Don't argue on the way to enlightenment

Ven. Thanissaro (trans.) edited by Dhr. Seven, Ellie Askew, Pat Macpherson, Wisdom Quarterly

The Buddha's human form (Gandhara)

"Some Brahmins and wandering ascetics, living off food [alms] donated in faith [saddha, confidence, conviction], are addicted to debates such as these:

• 'You think you understand this Dharma and Discipline [Doctrine and Monastic Rules]?'
• 'I'm the one who understands this Dharma and Discipline!'
• 'How could you understand this Dharma and Discipline?'
• 'You're practicing wrongly. I'm practicing rightly.'
• 'I'm being consistent. You're not.'
• 'What should be said first you said last. What should be said last you said first.'
• 'What you took so long to think up [to hammer out by mere reasoning] has been refuted.'
• 'Your position has been overthrown. You're defeated.'
• 'Go and try to salvage your view; extricate yourself if you can!'

"One abstains from debates such as these. This, too, is part of one's virtue (sila)."

"Meditators, do not wage word-related warfare, saying:

• 'You don't understand this Dharma and Discipline. I understand this Dharma and Discipline!'
• 'How could you understand it? You have fallen into wrong practices: I have the right practice!'
• 'You have said afterwards what you should have said first, and you have said first what you should have said afterwards!'
• 'What I say is consistent, whereas what you say isn't!'
• 'What you have thought out for so long is entirely reversed!'
• 'Your statement is refuted!'
• 'You are talking rubbish!'
• 'You are in the wrong!'
• 'Get out of that if you can!'

"Why should one not do this? Such talk, meditators, is not related to the goal [of enlightenment and final liberation from all suffering, bodhi and nirvana]. It is not fundamental to the spiritual life [of intensive practice], does not conduce to disenchantment [letting go], dispassion, cessation, tranquility, higher wisdom, enlightenment, or to nirvana.

"When you have discussions, meditators, you should instead discuss disappointment [dukkha or suffering], the arising [origination] of disappointment, the cessation of disappointment, and the path that leads to the cessation of disappointment.

• [NOTE: These are the Four Ennobling Truths that when pursued lead to the "noble" state or that of enlightenment, liberation, and complete freedom.]

"Why is that? It is because such talk is related to the goal... it conduces to disenchantment... to nirvana. This is the task you must accomplish."

Q&A: When is one a "Buddhist"?

Than Ajahn via Ven. Sujato, Ellie Askew, Dhr. Seven (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly

Question: At what point does one call oneself a “Buddhist”?

Than Ajahn’s [“venerable monk’s”] answer: A “Buddhist” is someone who only follows the teachings of the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha [the Enlightened One, Enlightened Teaching, Enlightened Taught].

If there are other teachings that contradict the teachings of the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha, we don’t follow them. Then, we become “Buddhists.”

• [Teachings that harmonize rather than contradict the historical Buddha’s teachings are no problem.]

The teachings of the Buddha teach the law of karma — that we are good or bad determined by our own actions of body, speech, and mind. If we want to be good, keep doing good actions [wholesome karma] of the body, speech, and mind and we’ll be happy.

If there are other teachings that contradict these teachings, we don’t follow them; we only follow the teachings of the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha — for this is what it means to take the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha as one’s guides.

• [NOTE: “Going for guidance” or Tisarana is frequently mistranslated as “going for refuge,” but “refuge" has terrible connotations and is a faulty translation of sarana].

“Guidance” means to let someone lead us. We are like the blind [i.e., unenlightened]. We need good vision to lead us to a place where it is safe.

The Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha have good vision [enlightened vision]. They know a place where it’s safe and secure [free of all suffering]. If we follow these teachings, then we will eventually get to that secure place.

Is any man an island, a refuge unto himself?

Ajahn Chah, “Dharma in English,” 10/31/18; Dhr. Seven (ed.), Ellie Askew, Wisdom Quarterly

QUESTION: Can Ajahn elaborate on what it means by taking [guidance from] refuge in the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha? I read that one should be one's own refuge [guide, lamp, island], so what's the difference?

Than Ajahn's ANSWER: Taking guidance from refuge in Buddha, Dharma, Sangha means we take the Triple Gem [The Three Jewels of the Enlightened Teacher, the Enlightened Teaching, and the Enlightened Taught] as our teacher.

Before we can teach ourselves, we need someone to guide us because in the beginning we don’t know what we should do. So we need a teacher to instruct us on what to do. We need the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha as our guide refuge, as our teacher.

Once we have learned from the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha [and awakened to the ultimate liberating-truth] and know what we are supposed to do, then we have to be our own guide refuge. 

We have to apply what we have learned ourselves, because the Buddha cannot do it for us; the Sangha [enlightened community of those who have directly realized the liberating truth for themselves] cannot do it for us; we have to do it ourselves.

So this is what it means by taking ourselves as our own guide refuge: We have to do the practice ourselves. So we need both. We need to take guidance from refuge in the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha as our teacher, and we need to be our own guide refuge as a practitioner.

Transcending the World

Ajahn Suchart Abhijāto (phrasuchart.com); Ellie Askew, Dhr. Seven (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly

People are born with physical form and [formless] mind. In the beginning these things are born [arise], in the middle they change [are altered, decay, crumble], and in the end they vanish.

This is ordinary; this is their nature. We can not do much to alter these facts. We train our minds as we can, and when the time comes, we have to let go of it all.

It is beyond the ability of humans to change this or get beyond it. The Dharma that the Buddha taught is something to be applied while we are here, for making deeds, words, and thoughts [collectively called our karma or our "actions"] correct and proper.

The Buddha or the "Enlightened One" was teaching the minds/hearts of people so that they would not be deluded in regard to nature, conventional reality, and supposition. This unparalleled teacher instructed us to see the world [directly and free of distortion].

His Dharma is a teaching that is above and beyond the world. We are in the world. We were born into this world. He taught us to transcend the world rather than being a prisoner of worldly ways and habits.

It is like a diamond that falls into the mud. No matter how much dirt and filth covers it, that [mud] does not destroy its radiance, its hues, and its value. Even though mud is stuck to it, the diamond does not lose anything. It is just as it originally was.

There are two separate things. So the Buddha taught us to rise above the world, which means knowing the world clearly. By "the world" he did not mean so much this earth and sky and the elements, but rather the mind, the wheel of rebirth (saṃsāra), within the hearts of people.

He meant this wheel, this world [this endless wandering on in search of satisfaction -- clouded in ignorance, baited by sensual and other desires for fulfillment through objects that cannot fulfill us, and motivated by aversion and frustration by things we don't like].

This is the world the Buddha knew clearly; when we talk about knowing the world clearly, we are talking about these things.

If it were otherwise, the Buddha would have had to be flying everywhere to "know the world clearly." It is not like that. It is a single point.

All things (dhammas, phenomena) come down to one single point. For instance people -- which means males and females -- if we observe one man and one woman, we know the nature of all people in the universe. They are not that different.

Ajahn Brahm: Great Causes Sutra (video)

Ajahn Brahm May 8, 2016, May 7, 2016; Ellie Askew, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

DN 15: The Great Discourse on Causation

(Buddhist Society of Western Australia) Ajahn Brahm, a British Theravada Buddhist monk trained in Thailand in the Forest Tradition lineage of his teacher, Ajahn Chah, talks about "dependent origination" (paticca-samuppada) through the complex Maha-Nidana Sutta or "The Great Discourse on Causation" (Part 1). It is found in "the Collection of Longer Discourses" or Digha Nikaya.

Montezuma Castle and Well (video)

Enigmatic Montezuma Castle and Well

(Ancient Architects, March 25, 2020) SEDONA, Arizona - Nestled in a hollow on the face of a cliff in Camp Verde, Arizona -- just outside Sedona in the Southwest United States -- is an ancient structure known as Montezuma Castle.

Ancient Architects investigates. The Native American structure was built and used by the peaceful Sinagua Indians, a pre-Columbian (pre-European invasion, occupation, and genocide) people, between 110 and 1425 AD.

(Huck Outdoors) Montezuma Well national monument, Arizona sightseeing

The central structure is comprised of five stories with about 45 to 60 rooms. It was built over the course of three centuries. The naming of the structure is incorrect, because Emperor Montezuma was an Aztec from Mexico, and this area was formerly Mexico as was California and most of the Southwest USA.

When Europeans first observed the ruins in the 1860s, they thought the structure was connected to the Aztecs, possibly the home of the emperor. At that time the structure was long-abandoned and even though we now know a lot more about its history, the name has stuck.

• Official government website for Montezuma (nps.gov)

Of course, it has no connection to the Aztecs, and archaeologists now know that the structure was actually abandoned 40 years before Emperor Montezuma was even born. It’s also not technically a "castle" but a prehistoric high-rise apartment complex.

It is situated 90 feet up a sheer limestone cliff that faces Beaver Creek and Montezuma Well, a mysterious spring and sinkhole. It is one of the best-preserved cliff dwellings in North America because it was built inside a natural alcove with minimal exposure to the elements.

The construction project was incredible, being a precarious location to build, together with the huge floor space over its five stories. This is no easy construction but the work of daring builders and skilled engineers. Google search images used only for educational purposes.

Egyptian mysteries make hair stand on end

(Viper Studios, March 7, 2020) Ancient Egypt was a land of mysteries. No other known civilization has so captured the imagination of scholars and lay persons alike.

Mystery surrounds its origins, its ritual practices and superstitions, and its monumental architecture: colossal pyramids, temples, and an enormous Sphinx.

The Egyptian pyramids -- though not the largest (for the Mexican pyramid at Cholula gets that honor, though Bosnia and other places around the world may have older and larger ones) -- are the most famous of all ancient monuments, the only remaining wonder of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

Just as life arose from the waters, the seeds of civilization were first sown along the banks of the river Nile. That mighty river, which flows north from the heart of Africa to the Mediterranean Sea, nourished the growth of the land of the pharaohs.

The long, narrow flood plain was a magnet for life, attracting people, flora, and fauna to its banks. In pre-dynastic times, nomadic hunter-gatherers settled in the valley and began to grow crops to supplement their food supply.

Seen as a gift from the gods (devas, powerful space visitors), the annual flooding of the river deposited nutrient-rich silt over the land, creating ideal conditions for growing wheat, flax, and other crops. The first communal project of this fledgling society was the building of irrigation canals for agricultural purposes.

The Sun (Ra) was a principal deity whose passage across the sky represented the eternal cycle of birth, death, rebirth, and redeath. The pharaohs were seen as divine -- hybrid human-gods -- representatives on earth who, through rituals, ensured the continuation of life. After death, they ascended and became immortal, joining the gods in other dimensions of the afterworld.

Buddhist stupa in Sedona, Arizona (video)

Our Journey in Myles, Ep. 39, Dec. 23, 2018, Xochitl, Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Sacred Buddhist reliquary and Peace Park

The Native American medicine wheel on sacred land in Sedona, Arizona is amazing. Sedona is well known for its energy vortices, but Mark and I explored another place that was just as powerful. Thanks to James A. for pointing out the Buddha Amitabha Stupa and Peace Park. It's lovely when viewers suggest a fantastic place to see for everyone to experience. The stupais a Buddhist shrine and a "must see" for spiritual seekers coming to Sedona from around the world. A smaller adjacent Goddess Tara stupa is a place for powerful meditation, prayer, intention setting, and healing. Communing with the gorgeous pine trees and colorful stones, nestled among the mountains and gorge related to the world-famous Grand Canyon to the north, this place is absolutely peaceful. Being together with people of like minds while here is a powerful and transforming experience all by itself. The stupa or reliquary is located in West Sedona in the Peace Park. It is terminus of a dedicated road in a neighborhood that borders one of the mountain ranges.

OJiM (Our Journey in Myles) is a channel for fun, exploring, and sharing the wonders of full-time RV travel. Sue and Jim are not experts but are learning as they go. They are sharing their newbie experiences in a Class A motorhome they have named “Myles" and encourage everyone to do their own research, develop their own special style, and become a traveller or 5th wheel. Each journey begins by learning from many RV vloggers.

Guide to Enlightenment: Why Meditation?

Model (naadam.co); Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

What is "meditation"? It is the misleading translation of the Buddhist term bhavana. In English, to meditate means to revolve or turn in mind, in essence, to contemplate.

But meditation first means easing into absorption, the levels of "right concentration" or profound samadhi.

Purifying concentration forms the foundation of insight-meditation or vipassana, the unique means the historical Buddha taught to gain liberation from all disappointment.

Meditation, a collective term for Buddhist liberation practices, is better translated as "cultivation," development of the mind and heart or consciousness and compassion.

Earliest human form of the Buddha

At the monastic complex (vihara) a better question than "Do you meditate?" is, What is your kammatthana, your "field of endeavor," that thing you're developing with a meditation subject.

First we were cultivating virtue for concentration, which purifies the mind and heart. With concentration, virtue becomes easier. Both support insight because a pure mind becomes happy, and a happy mind soon becomes attentive and concentrated (undistracted).

Such a wieldy mind, taking a single object of concentration, becomes absorbed. Emerging from that, purified and full of zest, one turns to the insight practices.

What is the gradual path of progress?

For mental absorptions only temporarily purify consciousness. With the addition of insight-meditation practices, there may come a sudden awakening to the Truth.

That is the first stage of enlightenment called stream entry -- entering the stream that leads invariably to full enlightenment within seven lives. Such an awakening to Truth is born of practicing dependent origination through mindfulness exercises.

The Buddha gave gradual instruction in sutras or discourses. This description of the path to enlightenment and nirvana is the essence of that instruction, a grand overview. What are the practical details?

At home in Afghanistan (ancient Scythia)

For those, find a good teacher solidly based in the original teachings (the Dhamma) of the historical Buddha, known as Shakyamuni (the "Sage of Shakyas" or Scythians) born Prince Siddhartha Gautama.

Sila, bhavana, and prajna refer to virtue, which leads to the removal of remorse and worry, cultivation, which leads to bringing many beneficial things (kusala karma) into being (like mindfulness, profound learning (suta), and purifying concentration), and liberating wisdom.

If ignorance is the greatest problem, wisdom is the key to enlightenment, to awakening from all our worries and disappointments.

Saving Mes Aynak ("Shakya Land," Scythia)

The Buddha imagines the unimaginable (math!)

Robert Krulwich, Krulwich on Science, October 12, 2010 (National Public Radio, npr.org); Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Pat Macpherson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Ezra Block's golden Buddha (iStockphoto.com via npr.org)

 

It's not easy thinking about the smallest things in nature. We can think, There's a pebble. There's a grain of sand. There's a speck.

But when we get below speck-level, to cells and molecules and atoms which can't be seen, thinking about the smallest scales is a deeply intellectual exercise.

And one of the great champions of nano-scale thinking turns out to be, of all people, the Buddha!

That’s him, in the center, sitting cross-legged and wearing a princely hat. He astounds the gathered crowd with his knowledge of math and numbers, his fingers poised as he counts units of the infinitely large and small (Bhante Anandajoti).

.

My friend Ezra Block read about the Buddha's special abilities in a book called The Universal History of Numbers by Georges Ifrah. And we've been exchanging notes:

Robert Krulwich: So tell me the story.

Ezra Block: Georges Ifrah tells a tale about the Buddha [the Scythian Prince Siddhartha Gautama who renounced the world to gain enlightenment] that comes from an ancient text known as the "Lalitavistara Sutra" (basically a collection of "did you hear about the time he...?" stories), which recounts how the Buddha [prior to enlightenment while still a prince] had to compete with other suitors for the hand of Gopa.

Krulwich: Gopa is a lady he likes?

Block: Gopa is lady he likes a lot. But Gopa's dad didn't want his daughter to marry just anyone, so he set up a competition. Those wishing to wed Gopa were required to perform all sorts of artistic, athletic, and mental feats in order to prove their worthiness.

Krulwich: Like...?

Block: Like archery contests, physical competition, and yes, mathematics.

Krulwich: Wasn't he some kind of prince?

Block: Oh yes. He was called Prince Siddhartha. And even as princes go, he was in a special class. Buddhist stories pump him to be superhuman -- from conception and birth and throughout his entire life.

Krulwich: So tell me about the math competition...

Block: Well there's this episode about a counting contest between [Prince Siddhartha before he was] the Buddha and a mathematician named Arjuna, where the prince is asked to calculate both a very big number and, yes, a very, very small number.

Krulwich: Is that hard?

Block: Well, the small problem was to count the number of -- I guess you could call them -- atoms [called kalapas in Buddhist physics], the smallest possible unit, in a yojana [a measure of distance usually considered about seven miles].

Krulwich: What's a yojana?

Block: According to Alex Bellos, a journalist who included this tale in his new book Here's Looking at Euclid, a yojana is an ancient unit of length equivalent to around 10 kilometers.

Krulwich: So the question is, roughly, How many atoms are there in a line 10 kilometers long?

Block: Kind of. And here, courtesy of the ancient texts, is his solution:

• A yojana, the Buddha said, is equivalent to 4 krosha,
• each of which was the length of 1,000 arcs,
• each of which was the length of 4 cubits,
• each of which was the length of 2 spans,
• each of which was the length of 12 phalanges of [the] fingers,
• each of which was the length of 7 grains of barley,
• each of which was the length of 7 mustard seeds,
• each of which was the length of 7 particles of dust stirred up by a cow,
• each of which was the length of 7 specks of dust disturbed by a ram,
• each of which was the length of 7 specks of dust stirred up by a hare,
• each of which was the length of 7 specks of dust carried away by the wind,
• each of which was the length of 7 tiny specks of dust,
• each of which was the length of 7 minute specks of dust,
• each of which was the length of 7 particles of the first atoms.

So here's the neat part. According to Alex Bellos, it turns out the [future] Buddha's calculation got the size of an atom very close to right! This was, in fact, a pretty good estimate. Just say that a finger is 4 centimeters long. The Buddha's "first atoms" are, therefore, 4 centimeters divided by 7 ten times, which is 0.04 meter times 7 to the minus 10 or 0.00000000001416 meter, which is more or less the size of a carbon atom.

Krulwich: Wow!

Block: Well, remember, this is a legend, so I wouldn't like fall on my knees or anything...

Krulwich: But still...

Block: Maybe the neat thing here lies in the notion that the civilization that gave rise to Buddhism [Scythia and proto-India in the country of Magadha] was also the same civilization and [Indus Valley Civilization] culture that had a thing for and a means to express -- usefulness aside -- infinitely large and small numbers.

A number describing the size of a carbon atom would be meaningless in a society that had no notion of atoms or building blocks of that scale. Here's a group of ancient people (ancient Indians) trying not only to comprehend the infinite but somehow thought it important to name so many divisions of infinitely large and small.

• [NOTE: The Vedas or ancient sacred texts of the Indus Valley Civilization held sacred in modern India did have a concept of the atom, the smallest indivisible unit, which they later taught the ancient Greeks in Bactria, Sogdiana, and Scythia. A kalapa or Buddhist "particle," however, is not quite as we imagine, just as the atom is not. It is materiality expressed by the Four Elements (maha dhatu) referred to as ancient categories of earth, fire, water, and air -- which are, in fact, the qualities or characteristics of solidity, temperature, cohesion, movement, and so on. See Four Elements Meditation by the enlightened living Buddhist teacher Ven. Pa-Auk Sayadaw for direct comprehension of these personally verifiable facts; it is not mere theory.]

Krulwich: So why did they do it?

Block: I don't know. Maybe this is where poetry meets mathematics? The act of dividing has a kind of mystery. And beauty.

Krulwich: Maybe. When you go below atomic size and get down to quarks, you drop off the periodic table and start playing with James Joyce who coined the word "quark." I think we should stop here.

Ezra: The Buddha [when he was still but a very bright Scythian prince in Shakya Land] did. More

Yoga: Namaste Awards, Kornfield & Goodman

The YGB (Yoga Gives Back) Namaste Award is a tribute to visionaries who inspire the global yoga community and beyond with their vision.

In addition, these individuals have committed themselves to humanitarian causes to make this world a better place.

YGB is proud to honor Buddhist meditation teachers Jack Kornfield (spiritrock.org) and Trudy Goodman (insightla.org) as the recipients of the 2020 YGB Namaste Award.

Kornfield and Goodman will offer a guided meditation and Dharma talk with a Q&A. More: ygbglobalgala2020.thinkific.com

insightLA special events and series

Dr. Trudy Goodman (insightLA.org); Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation), Wisdom Quarterly

Insight Dialogue: Awakening to the Heart of Compassion with Trudy Goodman, PhD, Dhammananda Bhikkhuni, and Cindy Rasicot

Wednesday, November 18, 2020 | 7:00 PM - 8:15 PM PT

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