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DEPRESSION - Imagine the state of mind when in depression - everything is black, hopeless, cold - try to really feel it in the heart. - What am I so concerned about? - Are there thoughts that keep on repeating themselves in my mind? - Am I only concerned about myself, my own problems and pain? - Am I realistic about my own situation? - Am I really helpless, hopeless, hungry, completely alone, poor and cold? - How many people in the world are really helpless, hopeless, hungry, alone and cold? - Try to feel some compassion for their suffering. - Imagine a little light in your heart that becomes brighter and  brighter. - Open the heart and let the light shine out to other people that really need some love and affection. - Imagine that their suffering decreases because of your light. - Now realise that you can use this light also for yourself, and radiate love and affection to yourself. - Fill the whole body with light and simply enjoy it.

UNVEILING THE BUDDHA-NATURE - Is it possible to develop myself, change and transform into someone to admire? - Is there a potential in me for wisdom and compassion? - Do I want to use that potential? "May I be free of anger, free of attachment, free of confusion, free of pride. May I be free of the problems that arise from such distortions of my mind. May I recognise and cultivate my potential of loving kindness, compassion, wisdom, patience and all other good qualities. May these good qualities grow for my well-being and the well-being of others. May my fears, worries and sorrows fall away. May I find the joy of love and peace in my heart." - Feel this joy and peace right now. "May all people, especially my enemies, discover and develop their potential for loving-kindness, compassion, patience and so forth. May all people, especially my enemies be free from all the problems caused by their confusion. May all people, especially my enemies find love and peace in their hearts." - Imagine they all experience love and peace right now. - Imagine a drop of brilliant white light at your heart; it is our pure nature. - This light of purity and love fills my entire body. - Now open the heart and let the light emerge in all directions; sending out love and purity to all beings. - Imagine every being who is touched by it is purified of suffering and experiences love and peace. LACK OF SELF-CONFIDENCE - Who am I really; what are all my negative qualities? - Does this mean I am the worst person in the world? - How many people do I know in this world without any negative qualities? - Can I expect myself to be perfect, without any faults? - What are my positive qualities. - Can I not at least help people, care about them, generate compassion? - Does not everybody have good and bad qualities? - Do I therefore have to hate everybody? - Why do I have to judge so hard on myself for being human, with good and bad qualities? - Can I forgive myself for all my negative qualities? - Do I believe I can improve myself, or am I an absolutely hopeless case? - I have my own inner wisdom and know what is good and bad. Therefore I can make my own decisions and handle my own problems. - Even if my problems become too overwhelming, I can always decide to ask others for advise. - Having self-confidence, I do not feel better than others, but I know I can do something by myself, and have the courage to follow my own inner wisdom. A special dedication prayer to counter a lack of self-confidence: May I be equanimous, free from attachment, anger and prejudice. May all living beings be equanimous, free from attachment, anger and prejudice. May I be able to help all living beings to become free from attachment, anger and prejudice. I will help all living beings to become free from attachment, anger and prejudice. May I be happy and have the causes for future happiness. May all living beings be happy and have the causes for future happiness. May I be able to help all living beings to become happy and have the causes for future happiness. I will help all living beings to become happy and have the causes for future happiness. May I be free from suffering and the causes for suffering. May all living beings be free from suffering and the causes for suffering. May I be able to help all living beings to become free from suffering and the causes for suffering. I will help all living beings to become free from suffering and the causes for suffering. May I never be separate from the ultimate happiness, free from all suffering. May all living beings never be separate from the ultimate happiness, free from all suffering. May I be able to help all living never to be separate from the ultimate happiness, free from all suffering. I will help all living never to be separate from the ultimate happiness, free from all suffering. the ultimate happiness, free from all suffering.

The Sharpest Sword... On a certain day when the Buddha dwelt at Jetavana, a celestial deva came to him in the shape of Brahman, whose countenance was bright and whose garments were white as snow. The deva asked the Buddha, "What is the sharpest sword? What is the deadliest poison? What is the fiercest fire? What is the darkest night?" The Buddha replied, "A word spoken in wrath is the sharpest sword; covetousness is the deadliest poison; hatred is the fiercest fire; ignorance is the darkest night." The deva asked, "What is the greatest gain? What is the greatest loss? What armor is invulnerable? What is the best weapon?" The Buddha replied, "The greatest gain is to give to others; the greatest loss is to receive  without gratitude. Patience is an invulnerable armor; wisdom is the best weapon." The deva asked, " Who is the most dangerous thief? What is the most precious treasure?" The Buddha replied, " Unwholesome thought is the most dangerous thief; virtue is the most precious treasure." The deva asked, "What is attractive? What is unpleasant? What is the most horrible pain? What is the greatest enjoyment.?" The Buddha replied, "Wholesomeness is attractive; unwholesomeness is unpleasant. A bad conscience is the most tormenting pain; awakening is the height of bliss." The deva asked, "What causes ruin in the world? What breaks off friendships? What is the most violent fever? Who is the best physician?" The Buddha replied, "Ignorance causes ruin in the world; envy and selfishness break off friendships; hatred is the most violent fever; the Buddha is the best physician." The deva then continued, "Now I have only one doubt to be cleared away: What is it fire cannot burn, nor moisture corrode, nor wind crush down, but is able to benefit the whole world?" The Buddha replied, "Blessing! Neither fire, nor moisture, nor wind can destroy the blessing of a good deed, and blessings benefit the whole world." Hearing these answers, the deva was filled with joy. Bowing down in respect, he disappeared suddenly from the presence of the Buddha.

Blessing Chant... Just as water flowing in the streams and rivers fills the ocean, thus may all your moments of goodness touch and benefit all beings, those here now and those gone before. May all your wishes be soon fulfilled as completely as the moon on a full-moon night, as successfully as from the Wish-Fulfilling Gem. May all dangers be averted; may all disease leave you. May no obstacles come across your way and may you enjoy happiness and long life. May those who are always respectful, honoring the way of the elders, prosper in the four blessings of old age, beauty, happiness, and strength.

The Buddha's Words on Kindness (Metta Sutra)... This is what should be done by one who is skilled in goodness, and who knows the path of peace: Let them be able and upright, straightforward and gentle in speech. Humble and not conceited, contented and easily satisfied. Unburdened with duties and frugal in their ways. Peaceful and calm, and wise and skillful, not proud and demanding in nature. Let them not do the slightest thing that the wise would later reprove. Wishing: In gladness and in saftey, may all beings be at ease. Whatever living beings there may be; whether they are weak or strong, omitting none, the great or the mighty, medium, short or small, the seen and the unseen, those living near and far away, those born and to-be-born, may all beings be at ease! Let none deceive another, or despise any being in any state. Let none through anger or ill-will wish harm upon another. Even as a mother protects with her life her child, her only child, so with a boundless heart should one cherish all living beings: Radiating kindness over the entire world, sSpreading upwards to the skies, and downwards to the depths; outwards and unbounded, freed from hatred and ill-will. Whether standing or walking, seated or lying down, free from drowsiness, one should sustain this recollection. This is said to be the sublime abiding. By not holding to fixed views, the pure-hearted one, having clarity of vision, being freed from all sense desires, is not born again into this world.

Sometime during the sixth century BC, a solitary, wandering ascetic sat to meditate beneath a shady tree, resolving not to rise until he had attained the ultimate knowledge of spiritual enlightenment. Thus began Buddhism, one of the world's great religions and pilgrimage traditions.  Historians, religious scholars, and various Buddhist sects debate the actual year of the Buddha's birth; it may have been as early as 644 BC or as late as 540 BC. It is however, relatively certain that he was born Prince Gautama Siddhartha, the son of Suddhodana, king of the Shakya tribe. His birthplace was the forest grove of Lumbini in the hilly regions of what is today northeastern India and Nepal. Miraculous events surrounded his birth. Sages prophesied that he would become either a powerful king or, renouncing his royal life, an Enlightened being and religious leader. King Suddhodhana, wanting the former and fearing the later, sought to insulate his son from religious and philosophical concerns by surrounding him with a life of ease and plenty. Ensconced within palace walls, the prince grew to manhood and fatherhood never having seen old age, sickness, poverty, or death. Yet this blindness to the full range of human experience was not to last. One day the prince ventured beyond the castle walls and, witnessing the inevitable sufferings of human existence, recognized the shallowness of his pampered life. Metaphysical questions filled his thoughts and with them the conviction that he must seek and know the great truths of life. Thus, at the age of twenty-nine, he let go the constraints of family and worldly responsibility to tread the path of self-discovery.  Following the ancient traditions of Hinduism, Siddhartha sought out spiritual teachers, or gurus. Inquiring of their knowledge, he diligently practiced various yogas and meditations. Seven years passed, the last three in extreme asceticism, yet still he had not achieved his goal of Enlightenment. Finally recognizing that such practices had served him well but were no longer appropriate, Siddhartha journeyed toward the ancient sacred forests of Uruvela (modern Gaya in Bihar, in north India) with the intention of finally and completely realizing the infinite. Guided by visionary dreams and following in the footsteps of Krakucchanda, Kanakamuni, and Kasyapa, the Buddhas of three previous ages, Siddhartha sat beneath the Bodhi Tree. Touching the earth, thereby calling it to witness the countless lifetimes of virtue that had led him to this place of Enlightenment, he entered into a state of deep meditation. Three days and nights passed and his intention was realized. Siddhartha became the Buddha, meaning the "Enlightened One."  The Buddha spent the next seven weeks in meditation near the Bodhi Tree. Then, at the request of the god Indra, he began to speak of the great truth he had realized. His first sermon was given at Isipatana (modern Sarnath near Banaras). This first discourse, often called "Setting in Motion of the Wheel of Truth" presented the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path for which Buddhism is so famous. (The Four Noble Truths assert that human beings suffer because of the clinging nature of the mind. There is a way out of this suffering, however, and that is through the meditative practices of the Noble Eightfold Path. Through these practices an individual gains insight into how his or her suffering is caused by identification with the mind's processes. Letting go of such identification, one discovers and increasingly resides in a pre-existing state of inner peace.) The Buddha spent the remainder of his life traveling around northeastern India teaching and establishing monastic communities for both men and women. He died at the age of eighty in the village of Kusinara (modern Kushinager, Uttar Pradesh state, India), and his death is known as the parinirvana, the "going beyond Nirvana." His body was cremated with great ceremony and the cremation relics were placed in an earthern jar. Soon thereafter the relics were divided into eight portions and these, along with the jar that held them and the embers of the cremation fire, were then distributed among the rulers of eight territories in which the Buddha had traveled and taught. Legends state that ten stupas (Buddhist reliquary shrines) were constructed to house these sacred objects.  The origins of the practice of pilgrimage in Buddhism are obscure. Some scholars believe that Buddhist pilgrimage was initially imitative of the practice among Hindus but later became an integral part of the Buddhist tradition, assuming its own distinct features. Buddhists themselves are fond of quoting certain passages from the Mahaparinirvana Sutra in which the Buddha tells his chief disciple, Ananda, that there are four places "...that a devout person should visit and look upon with reverence." These four places are Lumbini, where he was born; Bodh Gaya, where he attained realization; Saranath, where he gave his first teachings; and Kushinager, where he passed away. While these places are actual geographical locations and the scene of certain events in the Buddha's life, we have no real proof that the Buddha spoke of the practice of pilgrimage. Contrary to popular belief, the Buddha never wrote any of his teachings down. What records we have of his words derive solely from the remembrances of his disciples. Three months after the Paranirvana, five hundred of his chief disciples met in a cave at Rajagraha and by common consensus agreed upon what were to be considered the main teachings of the Buddha. Considerable disagreement arose among them on the finer points of the Buddha's message as is evident from the fact that by the year 100 BC eighteen separate sects had been formed, each with its own interpretation. The teachings were collected together into what came to be known as the Tripitaka, and they were handed down almost wholly by word of mouth till they were finally committed to writing in Ceylon in the first century BC.  Whatever the authenticity of Buddha's injunctions regarding pilgrimage, the four places mentioned above became known as the Caturmahapratiharya, or "the Four Great Wonders," and monks and pilgrims began visiting them. Other places associated with the Buddha's life soon became pilgrimage sites in the new religion. Primary among them were the four sites of Rajagraha, where the Buddha tamed a maddened elephant; Sravasti, the site of a momentous event known as the Miracle of the Pairs; Vaisali, where monkeys offered the Buddha a gift of honey; and Samkasya, where the Buddha descended from the heavenly realms after teaching his mother. These eight sites together were known as Astamahapratiharya, or the Eight Great Wonders. Furthermore, there

were the places where the relics of the Buddha's cremation had been enshrined in stupas (the exact locations of these relic sites are unknown today). Following his conversion to Buddhism in the third century BC, the Emperor Ashoka opened seven of the original stupas and collected their relics. The Asokavadana (accounts of Asoka) relate that the emperor divided these ancient relics into 84,000 portions and vowed to erect a stupa for each portion somewhere in his great empire. While it is highly unlikely that this many stupa reliquaries were actually constructed (the number has symbolic rather than actual meaning), Asoka did establish a number of temples and monasteries that became important sites on the Buddhist pilgrimage circuit.  More important than the actual religious foundations Ashoka founded was the impetus he gave to the tradition of Buddhist pilgrimage and, through it, the spread of Buddhism across the vast Asian landmass. The passion of Ashoka's religious fervor coupled with the force of his imperial patronage initiated and sanctioned both a sacred geography and a pilgrimage practice in Buddhist India. These traditions would be perpetuated by sages such as the fifth- and seventh-century monks Fa-hsien and Hsuan-tsang, who were instrumental in introducing Buddhism to China, and the eighth-century Indian Tantric master, Padmasambhava, who definitively established Buddhism in Tibet. Besides the funeral relics enshrined by Ashoka in his stupas, other relics of the Buddha such as shavings from his head and clippings from his fingernails began to "appear" or be ''discovered" over the centuries. The authenticity of these relics supposedly deriving from the time of the living Buddha is questionable. Just as false relics were manufactured by unscrupulous Christians during the European medieval ages, so also did the practice occur in the Buddhist world.  Many other places became pilgrimage centers as the religion of Buddhism slowly extended its influence across the vast regions of Asia. In general, there were three primary categories of Buddhist sacred sites that arose in the centuries following Buddha's paranirvana. There is no relative ranking of the sanctity of these three types (or of the individual places  within the types) nor did one category arise before the others. One category concerns those places that were considered sacred prior to the arrival of Buddhism and were later incorporated into the fabric of Buddhist sacred geography. Such places could have been the shrines or holy mountains of various shamanistic or proto-religious cults, or the hermitages of sages, yogis, and ascetics. Buddhism from its very inception tended to be a proselytizing religion. Its early proponents and missionaries, intent on gaining converts, naturally sought out those places and communities where spirituality had already manifested, especially in Tibet, where certain Bon-Po sacred sites were taken over by the Buddhists, and in China, where particular Taoist sacred mountains became the abodes of Buddhist Bodhisattvas.  The second category of Buddhist sacred sites that arose after the passing away of the Buddha were those places associated with the lives or relics of various sages, saints, and teachers in the Buddhist tradition, for example, the well known pilgrimage site of Sanchi in central India. The Buddha never visited this place, yet relics of two of his chief disciples, Sariputra and Maudgalyayana, are enshrined within the great stupa.  A third type of Buddhist pilgrimage sites are those that have their genesis in the manifestation or apparition of various deities. This type of site, seldom encountered in the older Hinayana Buddhist tradition of Sri Lanka and Burma, is quite frequent in the Mahayana tradition as practiced in Tibet, Nepal, China, and Japan.  Preeminent among all these pilgrimage sites, both old and new, is Bodh Gaya, the place where the Buddha attained Enlightenment. As mentioned earlier, this site is traditionally believed to be the place where the Buddhas of the three previous ages had also attained Enlightenment. No archaeological remains have been found of any structures dating from the time of the historical Buddha; the earliest temple seems to have been constructed by the Emperor Asoka around 250 BC. This shrine was replaced in the second century AD by the present Mahabodhi temple, which was itself refurbished in AD 450, 1079, and 1157, then partially restored by Sir Alexander Cunningham in the second half of the ninteenth century, and finally fully restored by the Burmese Buddhists in 1882. The temple's square, truncated tower rises 180 feet (54 meters) above the ground. Its two lower stories house shrines that have served through the ages as places of homage, ritual practices, and meditation. Its upper portion is crowned by a stupa containing relics of the Buddha. Inside the temple is an enormous statue of the Buddha said to be more than seventeen hundred years old. In front of the Buddha image is a Shiva Linga said to have been installed by the great Hindu sage Shankaracharaya. The Hindus believe that the Buddha was one of the incarnations of Lord Vishnu; thus the Mahabodhi temple is a pilgrimage shrine for Hindus as well as Buddhists. Behind the temple are the two most venerated objects in all the Buddhist world, the Bodhi Tree and, beneath it, the Vajrasana, or seat of the Buddha's meditation. The tree standing today, while not the original, is a descendant of the tree growing in Buddha's time. A cutting of that tree was taken to Sri Lanka in the third century BC, where it still flourishes at the sacred site of Anuradhapura. A sapling from that tree was later brought back to Bodh Gaya, where it is still growing today. The Bodhi Tree was harmed, burned, and cut down various times by fanatical Hindus but, according to legend, each time it miraculously regrew. Around the tree and the temple compound are numerous other places rich in association with the Buddha's Enlightenment. The environs of Bodh Gaya have attracted sages, yogis, and meditators since the time of Buddha. Such great spiritual figures as Buddhajnana, Padmasambhava, Vimalamitra, Nagarjuna, and Atisha have lived and meditated beneath the Bodhi Tree. Disclaimer: All images and/or articles retain the original copyrights of their original onwers.

Remember, we are all potential Buddhas.

September 2, 2003