Your Meditation is Nothing

If you can’t stand beside a friendless man

your meditation is nothing.

If you can’t listen to pain and terror then

your meditation is nothing.

If you can’t befriend the insane and share from their bowl

your meditation is nothing.

If you cannot take the gun gently from the hand of the murderer

and embrace him in his horror then your meditation is nothing.

If you cannot see the beauty and life in the one without limbs then

your meditation is nothing.

If you cannot sit beside the aged in their loneliness then

your meditation is nothing.

If you can’t embrace your own pain and shout “Yes!” to Life then

your meditation is nothing.

If you can surrender all that you are, all that you have,

if you can embrace life without wanting it or wanting to change it,

if you can hear the sounds of pain and joy and know they come from the same source,

if you can sit in the fire, rain, snow, sun and in surrender open your heart

to the purity of love then

your meditation is the supreme gift of the Manu Pearl, the light of the Pure Land.

If you can meditate the Nothing knowing your meditation is nothing then

all serenity and bliss radiates like perfume from the Lotus.

Nothing and all are one in Joy.

Zhi Sheng January 2013

Message from Venerable Zhi Sheng

The other day while in Sydney Australia I was able to come on line and look at the Blog Site and found that many people had written to me thanking and encouraging me and some asking questions. I was quite surprised.

I sincerely apologize for not getting back to all of you individually as I am unable to access the Google Blog site at my temple Guang Jue Temple in China as wireless broadband signal is quite poor in this mountain region and in addition we do not have the required software to view this page.

My dear friend and supporter in Melbourne continues to post articles for me.

May you all have a very peaceful, successful and joyful New Year 2013. Namo Amituofo.

Zhi Sheng

The Listening Buddha

Guan Shi Yin Bodhisattva is a central figure in Chinese Mahayana Buddhism. Her statue often adorns homes and businesses both of Buddhists, Taoists and ordinary folk often in the hope that lighting incense to her and making prostrations will prompt her to grant the requests and prayers of devotees. Her name in Chinese, Guan Shi Yin 觀世音 literally means the one who looks into the sounds of the cries of suffering. At first glance this seems to be grammatical incongruence as it implies a visual response to sound. One normally listens to sound, not look at it. The Chinese word 觀 guan, meaning to look around, look into, also implies a deep looking which examines all aspects of the object being observed. Here, I think, rests the key for us in our imitation of her qualities so often overlooked. It is the quality of deep and compassionate listening. I have already written about this topic in depth in my book The Compassionate Listening Formation Manual. When we listen deeply to another we enable a person to hear the murmur of their own soul and listen them into deeper healing. Herein lays the mystery of Guan Shi Yin.

Once a man came knocking at my door when I was living in Brisbane. He was eager to tell me all about his religion and why I should believe and have faith in it. I gently told him I was Buddhist. “So what does that mean exactly”, asked the man. “Tell me about this Buddhism. I mean for you to be saved. . . .” The man continued to passionately expound the benefits of his religion. This went on for some twenty minutes during which I listened carefully. As I was having to attend to other things I indicated that we needed to wind up the conversation. “Oh, but you didn’t tell me about your Buddhism” the man interjected. “I did” came my reply to a very puzzled look. “I listened.”

When we deeply listen to another we enter into their space and create a new space. It is a space of welcome and deep mindfulness to their very being. It is spiritual art and the chief tool for the peacemaker. When we do this we allow the other to place the colours of their words on a canvass so they can begin to see their inner world. If they do not like what they see they have the opportunity to change the story and see new colours, new shapes, new life. They become awakened to their story.

Today we have the opportunity to become the Boddhisattva Guan Shi Yin to others, to our children, to our spouse, friend, the one we perceive as our enemy. When we deeply listen we plant the seeds of peace and open the way to healing and life.

A Peace of Single Thought

“The peace of the world starts with a single thought. We can all think peace. The next step is to do peace. That is the gift to the world.”

“Our planet is perched on a precipice. We stand at a cross roads of history. Which way will we turn? There is serious conflict raging in many quarters of our world and even in our own cities and families. Peace begins with a single thought. If our mind is full of confusion and inner conflict we will see a world full of confusion and conflict. When are minds are clear and peaceful we see a beautiful and peaceful world. Our external world is a result of our very thoughts. We must deal with the conflict in our own minds not by elimination but by entering into a new relationship with our inner enemy. When we make peace with our minds we bring peace into our immediate outer environment. We are then ready to do peace.”

Living the Beautiful Life

Happiness seminars abound. More than ever is humankind is seeking happiness. This is natural. There is much unhappiness in our world at present. The World Health Organization estimates that within the next ten years depression will rank the second most prevalent disease in the world! This is not to mention all the other conditions facing humanity; war, violence, divorce, broken families, suicide and on and on the list goes.

It seems an odd thing that in a world full of opportunity as we have never known with such advanced technology and material well-being we are increasingly unhappy. Many people turn to Buddhism to find a sense of peace and happiness. Many people come to our monastery here at Guang Jue in Zaoxi to do meditation retreats to find peace and happiness. While it is good that people are thinking below the surface issues I think “happiness” is a well worn out word like an old pair of shoes ready to be discarded. While many presenters of Happiness seminars and workshops are well-meaning in their approach I feel that we are walking here a shaky path.

Happiness depends so much on what happens, thus the root of the word: happens-ness. It is attached to outcomes. It is result oriented depending on so many factors. Happiness may come and go depending on so many things. This seems normal today to be focused on results rather than causes and conditions.

Buddhism is concerned with causes and conditions. This is the Bodhisattva way. Yet I have often head it said that even as Buddhists we are to create the causes and conditions for happiness but happiness is something which is impermanent. It seems such a wasted effort. Happiness runs through our hands like water. Try to hold water in your hand for a long period of time. Try as you wish but eventually the water will find its way out of the folds of the hands or if it doesn’t it is because you are holding your hands so tightly together to prevent it from slipping away. The result is you can do nothing else with your hands and eventually they become so tired and aching that you need to let go and the water dissipates. Dukka! This is suffering. This is unhappiness. Off we go again to find another source of water and the whole process begins over again and the hands, wrists and arms become increasingly fatigued.

Some commentators have said that happiness is the normal human condition and that we are happiness and that we do not need to seek it. Perhaps in a sense they are getting closer to the truth. Indeed, we are all born with Buddha nature and that this inherent nature is within each of us but that we do not recognize it until we are awakened from our deep sleep of ignorance. However, I tend to feel that the better word is ‘harmony’. We all have the capacity for harmony. Harmony does not depend on the whims and fate of occurrences and events. It is able to be present even when all else around us is chaos.

We often speak of harmony in regards to music and I think this is a good parallel. Have you ever been to a concert where the musicians played out of tune with each other? I remember going to some of my daughter’s primary school concerts when she was young. Often these very young musicians in the early stages of learning their instrument played off key. We perhaps inwardly grimaced but smiled warmly at their attempts to perform well. Later as they were well trained with their instrument they played in harmony and we eventually listened to beautiful music.

Harmony is abiding and requires the attunement of our deepest values with our thoughts and actions. When these accord there is harmony and this harmony endures like the vibration of the bell long after it has been struck.

So often we aspire to noble values. So often we are moved by the Dharma and the philosophy of the Buddha but fail to put the Dharma into action. The end result is disharmony. Again we may try to put the Dharma into practice but if we are constantly holding thoughts of anger, greed or arrogance then the practice will not bear the fruit we would wish for because there is disharmony. One or more parts of us are playing out of tune!

There is another subtle difference between happiness and harmony. Happiness is something we “get”. It so often requires that we grab and take hold of it. Harmony on the other hand cannot be grabbed. It must be worked at. This is called the building of causes and conditions. When our values and aspirations of the awakened life are in accord with our purity of mind and constant practice then harmony will be the fruit that will bloom at the right time. One cannot grab at the fruit if one has not first planted the seed. One cannot play beautiful music unless one has first mastered the scales and practiced.

When we have listened to an orchestra play in harmony and with technique and finesse we often say: “Ah! What beautiful music!” We also can be assured that as practitioners of the Way that when our values, thoughts and actions accord and we live with peace and compassion with all sentient beings we can at last sigh with joy:”Ah! What a beautiful life!”

Two Great Delusions

We must rid our minds of two great delusions - the delusion of the intrinsic reality of the material world and the delusion of the intrinsic reality of the individual self. These two delusions are, as it happens, the fundamental assumptions which underlie the philosophy of popular thought and the destroyers of deep peace, harmony and happiness.

Of course we can argue these points with the most sophisticated logic. The ego-mind is very skilled at that. I have seen the fear in the eyes of people scrambling for survival in their pre-fabricated constructed realities, fighting sometimes with anger to grasp at the realities they have been lead to believe. Only these delusions can only bring perpetual suffering.

I thought of Lisa (not her real name), a beautiful young Malaysian woman whom I met about eight years ago at a dinner in Brisbane Australia. I was there to speak about mental health. She was at the dinner with her boyfriend. She was a photographic model, successful in the height of her career. She told me about the new luxury apartment she had moved into. She had never heard much about mental illness before and found the topic quite amusing, referring to those who are challenged with illness as the “crazies”. She lived and moved in the material world and asserted her individuality in her forceful language.

It was some nine months later I was visiting a man who had been long term in a Brisbane Psychiatric hospital. As I walked along the corridor of the ward accompanied by a nurse, I passed patients room. My heart stopped as I noticed an Asian woman whose eyes met mine. She started to speak but then turned away. The nurse asked me if I knew her as this woman had only been admitted to hospital after a crisis had no known friends who visited her and was reluctant to talk to the treating staff.

As I entered her room I recognized the young Malaysian woman I had met at the dinner party. Her “boyfriend” had been married to another woman. He had been a successful business man but the stress of living a double life and the shame of eventually being found out brought him to suicide. Lisa had found him hanging at the back of his office.

Her world had come crashing down around her. Unable to work, the bills mounted up until she was evicted from her luxury apartment. Deep depression set in and she was found by police wandering the streets without shoes in the middle of the night.

It was a long journey back to recovery for Lisa. She could not have done it by herself. He rugged individuality had become smashed within an instant of time and the vulnerability of our human nature had come to the fore.

She recently shared with me how the incident had become a turning point in her life and that she saw life’s “true reality” now.

Lisa is just one person of so many I have journeyed with whose illusion had been burst like a soap bubble. Suffering is so often the soil in which the seed to enlightenment is planted.
Of course, there is no need to suffer so greatly to understand the truth. If we could only let go of the illusion and give compassionate comfort to the frightened ego that it can be transformed. In transformation there is freedom and life.

Pure Land is but one breath away. Pure Land is not just a future reality. Meditative Samadhi is not just a beautiful feeling. It is a living reality. It is a mistake to think that our practice is just for some eschatalogical event. It is now.

Practitioners of the Way ought not be tempted into the rugged individuality of worldly society. Western Buddhism is in real danger of being reduced to a Double Gem rather than the treasure of the Triple Gem. The Sangha is being diminished. Buddhism cannot just be practiced in isolation by just reading books and internet web sites. Its potency lies in the Triple Gem of which Sangha is vital. It is when we practice as a vibrant community that the Dharma comes alive and our practice takes form. Enlightenment will sadly elude us to think otherwise and we will fall prey to the fundamental assumptions of the philosophy of our times and produce much suffering. 

The Eight Awakenings

Many people coming to test the waters of Buddhism for the first time often wonder where to start. There are literally hundreds of sutras with each school of Buddhism focusing on specific sutras that are at their foundation.

It is clear that Buddhism is about the issue of suffering and how to overcome it. Suffering takes on many forms from severe pain and illness and death to the petty annoyances that plague us on almost a daily basis. Buddhism teaches us to live a supremely happy and value centred life with the means to end the cycle of birth and death which is suffering.

The sutra of the Eight Awakenings is a very short sutra. In fact many Chinese monks used to learn this one by heart not only because of its brevity but also because it contained within it the essential of Buddhism.

I often call it the Mediators’ Sutra as it is a foundation sutra for all meditation work. It is well worth contemplating these Eight Awakenings carefully examining them in the light of your own life. I have included them here in their entirety.

Buddhist Disciples! At all times, day and night, sincerely recite and bear in mind these eight truths that cause great people to awaken.

The First Awakening:
The world is impermanent. Countries are perilous and fragile. The body is a source of pain, ultimately empty. The five skandhas are not the true self. Life and Death is nothing but a series of transformations—hallucinatory, unreal, uncontrollable. The intellect is a wellspring of turpitude, the body a breeding ground of offenses. Investigate and contemplate these truths. Gradually break free of death and rebirth.

The Second Awakening:
Too much desire brings pain. Death and rebirth are wearisome ordeals, originating from our thoughts of greed and lust. By lessening desires we can realize absolute truth and enjoy peace, freedom, and health in body and mind.

The Third Awakening:
Our minds are never satisfied or content with just enough. The more we obtain, the more we want. Thus we create offenses and perform evil deeds. Bodhisattvas don’t wish to make these mistakes. Instead, they choose to be content. They nurture the Way, living a quiet life in humble surroundings —their sole occupation, cultivating wisdom.

The Fourth Awakening:
Idleness and self-indulgence are the downfall of people. With unflagging vigor, great people break through their afflictions and baseness. They vanquish and defeat the four kinds of demons, and escape from the prison of the five skandhas.

The Fifth Awakening:
Stupidity and ignorance are the cause of death and rebirth. Bodhisattvas apply themselves and deeply appreciate study and erudition, constantly striving to expand their wisdom and refine their eloquence. Nothing brings them greater joy than teaching and transforming living beings.

The Sixth Awakening:
Suffering in poverty breeds deep resentment. Wealth unfairly distributed creates ill-will and conflict among people. Thus, Bodhisattvas practice giving. They treat friend and foe alike. They do not harbor grudges or despise amoral people.

The Seventh Awakening:
The five desires are a source of offenses and grief. Truly great people, laity included, are not blighted by worldly pleasures. Instead, they aspire to don the three-piece precept robe and the blessing bowl of monastic life. Their ultimate ambition is to leave the home life and to cultivate the Path with impeccable purity. Their virtuous qualities are lofty and sublime; their attitude towards all creatures, kind and compassionate.

The Eighth Awakening:
Like a blazing inferno, birth and death are plagued with suffering and affliction. Therefore, great people resolve to cultivate the Great Vehicle, to rescue all beings, to endure hardship on behalf of others, and to lead everyone to ultimate happiness.

These are the Eight Truths that all Buddhas, Bodhisattvas and great people awaken to. Once awakened, they even more energetically continue to cultivate the Path. Steeping themselves in kindness and compassion, they grow in wisdom. They sail the Dharma ship across to Nirvana’s shore, and then return on the sea of birth and death to rescue living beings. They use these Eight Truths to show the proper course for living beings, causing them to recognize the anguish of birth
and death. They inspire all to forsake the five desires, and to cultivate their minds in the manner of Sages.

If Buddhist disciples recite this Sutra on the Eight Awakenings, and constantly ponder its meaning, they will certainly eradicate boundless offenses, advance towards Bodhi, and will quickly realize Proper Enlightenment. They will always be free of birth and death, and will abide in eternal bliss