Wednesday, March 22, 2023
Tuesday, March 21, 2023
Saturday, March 18, 2023
Friday, March 17, 2023
Thursday, March 16, 2023
Emptiness...
” Confused by thoughts,
we experience duality in life.
Unencumbered by ideas,
the enlightened see the one Reality.”
Self...
If a person holds oneself dear,
let one watch oneself carefully.
The wise should be watchful
during at least one of the three watches.
Let each person first direct oneself to what is right;
then let one teach others; thus the wise will not suffer.
If a person makes oneself as one teaches others to be,
then being well-controlled, that one might guide others,
since self-control is difficult.
Self is the master of self;
who else could be the master?
With self well-controlled
a person finds a master such as few can find.
The wrong done by oneself, born of oneself,
produced by oneself, crushes the fool,
just as a diamond breaks even a precious stone.
The one whose vice is great brings oneself down
to that condition where one’s enemy wishes one to be,
just as a creeper overpowers the entangled sala tree.
Bad actions and actions harmful to ourselves are easy to do;
what is beneficial and good, that is very difficult to do.
The fool who scorns the teaching of the saintly,
the noble, and the virtuous, and follows wrong ideas,
bears fruit to one’s own destruction,
like the fruits of the katthaka reed.
By oneself is wrong done; by oneself one suffers;
by oneself is wrong left undone; by oneself is one purified.
Purity and impurity come from oneself;
no one can purify another.
Let no one neglect one’s own duty
for the sake of another’s, however great;
let a person after one has discerned one’s own duty,
be always attentive to this duty.
Wednesday, March 15, 2023
The Profound Definitive Meaning...
For the mind that masters view the emptiness dawns
In the content seen not even an atom exists
A seer and seen refined until they're gone
This way of realizing view, it works quite well
When meditation is clear light river flow
There is no need to confine it to sessions and breaks
Meditator and object refined until they're gone
This heart bone of meditation, it beats quite well
When you're sure that conducts work is luminous light
And you're sure that interdependence is emptiness
A doer and deed refined until they're gone
This way of working with conduct, it works quite well
When biased thinking has vanished into space
No phony facades, eight dharmas, nor hopes and fears,
A keeper and kept refined until they're gone
This way of keeping samaya, it works quite well
When you've finally discovered your mind is dharmakaya
And you're really doing yourself and others good
A winner and won refined until they're gone
This way of winning results, it works quite well.
by Milarepa
Tuesday, March 14, 2023
The Song of View, Practice, and Action...
Oh, my Guru! The Exemplar of the View, Practice, and Action,
Pray vouchsafe me your grace, and enable me
To be absorbed in the realm of Self-nature!
For the View, Practice, Action, and Accomplishment
There are three Key-points you should know:
All the manifestation, the Universe itself, is contained in the mind;
The nature of Mind is the realm of illumination
Which can neither be conceived nor touched.
These are the Key-points of the View.
Errant thoughts are liberated in the Dharmakaya;
The awareness, the illumination, is always blissful;
Meditate in a manner of non-doing and non-effort.
These are the Key-points of Practice.
In the action of naturalness
The Ten Virtues spontaneously grow;
All the Ten Vices are thus purified.
By corrections or remedies
The Illuminating Void is ne'er disturbed.
These are the Key-points of Action.
There is no Nirvana to attain beyond;
There is no Samsara here to renounce;
Truly to know the Self-mind
It is to be the Buddha Himself.
These are the Key-points of Accomplishment.
Reduce inwardly the Three Key-points to One.
This One is the Void Nature of Being,
Which only a wondrous Guru
Can clearly illustrate.
Much activity is of no avail;
If one sees the Simultaneously Born Wisdom,
He reaches the goal.
For all practitioners of Dharma
This preaching is a precious gem;
It is my direct experience from yogic meditation.
Think carefully and bear it in your minds,
Oh, my children and disciples.
 | -- from The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa: The Life-Story and Teachings of the Greatest Poet-Saint Ever to Appear in the History of Buddhism, Translated by Garma C. C. Chang |
The Day We Dropped the A-bomb...
The video begins with chanting. For those wishing to skip the chanting the meat of the talk begins just shy of the ten minute mark.
Monday, March 13, 2023
The Enlightenment Sutra...
I who would follow the Teachings of Buddha
Should concentrate earnestly morning and night
With resolve in my heart, on these Teachings the Buddha
Has given to free us from suffering's grasp.
This is the first of the things to remember:
Throughout all the world there is nothing that's permanent.
Even the Earth has the nature of transience.
Bodies are centers of sorrow and emptiness.
All of my parts are devoid of self,
Are dependent on causes and therefore impermanent,
Changing, decaying and out of control.
Expectations of permanence cause disappointment,
Forming attachments that lead to wrongdoing.
Observing the world in this light, may I daily
progress toward freedom from birth and from death.
This is the second thing I should remember:
Excessive desire only brings me to suffering.
Birth and death, sorrow and weariness all are from
Greedy attachment to things of this world.
But controlling desire cuts the root of unhappiness,
Leaving the body and mind to relax.
This is the third of the things to remember:
Insatiable cravings for things of this world
Only cause me to pile up more useless possessions,
Increasing my motives for sin and wrongdoing.
A seeker of freedom should let go of craving
And, seeing it's uselessness, grow in contentment.
Rejecting life's baubles and seeking the Way
I'll concern myself only with gaining release.
This is the fourth of the things to remember:
My laziness leads to my own degradation.
I always should work just as hard as I can
Because only by this can I solve all my problems
And so be released from the things that bedevil me,
Finally escaping to Infinite Light.
This is the fifth of the things to remember:
The roots of unhappiness spring from my ignorance.
I who would follow the Buddha, remember to
Listen and read to develop my knowledge,
So as to aid other sufferers, hoping to
Bring sentient beings Nirvana's release
And awaken them all to Enlightenment's bliss.
This is the sixth of the things to remember:
Ill feeling is often occasioned by poverty
Leading to discord and further unhappiness.
Following Buddha's example, I always should
Treat every being with love and respect.
Having malice toward none, I should dwell in contentment
And aid and encourage all beings to Peace.
This is the seventh thing I should remember:
The passions would lead me to sin and to sorrow,
But students of Dharma won't drag themselves down
By relying on pleasure to bring themselves happiness.
Better to think of the monks in their robes,
Who are happy and free from the causes of misery.
Seeing the benefits brought by the Teachings,
I firmly resolve to attain to Enlightenment,
Being a better example to others,
In hopes that they also will gain this release.
This is the eighth of the things to remember:
The flames of existence are hard to escape from.
They bring us to pain and to sorrow unlimited.
Thus I resolve to awake from my slumber
And, feeling concern for all sentient beings,
Arouse in myself an intense dedication
Which lets me withstand all my pain with forbearance,
Avoiding taking it out on my neighbors
But helping them, too, to attain Perfect Peace.
These are the precepts that lead to enlightenment,
This is the path that was trod by the Buddhas,
The great Bodhisattvas and Buddha's disciples.
The truths they remembered which brought them release.
I will follow them carefully, constantly try to
Develop compassion and wisdom together
To help me escape to the opposite shore
Whereupon, freed from suffering, I can return
To the realm of Samsara in comfort and joy,
Bringing freedom and peace to all sentient beings.
These statements are tools that will help me remember.
In order to follow the Teachings, I'll always
Remember these eight ways of looking at life,
Gaining the wisdom and peace of Nirvana
For only by this will I always be free
From the wheel of rebirth with its pain and its sorrow,
At last and forever to finally find rest.
Thursday, March 9, 2023
Republican Working Against the Middle Class and the Poor...
House GOP Prepares to Slash Federal Programs in Coming Budget ShowdownAs usual the republicans will take care of their billionaire friends and corporations and screw the middle class and poor. The height of ignorance and greed. |
Wednesday, March 8, 2023
Projection By Conservatives/Republicans...
The above screed was found on a conservative white supremacist weblog. A weblog that daily attracts the caliber of people whose focus is actually on hating all that do not support its white supremacist views and the twice impeached and failed insurrectionist president, DJT.
The screed is but a projection of the hate and ignorance of many who populate the conservative/republican party and its hateful agenda.
This folks is perhaps the greatest threat to our nation, its stability, and its integrity.
Rot In the American Republican/Conservative Movement...
FOX news, Tucker Caslon, and the trumpublican party are once again attempting to rewrite history and mold it into the image the lying conservative/republican agenda wants. It WILL NOT happen because honest people with integrity will not allow it.
CNN —
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy once spoke about the violence at the Capitol building on January 6, 2021, in starkly different terms than the narrative Fox News host Tucker Carlson is presenting with footage McCarthy provided to him, which has been selectively used to downplay the violence.
In the days following the riot, McCarthy said rioters “overtook” the Capitol, speculating the rioters who he said broke a window in his office could have kidnapped or even hung members of Congress, and called the mob attacking the Capitol “un-American.”
In other comments made a week later on KERN, a local radio station that airs in his Bakersfield, California-based congressional district, McCarthy said anyone who participated should go to jail and spoke in stark terms of the violence unleashed on Capitol Police officers.
“These men and women in the uniform, they got overrun,” McCarthy said. “One officer got killed…they got broken arms. You don’t understand what was transpiring at that moment and that time. People hanging. People brought ropes. When I got back into my building, I found the straps that they had. I don’t know if they come and try to kidnap somebody or whatever. But they, they were well planned for it.”
“They scaled walls,” he added. “They brought ropes. A couple of protesters died because they scaled. And when you have the inaugural there was scaffolding. They were scaling the scaffolding. They, they overtook the place.”
McCarthy’s office did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.
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