Rebirth can't be real! We'd remember!

Maybe reincarnation was real. But, then, why don't we remember all our past lives?!

(The Journey to Awakening) If rebirth is real, why don't we remember our past lives?

Rebirth is real

Narrating Karma and Rebirth (Naomi Appleton)

Punabhava (lit. "again becoming," "rebecoming," "renewed existence") is a sutra term for "rebirth," which in later literature mostly is referred to as patisandhi (defined below).

The attainment of full enlightenment (arahatta), implying the end of all suffering and any further rebirths, is often expressed in the words: Natthi 'dāni punabbhavo, "this is the last birth. Now there is no further renewed becoming" (M. 26; D. 15; Therag. 87, 339; Sn. 502).

The term is often linked with abhinibbatti (re- "arising" or "appearance"). It is said, āyatim punabbhavābhinibbatti: "But how, O Brother, does it come to renewed existence and arising in the future?"

"Because beings, obstructed by ignorance and fettered by craving, find ever fresh delight now here, now there, for this reason there is renewed existence and arising in the future" (MN 43). (See also S.XII. 38).

Abhinibbatti also stands sometimes alone in signifying "rebirth" (e.g., in A. VI, 61; X, 65). Compare how in the second noble truth, the adjective ponobhavika means "leading to renewed existence." (See A. III, 76; Sn. 163, 273, 514, 733; S. VII, 12; X, 3). Source

The relinking consciousness

Karma, Rebirth, and Samsara (BPS.lk)

In detailing the reality of rebirth, the Buddha used the term patisandhi (lit. "relinking" or "reunion") consciousness, which is one of the 14 "functions [in the impersonal process] of consciousness" (viññāna-kicca).

Patisandhi is a karma-resultant type of consciousness that arises at the moment of conception, that is, with the forming of new life in the mother's womb.

Immediately afterwards, this consciousness (citta, "mind moment") sinks into the subconscious stream of existence (bhavanga-sota), where it is conditioned. Thereby, corresponding states of subconsciousness arise. Therefore, it is really this rebirth-consciousness that determines the latent character of a person.

Technically and in an ultimate sense, "neither has this [rebirth-] consciousness transmigrated [traveled] from the previous existence to this present existence, nor did it arise without such conditions as karma, karma-formations (sankhara), propensity, object, and so on.

That this consciousness has not come from the previous existence to this present existence -- has not traveled from one life to another -- yet that it has come into existence by means of causes and conditions included in the previous rebirth such as karma and so on may be illustrated by various similes.

An echo, the light of a lamp, the impression of a seal, [a wave on the ocean, electrons in electrical current], and the image produced by a mirror, all of which are reflections, correspond to causes and conditions without being identical to them.

One does not travel to become the other, though it certainly appears that way. Conventionally speaking, of course, we may even say this is what happens as a shorthand, but closer inspection reveals that that is an illusion, a misunderstanding, or an oversimplification of the process actually taking place.

Just as the resounding of an echo is conditioned by an initial sound and so on, nowhere does a transmigration of sound take place. It is just so with this consciousness.

Furthermore, it is said: "In this continuous process, no sameness and no otherness can be found." For if there were full identity (between the different stages), then milk could never turn into curd, whereas if there were complete otherness, then curd could never come from milk....

If in a continuity of existence [a passing from one life to another] any karmic result takes place, then this karmic result neither belongs to any other being, nor does it come from any other [karma], because absolute sameness and otherness are excluded here (The Path of Purification, VisM, XVII 164ff).

In the Questions of King Menander (Mil.), it is said:

"Now, Venerable Nāgasena, the one who is reborn, is that the same as the one who has died or is that another?"

"Neither the same nor another" (na ca so na ca añño).

"Please give me an example, Ven. Nagasena."

"O, king, how do you see it: are you now, as a grown-up person, the same who you had been as a little young and tender babe?"

"No, venerable sir. Another person was the little young and tender babe, but quite a different person am I now as a grown-up man."...

Edgar Cayce returned as David Wilcock

"Is perhaps in the first watch of the night one [flame of a] lamp burning, another one in the middle watch, and yet another one in the last watch?"

"No, venerable sir. The flame [continuous light] during the whole night depends on one and the same lamp.''

"O, king, it is just so with the chain of phenomena linked together. One phenomenon arises, another vanishes, yet all are linked together [in unbroken continuity], one after the other, without interruption. In this way one reaches the final state of consciousness neither as the same person nor as another person.''

Divisions

According to the nature of their rebirth consciousness, beings are divided into the following three groups:

• 1. ahetu-patisandhika: a "being reborn without root-conditions," is a being whose consciousness at the moment of rebirth was not accompanied by any of the three noble root-conditions (greedlessness, hatelessness, undeludedness. (See mūla, "roots").

That is, selflessness, kindness, intelligence were not present. Such beings are found in the Four Lower Worlds (apāya, the downfall, subhuman planes of existence), in which case the function of rebirth is exercised by the class of consciousness listed in Table I as No. 56.

But if, lacking those good root conditions, such beings are fortunate enough to be reborn as humans in this Sensuous Sphere, they will be crippled, blind, deaf, mentally deficient, and so on. (Rebirth-consciousness = Tab. I, No. 41).

• 2. dvihetu (duhetu)-patisandhika: a "being reborn with only two [noble] root-conditions," namely, greedlessness and hatelessness. (Rebirth-consciousness = Tab. I, Nos. 44, 45, 48, or 49).
• 3. tihetu-patisandhika: a "being reborn with three [noble] root-conditions." Such a being can only be found among human beings (rebirth-consciousness = Tab. I, Nos. 42, 43, 46, or 47) and higher heavenly beings [in worlds superior to the human plane (manussa loka) within any of the three spheres, Sensual, Fine Material, or Immaterial].

On these three types of rebirth, see Atthasālini Tr. 11, 354-379. (Appendix: patisandhika). In the sutras, the terms for "rebirth" are chiefly punabbhava ("renewed existence") and abhinibbatti ("[re]arising," "reappearance") or both combined as punabbhavābhinibbatti. Source

NOTE: In the dictionary's Appendix, we find an additional observation: Patisandhi is chiefly a commentarial term, but it occurs several times in one of the later books of the Sutta Pitaka, the Patisambhidā Magga (Pts.M. I, 11f, 52, 59f.; II, 72f.) The usual term found in the discourses (suttas) of the Pali canon for "rebirth" is punabbhava (defined above).

LITERATURE

• The Path of Purification (Vis.M. XVII, 133f, 164f, 189f, 289f; Vis.M. XIX, 22f)
• Karma and Rebirth by Ven. Nyanatiloka Thera (BPS.lk, Wheel 9).
• The Case for Rebirth by Francis Story (Wheel Nos. 12/13).
• Survival and Karma in Buddhist Perspective by K. N. Jayatilleke (Wheel Nos. 141/143)
• Rebirth Explained by V. F. Gunaratna (Wheel Nos. 167/169)
• Buddhist Dictionary: Manual of Buddhist Terms and Doctrines (by Ven. Nyanatiloka Thera)
• The Journey to Awakening (video); Ven. Nyanatiloka, Manual of Buddhist Terms and Doctrines (palikanon.com) edited by Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly

The Buddha's imprint: Dhammapada

(Einzelganger) Buddhist wisdom for inner peace

• The Dhammapada: The Path of Dhamma

The Dhammapada (Pali धम्मपद, Sanskrit धर्मपद, Romanized Dharma-pada) is a collection of the historical Buddha's sayings in verse form. It is one of the most widely read and best-known Buddhist collections [1].

The original version of the Dhammapada is in the Pali canon's Khuddaka Nikāya, a division of sacred texts in Theravada Buddhism.

The great Indian Buddhist monk Buddhaghosa

The famous Buddhist scholar-monk and commentator Buddhaghosa ("ghost or voice of the Buddha") explains that each saying recorded in the collection was made on a different occasion in response to a unique situation that had arisen in the life of the Buddha and the massive community of male and female monastics he founded.

Buddhaghosa's translation of the commentary to it, which is called the Dhammapada Aṭṭhakatha, presents the details of each of these events and is a rich source of legend for the life and times of the Buddha [2].

Levi's jeans corporation borrows a saying from the Buddha found in the Dhammapada.

.

There are many translations.

ETYMOLOGY: The title "Dhammapada" is a compound term composed of dhamma and pada, each word having a numerous denotations and connotations. Generally, dhamma refers to the Buddha's "doctrine" or "eternal truth" or "righteousness" or is a collective term for all "phenomena" [3] or "things." At its root, pada means "foot" (or "footprint"); thus, by extension, especially in this context, means either "path" or "verse" (cf. prosodic foot) or both [4].

English translations of this text's title have used various combinations of these and related words [5, 6]. More

Seven signs: I'm now closer to Nirvana

(Buddha's Wisdom) We're closer to Nirvana than we think: 7 signs the Buddha described in Theravada Buddhism's Pali canon.

COMMENTARY

Explained by Wisdom Quarterly: American Buddhist Journal

The historical Buddha Gautama blissfully reclines into final nirvana (wiki)

 

But what is "nirvana" and why would anyone want it?

It is "the end of all suffering" or dukkha. It is the extinguishing of all greed, hatred, and delusion (craving, aversion, and ignorance) that keep the illusion and suffering going. It is the cooling of these fires (raging flames, smoldering coals, and blinding smoke). It is the highest bliss, the dissolution of all formations, the end of samsara, the incessant "continued wandering on" of rebirth and death.

• Nirvana is the "deathless" (amata, amrita, ambrosia)
• Nirvana is the "unconditioned element" (asankhata dhatu)
• Nirvana is the highest peace, the true refuge (sarana)
• Nirvana is the freedom (vimutti) from all afflictions
• Nirvana is the liberation (moksha) by wisdom
• Nirvana is the summum bonum of Early Buddhism and therefore of the back-to-basics Theravada school

But what is it, this thing with no equal?

In Theravada Abhidhamma texts such as the Vibhanga, where Sanskrit nirvana is called nibbana in Pali, the "unconditioned element" is defined this way:

"What is the unconditioned element (asankhata dhatu)? It is the cessation of passion, the cessation of hatred [aversion], and the cessation of delusion" [Note 12].

The Dhammasangani likewise describes it as that reality which is a sphere of experience unproduced by any cause or condition, according to L.S. Cousins [111].

The Dhammasangani also describes it in numerous other ways, such as the "immeasurable," "superior to everything," as "not past, present, or future" [the Ancient Greek anionic, the "not aeons," the "timeless," the "eternal now"], as "neither arisen nor not-arisen" and as "neither within nor without" [111].

• In Buddhism, Jainism, and Hinduism, "aeon" is used as a translation of the term kalpa and sometimes maha-kalpa or "great aeon" (Sanskrit महाकल्प). A maha kalpa, which cannot be pinned down to an exact numerical figure, is often said to be 1,334,240,000 years or the life cycle of the world (cakkavāḷa).
• Christianity's idea of "eternal life" comes from a Greek form of aión (αἰών) and the word for life, zōḗ (ζωή) [6], which has been translated to mean [timeless] immortality in the majority of texts, but is argued by some [7, 8, 9] to mean life in the next aeon, the Kingdom of God, or Heaven, instead.
• According to some proponents of Christian universalism, the Greek New Testament scriptures use the word aión (αἰών) to mean "a long period" (or age-long) and the word aiṓnion (αἰώνιον) to mean "during a long period" (or similarly, age-during); thus, there was a time before the aeons, and the aeonian period is finite. After each person's mortal life ends, one is judged worthy or not worthy of aeonian life...
• Another universalist reading, prevalent among Neoplatonists due to its similarity to views expressed in Plato's Timaeus [10], is that the "aeon" does not refer to a time, finite or infinite, but instead a Greek parallel of a Judaic view of distinct natures of time, between the χρόνος (chronos) of the present "age," or עולם הזה ('olam ha-zeh) and the αιώνιος (aionios) of the "age to come," or הָעוֹלָם הַבָּא ('olam ha-ba). More: aeon

Cousins also notes that "suggestively, however, it may be reckoned as nama (name) rather than rupa [form]. This does seem to suggest some element of underlying idealism of the kind which emerges later in the vijñanavada" (the "teaching of consciousness") [111].

Furthermore, for Theravada Buddhism, nibbana is uniquely the ONLY unconditioned element or phenomenon. Theravada argues that nibbana is unitary, that it cannot be divided.

Unlike other Buddhist schools, Theravada does not agree that there are any other unconditioned elements or phenomena, nor that there are different types of nirvana (such as the apratistha or "non-abiding nirvana" invented by Mahayana) [112, 111].

As noted by Thiện Châu, the Theravadans and the Pudgalavadans "remained strictly faithful to the letter of the [Buddha's original] sutras" and thus held that nirvana is the only unconditioned dhamma (phenomenon), while other schools posited various asankhata dhammas, such as the Sarvastivadan view that space (akasha) is unconditioned) [112].

Medieval Theravada exegesis

The fifth century Theravada scholar-monk and exegete Buddhaghosa says in The Path of Purification (Visuddhimagga): "It is called nibbana (extinction) because it has gone away from (nikkhanta), has escaped from (nissata), is dissociated from craving, which has acquired in common usage the name ‘fastening (vana)’ because, by ensuring successive becoming, craving serves as a joining together, a binding together, a lacing together, of the four kinds of generation, five destinies, seven stations of consciousness, and nine abodes of being" [Note 13]. More

Mandy Kahn: Peace Class: anger vs. hate

(EncourageTV) Peace Piece: The Immersive Poems of Mandy Kahn (documentary)

 

The Difference Between Anger and Hate

This is the text of last week's Peace Class

What is the difference between anger and hate? These are passionate times, and we might find many emotions flowing through us. Every emotion is a part of us, calling to be felt and seen.

 

When we choose to feel our emotions fully, when we choose to lean into our emotions with self-witnessing, self-kindness, self-gentleness, and self-love, while wrapping the deeper self, the inner self, the childlike self with our compassion, we complete the experience of that emotion and return to a zero point.

 

We can, at that zero point, consciously choose our actions. If we want, we can choose actions that build a peaceful world.

 

We can do this because we have held ourselves with kindness and support, and we have honored and experienced our emotions, and we have returned to our own center, healed and loved and empowered.

 

We build with our point of focus. We build with our beliefs. We build with our thoughts, with what we focus on. That's how we build the future.

 

We can experience the whole range of challenging emotions—anger, sadness, disappointment, frustration—and we can do it with profound self-love and self-kindness and self-gratitude. And when we do, we complete that experience and step into our power.

 

Building peace is about understanding that there is nothing more powerful than the individual because the individual builds the world by way of its point of focus. What is a powerful group but many powerful individuals all sharing focus at once?

 

We are more powerful than any collective force around us. The world is built by way of the individual: by us. Nothing is more powerful in our system than the focal-point of an individual. There is nothing more powerful than us. We get to choose whether we focus a more peaceful world into being.  

 

What is the full range of emotions? We can go through challenging emotions, like anger and disappointment and frustration, and we can stay in our power by experiencing these emotions lovingly, embracing self while experiencing feelings.

 

We can get to a zero point, then choose consciously. The other option is to let these emotions carry us like trains that we are not consciously directing into something like hate.

 

What is hate?

But, Mandy, what if we hate genocidal Zionist Israel: Proud to be a Jew (mad at Zionist Israel)

How do I begin a journey of peace, Mandy?

Hate is not an emotion; it is an action. Hate builds a warring future. It builds powerfully, whether or not our hate was chosen consciously. It builds a violent future through us.

 

There is a profound difference between anger and hate. Anger is an emotion indicating that there is a part of the self calling to be felt, calling to be loved, calling to be witnessed. Therefore, anger -- like all emotions -- is holy. Anger, like all emotions, is natural. We can respond to its call for self-love by supplying it with self-love. Then that anger has done its job.

 

Anger is the baby of the self loudly crying out. Just like a baby cries when it needs to be fed, or have its diaper changed, or to be held, anger is the inner self calling for our own self-soothing, our own self-compassion, our own self-love.

 

When we feel anger, we are being asked to supply that unconditional love to the self at that moment. And when we do, we heal the self. We prove to the self that our love is there.

 

Just as a caring parent who responds to a crying baby proves it is there to care for that baby, we can respond to the crying baby of the self with love, and we can heal and soothe that self.

 

We can show the self we are loved-without-end. That is the opportunity of anger.

 

If we do not respond to that anger with self-love, it can become a train-car that carries us towards hate. Hatred builds future violence, and future war, when it enters the collective consciousness. If we want to build a world with more violence in it, hate is the tool to use.

 

But if we want to build a peaceful world and a compassionate world and a loving world, then listen to emotions. Listen to the self calling out for love, and supply that love. Be the loving parent to the holy self. Supply that love and soothe that self.

 

Every challenging emotion is simply an invitation for self-love. We can deliver that self-love. When we do, we complete the emotion's cycle, step into our empowerment, and then we can say, "Great, I've had that emotion, and I've responded with self-love. I've completed that cycle. Now, what do I want to build with my power?"

 

If we want to build a peaceful world, compassion-for-all-beings will get us there. Love-for-all-beings will get us there. A peaceful mind, an empty mind, an open mind, a silent mind will get us there. Love of nature will get us there.

 

Hate unites us (with other haters)

Remember, hate is an action, not an emotion, and it builds something. It builds future violence. Carrying hate is a choice. Harsh judgment of others is a choice.

 

If we engage hate, let's be aware of what we are building. If we engage in cruel judgments of others, let's know what we're building. If we know our tools and choose consciously what we want, that's what we are working to build consciously. (Otherwise, we're building something quite unconsciously).

 

We are here to exercise freewill. And we are observed by way of the universe with compassion and love and non-judgment. We are safe to choose, and we are free to choose. We can build a compassionate world by carrying compassion, and we can build a peaceful world by carrying peace. We can build a compassionate world by ogling the ocean, by looking at the soil, by witnessing a stand of trees. Just gazing at a forest with love builds a loving future.

 

If today is a hard day, sit under a tree and let that tree offer its support. Mother Nature is love-without-end. We are so loved in all our emotions. Emotions are natural.

 

It is natural that there is a part of us that is calling for love, and it is natural that there are parts of our neighbors that are calling for love. If we answer this moment with compassion-for-all-beings, we build a compassionate world.

 

A moment of division is the most potent and possible time for peacebuilding because it allows the largest opportunity for change.

 

If we are interested in building a peaceful future, consider planting compassion-for-all-beings into this moment of division. Consider carrying compassion-for-all-beings within, even as many around us carry something quite different.

• 

  The Buddha taught peace? - Yes!

  The Buddha often gave his closest disciples (nuns and monks) a reflection: We will be love in a world of hate, we will be honest in a world of lies (dishonesty), we will be gathered and still in a world of scattering and distraction. He used nicer words, but this is the gist of it.

This historic moment is fertile soil for worldbuilding, for peacebuilding, for compassion-building, for loving change.

 

Even in challenging times, we can hold the self in love, and we can hold our neighbors in compassion. When we do that consciously, we choose our future consciously. And we do it with our full power.

Peace Class, which normally meets Wednesdays at 6:00 pm (Pacific) is now on summer break until September. To join us, click on Zoom link when we return. Until then, be in peace.

• 

  Smile? Why bother? What'll that change?

  Peace Class
• Wednesdays at 6:00 pm (Pacific Time)
• Join Zoom Meeting: us02web.zoom.us/j/82150472713
• Meeting ID: 821 5047 2713
• Feel free to share link with friends because all are welcome at Peace Class.

Every year, Peace Class goes on hiatus from July through September. Last week was the final class before our summer break.

• Mandy Kahn (mandykahn.com), PRS.org; edited by Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly

Craving for nirvana is obstacle to it?

Behind the scenes look | Panaprium

(One Timeless Witness) He meditated for 20 years [seeking moksha or liberation] then the Buddha said "stop," an apocryphal tale to make a point.

Bhava-taṇhā is "craving for becoming," grasping leading to "clinging" (upādāna), which inevitably results in disappointment, dissatisfaction, misery, suffering...not getting what one wants, getting what one doesn't want, all of which is dukkha.

Bhava-taṇhā ("craving for becoming") [5] is craving to be or become something, to unite with an experience [16].

This is ego-related, says Buddhist scholar Peter Harvey, the eternal seeking for identity and the desire for some type of rebirth or other [5].

This last donut will fulfill and satisfy me!

Other scholars explain that this type of craving is driven by the popular wrong view of permanence and Eternalism (Sassatavada, the view that a "soul" or "self" never dies because something survives, as if consciousness unchanged carries on, never realizing that what carries on through the "continued wandering on" of saṃsāra is an impersonal PROCESS clung to as "self") [4, 17].

• The opposite wrong view is Annihilationism (Ucchedavada), the wrong view that there is something that is annihilated at death, which is a transition, passing from one state to another, of an impersonal process. But Western "logic" tells us it has to be one or the other: either we carry on or come to an end. How could both be wrong? This is what the Buddha tried to explain, and he succeeded by explaining Dependent Origination. If there is no self, of course it does not carry on in samsara. But a process carries on, so there must be "self" doing the carrying on, right? No, for in every moment and submoment, phenomena arises  

It is not eternal life for an eternal soul, not an independent ego, not something personal, not a "self" or "soul" -- without actually living up to the definition of "soul" or "self" we have always assumed is there). More

How to reach enlightenment here and now (an over-explanation for non-practitioners)

Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Ananda (DBM), COMMENTARY FOR WISDOM QUARTERLY

What is the true nature of all things, of all phenomena? They are (1) impermanent, (2) unsatisfactory, and (3) impersonal (not-self).

But it is foolish to assume that this "impermanence" is eventual. In fact, it is radical (from the Latin radix, at its "root")! From moment to moment, things do not stand. They constantly fall away. They are always arising, turning, and passing, not only at every moment but at every submoment.

In a "moment," such as a citta or "mind-moment," there are three phases: (1) arising, (2) turning, (3) passing. The exact same thing is true of physical particles, rupa kalapas (form phenomena).

This impermanence goes by so quickly that it is not possible to see directly, but there's a trick. The arising and falling away is recorded by the mind and can be reviewed (replayed) in slow-motion to observe the process.

(Dhammavihari Buddhist Studies) Analysis of the Causes of Rūpa Kalāpa

• One would learn this in a monastery  that knew what it was doing -- such as those in the lineage of the great Pa Auk Sayadaw -- from a long line of practical advice handed down from accomplished teachers to students. So far as we can determine, it is not recorded in the texts, either discourses or commentaries. This seems to be the case with the practical application of many of the teachings mentioned in the Pali canon sutras. The Path of Purification is a compendium of Buddhist meditation practices, and some things are explained there. But it is so dense, in addition to being awkward in translation, that good luck making sense of it.

• 

  It's too confusing, too much to think about!

  You know, "Buddhism" was much more fun when we were just joking about Zen (Taoism, always asking, "What is the Tao, what is Tao?" a question the Buddha never asked) and chitchatting about koans. Who knew the Buddha really taught something and that there was an actual path-of-practice to enlightenment (bodhi) and liberation (nirvana)? Shouldn't this be easy, and shouldn't it be that Buddhist monastics are wasting their time with all those pesky rules and meditations? Now we see there was a point and there was no time to waste. How long would it take to calm down (samadhi, jhana, stillness), how long would it take to develop insight (vipassana) through systematic mindfulness?
• Of course, all of this will seem impossible, but come and see. The process of purification gives the mind incredible powers it does not now possess. This defiled, corrupted, dissolute mind can't see these thing, but that purified, clarified, intensified mind can. The ignorant, uninstructed person cannot see, but an instructed disciple can. That is what the Buddha has been saying all along.

(Dhammavihari Buddhist Studies) Analysis of Rupa Kalapa(s)

What do kalapas look like? Embers scattering.

This is what we do not understand, what we do not directly know-and-see, until we develop the path of purification and dispassionately look on at all phenomena (as explained in detail in "The Four Foundations of Mindfulness Discourse" or Satipatthana Sutta).

When we are finally able to see things (cittas and kalapas, mind-moments and material particles) behaving as they have always behaved when we were blind to and deluded about what was really there all along, the mind/heart automatically lets go. There is no effort to do so. Seeing their true nature, we stop clinging.

Furthermore, when we see that all things are utterly incapable of ever fulfilling, satisfying, or doing anything but being ultimately disappointing, we stop craving, stop expecting any new thing to be any different.

Moreover, when we finally know-and-see as it truly is that what we thought (assumed) was personal and self is not, what in the universe (with three spheres of sensual, fine material, and immaterial worlds -- with "heavenly" places in each) is there to cling to?

Why have we been holding on to suffering (dukkha, this unsteady, askew cartwheel making the road so bumpy and painful) and to things always hurtling towards destruction? It is exactly because we did not see, did not know.

I get it! Now I know and see!!

And now are we undeceived, having seen things as they really are and always have been, there is no "effort" to let go. Letting go happens naturally and one knows-and-sees the ultimate, nirvana. This process is "awakening" (bodhi, enlightenment).

Then it is as if everything -- all ignorance and darkness -- dissolves (nirodha), and light arises, and there is awakening out of painful ignorance to ultimate unending bliss. This is the bliss of nirvana, the highest happiness and peace. There is no use in describing it, but it can be directly experienced here and now, free of concepts and views.

• The Buddha's Path to Deliverance (PDF)
• Overcoming rebirth by path realization Dhammadhatu DD - Independent Researcher

Origins of greed, hatred, and delusion

Animal symbols for each of the poisons

(Jethavanarama Buddhist Monastery) The origins of greed (raga), hatred (dvesha), and delusion (moha), the Three Poisons:

The Three Poisons (Pali lobha, dosa, moha and Sanskrit raga, dvesha, moha or collectively triviṣa, Tibetan dug gsum) in the Mahayana tradition are the three unwholesome roots (Pāli akusala-mūla, Sanskrit akuśala-mūla) in the Theravada tradition.

It is a Buddhist term that refers to the three root defilements (kilesas, kleshas) that lead to all negative states. The three states or actions (karmic root motivations) are:

1. greed or sensual craving
2. hatred/fear or aversion
3. delusion, wrong view, or ignorance [1, 2].

These Three Poisons are considered three afflictions, habits, character flaws (states or traits) that are innate in living beings. They are the roots of all unwholesome actions (karma), as there can be craving or aversion without ignorance, and they cause suffering and lead again and again to rebirth [1, 3]. More

ZEN: Bodhidharma's 'Wake Up Sermon'

Bodhidarma (Hakuin Ekaku)

 

(Echoes of Lost Knowledge) The sermon that has awakened more minds than any other teaching in Zen Buddhism | Bodhidharma

"Bodhidharma" was a semi-legendary Indian Buddhist monk who lived during the 5th or 6th century CE [1]. He is traditionally credited as the transmitter of Chan (Zen) Buddhism to China and is regarded as its first Chinese patriarch [a]. He is also popularly regarded as the founder of Shaolin kung fu [2, 3, 4, 5], an idea popularized in the 20th century [4, 5, 2] but based on the 17th century Yijin Jing and the Taoist association of daoyin gymnastics with him. More

Zen of Deep Relaxation: Group Sitting

Relaxing Zen Music with Water Sounds • Peaceful Ambience for Spa, Yoga and Relaxation

What happens at a Zen meditation? Los Angeles-based groups are growing, adhering to two basic principles. One, keep it cool, laidback, liberal, lowkey, everyday, normal but, two, make it seem exotic. How is that achieved?

One way is to chant in an Asian language, following the customs and ritual procedures of a formal (zazen) group sitting practice -- including both Soto and Rinzai traditions, which rely on koans ("public cases"). They may sound like paradoxical riddles to the Western ear, but they are in Rinzai rather than Soto Zen centers in the U.S.

Groups walk intent on practicing mindful awareness of the present moment with everything going on here and now. This present moment may not always be pleasant, but it is always tolerable when viewed from a dispassionate perspective, such as noting, "Then there's this," as one Western ajahn is fond of saying.

This point-of-view allows us to be the WATCHER rather than the usual, overly-involved "DOER," "RESISTER," or person taking it all very personally in accordance with the Three Poisons of passion, aversion, and delusion (greed, hatred/fear, ignorance).

WHAT HAPPENS?

Practitioners gather in a quiet place that is not completely quiet. They take to zafus and zabutons, cushions, for seating themselves facing the wall or the center of the space.

Then there's chanting in English, Sanskrit, or a Japanese transliteration of Sanskrit, with wooden percussion and/or singing bowl accompaniment. There's bowing and more clacking sticks. Then the group settles in for a sitting (zazen) session of shikantaza, which is often translated as "just sitting."

• Stop trying to meditate | Ajahn Brahm | Quality Western Buddhist teachings and content available every day

There's now nothing to do but observe. There's no need to stop thinking or make anything happen other than what is happening now. This is how it is. A bell rings to signal that walking meditation (kinhin) is about to begin, first very slowly then at normal speed, all the while with everyone remaining very mindful. Another bell announces a second sitting session after walking. That ends with a bell, bowing, arranging cushions in a circle, and then discussion begins.

A Dharma talk might mention the paradox of the impersonal aspiring for "self" awakening. Most groups open up a Q&A discussion. This might start a storm of comments or awkward silence, laughs or uncomfortable shifting, and possibly some insight into American Buddhism. Everyone returns the next week.