Buddha Soup

Phra Greg at Wat Sri Boen Ruang, Chiang Mai, Thailand, is not only a good friend and gifted Dhamma and Vipassana teacher, but as you can see from the first seconds of this video, he has a great sense of humor.  All of us at WSBR lived and meditated  and chanted with the temple dogs, who are as much a part of temple life as we are.

Set aside all involvements and let the myriad things rest. Zazen is not thinking of good, not thinking of bad. It is not conscious endeavour. It is not introspection. Do not desire to become a buddha; let sitting or lying down drop away. Be moderate in eating and drinking. Be mindful of the passing of time, and engage yourself in zazen as though you are saving your head from fire.

Dogen Zenji (1200 – 1253)

In zazen, leave your front door and your back door open. Let thoughts come and go. Just don’t serve them tea.
Zen Master Shunru Suzuki (1905–1971)

I am happy to say our founding fathers where a smart bunch of guys. They knew that it was going to be a case of, “the pursuit of happiness” for all of us. They knew that being happy is not something that you are going to be all the time; It is more of a goal. When they wrote the Declaration of Independence, they were smart enough to put that in there because when you try to turn a rabble into a country, you need a common goal. Even back then, they knew, we wanted to be happy.

I try to avoid people who do not want to be happy. As I said before, misery is catchy. My grandmother used to tell me to be careful of the people I hung around because eventually I would end up being like them. Knowing she was a smart old gal, I decided to take her advice.

In order to avoid that type of person I checked out A Field Guide to Unhappy People, by Seymour Putzes.  As I flipped through the pages of the guidebook, I noticed that unhappy people are widely distributed. I checked out the pictures of some common varieties and recognized quite a few of them. In order to arm myself with knowledge, I looked up some common traits for contagiously miserable people. The first thing I noticed is that when asked how they were, people who hate happiness tend to say things like, “hanging in there,” “fair to middling,” “not too bad,” “no use in complaining because nobody would listen,” or “life sucks, how about you?”  The second thing I learned is that unhappy people hate to see other people happy and seem to feel it is their public duty to put an end to such nonsense immediately. Finally, the field guide warned that those who hate happiness are always quick to point out the dark cloud attached to any silver lining. I closed the book, and made a choice to avoid these folks as much as possible. After all, there currently is no vaccine for this illness. You pretty much need to let it run its course and hope your spiritual immune system can kill it.

So now here I am, determined to avoid the negative and pursue happiness.  How do I pursue happiness? A friend of mine once told me, “Happiness is like a butterfly. If you pursue it, you will never catch it; but if you just stay still, it might land on you.”  This may be true, but it sounds too much like a greeting card. The problem with greeting card slogans is that they are like romance novels; they always end at the beginning. Beside, it seems somehow un-American to sit around hoping happiness lands on my nose.

In Buddhism and other eastern philosophies, we are told that suffering comes from expectations. We place values on things and conditions that are based on preconceived notions of permanence. This is referred to as the principle of “eachness and suchness.”  For example, “sunshine is good, rain clouds are bad.” If our happiness depends on eachness and suchness, we do not have a chance at achieving it. The truth is, some things may be true, but few things are TRUE, and nothing is permanent. The truth is sunshine is not so good if you are dieing in the desert, and rain clouds are great if you are a farmer with a thirsty field. The truth is my happiness cannot depend on impermanent conditions that are beyond my control. My happiness depends on me.

Being happy, is my choice. Sometimes it is an easy choice, and sometimes it is a more difficult one, but it is always my choice. Somehow, choosing to be happy seems so much more American to me that sitting around waiting for it does. I know that I cannot control what happens to me. I can control my reaction to life’s trials and triumphs; and that seems to be a triumph itself. I am working hard to choose to be happy. To that end, I went out and got a copy of A Field Guide to Happy People. It is unfortunate that we are not as widely distributed in the world population. I found that when asked how we are, happy people tend to say things like, “couldn’t be better,” and “great to be alive,” and “outstanding!” Finally, I checked out the representative photos of happy people. We were all smiling. I just love being happy.

Thanks to Steve Ramirez
steve@hillcountryexplore.com

The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and sense in which he has attained liberation from the self.

(Albert Einstein, The World As I See It)

This is an older video interview with Dr. Kornfield by Dr. Jeffrey Mishlove, via his series “Thinking Allowed.” In it, Jack Kornfield offers some important and timeless observations about meditation practice.

  A Zen student came to Bankei and said: “Master, I have an ungovernable temper — how can I cure it?”

“Show me this temper,” said Bankei, “it sounds fascinating.”

“I haven’t got it right now,” said the student, “so I can’t show it to you.”

“Well then” said Bankei, “bring it to me when you have it.”

“But I can’t bring it just when I happen to have it,” protested the student. “It arises unexpectedly, and I would surely lose it before I got it to you.”

“In that case,” said Bankei, “it cannot be part of your true nature. If it were, you could show it to me at any time. When you were born you did not have it, and your parents did not give it to you — so it must come into you from the outside. I suggest that whenever it gets into you, you beat yourself with a stick until the temper can’t stand it, and runs away.”

[The full story can be found in The unborn: the life and teaching of Zen Master Bankei, 1622-1693 by Bankei , Normal Waddell, translator.]

The first step in an understanding of Buddhism and its integration into the West is an appreciation of the life story of Siddhattha Gautama. The time of his birth and death are uncertain: most early 20th-century historians dated his lifetime as c. 563 BCE to 483 BCE, but more recent opinion dates his death to between 486 and 483 BCE or, according to some, between 411 and 400 BCE.

Gautama, also known as Śākyamuni (“Sage of the Śākyas”), is the primary figure in Buddhism, and accounts of his life, discourses, and monastic rules are understood by Buddhists to have been summarized after his death and memorized by his followers. Various collections of teachings attributed to him were passed down by oral tradition, and first committed to writing about 400 years later.

“A Call to Compassion” is the story of Fr. Michael Bassano and his work at the Wat Prabat Nampu Temple in Lopburi, Thailand. How better to discuss Compassion than to focus on compassionate acts without focus on the Buddhist source? In fact, the fountain of this deep compassion is a Maryknoll priest, who sees in Buddha, and his own tradition, the well of Compassion, and draws deeply from it.