Shakyamuni Buddha and Buddhism

Page 24

Mountain Buck and Village Doe [Infatuation] Once upon a time, in northern India, there was a herd of village deer. They were used to being near villages; they were born there and grew up there. They knew they had to be very careful around people. This was especially true at harvest time, when the crops were tall, and the farmers trapped and killed any deer who came near. At harvest time, the village deer stayed in the forest all day long. They only came near the village during the dark of the night. One of these was a beautiful young doe. She had soft reddish-brown fur, a fluffy white tail and big wide bright eyes. During this particular season, there was a young mountain buck who had strayed into the same low forest. One day, he saw the beautiful young doe, and immediately became infatuated with her. He didn't know anything about her. But he imagined himself to be deeply in love with her, just because of her reddish-brown fur and her fluffy white tail and her big wide bright eyes. He even dreamed about her, although she did not know he existed! After a few days, the young mountain buck decided to introduce himself. As he was walking out into the clearing where she was grazing, he was entranced by her appearance and could not take his eyes off her. He began

speaking: "Oh my sweet beauty, as lovely as the stars and as bright as the moon, I confess to you that I am deeply..." - Just then the young buck's hoof got caught in a root, he tripped and fell, and his face splashed in a mud puddle! The pretty village doe was flattered, so she smiled. But inside, she thought this mountain buck was really rather silly! Meanwhile, unknown to the deer, there was a clan of tree fairies living in that part of the forest. They had been watching the mountain buck, while he secretly watched the village doe. When he walked out into the clearing, began his speech, and fell in the mud puddle - the fairies laughed and laughed. "What fools these dumb animals are!" they cried. But one fairy did not laugh. He said,"I fear this is a warning of danger to this young fool!" The young buck was a little embarrassed, but he did not see it as any kind of warning. From then on, he followed the doe wherever she went. He kept telling her how beautiful she was and how much he loved her. She didn't pay much attention. Then night came, and it was time for the doe to go down to the village. The people who lived along the way knew the deer passed by at night; so they set traps to catch them. That night a hunter waited, hiding behind a bush. Carefully, the village doe set out. The mountain buck, who was still singing her praises, went right along with her. She stopped and said to him, "My dear buck, you are not experienced with being around villages. You don't know how dangerous human beings are. The village, and the way to it, can bring death to a deer even at night. Since you are so young and inexperienced (and she thought to herself, 'and foolish'), you should not come down to the village with me. You should remain in the safety of the forest." At this, the tree fairies applauded. But of course, the deer could not hear them. The young buck paid no attention to the doe's warning. He just said, "Your eyes look so lovely in the moonlight!" - and kept walking with her. She said, "If you won't listen to me, at least be quiet!" He was so infatuated with her, that he could not control his mind. But he did finally shut his mouth! After a while, they approached the place where the hunter was hiding behind a bush. The fairies saw him, and became agitated and frightened for the deer's safety. They flew nervously around the tree, branches, but they could only watch. The doe could smell the hiding man. She was afraid of a trap. So, thinking to save her own life, she let the buck go first. She followed a little way behind. When the hunter saw the unsuspecting mountain buck, he shot his arrow and killed him instantly. Seeing this, the terrified doe turned tail and ran back to the forest clearing as fast as she could. The hunter claimed his kill. He started a fire, skinned the deer, cooked some of the venison and ate his fill. Then he threw the carcass over his shoulder and carried it back home to feed his family. When the fairies saw what happened, some of them cried. As they watched the hunter cut up the once noble looking buck, some of them felt sick. Others blamed the careful doe for leading him to the slaughter. But the wise fairy, who had given the first warning, said, "It was the excitement of infatuation that killed this foolish deer. Such blind desire brings false happiness at first, but ends in pain and suffering." The moral is: Infatuation leads to destruction.

March 3, 2004

A Panel Discussion on the Interior Life... When Dharma Master Heng Shun called to invite me to speak, he didn’t tell me that I was supposed to speak on the interior life. If he had, I would have said no, because here we have so many experts on the interior life, who are real professionals. I think that’s one of the great contributions of Buddhism to the world. It is a professional curriculum in the interior life. Although we have explorers of the interior life in the West, too, I don’t think there’s the same kind of systematic dedication to that exploration as there was in ancient India and in particular in Buddhism. I don’t want to talk about Buddhism from an academic point of view this evening, because I’m sure you’re all sick of hearing that. Originally I didn’t approach Buddhism from an academic view, and sometimes I wonder how I got involved in academics altogether. I grew up in a fairly wealthy, upper middle-class community in the Middle West, where there were-just like anywhere else-good people and bad people. But, to be fair, I think the main value of the community was money. Your status in the community had to do with how much money and what kind of material goods you had, and I think because of the good ethical values that have been instilled in me by my family, I realized that there was something rather hollow and not very satisfying about this. Unfortunately, when I was growing up, I didn’t meet any truly spiritual people from any religious tradition, and so religion for me-from what I learned from the community-was not about the spiritual nature of human beings, but it was about religious institutions and social status. Usually the people who were most revered in the churches and temples were the people who had the most money. I hope that very few of you had this experience when you were growing up. Then I went off to college at Harvard. It was very confusing for me, because the motto of Harvard is veritas, which means truth, and I naively assumed that people at Harvard would be concerned with the truth. Probably there were some there who were concerned with the truth, but most of them were concerned with fame, power, and, to a lesser extent, money. There were some very brilliant people there, and I felt awed by them. Interestingly enough, the first really spiritual person I came into contact with was a Christian. His name was Paul Tillich. He was a well-known Christian theologian in the fifties and sixties and had a tremendous amount of charisma. He would lecture every day to 100 or 200 students, and I literally sat at his feet and drank in a kind of spiritual energy which I had not experienced before. And I also drank in his incredible intellect and education, which was of a scope I had never experienced before. He really understood not only the whole Western tradition of philosophy and spirituality, but also something of Asian traditions. It was from him that I first learned of Buddhism. Because I had the tendency, I was interested in the interior life, although I didn’t have much interior life. I didn’t have much interior life because I grew up in a society and an educational system that doesn’t teach us anything about the interior life. Unfortunately, most people, even if they are very good people and devote themselves to very good causes, have no interior awareness. Their attention is always focused out there in the world. To the extent that they are aware of what’s going on inside their minds, their awareness and interest lies in intellectual thoughts. It never occurs to most of them that those very thoughts are getting in the way of their own self-understanding. In other words, when you go to college what is of value is thoughts, ideas. Your ability to organize and remember thoughts and ideas is how you are evaluated in your university career. (I think you are lucky that at Humboldt State and at the University of San Francisco you have some professors who realize that there is something to learning beyond that.) This weekend you’re coming into contact with a tradition that says those thoughts and ideas can have some value-depending on what they are, they can guide us in our life. But if we really want to understand who we are, we have to look beyond them and realize that they cover over what is really valuable about us and about our understanding of the world. I was in college in the early sixties, which must seem a very, very long time ago to most of you. I’m sure you’ve read in the history books that it was a rather turbulent time. Some of you may even have some rather bizarre parents from that era. My son is always telling me that all the sixties people are just weird, and he’s probably right. J Anyway, when I was at college, I took course in Asian art, and I began to realize that some of the art of Asia contained keys to an inner consciousness that was beyond ideas. By looking at the art, I could intuitively feel that there was something remarkable there. One day during my senior year I was in my room looking at a medieval Japanese Buddha image on the wall, and I began to realize that the image was a guide to the inner consciousness. I began to realize that to the extent that I concentrated on the image, the distinction between what is inside the mind and what is outside began to break down. I saw that the distinction between what is me-subject-and what is object is phony, restricting and painful. And so I got a first taste of understanding that art could be a guide to a whole new world of inner consciousness. That’s how I first got interested in Buddhism. It had nothing to do with studying Buddhism academically. When I learned that, naturally I wanted to seek out people who had wisdom-not knowledge, but wisdom-about this pathway to a whole new world of experience, which is beyond the pain of alienation that comes from cutting ourselves off from other people and from the natural world. To make a long story short, I came out to San Francisco to study Chinese and was very fortunate to meet the founder of the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas, the Venerable Master Hsuan Hua. He had not put up a sign saying that he was a famous Chinese Chan Buddhist Patriarch. He was living very quietly with almost nobody around. But gradually, being around him, I began to be aware that he was somebody who was very, very different than anybody else I knew. It was a very low-key kind of thing. I began to be aware that he never did anything selfish. I began to be aware that when I looked at him, I didn’t have the same kind of, "Oh, there’s another person there, with his own agenda for me to bounce off of," feeling that we always have when we meet another person. And I became aware that he was a very, very compassionate person. In very quiet, concrete, and unobtrusive ways, he was always trying to help, materially, emotionally, spiritually, everyone around him, without making any kind of claims for himself. As I began to sit and meditate with him, I became more and more aware of his special qualities. The fact that he was a Buddhist was, in a sense, almost irrelevant to me. He himself always used to say that Buddhism is just a label, that Buddhism should not be called Buddhism, that Buddhism is the true heart, the true nature of the minds of all sentient beings. And so, when we study about comparative religion and make all of these categories: "I’m a Buddhist; you’re a Christian; he’s a Muslim; she’s a Jew;" there’s something very artificial about this. Those categories sometimes may have some usefulness for sincere people on their own spiritual path, but they are also become a hindrance and be counterproductive. I often feel a great sense of kinship with people who come from other spiritual traditions; I feel that we are really on the same path insofar as we can understand it. Now, whether that same path is ultimately the same, who is to say? But to all of us who realize that what is truly important about human life lies beyond our own selfish ego considerations, then these distinctions about doctrines, about ideas, are not so important and don’t tend to get in the way.on the Message Board. Thank you.
(Courtesy of and Presentation by Ron Epstein, Research Professor, Institute for World Religions Lecturer, Philosophy Department, San Francisco State University, Sagely City of Ten Thousand Buddhas. September 26, 1998)

For these highest beings who aspire for the supreme awakened state, I shall explain the perfect method as taught by the spiritual masters.
Ethical Discipline (Shila)... Before paintings, statues and so forth of the Totally Awakened Being [Buddha], (as well as) reliquaries and the sacred Dharma offer flowers, glowing incense and any objects one has received just as related in the 'Conduct of the Entirely Good Samantabhadra' as well as in the 'Seven-fold Offering'.
With a mind never turning from the limit of the essence, complete awakening, out of great faith in the Three Rare and Supreme Jewels, while kneeling on bent knee, with palms placed together first go for refuge three times.
Then at the outset, out of a mind of pure love for every sentient being, look at each and every one of [sentient] beings, who all suffer from death, transmigration [Bardo], birth in the three bad destinies [animal, prêta and hell] and the like. Out of the suffering - suffering, suffering [of change] and [all-pervasive] suffering - and the wish to free living creatures from its cause, activate the awakening mind [Bodhicitta] that vows never to turn back. The excellent qualities produced by such an aspiring mind are explained well by Maitreya, the Loving One in the 'Adorned Tree Discourse'. Read that discourse or hear from a master the limitless excellences of the complete awakening mind. Be aware of its aspects and then, with this as your reason, generate this mind again and again. In the 'Discourses Requested by Suradata' the meritorious-ness of it is elaborated very well. At which juncture, I shall quote here just three stanzas: "If whatever merit of the awakening mind were to be form, it would fill every realm throughout space and would come to exceed even that. Realms of Buddha-fields, as many as the number of sand-grains in the Ganges,
a person may fill them all with jewels and offer them to the Protectors of the transitory world; yet should anyone join his palms to direct his mind to full awakening, this offering is particularly noble: it is without any limit."
Having activated the mind that aspires to fully awaken, constantly make an effort to enhance it. In order to recall it in subsequent lives as well, thoroughly safeguard your practices as it is taught. Unless one binds oneself to the venturing mind [aspirational bodhicitta], one's perfect aspiration will never increase. Therefore, one who wishes to enhance the bond with complete awakening, should try and make sure to accept it. One who is already endowed with a vow of the seven categories of Individual Liberation [pratimoksha] can receive the bond of an Awakening Warrior; others not.
From the seven categories of Individual Liberation vows that were expounded by the Ones Thus Gone [Buddha], those of pure conduct are supreme: (the highest is) correctly asserted as the bond of a fully ordained monk.
In accordance with the ceremony expounded in the 'ethical discipline chapter' of the 'Awakening Warrior's Levels', accept the bond from a good spiritual master who has perfect characteristics. Anyone skilled in the ceremony of the bond, abiding in the bond himself, competent in bestowing the bond and compassionate is known as a qualified master. However, if you have tried and failed to find a master such as this, I shall explain a correct procedure for taking the bond other than that. As in previous times when Manjushri was King Ambaraja, the way he activated his heart to awakening is explained in the 'Discourse Ornamenting the Buddha-field of Manjushri'. Here I shall write most clearly in accordance with that: be in the presence of the Protectors for activating the complete awakening mind: Keep as your guests all living beings to release them from cyclic existence; a malicious mind, a mind of anger, avarice and

A Lamp For The Path To Full Awakening By Lama Atisha
Sanskrit: Bodhipathapradipam; Tibetan: Byang-chub-lam-gyi-sgron-ma ("Lam-dron") by the great Indian Pandit Dipamkara Shrijnana Atisha, "Jowo-je"
Obeisance of the translator from Sanskrit into Tibetan: Homage to the Awakening Warrior, youthful, refined and glorious Manjushri.
Homage And Promise To Explain... To all Conquerors [Buddhas] of the three times, to the Truth of Dharma and to the Spiritual Aspirants, with great respect, I pay homage. Being urged by the good disciple Changchub O, I shall elucidate the Lamp for the Path to Full Awakening.
The Three Spiritual Scopes... Know that the three spiritual scopes as being small, mediocre and supreme. So that their characteristics will be quite clear, I shall write down what distinguishes each. Anyone who, by whatever means, seeks to procure for himself happiness merely in cyclic existence is known as an individual of the lowest scope. He who turns his back on the happiness of transitory existence and turns himself away from the actions of evil, he who seeks for just his own peace is an individual known to be of mediocre scope. Anyone who, realizing the suffering pertaining to his own being, wishes for the total elimination of the suffering of others is a person having supreme scope.

perfect completeness, through effort will fulfill the accumulations for complete awakening.
Meditative Concentration (Samadhi)... The cause of fulfilling the accumulations which are in the nature of physical merit and pristine awareness is said by all Awakened Beings to be the generation of heightened awareness. Just as a bird whose wings have not developed is unable to soar in the sky, one who lacks the power of heightened awareness is unable to benefit sentient beings. Whatever merit accumulated in a day and a night for one who is endowed with heightened awareness cannot be gained in even a hundred lifetimes for someone lacking heightened awareness. Those wishing to quickly complete the accumulations for full awakening will gain the heightened awareness's by exerting an effort to do so: not by being lazy. (However,) without accomplishing tranquil absorption heightened awareness will never arise. Therefore exert an effort again and again to accomplish tranquil absorption. Yet even if one meditates with great effort for thousands of years while the contributing factors for tranquil absorption are weakened, meditative concentration will never be attained. Therefore maintain these factors well as expounded in the chapter of the 'Accumulations for Concentration'. Place the mind virtuously on any single object. When the yoga of tranquil absorption is attained, heightened awareness will also be attained.
Method And Wisdom... To be lacking in the practice of transcendent intelligence [gnosis] will not eradicate mental obscuration. So in order to discard every emotional disturbance and mental obscuration to omniscience, meditate constantly on the yoga of transcendent intelligence conjoined with the method. The method separate from wisdom, and wisdom separate from the method also, are [both] taught to [result in] bondage [to cyclic existence], so do not forsake either. What constitutes "wisdom"; what constitutes "method"? To eliminate any doubt, I shall clarify the proper distinctions between method and wisdom. Aside from transcendent intelligence, every kind of virtuous practice such as that of transcendent generosity is explained by the Conquerors as being the method. By the power of acquaintance with the method and by (the awakening mind) itself, anyone who meditates on discriminating intelligence will quickly attain full awakening, (but) not through meditating on non-self-existence alone.
Discriminating Intelligence (Prajna)... Being aware of the emptiness of natural existence, which involves the realization that the aggregates, sensory spheres and bases are not created, is the full explanation of what constitutes "wisdom". It is impossible for existent entities to be created and also non-existence is like a flower in the sky. Since fallacies consequently will be present for either, both together can never arise. Things are not created from themselves, nor from others, nor from both, nor from no cause. Therefore, essentially they have no nature in themselves. Furthermore, when one analyses all phenomena as unitary or multiple, being essentially un-apprehensible (as such), one will ascertain that they lack any nature of their own. The reasons in such texts as (Nargarjuna's) 'Seventy Emptiness's' and his 'Fundamental Treatise on the Middle Way' show that the nature of all things is established as being empty. Because this text would become too extensive, I will not elaborate any further here. I just mention it to establish my tenets and to explain it properly for meditation. Thus the nature of every single phenomenon is un-apprehensible. Whatever constitutes the meditation on non-self existence is the meditation of discriminating intelligence. Just as discriminating intelligence does not see any nature in all phenomena, mentally analyze that intelligence itself (and) meditate on that without any conceptualizing. As worldly existence arises from conceptualization, it is itself a conceptual thought. Therefore, the discarding of every conceptualization is the supreme state beyond sorrow. Furthermore, Buddha the Endowed Destroyer has similarly stated: "Conceptualization, the great ignorance, throws one into the ocean of cyclic existence. Dwell in non-conceptualizing meditative concentration, clear, without concepts, like space." Also he has said in the 'Mystic Recitation of Engaging in Non-conceptualization:'
"O Son of the Conqueror, in this high practice of Dharma, if one contemplates non-conceptually on appearance,
one will transcend the difficult to pass conceptions and gradually will come to non-conceptuality." Once you have attained through such scriptural sources and reasoning that phenomena - by lacking a nature of their own - in their entirety are uncreated, meditate without conceptualizing.
The Spiritual Paths And Levels... In this way, when one has meditated on Thus-ness, gradually, from attaining (the stages of the spiritual paths) such as "Warmth," (the spiritual levels of) the "Greatly Joyous" and so forth will be attained and the full awakening of a Buddha will not be far away.
Tantric Path... By the activities of peacefulness, increase and so on that are accomplished only by the power of mantra and also by force of the eight great accomplishments, such as the siddhi of the auspicious vase, one can complete the accumulations for full awakening. If one wishes to blissfully practice the secret mantra as expounded in the tantras of Action, Performance and so on, then, for the bestowal of a qualified master's empowerment, one should offer gains, service, valuables and so on and carry out his words and the like so that by all means one makes the venerable master delighted. When the tantric master is well pleased, the full bestowal of an accomplished master's empowerment will give one the fortune to achieve actualization which, in its nature, is pure of all evil. As it is clearly reflected in the 'Great Tantra of the Primary Buddha', the bestowal of the secret wisdom empowerment should not be (actually) taken by a celibate practitioner. Since one would be following a rejected practice, were one to hold that empowerment, while maintaining the pure conduct of an earnest practitioner, the vows of celibacy will be transgressed; the earnest practitioner will receive the downfall of defeat. In doing so, he [or she] will surely fall into a bad destiny without any accomplishment whatsoever. (However,) listening to and teaching all tantra, making fire offerings, giving Pujas and so on is without fault for one has received the master's empowerment and is aware of Thus-ness.
Conclusion... The venerable elder Shri Dipamkara, having seen explanations from the Dharma in the 'Discourses' and so forth, in being requested by Chang Chub O, has made this brief explanation of the path to full awakening.
The Lamp for the Path to Full Awakening, composed by the great master Dipamkara Shri Jnana, the "Glorious Illuminator of Primordial Awareness," is complete. May All Be Benefited...
(Disclaimer: All images and articles retain the original copyrights of their original owners. 12/9/04)

envy, these should never occur from now until the attainment of complete awakening.
Act in pure conduct. Work at abandoning evil and desire. Be joyful in your bond with ethical discipline. Emulate the practices of Buddha, the Awakened One. Be not inclined to attain full awakening by a quick means just for yourself, but (be prepared to) remain until the extreme end (of time) for the cause of even a single sentient being. Prepare for (the attainment of) pure realms, boundless and beyond imagination. Work to be known by your name and to abide purely throughout the ten directions. Always be pure in deeds of body and speech and also pure in the activity of the mind. Never commit unwholesome actions. Maintaining oneself in the bond through the aspiring mind is the cause of purifying one's body, speech and mind. If these three ethical trainings are practiced well, one's respect for the three ethical trainings will increase. Thus, abiding by the bond of an Awakening Warrior with