Orange County: Tet Festival 2013 (video)

Nguyen, Seven, Wells, Wisdom Quarterly

Orange County's Tet celebration welcomes the Year of the Snake (magnumasi.com)

 

Big belly Budai (Tanignak.com)

Tet, or Tet Nguyen Dan, is the Buddhist Vietnamese lunar New Year. It is celebrated from Saigon to Westminster.
   
English translation: "Feast of the First Morning." Celebrated this year in February according to the solar calendar, the upcoming Tet Festival will feature Old World traditions with additions to welcome the arrival of a new era. It is a manifestation of respect for family and ancestors.

Because it falls on Day One of Month One on the Chinese calendar, it is often celebrated in conjunction with Chinese New Year. Tet 2013 is a five-day celebration that begins on Feb. 9 and culminates with a massive festival on Feb. 14th (Valentine's Day). But the actual New Year begins on the 10th.

 

Tet is an enormous Vietnamese celebration compared to other cultures. It is preceded by weeks of preparation that commonly includes house cleaning and painting.

Cultural crossroads: Snapshots of Tet 2012 in the O.C.

There is a Vietnamese belief that loud noise wards off bad luck, so fireworks and gongs are rung and set off all night.

There are parades, featuring traditional lion and dragon dances and family feasts. Inviting ancestors who have passed on to join in the celebration is common; special ceremonies and rituals are involved.

 

Traditional food served on Tet consists of Vietnamese delicacies like sticky rice dumplings called banh chung, roasted watermelon seeds, pickled onions, and a wide variety of dried and sweetened fruit. At the end of Tet Nguyen Dan, elders hand out envelopes full of money to children both to reward good behavior and as a symbol of good luck.

 

Tet 2013 will celebrate the beginning of the Year of the Snake [like the Mesoamerican naga Quetzalcoatl], following the close of the Year of the Dragon and preceding the Year of the Horse. It is a traditional celebration full of joy remembering and showing respect to loved ones who have gone before.

• VIDEO: US War on Vietnam, "Tet Offensive"
• How to make a Tet Dragon (eHow.com)
• Thich Nhat Hanh Dharma talks: recent talks given by Thay from around the world with music and poetry for Tet.

Give up that foolish religion! (Self-reflection)

Thich Thien-An, Zen Philosophy, Zen Practice (IBMC.info via UrbanDharma.org) See PART I

A simple story shows the importance of self-reflection in daily life.

In ancient China there were many pious Buddhist families in which the religious life of Buddhism was shared by all its members.

But in more recent times a generation gap set in between parents and their children. The parents might be very devout Buddhists, while their children regarded them as old-fashioned and superstitious. 

In one such family the parents chanted sutras, practiced meditation, recited the name of the Buddha, and often went to the temple to hear Dharma-masters speak the Dharma and explain the discourses.

The son, however, would have none of these activities. He regarded Buddhism as a mass of superstition, ritual, and fantasy. He was interested only in science, technology, and the materialistic lures of modern life. 

The son continually pleaded with his parents to give up their Buddhist ideas. He criticized the concepts of Buddhist philosophy and mocked the practices in which his pious parents participated. 

One day, after his parents returned from temple, his father called his son to his room and spoke to him: "Son, it seems you are not happy to see your mother and me go to the Buddhist temple so often. You always criticize our religion. Would you like us to stop going to the temple?"

    

The son nodded his assent. "Well, I'll tell you something," the father continued, "we will never go to the temple again...." The son became excited [to hear it before the father continued:] "provided you could do for me one small favor. Are you willing to do it?"

 

"Oh yes, father, I would do anything to get you to throw off that religious nonsense." 

"Go to the store, and buy yourself a pencil and a small notebook. Then from today on, for the next week, I would like you to sit down for one hour a day, let your mind flow, and write down in the notebook every idea that comes into your mind -- every plan, every desire, every memory. The only thing I ask is that you do this honestly, with complete candor. Then come to me at the end of the week, and show me the notebook. Do you promise to do this?"

The son, thinking this an easy task, readily agreed. "You also keep your promise," he added. The father nodded. 

That night the son sat down at his desk and began to write. He wrote with complete honesty, not holding anything back. One moment this thought came into his mind, he wrote it down; the next moment that thought came into his mind, he wrote it down. He wrote down all his hopes and dreams and fantasies, all his desires and regrets and fears and memories. 

Thus he continued one hour each night for three nights. Then on the third night, as he lay on his bed, curiosity began to grow. He started to wonder what he had written the past few days. His curiosity grew stronger and stronger until he could not sleep. He jumped up and began to read. As he read through his notebook, a burning sense of shame overwhelmed him. He felt a pain gnaw at the heart as he poured through the pages he had written.

He thought of his mother and father and of their love for him, and all this provoked in him a disgust for his inward state of being, the state which he had candidly revealed in the pages of his notebook. 

Too ashamed to show the book to anyone, he threw it into the fire and watched over it until it was all consumed. Then he went to see his father. He found his father sitting in meditation before the Buddha altar in the shrine room. He entered and sat quietly behind him. After the father completed his meditation, he turned around and saw his son. 

Sensing that something was wrong, he asked: "What is the matter with you, son?" 

"You've won the game, father."

"What game?"

"Well," the son explained, "you asked me to write down all my thoughts and feelings an hour a day in a notebook. I kept my promise and did so honestly. Tonight I looked over my notebook and realized that I cannot show it to you. There are some thoughts and feelings I have that are just too private and of which I am too ashamed. Now I am aware that there is a great deal of imperfection in myself. I see that it is necessary to practice Buddhism to purify myself. Next time you go to the temple, please let me go with you."

This story clearly shows us the necessity for practicing meditation and cultivating the Way. Within the privacy of our minds pass many thoughts we would not reveal even to our closest friends and dearest loved ones: our minds are filled with dark tracks and shadows.

It is no solution to conceal these thoughts from others or from ourselves, for the impulses they spring from still remain and haunt us in the depths of our being. The only solution is to pursue the harmful thoughts to their roots in the heart/mind and extricate the roots. Then our minds will become pure and clear.

The first step in this process is to become aware of our faults. So long as we are blind to them, no self-cultivation can take place at all. For our passions, aversions, and delusions are the material upon which self-cultivation works. More

Buddha Nature and Self-Reflection

Thich Thien An, Zen Philosophy, Zen Practice, (IMBC.info via UrbanDharma.org) .See Part II

To know ourselves is first of all to know that our own true nature is the Buddha nature [our innate potential for enlightenment].

Just as the sun and moon are always shining but may not be visible because they are obscured by clouds and mist, so the Buddha nature is ever present within us, though it may not be apparent because it is covered over by the clouds of lust, hatred, and delusion.

To practice meditation is to remove the layers of clouds that conceal our true [potential] so that our Buddha nature may appear again, wonderful and radiant in its intrinsic [luminosity].

When the Buddha attained supreme enlightenment under the Bodhi tree, he laughed. Why? Because before he was enlightened he thought the truth he was seeking was something distant from himself. But when he achieved enlightenment, he realized that the truth he sought was nothing other than his true nature, which was ever with him before the beginning of time. 

The whole process of samsara, of [beginningless] wandering through the painful round of birth and death, [in a sense started] merely because he had lost sight of his original nature. But his true nature had never departed from him. And when he became enlightened, he discovered that is was ever present, only needing his recognition to become apparent. 

To illustrate this truth, the Buddha [is alleged by later writer to have] related the following story in the Lotus Sutra:

Once [upon a time] in India there lived a family which consisted of a man, his wife, and their son. The parents were very rich; they owned many acres of land and had a large sum of money in the [vault] and great quantities of gold and jewels. 

However, their son was not very intelligent. The parents often worried about what would happen to him after they died, for he was so simpleminded that they did not think him capable of managing his own affairs. Then one day the father had an idea.

He gave his son a precious jewel of inestimable value and told him to keep the jewel tied up in his clothes. He was never to take it out until they died. Only then could he remove it, sell it in the marketplace, and use the money he received to support himself. 

The son bore his father's words in mind and kept the promise. Then one day, as the years passed by, his father died; several years later his mother died, and the son came by his full inheritance.

In his ignorance, however, the young man foolishly squandered his wealth on fruitless pursuits. He sold the furniture, the houses, the rice fields, the granaries, and all else. But while he spent, he did not earn. Thus before he knew it, he found himself a poor man, without a penny to his name, without even a roof over his head. He was reduced to the state of a beggar, wandering from house to house and from town to town begging for his meals. 

Some days he got enough to eat, but on other days he got no food at all. One day, overcome by hunger and exhaustion, he lay down in the middle of the street, too weak and tired to move.

Just then a Buddhist monk walked down the street and saw the young man lying on the ground. The monk began to help the man to his feet when suddenly a wonderful precious jewel fell out of the shredded clothing.

"Why are you begging for food," the monk asked, "when all the time you have had this precious jewel? Go sell it, and use the money to support yourself." The young man was struck with wonder and amazement at seeing this jewel he had forgotten about for so long. He sold it in the market, and with the money he got for it he was able to buy back all his former possessions. 

Never again did he have to suffer from poverty. The young man in the story always carried the jewel with him. It was only because he had forgotten about it that he had to suffer from poverty, hunger, and disease. When he discovered that the jewel was always with him, he was able to wipe out all his troubles. 

In the same way, we always carry about within ourselves the precious jewel of the Buddha nature [our own potential to realize the highest knowledge]. But because of our ignorance we do not perceive it and so undergo the sufferings of birth and death.

But when suddenly we become enlightened, we realize the Buddha nature was with us from the very beginning, and thereby we wipe out all the afflictions that have troubled us since we began the [beginningless] round of birth and death.

The Buddha nature [which sounds an awful like Brahmanism's concept of a permanent soul, self, or essence (atman) transmigrating through samsara inherited by the Mahayana school] is not something distant: it is the bright and precious substance of our original mind.

But though the Buddha nature is present within us, we are not yet Buddhas. The reason we are not is because we are still victims of the ego-delusion. Our minds are continually dominated by a seemingly endless train of egocentric thoughts -- greed, attachment, anger, pride, envy, and passion.

Self-reflection not only awakens us to the immaculate Essence of Mind, abiding silently in the mind's depths, but also brings to our attention the hordes of deluded thoughts that clutter its surface. It is only by becoming cognizant of our Weaknesses through self-reflection that we can work to remove the roots from which they spring.

It is only by careful analysis of the functioning of our minds that we can discover in ourselves the negative factors which hinder enlightenment and the positive factors which are conducive to enlightenment.... More

Zen and Theravada interview (video)

Australia's Ajahn Brahm, Vietnam's Thich Thien Son on Buddhism (Pagoda Phat Hue)

Four Immeasurables: Brahma Viharas

Chenrezig (embodiment of compassion): Kalu Rinpoche said "one does not think of the deity's body as solid or material, made of flesh and blood like one's ordinary body, or made of metal or stone like an idol. One thinks of its appearance as inseparable from emptiness, like a rainbow or like a reflection in a mirror."

THE FOUR IMMEASURABLES
Also known as the Brahma Viharas (the "supreme" or "divine abidings"), the Four Immeasurable states are found in one brief and beautiful contemplation:

May all sentient beings have happiness and its causes,
May all sentient beings be free of suffering and its causes,
May all sentient beings be blissful without suffering,
May all sentient beings be equanimous, free of bias,

attachment, and anger.

Humorous talk by Kusala Bhikshu, August 2008*

The Buddha taught the following to his son Rahula, as related in "Old path white clouds" by Thich Nhat Hahn:

"Rahula, practice loving-kindness to overcome anger. Loving-kindness has the capacity to bring happiness to others without demanding anything in return. Practice compassion to overcome cruelty. Compassion has the capacity to remove the suffering of others without expecting anything in return.

"Practice sympathetic-joy [a.k.a., empathy] to overcome hatred. Sympathetic-joy arises when one rejoices over the happiness of others and wishes others well-being and success. Practice non-attachment to overcome prejudice. Non-attachment is the way of looking at all things openly and equally. This is because that is. Myself and others are not separate. Do not reject one thing only to chase after another.

I call these the Four Immeasurables. Practice them and you will become a refreshing source of vitality and happiness for others." (To meditate on these, see List of Sample Meditations).

LOVE

One definition of love in Buddhism is "wanting others to be happy." This love is unconditional and it requires a lot of courage and acceptance (including self-acceptance). The "near enemy" of love, or a quality which appears similar, but is more an opposite is conditional-love (selfish love, see also attachment). The opposite is wanting others to be unhappy -- anger, hatred. A result which one needs to avoid is attachment.

This definition means that "love" in Buddhism refers to something quite different from the ordinary term of love, which is usually about attachment, more or less successful relationships and sex, all of which are rarely without self-interest.

Instead, love in Buddhism refers to detachment and an unselfish interest in others' welfare.

"Even offering three hundred bowls of food three times a day does not match the spiritual merit gained in one moment of love" -- Nagarjuna.

"If there is love, there is hope that one may have real families, real brotherhood, real equanimity, real peace. If the love within your mind is lost and you see other beings as enemies, then no matter how much knowledge or education or material comfort you have, only suffering and confusion will ensue" -- the Dalai Lama from The little book of Buddhism.

COMPASSION

The definition of compassion is wanting others to be free from suffering. It happens when one feels sorry with someone, and one feels an urge to help. The near enemy of it is pity, which keeps others at an emotional distance, without the urge to help. The opposite is wanting others to suffer, or cruelty. Another result one needs to avoid is sentimentality. Compassion thus refers to an unselfish, detached emotion that gives one a sense of urgency in wanting to help others.

From a Buddhist perspective, helping others to reduce their physical or mental suffering is very good, but the ultimate goal is to extinguish all suffering by stopping the process of rebirth and the suffering that automatically comes with conditioned living (enlightenment).

The attitude of a so-called Bodhisattva is Bodhicitta [bodhi = "enlightenment," citta = "mind"]. This is the ultimate compassionate motivation, the wish to liberate all sentient beings from the suffering of cyclic existence. Therefore, one wishes to become a fully enlightened Buddha oneself in order to act as the perfect guide for them. (See compassion).

SYMPATHETIC JOY

The definition of empathy is being happy with someone else's good fortune/happiness. Sympathetic joy here refers to the potential of bliss and happiness of all sentient beings, as they can all become Buddhas. The near enemy is hypocrisy or affectation. The opposite is jealousy, when one cannot accept the happiness of others. A result that one needs to avoid is spaced-out bliss, which can easily turn into laziness. Note that sympathetic joy is a great antidote to depression as well, but this is not the main goal. By rejoicing in others' progress on the spiritual path, one can actually share in their positive karma. Sympathetic joy is an unselfish, very positive mental attitude beneficial for oneself and others. In this case, it also refers specifically to rejoicing in the high rebirth and enlightenment of others.

EQUANIMITY

The definition is not to distinguish between friend, enemy, or stranger, but instead to regard every sentient-being as equal. It is a clear minded, tranquil state of mind -- not being overpowered by delusions, mental dullness, or agitation.

The near enemy is indifference. It is tempting to think that "not caring" is equanimity, but that is just a form of egotism.

The opposite is anxiety, worry, stress, and paranoia caused by dividing people into "good" and "bad." One can worry forever if a good friend may not be a bad person after all, thus spoiling trust and friendship. A result to be avoided is apathy as a result of "not caring" enough.

.

Equanimity is the basis for unconditional, altruistic love, compassion, and joy over others' happiness and Bodhicitta. When there is discrimination between friends and enemies, how can one ever help all sentient-beings? Equanimity is an unselfish, detached state of mind that also prevents one from doing negative actions.

If one tries to befriend an enemy for even a moment, that person becomes a friend. The same thing occurs when one treats a friend as an enemy. Therefore, by understanding the impermanence of temporal relations, wise ones are never attached to food, clothing, reputation, or to friends and enemies.

"The father becomes the son in another life, mother becomes the wife, enemy becomes friend; it always changes. Therefore, there is nothing definite in Samsara" -- the Buddha.

The foundation for practicing the seven-point cause and effect method is cultivating a mind of equanimity. Without this foundation one is unable to have an impartial, altruistic view, because without equanimity one is always partial towards relatives and friends. Realizing that it is better to be without prejudice, hatred, or desire towards enemies, friends, or neutral persons, thus lay a very firm foundation of equanimity -- the Dalai Lama, from Path to Bliss: A Practical Guide to Stages of Meditation.

It is said that the awareness of a Buddha is completely even, like the ocean, taking in equally the joys and sorrows of all people, friends, loved ones, relatives, and those never met. This is the meaning of a statement made by so many of the world's great spiritual teachers, "Love your enemy." It does not mean love the person you hate. One cannot do that. Love those who hate you (from Buddhism with an Attitude: The Tibetan Seven-Point Mind-Training).

• Read more

*Urban Dharma: Kusala Bhikshu (http://www.dharmatalks.info/) is an American born Buddhist monk living in Los Angeles, California. He shares his understanding of Buddhism in a simple, non-technical way through stories, humor, and personal insights. He spoke on the Four Immeasurables at the One Spirit Center for Conscious Living in Simi Valley, CA on 8/4/08.

• More information: http://www.kusala.info/
• Free EBooks on Buddhism: http://www.buddhabooks.info/
• Video (2 min video "The Fly" on meditation): http://www.dharmatube.org/

A Buddhist Who's Who

Buddhists Numbers Around the World
VipassanaFoundation.com

The number of Buddhists around the world is grossly underestimated. The statistics found in nearly all encyclopedias and almanacs place the number of Buddhists at approximately 500 million. This figure completely ignores over one billion Chinese people who live in the People's Republic of China.

China is officially communist (although many free market conditions are already in place) and does not keep records on religion statistics of adherents. Moreover, many Western reference sources refuse to accept that a person can belong to more than one religion. In Asia it is quite common for one person to have two, three, or more religions. In China, it is common for a family to have a shrine in their home with statues and icons from Buddhism, Daoism, and Confucianism.

Currently there are about 1.3 billion Chinese living in the People's Republic. Surveys (Gach-Alpha Books, U.S. State Dept. report on China, Global Center for the Study of Contemporary China, BBC News, China Daily, and a report by Christian missionaries in China) have found that about 8% to 91% identify with Buddhism as one of their religions.

If we use a percent near the upper end of this estimate, of about 80% it works out to about 1.1 billion Chinese Buddhists. To ignore over one billion people as if they do not count is a terrible miscount and very misleading in the reporting of adherents. The famous line says it best: “One billion Chinese cannot be wrong.” A Chinese Buddhist forum (bskk.com) currently has over 50,000 registered members and almost 2 million posts, which is about triple the amount of the largest English language Buddhist forum (which also has Chinese Buddhists participating in the discussions). But to be fair, a more conservative estimate is also shown... Read more

• See descriptions of such notables as:

Hotei -- (the chubby restaurant good luck charm) commonly confused with the historical "Buddha"
Medicine Buddha -- a being in heaven who heals
Amitabha Buddha -- a semi-legendary figure who presides over the Western Pure Land (Mahayana)
Kwan Yin -- the goddess of compassion, a divine feminine figure, a rebirth of the bodhisattva Avolikiteshvara, a monk from a previous aeon who chose to be reborn as a beautiful woman to convince a king to become a Buddhist
Maya Devi -- the historical Buddha's mother
Tara -- mother of liberation, a goddess in the Mahayana tradition and is especially venerated in vajrayana (Tibetan) Buddhism

Sariputra -- the first chief male disciple of the Buddha, "foremost in wisdom"
Moggallana -- a chief disciple, with dark skin, "foremost in supernormal powers"
King Asoka -- reigned over a vast kingdom in present-day India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iran, who renounced violence after becoming a Buddhist
Sujata -- the woman who offered food to Siddhartha just before he became the Buddha
Maha Pajapati Gotami -- the Buddha's stepmother, the first Buddhist nun, and an arahant
Khema -- the beautiful and wise, a nun who became enlightened and "foremost in wisdom"
Dhammadinna -- an enlightened nun who surpassed her husband in spiritual progress, who while giving a Dharma talk was praised by the Buddha
Sanghamitta -- daughter of King Ashoka, a nun who spread the Sangha outside of India (to Sri Lanka)
Nagarjuna -- Indian philosopher and founder of the Middle Path school famous for later Buddhist works

C.A.F. Rhys Davids -- born a Christian in England, decided to learn Pali and the teachings of the Buddha in an attempt to disprove Buddhism, dedicated her life to translating the discourses, second president of the Pali Text Society (wife of Thomas Rhys Davids, whose translations spread Buddhism to many western nations
Anagarika Dharmapala -- the translator for the first Theosophists, Madame Blavatsky and Col. Olcott; restored Mahabodhi temple complex which was left in ruins leading to a Buddhist resurgence (in 1900 there may have been 1,000 Western-born Buddhists at best, whereas today there are over 10 million
Dipa Ma -- taught vipassana from her small home in India, mastered the jhanas of Theravada meditation, and taught famous American Buddhist such as Sharon Salzberg, Joseph Goldstein, and Jack Kornfield
Ajahn Chah -- famous Thai forest meditation teacher
Ayya Khema -- (pictured with Pema Chodron and Gesshin Myoko) born in Germany, she was one of the first Western-born women to receive full ordination as a Buddhist nun, thus reviving the Buddhist Order of nuns, wrote several bestselling books and opened monasteries in Australia, Sri Lanka, and Europe
Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar -- father of the Indian Constitution and Dalit Buddhist Movement to end the caste system
S. N. Goenka -- perhaps the most famous lay Buddhist in modern times, founder of a worldwide vipassana retreat organization centered around a 10-day insight technique with courses on nearly every continent
Thich Nhat Hanh -- a socially-engaged, Vietnamese Zen monk, and peace activist who opened monasteries around the world
Bhante Henepola Gunaratana ("Bhante G") -- founder and abbot of the Bhavana Society in West Virginia, USA, who pushed for bhikkhuni reinstatement and who personally ordained many women
Ruth Denison -- studied in Burma in the 1960’s with Goenka's teacher, Sayagi U Ba Khin, and has been teaching since 1973, founder of Dhamma Dena in Joshua Tree, California and The Center for Buddhism in the West in Germany, who uses movement, music, rhythm, chanting, and sound as meditation supports
The 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso -- the world's most famous living Buddhist, exiled from Tibet to Dharamsala, India due to Chinese aggression, Nobel peace laureate, and chief advocate of Vajrayana Buddhist tradition
Bhikkhu Bodhi -- born Jeffrey Block in New York, perhaps the most signifcant living American translator today, editor and president of the Buddhist Publication Society, famous for his clarity, acumen, and scholarship
Bhikkhuni Dhammananda -- Thai woman who received full bhikkhuni (nun's) ordination, professor of Buddhist philosophy, and current abbess of the only temple in Thailand with fully ordained nuns
Ven. Karuna Dharma -- born in Wisconsin, USA, abbess of International Buddhist Meditation Center in Los Angeles, who runs a unique temple that has monastics from Theravada, Zen, Vajrayana, and Mahayana traditions, robed crusader in the ordination of at least 50 women as fully ordained nuns
Jan Willis -- born in Alabama, USA, one of the first Western-born scholar-practitioners of Tibetan Buddhism whose translations made scriptures available to Westerners, now a professor of religion at Wesleyan University
Bhikkhuni Kusuma -- who pioneered the re-establishment of the Theravada female Buddhist Order in Sri Lanka 1000 years after the Order died out
Maha Upasika Bongkot -- a lay woman with a very large retreat center in Shravasti, India, and another in Thailand, run by 8-precept, semi-monastic men and women who do socially engaged work and are vegetarian
Bhikkhu Buddharakkhita -- born in Uganda (East Africa), who studied with various masters in India, Burma, and the US and was ordained by the late Burmese monk Sayadaw U Silananda, founder of the first Buddhist Center in Uganda, Africa
Shravasti Dhammika -- born in Australia and ordained as a Theravada monk in India, writere who made books available to read completely online at no cost, such as Buddhism A to Z and books on pilgrimage to Buddhist sites, advocating a united "Buddhayana" school
Dr. Gotami (Prem Suskawat, M.D.) -- American born doctor showing how Buddhist teachings can be integrated with Western psychotherapy to treat social ills

Aung San Suu Kyi -- Burmese Democracy leader, unjustly continues to be kept under house arrest by totalitarian government, advocate of nonviolence, and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate (1991)