[Fall 2012 Week 5]The Reality of Mankind

Bita Asakura from the Pure Land Buddhist Temple in Gardena led us in a fascinating discussion on a story from the Parable Sutra. She presented us with a portrait of “The Reality of Mankind”.

A traveler walking on an autumn day noticed white objects on the ground along his path. Curious, he picked up one and he saw that the white objects were human bones. Then, he realized that a tiger was lurking behind him. Out of fear, the traveler ran, and the tiger pursued him. The path led to the end of a cliff, and the traveler tried to climb up a pine tree near the edge. However, the tiger was able to climb up the tree as well. The traveler saw a vine dangling from a branch hovering over the cliff. He decided to grab onto the vine.

Unfortunately, the traveler’s situation worsened. Under him, at the bottom of the cliff was a deep ocean in which three dragons—one blue, one red, and one black—waited for him to fall. Still worse, a pair of rats—one black and one white—started nibbling on the knot connecting the vine and the tree branch. Although hungry and tired, the traveler became used to his situation. Then, bees carrying honey started flying around, dropping five drops honey on the vine, which trickled down to the traveler. This solved his hunger, but it distracted him and, insatiable, he shook the vine for more honey.

The traveler’s fate seemed doomed.

There are many elements in this story that represent Buddhist concepts.

• The traveler represents us- humans who are traveling and constantly moving (physically and in life and in time).
• The tiger represents death. Death, like the stealthy tiger, is always there, inevitably looming over us.
• The three dragons represent worldly passions, or the Three Poisons in Buddhism. The blue dragon represents greed, the red represents anger, and the black represents ignorance. Humans sometimes fall into these poisons, and they blind us from acceptance and contentment.
• The black and white mice represent night and day. The vine gets thinner, symbolizing the shortness and temporality of life.
• The deep ocean is the realm of suffering, created by the three dragons.
• The white bones signify other people’s death. The older we get, the more we are aware of people’s death and of our own morality. 

• The pine tree represents relative happiness (things that we acquire, such as relationships, money, etc). The traveler initially tries to escape the tiger (Death) by climbing up the tree. However, the tiger is capable of climbing up as well; therefore, in the face of Death, we are alone; we cannot use our physical gains, like money, to prevent the inevitable.
• The 5 drops of honey symbolize the 5 Desires- food, fame (including respect, recognition), fortune, sex, and sleep. The honey distracts the hungry traveler, and he shakes the vine, wanting more honey. The 5 desires are all that humans can think about, even in impending doom. Therefore, in the practice of Buddhism, we must try to look beyond these forms of immediate happiness.

Although this story seems quite pessimistic, Bita conveyed to us that we must recognize our reality. Life is often hard, unfair, and unexpected. It is true that we are born alone and we die alone. However, this means that we must treasure one another’s company. The more we realize how impermanent life is, the more we treasure our own life, the lives of others, and our environment. By listening to Buddhist teachings, we can understand and deal with our changing reality. We can see our true self and obtain true happiness.

-Vivia

[Fall 2012 Week 4] The Physical Aspects in Buddhism and Buddhist Practice

What does Buddhism remind you of? Often, we associate Buddhism with spiritual growth, such as meditation, completely independent of our physical body. But is Buddhism unrelated to the physical world? Today, Professor Robert Buswell, an UCLA faculty member, answers the question by telling various anecdotes in Buddhist history that involve the physical body.

Assaji, one of the earliest disciples of Buddha, was on alms one day when Sariputta, the wisest of the Buddha’s disciples, spotted him. Assaji’s appearance was very peaceful and radiant, so radiant that Sariputta approached him and asked who his teacher was and what he teaches. Assaji replied with the following verses, 

“Of all those things that from a cause arise,

Tathagata the cause thereof has told;

And how they cease to be, that too he tells,

This is the teaching of the Great Recluse.”

Basically, the verses convey the message that everything arises from a cause, and how to cease this chain of cause-and-effect is what the Buddha teaches. Upon hearing this, Sariputta immediately reached the first stage of arahanthood.

In this story, it is Assaji’s appearance that attracted Sariputta in the first place. Sariputta wouldn’t just approach anyone to ask who his teacher is. An enlightened person not only possesses a wise mind, but also a peaceful, charismatic appearance, because mind and body are interrelated.

One type of meditation is through observing one’s own body. It is not about exploring the changeable mind but about being aware of one’s physical sensations. In Buddhism, there are in general four postures you can take for meditation: lying, sitting, standing, walking. But this is only a general guideline. As long as you are aware of bodily sensations, it doesn’t matter what posture you are taking.

Professor Buswell gives an example of a Buddha’s disciple who reached enlightenment in a posture that doesn’t fall into any of the above category. The story goes like this: Ananda, the attendant of the Buddha, never reached enlightenment in Buddha’s life time. After Buddha’s death, 500 arahants gathered around (the First Council) to compile Buddha’s teaching and Ananda was invited because he had been with the Buddha most of the time and therefore had heard almost all of Buddha’s teaching. However, Ananda was the only one in the council that wasn’t enlightened and he felt upset about it. The night before the council, he meditated in a sitting posture all night long in hope of reaching enlightenment. But as the sky began to light up, he realized that he was not going to make it and should better take a short nap before the council starts. Just when he was leaning back and relaxing his leg, in a queer posture between sitting and lying, he finally reached enlightenment. This story tells us that meditation doesn’t necessary have to be in one of the four postures, but it is the awareness that counts.

The Buddha teaches us that through our body we can gain wisdom and one of the three core wisdom in Buddhism is impermanence. When we observe our breath, we see that an inhalation begins, sustains, and then ceases. Same for exhalation. When we observe our bodily sensation, we too see that a sensation arises, sustains, and ceases. Nothing stays forever. Our body is a constantly changing phenomenon. And soon, one would realize that there is no self, another core wisdom in Buddhism. (The third one is suffering/unsatisfactory.) In the Buddha’s time, there was a practitioner that had supernatural powers. He could teleport to any place, any time with his mind. He comes to the Buddha and said, “I know the end of the world! What do you know?”

Buddha replied, “I know this body,” meaning that we don’t have to look externally to understand the laws (dharma) of the universe. All we have to do is look at our body. 

-Paul

[2012 Spring Week 9 Dharma Talk] Faith and Devotion in Modern Times

Ken Mcleod, the founder of Unfettered Mind, is known to be one of the more innovative teachers today and is known for his ability to explain difficult and subtle teachings and to bridge the gap between contemporary life and traditional approaches to spiritual practice. He first began the talk with a meditation, asking us to focus our minds not only on our breathes but noticing when our minds wandered and to bring it back, just like a pen sitting on a table, it'll eventually roll off but all we need to do is recognize that and bring the pen right back onto the table. The point is to stop, (emphasis on stop) and then bring your mind back to your breath.
Ken introduced the ideas of faith, belief, and devotion to us and explained the differences between each. Faith is the willingness to be open to all the possibilities around us. In many other religions, they need faith to have belief but that is not always the case in Buddhism. Taking refuge in the three jewels is having faith in the three jewels. Prayer and meditation are methods of taking refuge in the three jewels. Devotion is not always handing over your whole life to one being, but rather recognizing the awe in your life and being inspired from it.
Bringing everything back to meditation, we were asked why do we study Buddhism? Then after answering asked Why? And continued this answering and questioning until you can't come up with an answer anymore. At that moment in time, what do you feel? What do you feel in your heart? And then to recognize and remember what this feeling so that the next time you meditate, recall this feeling first. The heart and mind are a direct translation of one another is many languages for a reason. Many only focus on the mind but it is also important to remember that the heart is a significant part of meditation. What you feel is very important. So the next time you meditate, ask yourselves, Why?

[2012 Spring Week 7 Dharma Talk] Living a Good Buddhist Life

On the 17th, our speaker was Venerable Guo Xing, a PhD. student at the UCLA center of Buddhist studies. She spoke on the theme of "Living a Good Buddhist Life" to the students, grad students, and UCLA workers gathered that night.

Given the large scope of the idea, Venerable Guo Xing decided to focus mainly on two concepts of Buddhism she believed tied will into the concept. The first was the five precepts-- five suggestions made by the Buddha to lay people (as she mentioned later, Venerables have about 250 more precepts, while nuns have as many as 349) in order to live a good life. According to her, the best way to understand them was not as a series of laws (as in the case of the Ten Commandments, for example), but in the framework of increasing compassion to other beings.

These are:

Avoid Killing: This applies to all living beings, not just humans. This may, according to one's beliefs, include indirect killing such as eating meet. She gave us an example of why we should be compassionate to all beings, as follows. When we are cut, we feel pain. We know therefore, from own pain and from the bodily actions of those we harm, that they too are in pain. Therefore, a compassionate being should not kill others.

Avoid Stealing. This again calls upon the idea that we would be unhappy to lose what we have, therefore we should avoid taking what is not ours.

Avoid Lying. In addition to the question of compassion, Venerable Guo Xing posited that the worst kind of lie, as far as Buddhist scripture goes, is claiming that one is the Buddha or that one is enlightened, lest one lead others astray from the path to true enlightenment.

Avoid Sexual Misconduct. This is again related to the concept of not hurting your loved ones.

Avoid Drugs and Alcohol. This is meant more as a precaution against committing the other acts. When one is under the influence, they are more likely to commit those sins.


She also framed "good Buddhist life" in the context of wisdom, the building of one's own Karma. According to her, in addition to both the cause and effect, there is also the importance of condition. We create our conditions through the effect of our previous actions. Therefore, we should try to make good actions to improve our environment. For example, when she does her laundry, Venerable Guo Xing makes sure to clean the laundry room around her. By making the area cleaner, she makes the room better for her and those around her.

Claiming the two concepts of compassion (helping others) and wisdom (improving yourself) as two wings, Reverend Guo Xing captured some of the ideas we discussed in the previous few weeks into a simple yet deep lesson on what it means to live a good life. We finished our meeting with a group discussion and a relaxing round of meditation. Thank you to everyone for coming and enjoying a[]d wonderful lesson on a highly applicable subject.

[2012 Sprin gWeek 5 Dharma Talk] Discussions on impermanence, attachments, happiness, and death.

Unfortunately, our speaker, Rev. Kusula, wasn’t able to make it this week. We hope to see him again soon; he always leads amazing Talks. However, true to UBA spirit, we adapted and we changed our format for this week. With the addition of tasty nachos, we held a group discussion on the subject of impermanence and on other general topics about Buddhism.

Simply, impermanence is the idea that things in this life are impermanent; nothing lasts forever. Therefore, it is important to live in the present moment. For instance, we agreed that relationships will inevitably end (for whatever reason) and it is important to cherish the time you have with someone. It is also important not to put anyone on a high pedestal; people are not stagnant and people are constantly changing.

This led to a discussion of attachments. If everything is bound to end, then is there a point to attachments to objects or to people? Many of our members agreed with the symbol of an open hand. Our interaction with forms of attachments should be like having our hand open, palm facing upwards. We allow things to land on your hand, but we also allow them to leave; we do not firmly grasp or try to trap anything. We should be able to live in contentment when we are without attachments. We should be able to let things come and go.

Furthermore, we agreed that there seems to be different levels of attachments. While it is true that desires cause suffering, certain desires are worth that burden. Attachments, formed from the right intentions, are not necessarily negative and are worth having. Take friends and family as examples of good attachments!

We also delved into questions of happiness and death. We discussed the distinction between instantaneous happiness and lasting happiness. Although somewhat tricky to answer, we agreed that happiness is not permanent, but that should not deter us from finding joy in life. We briefly talked about death as well. We all realized that life is impermanent. Therefore, because death is inevitable, we must live life fully and compassionately.

Yep, we went through many topics! But our discussion was so interesting; everyone had such personal and intriguing interpretations of impermanence and Buddhism in general. In fact, it was crazy how much time had gone by! Although it has passed, it was so wonderful to have such an intimate group of amazing people, all sharing in a moment of blissful contentment!

[Spring 2012 Week 3 Dharma talk] Causality by Bita Asakura

This past Tuesday we had the great pleasure to welcome Bita Asakura, a UCLA alumni from the Class of 1999, to give a Dharma talk for us. Bita has quite an interesting background. Born and raised in Iran during the Iran-Iraq war, as a child she witnessed the horrors that often times accompany war. Searching for answers that would explain why violence occurred, she majored in Psychology at UCLA and founded an Eastern Philosophy club on campus. It was not until she learned about Buddhism on campus, however, when she got her questions answered. After she graduated, she went to Japan to delve more into Buddhism and that is where she received her training from. During the talk, she brought her husband, Yuichi, as well as her teacher from Japan, Nobu, and they helped facilitate her discussion.

But enough about how cool Bita is. Bita’s main topic was about the law of cause and effect, or otherwise known as karma, in Buddhism. The Buddha taught that every event has a cause and every action has a consequence. Even the fall of a hair strand did not fall out of nowhere; there was a cause that made the hair fall. Every person a man meets in a lifetime is the result of karmic energy he has accumulated with that person in another lifetime. There is no coincidence according to Buddhism, and as a result, a person is totally responsible for his actions.

Bita also talked about the concept of non-self in Buddhism. The Buddha taught that there is no fixed constant soul. As a result, the permanent self does not exist. Humans constantly have different thoughts and their personalities change throughout their lifetime. Their karmic energy also changes throughout their lifetime based on the thoughts and actions that the humans take. Nobu compared this idea of the non-self to a waterfall. From far away, a waterfall looks like a constant blanket of cloth. However, when one looks closer, he realizes that the waterfall is actually made out of an infinite number of droplets and each droplet is not the same. Thus, there is never one moment in time when the consistency of the waterfall stays constant. Like a human being, even if he looks the same from the outside, he is actually perpetually changing. 

Finally, Bita spoke about the six realms in Buddhism. The six realms are the animal realm, human realm, the realm of hungry ghosts, the realm of perpetual combat (hell), the realm of celestial beings, and the realm of the demi-gods. These are not physical realms; rather they represent the perceptions that members of the realm have. For example, someone from the hungry ghost realm has infinitely insatiable desires. Nothing can satisfy him. The human realm is the only realm one can attain enlightenment, which is the goal of Buddhism, and to be reborn as a human is very rare. Thus, being reborn as a human is a gift that should be deeply treasured.

[Spring 2012 Week 1 Dharma Talk] Eightfold Path by Aaron Lee

This Tuesday we welcomed our Guest Speaker, Aaron Lee. Aaron Lee is an UCLA Alumnus, and one of the orginal founders of the University Buddhist Association (UBA). He treated us with a more in depth look at the Eightfold Path.

 

Who actually remembers the Eightfold Path? Well, Aaron was able to teach us a simple phemonic device to remember it! VISALEMC. Close your eyes. Imagine a VISA card floating with the face of the card facing up. Now imagine half a lemon being squeezed over the VISA card. You are now envisioning a Visa card (VISA), thats being poured by half a lemon (LEM) with some vitamin C (C), which makes VISA.LEM.C.! Cool, huh?

 

The Eightfold Path is:

Right view

Right intent 

Right speech 

Right action 

Right livelihood 

Right effort 

Right mindfulness

Right concentration.

 

 

He went on to state that EACH part of the Eightfold Path can be elaborated on for quite awhile, so he decided to focus the second half of the dharma discussion on RIGHT EFFORT. When one thinks of right effort, many may say it is how hard one tries or the good intentions one has. How Aaron broke it down for us was explaining right effort as being a matrix. A matrix that has 4 different axes. We must look at right effort as actions that contribute to our present and future, while focusing our efforts personally and externally. For example, right effort can be approached in forming better personal habits that will contribute to a better future, like meditating everyday for a little bit, or addressing a friend that you may feel uncomfortable about their actions. These are all proavtive efforts in contributing to the present and future while considering yourself and others.

Jan 31 Dharma Talk

This week Ven. Maitipe Wimalasara Thera from Dharma Vijaya gave a talk about Buddhist world view and the purpose of life.

There were ten questions which Buddha did not answer. These questions include, "Is the universe finite or infinite? Is it eternal or not eternal?" and so forth*. Why didn't Buddha answer? One reason is that the explanation was beyond the knowledge of people at that time. The other reason is that if we delve into these questions, we lose focus of our Buddhism practice and teaching.

Six realms of existence.

Ven. Wimalasara also talked about different realms of existence. Other than animals, the other beings don't interact with our world. But after one dies, one can be reborn in any realms depending on one's karma. If you did good you will be reborn in better realms, like humans or animals. Ven. Wimalasara also noted that among all the realms, only humans have the capacity to be enlightened. Other realms may not have the intelligence (e.g. animals), or they do not have the motivation (e.g. heaven). Therefore, existing as a human is a precious opportunity.

Then the question follows: what is the purpose of a human being? Ven. Wimalasara gave two answers. One is to renounce every possession and lead a monastic life. Obviously, that is not possible for everyone. Buddha himself did not ask everyone to become monastic, because he knew that was impossible. However, Buddha did discourage unrighteous deeds from everyone. Ven. Wimalasara said that the second option is to lead a righteous life, taking care of your family and doing good.


*To know more about the ten question which the Buddha remain silent, click here.

3 Poisons of Buddhism

This week we had the honor of having John Daishin Buksbazen from the Zen Center of Los Angeles speak about the 3 poisons in Buddhism: greed, anger, and ignorance. We all suffer for one reason or another. In Buddhism, it is believed that suffering comes from these three poisons. Daishin elaborated on these three poisons and opened the discussion up to questions.

Greed can be seen as desire. "I want" the new iPhone 5, when it comes out. It can also be seen as clinging -- clinging to youth, for example. Anger is aversion. Daishin spoke about a pattern he noticed: people seem to get angry about the weather often. Sometimes it is too cold and sometimes it is too warm. Why is this? It was brought up in small-group discussions that perhaps all of this anger stems from the fact that we are not in control of everything. The last poison is ignorance, or ignore-ance. We choose to ignore feelings that make us unhappy. "I'm just not going to think about it" is a very common mantra when it comes to embarrassing moments or uncomfortable experiences.

In order to overcome these three poisons, Daishin spoke of the act of sitting (meditation). Just as a dirty glass of water becomes clear after settling, the human mind can reach purification after sitting. He proposed that in order to awaken ourselves to the truth and therefore be free of suffering and poisons, we need to look inside of ourselves via sitting.

Daishin also mentioned that the Buddha proposed an 8-fold-path to lead anyone who wants to out of these 3 poisons. To read more about the 8-fold-path, go to: http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma14/budcourse.html and click on the "Noble Eightfold Path".

You can read more about the Zen Center of Los Angeles at: www.zcla.org

Reading and Understanding Buddhist Sutras

The focus of this talk was on understanding the background and application of the different Buddhist sutras. A Buddhist sutra (sutta) is a text based on the teachings of the Buddha. Buddha did not write any text but, upon his death, his disciple Ven. Ananda took the task of organizing the preservation of Buddha's teachings. As narrated by John Gill, Ven. Ananda summoned 499 enlightened monks and together they transcribed what they have learned from the Buddha.

Because it wasn't Buddha who wrote down the sutras, these texts are subject to interpretation. Inconsistencies may also arise among sutras written in different languages. John recommends comparing them against other versions of the same text and trust those which are more consistent.

What sutras to read? Sutras are not sequential writings and thus may be hard to read. Access to Insight offers a great thematic index of the sutras (http://www.accesstoinsight.org/index-subject.html). John recommends pick a topic one is familiar with and read the corresponding sutra. This may help us getting accustomed to the writing style and facilitate the reading of texts we are not familiar with. Later, one can read any other topic of interest.