gross experimental level of the laws of impermanence; that for example, even the earth on which we live will one day come to an end. If things and events did not have the nature of changing from moment to moment, we would not be able to explain how transformation takes place over the time. When we reduce vast passage of time down to very brief ones, we can realize that things are actually changing from moment to moment. Modern technology helps us to see some of these changes; the development of a biological organism, for example, can be observed throu...