Shantideva, Han Shan, Oliver - Familiarizing myself with the context of my habits with Wikiquote resources from Hanshan

 

Shantideva

"There is nothing that does not grow easier through familiarity."

Habit change through gentle, compassionate attention to the context of my suffering... instead of avoidance.  

https://bodhicitta.tsadra.org/index.php/Explore/Chapter_6_-_Patience 

Working on understanding Shantideva and others who celebrate 'familiarizing myself' with the nature of my suffering, the context, ... instead of running from it. 

Here is a link to a nascient chat on this topic:  https://chatgpt.com/share/6a693bdf-c3f0-83ea-8c66-70e080202e0b

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Hanshan

From the text at link above

• As for me, I delight in the every day Way
  Among mist-wrapped vines and rocky caves
  Here in the wilderness I am completely free
  With my friends, the white clouds, idling forever
  There are roads, but they do not reach the world
  Since I am mindless, who can rouse my thoughts
  On a bed of stone I sit, alone in the night
  While a round moon climbs up Cold Mountain

Sometimes
Mary Oliver

1.

Something came up
out of the dark.
It wasn’t anything I had ever seen before.
It wasn’t an animal
    or a flower,
unless it was both.

Something came up out of the water,
    a head the size of a cat
but muddy and without ears.
I don’t know what God is.
I don’t know what death is.

But I believe they have between them
    some fervent and necessary arrangement.

2.

Sometimes
melancholy leaves me breathless.

3.

Later I was in a field full of sunflowers.
I was feeling the head of midsummer.
I was thinking of the sweet, electric
    drowse of creation,

when it began to break.

In the west, clouds gathered.
Thunderheads.
In an hour the sky was filled with them.

In an hour the sky was filled
    with the sweetness of rain and the blast of lightning.
Followed by the deep bells of thunder.

Water from the heavens! Electricity from the source!
Both of them mad to create something!

The lighting brighter than any flower.
The thunder without a drowsy bone in its body.

4.

Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.

5.
Two or three times in my life I discovered love.
Each time it seemed to solve everything.
Each time it solved a great many things
    but not everything.
Yet left me as grateful as if it had indeed, and
thoroughly, solved everything.

6.

God, rest in my heart
and fortify me,
take away my hunger for answers,
let the hours play upon my body

like the hands of my beloved.
Let the cathead appear again—
the smallest of your mysteries,
some wild cousin of my own blood probably—
some cousin of my own wild blood probably,
in the black dinner-bowl of the pond.

7.

Death waits for me, I know it, around
    one corner or another.
This doesn’t amuse me.
Neither does it frighten me.

After the rain, I went back into the field of sunflowers.
It was cool, and I was anything but drowsy.
I walked slowly, and listened

to the crazy roots, in the drenched earth, laughing and growing.

Prayer of Shantideva

 Prayer of Shantideva

May I be a protector to those without protection,

A leader for those who journey,

And a boat, a bridge, a passage

For those desiring the further shore.

May the pain of every living creature

Be completely cleared away.

May I be the doctor and the medicine

And may I be the nurse

For all sick beings in the world

Until everyone is healed.

Just like space

And the great elements such as earth,

May I always support the life

Of all the boundless creatures.

And until they pass away from pain

May I also be the source of life

For all the realms of varied beings

That reach unto the ends of space.

La pensée de la semaine - Matthieu Ricard

La pensée de la semaine - Matthieu Ricard

La pensée de la semaine

Ils disent vouloir se libérer de la souffrance :
Voyez plutôt comme ils courent à sa rencontre !
Tous pourtant aspirent au bonheur
Mais, ignorant ce qui en est la cause,
Ils le détruisent comme si c'était un ennemi.

Shantideva - suffering

La pensée de la semaine

Ils disent vouloir se libérer de la souffrance :

Voyez plutôt comme ils courent à sa rencontre !

Tous pourtant aspirent au bonheur

Mais, ignorant ce qui en est la cause,

Ils le détruisent comme si c'était un ennemi.

SHANTIDEVA (685-763)

Shantideva, Bodhicaryavatara, La Marche vers l'Éveil, nouvelle traduction par le Comité de Traduction Padmakara, 2007, Chap. I, 28.

Mingyur Rinpoche - Discomfort and emotions

I was looking for the Mingyur Rinpoche quote but then realized I have the book.  

"Ultimately, happiness comes down to choosing between the discomfort of becoming aware of your mental afflictions and the discomfort of being ruled by them."

Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, "The Joy of Living"

Quote offered by Hugh Byrne on Sunday,  August 29, 2021... he was speaking about accepting our emotions as they arise. Riding these emotions,  sitting with them. He also referred to the story about the man on the galloping horse..."hey,  where are you going"? "I don't know,  ask the horse!"

Bonheur - Ricard - Pensée de la semaine

Tous les bonheurs du monde viennent

De la recherche du bonheur d'autrui ;

Toutes les souffrances du monde viennent

De la recherche de son propre bonheur.


SHANTIDEVA (685-763)
Bodhicaryavatara, La Marche vers l'Éveil, chap. 8, versets 129-130.

https://www.matthieuricard.org/pensees/51

Intention & Shantideva

 

It is always wonderful to see people coming to Buddhism, but it’s just as sad to see how many lose their way, become disillusioned, and abandon it. My own lamas have frequently mentioned to me how surprised they are by the number of Western students who fall away. Of course, one must acknowledge that the supportive social environment that exists in Asian Buddhist cultures is not present here in North America or Europe, where there is no prevailing consensus or expectation that will keep people within the Buddhist fold.

The causes for disillusionment, however, may go deeper than this and derive from the set of motivations operating when people engage with Buddhism in the first place. Renowned Buddhist masters have always recognized the need to instruct would-be practitioners about the importance of cultivating the appropriate motivation to ground their study and practice of the dharma.

One can see this point stressed again and again both by Indian masters such as Nagarjuna, Shantideva, and Atisha, and by their successors in all four schools of Tibetan Buddhism. It is made succinctly in the famous cycle of teachings known as Parting from the Four Attachments, spoken by the bodhisattva Manjushri to Sakya master Sachen Kunga Nyingpo back in the 12th century CE, when he declared:

If you have attachment to this life, you are not a practitioner of dharma.
If you have attachment to the realm of samsara, you don’t have renunciation.

The point is simple but radical, and one we must not evade if we are to benefit from our involvement with Buddhism. It means that we can buy thousands of Buddhist books, join countless organizations, receive initiations, attend retreats, and still not be practicing the dharma.

As Shakyamuni Buddha said, “Everything rests on the point of intention.” What prevents a performance of dharma from being dharma practice is precisely that our intention or motivation for practicing is contaminated by the eight worldly concerns, the ephemeral goals that render impossible any glimpse of the transcendental freedom that is the proper goal of Buddhist practice. In this sense, the eight worldly dharmas, as they are also known, are the very opposite of buddhadharma. Distinct from it, they comprise four pairs of motivating factors: determination to acquire pleasure and not pain, gain and not loss, fame and not notoriety, and praise and not blame.

The pull of the eight worldly concerns drives us to attempt to manipulate our experience of the world, to seek worldly pleasures and avoid pain, pushing our continually discontented mind forward. It should be no surprise that when we first encounter Buddhism, the eight worldly concerns simply shift their focus from gross objects such as acquisition of property to the more subtle worldly rewards to be gained through Buddhism, like the apparent mastery over emotional unsteadiness and enhanced powers of concentration.

It is for this reason that another great Sakya master, Drakpa Gyaltsen, declared, “When one is attached to this life, even his ethical discipline is contaminated by the eight worldly concerns.” He also said, “The meditator who is focused on this life is still busy even when he is in retreat.” In this respect, to understand the Buddha’s teaching as merely a method for improving our samsaric situation, whether in this life or the next, still falls far short of the freedom to which the dharma summons us.

The remedy to the eight worldly concerns, taught in Parting from the Four Attachments and similar cycles of instructions, is to “turn the mind to dharma” by systematic contemplations of the preciousness of our human life, impermanence and death, action (cause and effect), and the defects of samsara. Without the transformation in our values brought about by these four contemplations, any engagement in dharma activities will only serve to strengthen our self-centeredness.

The first contemplation exhorts us not to squander the precious opportunity we have been given. Right now, poised between birth and death, we possess a freedom to reflect that is characteristic of human life and also the fortune to have met the dharma. We thus possess an indispensable working basis by which our potential for Buddhahood can be fulfilled. Yet the inspiration generated by attentiveness to this precious moment of our human life must be tempered and simultaneously strengthened by acknowledging the fact of impermanence, the second contemplation. This is not the casual acceptance of impermanence of externalities so useful to a consumption-driven society where everything is disposable, but an acknowledgment in our very bones that there is no conditioned thing, including and especially our present existence, that escapes death. To know this through deep contemplation is to awaken to the possibilities inherent in this very life, in this very moment, and to not get lost in pursuit of the ephemera of the eight worldly concerns.

At this point, although we may have engaged to some extent with dharma, we may still be mistaking it as a means to some temporary improvement, whether a more refined state of consciousness or a higher rebirth. To overcome such a dilution of the dharma and its purpose requires that we analyze all states of samsara available to us. From top (the realm of the gods) to bottom (the hell realms) and everywhere in between, samsara is suffering. And what brings about its various forms of suffering are our choices and consequent actions, the third contemplation. The final two contemplations that turn the mind to dharma focus on the defects of samsara (the fourth) and the causes of samsara, that is to say, our actions (the third).

As long as our intentions of dharma practice remain untransformed, we only settle for more of the suffering of samsara, for life in the same old cage. Through attention to these themes we come to understand that to practice the dharma with a mind that is not imbued with dharma values is to sell the dharma short, and to settle for less than freedom.

Join Lama Jampa Thaye in his March 2014 online retreat, "Parting from the Four Attachments."

Lama Jampa Thaye is a scholar, author, and meditation teacher from the UK.

Image: Manjushri (Bodhisattva & Buddhist deity) - Arapachana. Courtesy of Rubin Museum of Art.

Reply by mike k on October 16, 2015, 6:42 am

The article expresses extreme disdain for "samsara" - that is, this beautiful world we have been gifted with. One wonders why anyone would wish to return here to help others - as in this view it would seem to betray some lingering attachment to this supposedly hellish realm and those who inhabit it. If love of this realm and it's beings, however "unenlightened " they may be, is taken as simply another attachment to be ruthlessly cut away, maybe this harsh absolutist thinking is one reason some people give up participating in this world denying, austere version of Buddhism?

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Shantideva's Words on training the mind

If this elephant of mind is bound on all sides by the cord of 
    mindfulness,
All fears disappear and complete happiness comes.
All enemies:  all the tigers, lions, elephants, bears, serpents (of 
    our emotions),
And all the keepers of hell: the demons and the horrors,
All of these are bound by the mastery of your mind,
And by the taming of that one mind, all are subdued,
Because from the mind are derived all fears and immeasurable 
    sorrows.

-- August 28th,  from Glimpse After Glimpse

Shantideva - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Shantideva - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "Words of wisdom

“Sentient beings are strange, although wishing happiness they avoid its causes. Although wishing to avoid suffering they constantly create its causes.”"

Link to HHDL discussing the 4 Noble Truths and Shantideva's Chapter 8 on the Bodhisatva's Way of Life

Helpful Enemies

Helpful Enemies

As Shantideva says, there are many beings to whom one can make charity, but there are very few beings with respect to whom one can practice patience, and what is more rare is more valuable. An enemy is really most kind. Through cultivating patience one's power of merit increases, and the practice of patience can only be done in dependence upon an enemy. For this reason, enemies are the main instigators of the increase of meritorious power. An enemy is not someone who prevents the practice of religion but someone who helps practice.

-The Dalai Lama, The Meaning of Life from a Buddhist Perspective

Subdue the Mind

That Fleeting Feeling

Abandon evildoing; 
Practice virtue well;
Subdue your mind: 
This is the Buddha's teaching.

Like a star, an optical illusion, or a flame,
A magical illusion, a dewdrop, or a bubble,
Like a dream, a flash of lightning, or a cloud--
So should one consider all compounded things.

While reciting [Shantideva's] words, we should reflect on impermanence and the lack of reality in phenomena. . .


--The Dalai Lama, in A Flash of Lightning in the Dark of Night
from Everyday Mind, edited by Jean Smith, a Tricycle book

Cessation of Hatred

Cessation of Hatred II

Hatred is far worse than any ordinary enemy. Of course, ordinary enemies
harm us: that is why we call them enemies. But the harm they do is not
just in order to make us unhappy it is also meant to be of some help to
themselves or their friends. Hatred, the inner enemy, however, has no
other function but to destroy our positive actions and make us unhappy.
That is why Shantideva calls it "My foe, whose sole intention is to
bring me sorrow." From the moment it first appears, it exists for the
sole purpose of harming us. So we should confront it with all the means
we have, maintain a peaceful state of mind, and avoid getting upset.

- The Dalai Lama, /Tricycle: The Buddhist Review/, Vol. II, #2

Practice and the Mind

/Thought you might like this meditation as the world changes around us..../

Practice and the Mind
<http://www.tricycle.com/issues/2_677/dailydharma/4416-1.html>

1. Those who wish to guard their practice
Should very attentively guard their minds,
For those who do not guard their minds
Will be unable to guard their practice.

2. In this (world) unsubdued and crazed elephants
Are incapable of causing such harms
As the miseries of the deepest hell
Which can be caused by the unleashed elephant of my mind.

3. But if the elephant of my mind is firmly bound
On all sides by the rope of mindfulness,
All fears will cease to exist
And all virtues will come into my hand.

- Shantideva, /A Guide to the Bodhisattvas Way of Life,/ trans. by
Stephen Batchelor
from /Everyday Mind,/ edited by Jean Smith, a /Tricycle/ book //