Amber Larson, Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly; Brianna Sacks (k llingthebuddha.com)
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| "K lling the Buddha" is a glib koan that became a Mahayana slogan for "do not put idols on pedestals." We can become awakened without depending on others, that is, when we awaken, the truth we realize does not depend on anyone or anything. But getting their does depend on noble friendship. So even the thought of harming the Buddha, a liberator, offends Theravada sensibilities. It makes light of one of the Five Heinous Karmic Acts. |
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Surrounded by ten other cross-legged and deeply breathing bodies
rooted still in the thick India morning air, I felt a sense of triumph.
I -- the buzzing, over-stimulated American -- was meditating.
My screaming hips and lower back quivered in resistance as I focused
on the gentle rocking of my long breaths, silently repeating, “Hong Sau”
as the monks directed. Swaddled in a red felt blanket under the swaying
mosquito net of the Ananda Ashram’s makeshift temple, I had won. That’s
how I saw my dip into the spiritual world -- something to check off my
accomplishment list.
I pray to no religious leader, nor do I seek guidance from a higher
power. I am a disciple of the great American religion of ambition.
- [Be lamps (dipa) unto yourselves, be islands (dipa) unto yourselves taking no other as a lamp or island with only the Dharma as your guide was the historical Buddha's final admonition (DN 16). See exact wording below.]
It
hasn’t always been that way. Two very loving, comforting, metaphysically
aligned parents brought me into this world, and I thank these people for
my unique, spiritual childhood -- parents who often meditated against the
trunk of an ancient oak tree shadowing our home because of its
“powerful energy” or gathered with their handful of spiritual friends,
who opened chakras and performed healing treatments. At breakfast my
brother and I discussed last night’s dreams from our booster seats.
Crystals and worn, ripped copies of the Kabbalah were my playthings.
Everything smelled like incense. I sang Hebrew blessings over my
preschool lunches, attended Hebrew school, was bat-mitzvahed, and later
dabbled in Christian youth groups and momentarily found Jesus.
“Meditate, it will save you,” is what I grew up hearing. But I couldn’t.
When I was six, my parents asked me to draw the hurt in my soul
because, as my mother says, I was born with a painful wound burrowed
into my being. They kept the drawing -- one of a gray, black mass
resembling a cave that lived inside my giant red, lopsided heart.
My mother calls me a machine, a robot wrought of skin and bone that can always push harder, do more, be better.
My unrelenting quest for perfection often produces debilitating panic
attacks and pitfalls of depression. The number of times I have spent
trapped in my car, hyperventilating, sobbing, trying to breathe into the
phone while my mom on the other end of the line tries to calm me begs
the question: “What am I chasing?”
Pausing, forcing myself to pull back
the restless, insecure pieces of myself and look deep inside is a task I
have been running from, fearing that if I do, I will get lost.
“You’re already lost” is a thought that often rings far off in my
consciousness. But ambition is still my accepted method of self-torture.
So when I learned that my journalism class would be spending almost
three days at the Ananda Ashram in Pune, India, before our reporting
week in Mumbai [Bombay], I silently cursed everything.
Meditation, which had
haunted me my entire life, would put me on lockdown. In rural India,
surrounded by grey shrubs, slow, shriveled cows, and red mountains, I
would not be able to escape.
More
What the Buddha said at the end
"The Great Final-Nirvana Discourse" (Maha Parinirvana Sutra, DN 16.33-35)
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| Theravada: The Buddha reclining into final nirvana, Thailand (DennisonUy/flickr) |
33. "Therefore, Ananda, be
lamps/
islands (
dipa) unto yourselves,
guides (sarana) unto yourselves, seeking no external
guide, with the Dharma as your island, the Dharma as your guide,
seeking no other guide.
"And how, Ananda, is a disciple an island unto oneself, a guide unto oneself, seeking no external guide, with the Dharma as one's island, the
Dharma as one's guide, seeking no other guide?
34. (1) "When one dwells contemplating (
satipatthanas or
The Four Foundations of Mindfulness) the body in
the body, earnestly, clearly comprehending, and mindfully, after having
overcome hankering and sorrow with regard to the world; (2) when one dwells
contemplating feelings in feelings, (3) the mind in the mind, and (4) mental
objects in mental objects, earnestly, clearly comprehending, and
mindfully, after having overcome hankering and sorrow with regard to the
world, then, truly, one is an island unto oneself, a guide unto oneself,
seeking no external guide, having the Dharma as one's island, the Dharma
as one's guide, seeking no other guide.
35. "Those disciples of mine, Ananda, who now or
after I am gone, abide as a island unto themselves, as a guide
unto themselves, seeking no other guide, having the Dharma as their island
and guide, seeking no other guide: it is they who will become the
highest (
tamatagge),
if they have the zeal to learn."
