Buddhism As Education

There are two levels of practice. The first is the foundation, a development of precepts, virtue or morality in order to bring happiness, comfort and harmony among people. The second, more intensive and unconcern with comfort is the practice of Buddha Dharma directly solely towards awakening, towards the liberation of heart. This liberation is the source of wisdom and compassion and the true reason for the Buddha's teaching. Understanding these two levels are the basis of true practice. Virtue and morality are the mother and father of the Dharma growing within us, providing it with the proper nourishment and direction. Virtue is the basis for a harmonious world in which people can live truly as humans, not animals. Developing virtue is at the heart of our practice. It is very simple. Keep the training precepts. Do not kill, no stealing, do not lie nor committing sexual misdeeds or taking intoxicants that will make you heedless. Cultivate compassion and a reverence for all li...

The following attitudes are essential to success in practice. Most of them have been presented before, but we are bringing them together again here as a series of rules for application. 1. Do not expect anything. Just sit back and see what happens. Treat the whole thing as an experiment, take an active interest in the test itself. But do no get distracted by your expectations about the results for that matter, do not be anxious for any results whatsoever. Let the meditation move along at its own speed and in its own direction. Let the meditation teach you what it wants you to learn. Meditative awareness seeks to see reality exactly as it is. Whether that corresponds to our expectations or not, it requires a temporary suspension of all our preconceptions and ideas. We must store away our images, opinions and interpretations someplace out of the way for a duration. Otherwise, we will stumble over them. 2. Do not strain. Do not force anything or make grand exaggerated efforts. Me...

Within the last century, western science and physics have made a startling discovery. We are part of the world we view. The very process of our observation changes the things that we observe. For example, an electron is an extremely tiny item. It cannot be viewed without instrumentation and that apparatus dictates what the observer will see. If you look at an electron in one way, it appears to be a particle, a hard little ball that bounces around in nice straight paths. When you view it in another way, an electron appears to be a wave form, with nothing solid about it. It glows and wiggles all over the place around it. An electron is an event more than a thing. And the observer participates in that event by the very process of his or her observation. There's no way to avoid this interaction. Eastern science has recognized this basic principle for a very long time ago. The mind is a set of events and the observer participates in those events every time he or she looks inward....

"Our practice here is not to grasp anything", a chief monk told a young monk. "But isn't it necessary to hold onto things sometimes?", the younger monk protested. "With the hands, yes, but not with the heart", the chief monk replied. "When the heart grasp what is painful, it is like being bitten by a snake and when through desire, it grasp what is pleasant, it is just grasping the tail of the snake. It only takes a little while longer for the head of the snake to come around to bite you. "Make this non grasping and mindfulness the guardian of your heart, like a parent. Then your likes and dislikes will come calling like children. 'I don't like that, mummy. I want more of that, Daddy'. Just smile and say, 'Sure, kid'. 'But mummy, I really want an elephant'. 'Sure, kid'. 'I want candy, can we go for an airplane ride?' There is no problem if you can let them come and go without grasping". ...

The Buddha taught that with things that come about of their own, once you have done your work, you can leave the results to nature, to the power of your accumulated karma. Yet your exertion of effort should not cease. Whether the fruit of wisdom comes quickly or slowly, you cannot force it, just as you cannot force the growth of a tree you have planted. The tree has its own pace. Your job is to dig a hole, water and fertilize it and protect it from insets. That much is your affair, a matter of faith.  But the way the tree grows is up to the tree itself. If you practice like this, you can be sure all will be well and your plant will grow. Thus, you must understand the difference between your work and the plant's work. Leave the plant's business to the plant and be responsible for your own. If the mind does not know what it needs to do, it will try to force the plant to grow and flower and give fruit in one day. This is a wrong view, a major cause of suffering. Just prac...

As you grow in Dharma, you should have a teacher to instruct and advise you. The matter of concentrating the mind, of samadhi, is much misunderstood, phenomena occur in meditation that otherwise do not normally arise. when this happens, a teacher's guidance is crucial, especially in those areas in which you have wrong understanding. Often where he corrects you will be just where you thought you were right. In the complexity of your thinking, one view may obscure the other and you get fooled. Respect your teacher and follow the rules or system of practise. If the teacher says to do something, do it. If he says to desist, then desist. This allows you to make an honest effort and leads to making knowledge and vision manifest in your mind. If you do as I am saying, you will see and know. True teachers speak only of the difficult practise of giving up or getting rid of the self. whatever may happen, do not abandon the teacher. Let him guide you, because it is easy to forget the p...

When you take a good look at it, this world of ours is just that much; it exists just as it is. ruled by birth, ageing, sickness and finally, death, it is only that much. Great or little is only that much. The wheel of life and death is only that much. Then, why are we still attached, caught up and not removed? Playing around with the objects of life gives us some enjoyment, yet this enjoyment is also just that much. Whatever is pleasurable, delicious, exciting, good, is just that much, it has its limitation, it is not as if it is anything outstanding. The Buddha taught that everything is just that much, of equal value. We should contemplate this point. Just look at the Western monks who have come here to practice. They have much pleasure and comfort in their lives, but it was only that much, trying to make more of it just drove them crazy. They became world travellers, let everything go, it was still only that much. Then they came here to the forest to learn to give it all up, ...