What is Vesak Day and Why Celebrate It?

Jack asked that I blog a bit on Vesak Day (celebration of the birth of the Buddha) so here is my offering on the day.

Perhaps some might think the celebration of the birth of the Buddha is odd as Buddhists are encouraged not to attach too much importance to birth, death and the body in general.

However, I feel that the true essence of Vesak Day is to celebrate the Dharma rather then the physical presence of the Buddha himself. Indeed the Buddha did not want his followers to worship him but rather follow and honor his teachings. The Buddha was a human being--not a God. However, he was indeed a special, rare being who was inspired to bring us the timeless Dharma.

Thus, Vesak day for me is a special day to honor not only the Dharma that the Teacher Buddha so generously taught but also to celebrate the Buddha within us all. After all being interconnected to all things seen and unseen we are natural continuations or roots of the Tathagata. It is also a day for me to remind myself of what is possible and why I follow the path of the Middle-Way taught by the Buddha. It is a day of re-dedication to the Four Noble Truths, the Eight-Fold Path as well as the The Jewels: Buddha, Dharma and Sangha.

The date of celebrating Vesak Day seems to change from country to country and tradition to tradition usually in accordance of the first full moon in May. According to my Thich Nhat Hanh calendar the first full moon in may is on the 2nd. In places such as Thailand and Singapore the day is celebrated on the 31st of May.

In some places the day is a celebration of not only the Buddha's birth but his enlightenment and continuation from this life of samara (suffering) into Nirvana and Parinirvana. He did not die in a special way nor was seen ascending into the sky as a God would. He died just like any other human being.

In addition, in certain countries caged birds and fish are set free as a compassionate and lovingly kind gesture to show respect to all living creatures.

I plan on celebrating the day spending some time looking for trapped insects in our house in order to set them free. We have a fun device that allows one to gently and humanely catch insects in order to set them free outside in the garden. However, If I find a spider for example in a nest then I will leave them be as to not disturb their babies and cycle of life.

I also would like to purchase a lovely spring Lilly plant to grace our altar. As well as candles in honor of our founding father's enlightenment who pointed out the Way of the Infinite Dharma, the Buddha within us and the community of followers who keep the teachings alive. I will also meditate as usual and maybe attend the Tibetan Buddhist Stupa located in the mountains near by here at the Shambhala Mountain Center.

I see Vesak Day as being very different then the Easter of Christianity because the celebration of the birth of the Buddha is not the honoring of a Savior or God. Rather it is the celebration of the teachings of a great teacher.

Growing up and living in the western United States and spending several years in Africa I have, in addition, been highly influenced by the spirituality of the native peoples of those places. Thus, I also see this celebration as the honoring of spring arriving to bring life again to the world. Just as the great teacher the Buddha brought True Life to this time and place where we find ourselves.

Jack, I hope this gives you an idea of how I plan to celebrate this auspicious day. I shall blog again on the actual day on Wednesday.

~Peace to all beings~

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 4/30/2007

"We must make the choices that enable us to fulfill the deepest capacities of our real selves."

~Thomas Merton

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One Day Blog Silence

I do plan to participate in the "One Day Blog Silence" tomorrow. The Buddha Diaries will go dark. The notion for the day of silence was prompted by the rampage of violence on the Virginia Tech campus, but my own observation is motivated also by the needless death of more British and American soliders this weekend in Iraq; and by the mindless murder of innocent people throughout the world, particularly the civilians being slaughtered in sectarian violence in Iraq and those suffering from the latest inexcusable episode of genocide in Darfur. Having just read the Jeffrey Gettleman article in today's New York Times "Week in Review" about the recruitment and abuse of children as killers in several African nations, I include these boys and their victims in my intention to observe the day of silence.

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 4/29/2007

"We are so obsessed with doing that we have no time and no imagination left for being. As a result, men are valued not for what they are but for what they do or what they have - for their usefulness."

~Thomas Merton

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Dog Farts

It was quite en experience, yesterday, reading "Red Color News Soldier," the book to which you'll find a link in my last entry. While I had a general idea of Chinese history since World War II, Li Zhensheng's book and his photographs document it in dramatic and poignant detail. Particularly disturbing are the scores of pictures of public humiliations, with offenders agaist the current (and constantly shifting) brand of communist orthodoxy forced to stand on chairs for hours, heads bowed in shame, crowned with elaborately pointed paper dunce caps, their faces and clothes spattered with ink, and holding signs that detail such crimes as "careerism" and the ever popular accusation of representing the (apparently) odious "black gang element." As is common in tyrannical regimes, a good part of its strength derived from pitting people against people, encouraging ubiquitous betrayal and mistrust.

Li led me through the experience of one brought up and educated to believe that everything in Mao's communist China represented humanitarian freedom, while everything outside represented injustice and repression. The dawning of his own realization that things were less than perfect in his own country came, he told me, with the attack on a Russian orthodox church in his home town of Harbin in 1966 where, as he describes it in his book, "the city's rebel goups went on a rampage... tearing it down with their bare hands;" and shortly after, when "they sacked the Buddhist Jile temple.: Years later, he wrote, he could still not understand "why they smashed all the statues and burned the sacred books. They even made the monks hold up a banner that said, 'To hell with the Buddhist scriptures. They are full of dog farts.'"

I like to think that the Buddha himself would have had a good chuckle--not at the treatment of his monks, certainly, but at the absurdity of the intended insult. Actually, he might even have encouraged its propagation, because he always insisted that no-one should take his word as gospel. The idea was not to to simply accept it, but to subject it to constant questioning. "Dog farts," indeed. No text is sacred beyond questioning.

Li recalls, in his book, some less than honorable acts that he himself was deluded into commiting, either in the spirit of political correctness or simply in self-defense. Nonetheless, he concludes, "I think we must try, through serious reflection, through contemplation, to relieve those whose souls were tortured. I want to show the world what really happened during the Cultural Revolution." His book serves precisely that purpose. It's a powerful indictment of a tyrannical regime and its cynical abuse of power and of the people it holds in subjugation. I hope the current exhibition at the California Museum of Photography (see yesterday's link) serves to make it better known in these United States where, even today, we need to be on a guard against those who would set us against each other and deprive us of our freedoms. We hear quite a few dog farts, these days, from Washington, DC.

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 4/28/2007

"We have what we seek, it is there all the time, and if we give it time, it will make itself known to us."

~Thomas Merton

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A (Brilliant) Mind in Space; and the Cultural Revolution

What a pleasure to see those pictures of Stephen Hawking delighting in the experience of weightlessness. I can only begin to imagine how it must have felt, after forty years confined to his wheelchair, for him to be released from the bonds of gravity, if only for a few fleeting seconds. I'm proud to say that we have a (very!) tenuous association: Stephen Hawking C.H., C.B.E., Ph.D., Hon Sc.D., F.R.S., is the current incumbent of the Lucasian Professorship of Mathematics at my old Cambridge College, Gonville & Caius (pronounce, please "keys.") Well, not much kudos to me, perhaps, but I can bathe in a little reflected glory, no? I am awed by the fact that the human mind is capable of the kind of brilliant imaginative flights that Hawking has taken in his researches in cosmology, black holes and quantum gravity, and doubly awed when it comes from a man who has had to struggle with such a pitiless debility as ALS.

On another front, I drove out to Riverside yesterday, where I was privileged to meet with another man who has made an important contribution to our human species. Li Zhensheng is a photographer whose superb documentation of both the aspirations and the ignominies of Chairman Mao's "Cultural Revolution" in communist China remained hidden for decades and were eventually revealed to the world in a remarkable book called "Red Color News Soldier." The exhibition of Li's work at the California Museum of Photography at UC Riverside is a selection from some thirty thousand images shot by Li in the ten years of the revolution: at the beginning, he assured me, they were taken to celebrate the promise of a revival of the genuine communist spirit, a true hope for the future of the country under new leadership; but soon began to reflect the misery, the political and social constraints and the paranoia that a new tyranny engendered.

Li proved to be a wonderful interview subject. To listen to the flow of a language, not a single word of which I understood before the translator took over, was itself a remarkable experience. Add in the communication through the eyes, through the body language, through the peculiar process of triangulation with the translator, and the process becomes delightfully oblique and subtle, and requires a special sensitivity and attention. We ranged easily between the intense and the light-hearted and managed, I thought, to achieve a nice relationship. Our session lasted three times longer than I had anticipated--and only partly due to the translation process. I'm looking forward to reviewing the digital recording of our session.

After my additional, much briefer interviews with the museum director Jonathan Green, and the exhibition curator Robert Pledge--who has devoted years of time and energy to bringing Li's archive to the attention of the world--I sat for lunch at a sunny table on the Riverside mall with my hosts and the cheerful young Chinese student who was Li's diligent translator for his visit here. Li was busy taking pictures with his digital camera the entire time--throughout the interview, as well as over lunch--and after lunch a woman who had been observing us from an adjacent table offered to take a group picture that would include us all. Li happily accepted, delighted with the unsolicited offer from a stranger: such a thing, he said, could not have happened in China, where social mores dictate a certain reticence. Which led us into a discussion of how Robert had introduced the Western hug to the community of Chinese photographers... All in all, an entertaining moment. Our thoughtful new friend from the next table was surprised to learn she had been taking photographs of one of the world's great photographers!

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 4/27/2007

"The biggest human temptation is to settle for too little."

~Thomas Merton

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Thirteen Thousand

Well, there you go. It seems like American business is doing well. The Dow Jones Industrial Average swept past the "historic" thirteen thousand mark yesterday, much to the glee of the financial commentators on the news stations. And I guess it's hardly surprising, given the obdurately pro-business policies of the current occupant of the most powerful office in this country. They color everything, including, of course, the war in Iraq--a disaster for this country's reputation in the world as well as for its military and political well-being, but seemingly a boon for the American companies to whom a good deal of military and civil reconstruction work has been outsourced. The privatization of government responsibilities in every sphere--from war to health care to education, to the national infrastructure and the prison system--has surely generously lined the pockets of the profit-making world of business, but has demonstrably proved neither as efficient nor as cost-effective as its promoters dreamed.

Meantime, the ranks of the billionaires' club continue to swell in outrageous disproportion to the financial security of the average middle-class American. The trickle of the trickle-down theory of economics has proved to be just that--a trickle, which seems to dry up completely before it could address the needs of the truly poor and the unemployed. The senior Bush had it right when he called it, famously, "voodoo economics." The son apparently clings to a belief in magic, despite all evidence to the contrary in almost everything he touches. "Denial"--Sen. Harry Reid's word, this week--seems but a pale adumbration of the stubborn rejection of real world facts by this singularly obtuse individual.

Ah, well. Deep breath. May he find true happiness in his life... (Should he find it, remember, the rest of the world would all be better off!)

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration- 4/26/2007

"The least of the work of learning is done in the classroom"

~Thomas Merton

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Dishwasher Mindfulness

Upon emerging from my formal sitting meditation I decided to unload the dishwasher with deep concentration and mindfulness. As I slowly began the process of unloading the clean dishes I thought about each cup, each plate and each utensil. How many wonderful meals have these plates and bowls held for this body to enjoy!! How many times have those forks and spoons helped me eat??

Yet I could not have savored these many wonderful tastes without water for more then one reason but mostly I was concentrating upon the cleaning aspect of water. How wonderful that we have this beautiful, soft, cool manifestation to cleanse our body and dishes amongst so many other gifts. When later washing dishes to put into the dishwasher I ran my fingers through the water cascading out of the facet. Here I had a little waterfall right in my home!! I couldn't help but think of all the beautiful waterfalls that I saw upon our visit to Oregon a few years ago. However, mostly I thought of the world famous Multnomah falls (pictured above) outside Portland--the water pouring into the sink through my hands was no different then the water pouring down the Multnomah falls!! What a great thing to have a waterfall in one's house!! How lucky that I am to have such a delightful and generous gift.

It made me think about my brothers and sisters around the world who do not have such access to clean drinking water. I remember the difficulty that some Africans had in obtaining water during my two years living in the Cote D'Ivoire (Ivory Coast), West Africa. They cherished every drop because of all the effort that went into obtaining it. It reminded me not to take that fresh water available right inside my house for granted. Water is so precious and as we know we'd die without it so let us treat it as the precious treasure that it is and keep our rivers and lakes clean.

However, let us return to the dishes. My focus then settled into the make-up of the plates themselves. How wondrous and curious a thing is a plate. I wouldn't even know where to start to make manifest a plate from all the non-plate elements within it. I don't even know how to make a paper plate!! However, I do enjoy them and honor all the things that go into their creation including the artisans who invest their time, energy and concentration into making these dishes possible. I care for these plates as to not break them and waste the efforts of these wonderful people.

There is no magic other then what is already around and within us. How amazing that we can create any number of things from the joining of individual elements and other materials!! A bowl is a bowl and yet it is not--it's also a rock. A table is a table and yet it is not--it is also water and iron. This warm hooded sweatshirt is a warm hooded sweatshirt and yet it is not--it's a sheep and a sowing machine. The fingers that type this post are fingers and yet they are not--they are oxygen and tomatoes. Why tomatoes? Why not? All things are found within an one isolated "thing" (as well as anything can actually be isolated). In a more precise answer, however, my mother ate many tomatoes when she was carrying me in her womb and I would not have grown into a human being without those tomatoes--amongst so many other things that she ingested and did NOT ingest.

My focus also settled next upon my beautiful, kind and compassionate wife who was the last one to touch these dishes. She was in those dishes and I gently caressed them before placing them gently in the cabinets because I wasn't just handling fragile dishes--I was handling my fragile wife at the same time. If I slammed the dishes into the cabinets without care then I was doing the same to my wife and I didn't want to bring discomfort to her so I handled them with the careful attention that they deserve.

And I also saw you, my friend reading this right now--and I smiled to you. I hope that you see my smile the next time you use a plate. And when you do? Please smile back to me to maintain an infinite circle of smiles. Thank-you in advance for your smile blessed one.

:)

~Peace to all beings~

Dreaming Again...

... this time of riding through Europe on the red drop-handlebar bicycle I bought for myself when I was fourteen years old. Moving along fairly easily, even though I have done nothing since that time to maintain it. I notice that the chrome on the inside of the front wheel has blackened with age and neglect: I have not taken the time to clean it before setting out. I have also neglected to oil the machinery.

Still, it seems to perform pretty much as it did back then--with the exception of the gears. As a teenager, I was inordinately proud of my (then) ultra-modern Benelux ten-speed derailer gear, even though I never quite mastered the art of making it work to perfection. I was constantly having to adjust it to keep the darn thing on track. And now, in the dream, true to form, it refuses to function properly as I make a steep turn on a rocky track, attempting to overtake a couple, also on bikes, who have been riding in front of me for some time. I dismount, deciding that it will do me no harm to settle for a single gear, and to walk the hills where necessary...

Well, riddle me that one. Actually, I suppose, it's not too hard to figure out. I have, after all, been riding this same old bicycle all these years, and the imperfections are more evident today than I would like. The gears no longer shift as easily as they were designed to do, and I have to get off and walk from time to time.

I did, in actual fact, do a bicycle tour of Europe as a teenager. I must have been fifteen or sixteen years old. My parents insisted that I go with a companion, and I chose a school mate, Proctor, who soon lived up to the suggestions of his name: he was a bit of a pain in the rear end, always straggling and complaining about this or that... the hills, the weather, the hard work.

It was hard work, no doubt about that. The equipment, in those days, was not as light and handy as today's: we had a heavy canvas "pup" tent and bulky sleeping bags, a change of clothes, some basic camping gear--it all added up to a significant burden on a bicycle. And the rain didn't help. As I remember, it rained a good deal of the time. We forged ahead, often on slippery cobblestones, hampered by our oilskin slickers and our heavy gear, riding from the coast of the English channel at Ostend, through Belgium and the Eifel Forest (scene of the Battle of the Bulge, for WWII fans!) to Cologne, then turned south along the Rhine to Bonn, and south and east again down the Moselle River to Trier, and back through Belgium to the coast. A long trip, which we completed, as I recall, in the space of a couple of weeks.

In the dream, I do remember thinking how cycling was a good way to stay fit. The mood was one of pleasant nostalgia, I think--despite those recalcitrant gears. And the scenery was grand--green fields and hedgerows, an occasional copse, and wildflowers by the roadside... More English, really, than Belgian or German. Well, imagine that.

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 4/25/2007

"The truth that many people never understand, until it is too late, is that the more you try to avoid suffering the more you suffer because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you in proportion to your fear of being hurt"

~Thomas Merton

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The World is an Illusion

When the world arises in me,
It is just an illusion:
Water shimmering in the sun,
A vein of silver in mother-of-pearl,
A serpent in a strand of rope.

From me the world streams out
And in me it dissolves,
As a bracelet melts into gold,
A pot crumbles into clay,
A wave subsides into water.

-Ashtavakra Gita 2: 9-10

James: This is an appropriate message today as it is has been raining heavily all day and it has been such a calming energy. I stare out into the driving rain and I am one with each droplet. It has been a wonderful meditation for me through out the morning and now afternoon.

I subside into the rain.

As the rain poured down I wondered why I wasn't seeing a huddle of birds that I normally see on stormy days such as this and then I realized the feeder was empty!! I ran outside and went to fill the feeder and in doing so found two wasps stuck in the feeder that were barely moving. I rescued them with a stick and put them up against the wall under the patio to dry out. I hope they make it through this day but I doubt it. If they do have their continuation day today then I hope that they are reborn in a state where they can find and realize liberation.

PHOTO: "Rain Drops on Pine Branch Needles" by Eric Kamp.

~Peace to all beings~

Conversations

Twice weekly - in addition to my regular daily entry - I will be directing readers to other blog posts in the spirit of generating conversation, and also in the hopes of adding depth and variety to our ongoing dialog about Buddhism, culture, and politics. I hope it proves useful!

Today I'll be focusing on the theme of compassion.

• Find me a Bluebird: In this blog full of wonderful poems and images, MB discusses her recent encounter with the writer's worst nightmare...a plagiarist! MB's response to the discovery of a cyber-thief in her midst is worthy of a read. She writes, in part:
  

  I chose not to immediately move to shut this blog down. Instead, I sent a polite but firm “cease and desist letter” that gave this person a little time to remove my poems. Again with my husband’s help, I tried to phrase the letter in ways that they would understand that I saw them as a real person. It wasn’t much, but it was my attempt to avoid creating more negativity than was necessary to protect my work.

• Intent Blog - Anita Roddick: Founder of The Body Shop, a leader in corporate social responsibility, Roddick writes her first post in Intent Blog about the Angola Three, social activists who have been wasting away in solitary confinement in Louisiana for 35 years. She begins her excellent post this way:

  Today, two of my best friends will spend a day as they do every other – 23-plus hours alone in a 6-by-9 foot cell, with poor ventilation, little human contact beyond the blurred cacophony of the prison tier beyond. The hour or less they will spend on the other side of their cell doors they may spend exercising in a tiny cage by running in tight circles under the razor wire, or showering. All that will make this day different is that it marks the 35th anniversary of their placement in solitary confinement, a fact I still cannot fathom.

• Postsecret: This site filled with secrets spilled onto postcards, cannot but add to the net amount of compassion in this world.
  

Murder and Mayhem

In a dream last night, my mind contrived to arrange for the premature demise of a person who had once had the temerity to edit my articles and reviews. He died of AIDS. I read the obituaries in the newspapers, attended the funeral, watched him interred... Nice job, mind. Not very Buddhist of you. My only excuse for this execrable act of vengeance is that I had been watching "The Sopranos," and had likely picked up some useful hints about how to deal with those who cross me from the now (no longer so) cheerful band of brutes and bandits that populate its stories.

I will confess to taking nefarious delight in crime fiction, both visual and literary. It started early. Probably influenced by my father's love of Ngaio Marsh and Agatha Christie (as a parish priest in small English villages, he probably found a lot in common with Miss Marple!) I started out with Father Brown and Sherlock Holmes, and never looked back. I even wrote a couple of mysteries myself, back in the 1980s, which were well received--the second one even got a nice write-up in the New York Times. (I should mention also, in the spirit of full disclosure, that the same book was panned by a Los Angeles Times reviewer: that was the guy I should have whacked in my dream last night!)

It's clearly a fascination I share with millions of my fellow human beings, though I have noticed that women generally go for the mystery genre, while men devour the more violent thrillers, both on the screen and between the covers of a book. It takes more knowledge of human psychology than I possess to begin to explain why we find the killing of our fellow humans so absorbing, but I do wonder whether it's damaging to the psyche to read about or watch. Maybe it's a chicken-and-egg question: are we excited to violence by its explicit portrayal on film and television? Or do we love it on film and television because we have some natural propensity for violence?

What is the fascination, here? With mysteries, I believe it's the mystery itself: stories are compelling to the human mind, and we always want to know how a story ends. Thrillers are harder to explain, because the end is never hard to guess. The good guys win, the bad guys get their comeuppance. And what's the pleasure in seeing bodies torn apart by bullets or blown sky high? Some say that seeing others imparts the satisfaction that it's not happening to us. Others, that the adrenalin rush is a satisfaction in itself. As horror flicks show (and I'm NOT a fan of horror flicks: I don't think I've even seen one since "The House of Wax" scared the pants off me back when I was a lad,) the gap between terror and laughter is a narrow one, so these films must be tugging at some powerful subconscious emotions.

What's a Buddhist to do? Ideally, I suspect, he would avoid all such contaminants of the mind--though there must be a matter of degrees: Agatha Christie, surely, would have to be considered less harmful than James Bond, and Simon Templer (aka The Saint) than Tony Soprano. Ellie, in this instance, would have to be considered a better Buddhist than I, since she eschews all violence, whether fictional or real, and complains of having trouble sleeping if she sees anything distrubing before going to bed.

One thing I'll say for "The Sopranos": unlike "24," it's not completely mindless. Underneath the mayhem, there are some interesting emotional and moral questions explored. But then, I have to admit that even the mindless can be compelling narrative. As for the real violence that we see--from Baghdad to Virginia Tech--well, as they say, don't get me started... But let me hear from you if you have thoughts about this topic.

tags technorati : violence,agatha christie,mystery,The Sopranos,24

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 4/24/2007

"Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone-we find it with another."

~Thomas Merton

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A Good Read

Carly sent me this link to an excerpt from Where Have All the Leaders Gone?, the new book by Lee Iacocca--a hard-headed businessman's look at the current administration and the state of the nation. From what I read here, and what I saw in a TV interview last night, it's a dose of sanity in a world where it's much needed. A foretaste:

Am I the only guy in this country who's fed up with what's happening? Where the hell is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder. We've got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we've got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can't even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, "Stay the course."

Stay the course? You've got to be kidding. This is America, not the damned Titanic. I'll give you a sound bite: Throw the bums out!

Take a look...

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 4/23/2007

"Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time."

~Thomas Merton

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Oh, Yes: Earth Day

That's today. As Ellie points out, every day should be Earth Day. I saw a brief clip from a televised interview with Rachel Carson, the author of the pioneering "Silent Spring," in which she wondered aloud about "what is going to happen to our children?" That was 1962. Forty-five years have passed since then. Children born that year are now forty-five years old. Who knows what cancers or other chemical imbalances of brain and body have manifested in their lives? There's still a huge amount we don't know about the effect our modern-era "progress" has had on our species and on the planet Earth, but we know enough to understand that Rachel Carson had foresight that few others had back then. To be sure, there has been progress. The Environmental Protection Agency owes its existence in part to Carson's activism. But how long it has taken us to come to a common agreement with her that we may well be destroying ourselves along with our habitat--and not only, now, through our ignorance, but rather despite the knowledge with which our scientists provide us, through our misguided public policies. And how much longer will we put up with the prevarications of an administration that puts cronyism and corporate profits above the common good? Happy Earth Day, everyone.

Enjoy Earth Day

Take a deep breath, enjoy your breathing and thank a tree or plant for that breath. And don't forget to recycle!!

This we know: the earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth. All things are connected like the blood that unites us all. Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.

~Chief Seattle


A true conservationist is a man who knows that the world is not given by his fathers, but borrowed from his children.

~John James Audubon

Forests are the lungs of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people.

~Franklin D. Roosevelt


Each time you look at a tangerine, you can see deeply into it. You can see everything in the universe in one tangerine. When you peel it and smell it, it’s wonderful. You can take your time eating a tangerine and be very happy.

~Thich Nhat Hanh


~Peace to all beings~

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 4/22/2007

"The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them."

~Thomas Merton

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Earth Day

A special thanks, on this lovely day, to Digital Dharma for the reminder that tomorrow is Earth Day, and that the Earth needs metta, too! And for providing this link to an urgently important essay by James Hansen, the NASA scientist who came out in public recently to complain that the agency had been trying to silence him on issues related to global warming.

Rain...

A welcome rain for much of the day yesterday. It has been too long since we saw any here in Southern California, and I think we are still twelve inches below normal for this time of year. That's twelve out of fourteen or fifteen... You could almost hear the sign of relief as the earth drank it in. Then last night, as I took George for his evening walk, a strikingly clear crescent moon and the shadow of the unseen remainder of its sphere amongst the few remaining wisps of cloud, along with the brilliant silver pinpoints of the stars and planets.

This morning, the birds sing joyfully...

I followed yesterday's meditation on happiness with a second one today. The first step of metta only, happiness for myself. And found myself, after a half hour, moving on naturally into that second step, the family, Ellie and Sarah, my two sons, the grandchildren, our sisters and their families... The breath felt effortless and smooth, and I managed to maintain a good level of attention throughout--though I did notice how the mind became impatient to move on to "more important" things toward the end.

As usual, I am happy to wake up here in our little cottage in Laguna Beach. There is a quality of relative calm here that contrasts with the intensity and bustle of Los Angeles, which makes itself evident even in the early morning hours. A kind of electricity in the air, a stir of energy, a glow of city lights throughout the night, a ceaseless hum of sound. Here, in the early hours, even where we live, a few blocks from the ocean front, you can almost always hear the waves break...

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 4/21/2007

Buddha Images

Some people believe that Buddhists worship idols, but this is not true. Buddhists bow or make offerings of flowers and incense in reverence to the Buddha, not to the image. When they do so they reflect on the virtues of the Buddha and are inspired to become like him. Buddha images are not necessary, but they are helpful. The most important thing is to follow the Buddha's teachings.
There are many different kinds of Buddha and Bodhisattva images that show different qualities. For example, a statue of the Buddha with his hand resting gently in his lap reminds us to develop peace within ourselves. A statue with the Buddha's right hand touching the ground shows determination.

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A Busy Week

It has been a busy week, and an unusually public one for me: I participated as a panelist in a discussion of digital media and the changes they have wrought in the art world at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, at a celebration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of Artscene magazine. Visitors to The Buddha Diaries will recall that I contribute a monthly audio piece, "The Art of Outrage" to Artscene Visual Radio, and it was a pleasure to sit on a panel with my fellow contributors to that site. The event was a great success and a fitting tribute to the efforts of the publisher Bill Lasarow--despite a chill wind that threatened the outdoor dinner in the museum's atrium court, and the performances laid on for the occasion.

Aside from the panel, I had two readings from The Bush Diaries and The Buddha Diaries at Democratic clubs in widely dispersed locations--one well to the south in Cerritos, the other a good way east in San Dimas. I enjoyed them both, and determined to do more of this--in part to do what I can to get juices flowing for the next election. My view--one shared at least by the enthusiastic gatherings I spoke to--is that we desperately need a significant win if we want to get our country back on track.

A note on the environment: Driving out to San Dimas along the 210 freeway was an inch-by-inch, foot-by-foot experience. I thought I had allowed ample time, but it took three times longer than I had expected. The four eastbound lanes were all choked with traffic. As I sat there--trying to practice my best equanimity--trains sped past in either direction on the Metroline tracks, set in between the east- and west-bound lanes of the freeway. I had plenty of time to take my eyes off the road for long enough to note that they were virtually empty--a sad commentary on the adjacent freeway lanes, crammed solid with mostly single-occupant vehicles. Like my own. But mine, at least, was a Prius! That's my excuse.

Metta

This morning I tried out one of the ideas I picked up from reading that Sharon Salzberg text on metta that I referred to yesterday. She mentioned having spent an entire week in meditation on the first step of metta--sending goodwill to herself: May I be happy. My I find true happiness in my my life. May I be free from stress and pain. May I be free from trouble. May I be free from animosity. My I be free from oppression. May I look after myself with ease…

I found it to be a wonderfully satisfying experience. Sounds selfish? Well, as Than Geoff likes to point out at the beginning of every one of his guided meditations, it’s not really a selfish thought, because my happiness does not involve depriving anyone else of theirs---unless, of course, I delude myself into thinking that my happiness depends on that new car, or getting rich, or sleeping with someone else’s wife… None of which, as Than Geoff says, is the “true happiness” that can only be found within. And, too, he adds, “my” happiness can only serve to increase the happiness of those around me: inevitably, by its very nature, it spreads to others. When I am truly happy, I can more easily share what I have with my fellow travelers on the human journey through life.

So I tried it out this morning, and had a very pleasant, very calming experience. I recommend it.

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 4/20/2007

TWO SCHOOLS OF BUDDHISM

In the centuries following the Buddha's lifetime, his followers faithfully preserved his teachings and spread them to many countries in Asia. Today, there are two main schools of Buddhism: Theravada and Mahayana. Theravada means 'the teaching of the Elders'. Theravada monks follow the practices that have been passed down by the senior monks from the Buddha's time, such as living in the forests and meditating. The goal in Theravada Buddhism is to become an Arhat, a person who is free of suffering. Theravada is practiced mainly in southern Asian countries such as Sri Lanka, Thailand and Myanmar (Burma).
Mahayana stresses following the Buddha's example of going out into the world and doing good. Mahayana means 'Great Vehicle'. The goal in Mahayana Buddhism is to follow the Bodhisattva Path. A Bodhisattva is one who enlightens oneself as well as others. In Mahayana Buddhism, there are many Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. It mainly spread to northern Asian countries like China, Tibet, Korea, Vietnam and Japan. Recently, both Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism have been introduced into the West.

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Conversations

I'd like to introduce an exciting new component to this space. Twice weekly, I will be posting links to other blog posts in the spirit of generating conversation, and also in the hopes of adding depth and variety to our ongoing dialog about Buddhism, culture, and politics. I hope it proves useful! Today, I'll be focusing my links on the shootings at Virginia Tech.

Bob Cesca (The Huffington Post)
In this piece, Bob Cesca pins much of the blame for the Virginia Tech massacre on the failings of our American culture:

The focus has to be aimed point-blank at the cold, brutal reality that there exists a serious inability to cope with American pop, economic and social pressures; a criminal lack of understanding of mental and physical health issues; and the problem solving examples instilled upon us by our elected leaders in a time when visual and printed access to information is at an all time high.

Pax et lux
Liberata riffs on Bob Cesca's post, stating:

...we certainly need to nurture more acceptance of ourselves and compassion for others... and, as someone once said, we need to learn to LOVE people and USE things (the former lavishly, the latter, sparingly), not the other way around;...resorting to violence is modeled at the highest levels of our American society, while cooperation and working out differences nonviolently are skills considered good only for weaklings...[H]ealth care --including mental health care-- should be universally available and FREE.

Silliman's Blog
Ron Silliman makes an astute connection between culture and individual psychology:

There is hardly anyone lonelier than a college student away from home the first time who doesn’t know how to fit in. Toss in paranoia & unfolding schizophrenia and you have a stew brewing that can turn into trouble.

(Thanks to Integral Options Cafe for bringing this post to my attention. Oh, and through that same source, here's Nikki Giovanni)


Watch out for future Conversations on a variety of topics.

How Metta Works

Carly is asking how metta works. It's a big question, and one to which I wouldn't trust my relatively little understanding to respond without the help of someone more experienced and wiser than myself. I checked to see what Sharon Salzberg might have to say on the topic, and found her essay on metta to be rich and satisfying. Let me refer you to it. Clearly, there's a bit more to it than "sending out good vibes"! I plan to re-read it myself. And to consult with Access to Insight to see what Than Geoff might have to say.

A Song For Sueng-Hui Cho

I saw the outtakes of your tapes—
the ones you took time out to mail
between shooting sprees.
You had
killed two already and would soon
kill thirty more, before yourself.
Thirty-three people, dead. Thirty-
three families left bereaved
including, grievously,
your own. I saw you brandishing
the pistols you had bought,
in some mad mimicry
of those martyr tapes of terrorists,
arms spread, eyes fierce
and focused on the plan
you had worked out
to wreak your vengeance on humanity.
I heard your rant—those parts
of it the network judged
fit to air—the spew of words
that must have seemed quite logical
to you, in your derangement.
And watching you, I thought
how easily the brain
can slip between that sane
and necessary sense of mission,
for a man, and vainglorious
obsession; how love
and hate are only
two sides of a coin; and how
your peculiar, deadly dedication
and crazed intensity
might well have served, in only
slightly altered circumstances, to save life
rather than destroy it.
Where good-hearted people
stood by to offer help,
your mind saw nothing
other than rejection—no more,
really, than a twist in the hardwiring
of the brain. I saw
a sad boy
desperate to prove himself
a man, and not knowing how,
unless by “killing Dick”—
your own revealing words—
in one ultimate, outrageous
gesture of hatred and defiance.
For this, in rage,
you found fault in everyone
around you but
yourself, and left us
gazing without solace, without
explanation, deep into the murk
of our own human souls.

This Body is Not me Poem by Thich Nhat Hanh

This is the poem I was looking for yesterday that I wanted to add to yesterday's post on the Virginia Tech killings. It is a great poem to meditate upon to find peace in regards to issues of violence, death, pain and suffering that come with samsara:

This body is not me.

I am not limited by this body.

I am life without boundaries.

I have never been born,

and I have never died.

Look at the ocean and the sky filled with stars, manifestations from my wondrous true mind.

Since before time, I have been free.

Birth and death are only doors through which we pass, sacred thresholds on our journey.

Birth and death are a game of hide- and seek.

So laugh with me,

hold my hand,

let us say good-bye,

say good-bye, to meet again soon.

We meet today.

We will meet again tomorrow.

We will meet at the source every moment.

We meet each other in all forms of life.

~By Thich Nhat Hanh, Chanting and Recitations from Plum Village. Page 188.

James: Isn't that lotus gorgeous!! I wish to extend a lotus to you all to hopefully bring a smile to your heart, face and eyes.

~Peace to all beings~

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 4/19/2007

THE BUDDHIST COMMUNITY

In Asia, it is considered the highest honor if a member of one's family leaves the home life. Westerners, however, may be shocked at the idea of anyone leaving their family to become a monk or nun. They may think this is selfish and turning one's back on the world. In fact, monks and nuns are not selfish at all. They dedicate themselves to helping others. They don't wish to own a lot of things, or to have money or power. They give these things up to gain something far more valuable--spiritual freedom. By living a pure simple life with others on the same path, they are able to lessen their greed, hatred, and ignorance.
Although monks and nuns live in a monastery, they do not entirely give up their families. They are allowed to visit and take care of them when they are ill.

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Mass Murder

What to say about an event as unimaginably awful as the mass murders at Virginia Tech? It seems inadequate, almost impertinent to bemoan the loss of life, to express sadness for the families of those who lost loved ones… as though a few words could in any way reduce their suffering. An action so monstrous, so heart-rending, so cruelly random is virtually beyond comprehension, let alone the pale compensation of pious homilies—no matter how compassionate. “Our hearts go out…” echoes emptily in this dark pit of senseless, rageful depravity to which the human soul can sink.

It’s natural, I suppose, to search for explanations—and for someone to blame. The media have been busy doing both. From what I hear, the main target for blame has been the campus police, as though they should have anticipated the rampage that was to follow, on the basis of what reasonably might have seemed an isolated incident. Through the intermediary of the media, there is no shortage of second-guessers asking them why did they not “lock down” the campus after the first shooting. As though this were a simple matter, as though these fallible humans should have been gifted with infallible clairvoyance.

More to the point, though, it's clear that a vital system failed, allowing enough cracks for a man like the deranged Cho Seung-Hui to slip through. According to the news I heard today, he had drawn attention to his potential for violence in a variety of ways and had even at one point been committed--though I have no idea how briefly. Despite police reports and referrals for psychiatric counseling, and despite faculty and peer warnings of predictive behavior, the system apparently allowed no way to remove the clearly disturbed young man from the path of murder and self-destruction. Do we blame those who designed the flawed system? Where do we find them? Perhaps we should rather set about the task of fixing insofar as possible it to circumvent such tragedies in the future.

As for the explanations, I predict that one and one, in this case, will never make two, nor two and two make four. No matter how complete a psychological profile may be made of the young man who perpetrated this atrocity, it will always remain an irreducible mystery. As Pascal wrote so many years ago, “The heart has its reasons which reason will never know.” It seems that sometimes people snap, particularly people who lack the skills to give expression to those inner tempests of emotion. Whatever has been building up inside in the form of pain and rage simply explodes, and woe betide anyone who happens to be within range of the explosion or its fall-out.

In such a circumstance, we hear a great deal about prayer--an intercession that springs, surely, from the compassion of which the human heart is capable, and one which assumes the presence of some external power that will respond in the desired manner: to bring relief or consolation to the bereaved. For one who, like myself, has trouble with deities, I suppose that the practice of metta is the closest thing to prayer, but it's done without the intermediary. To send out metta--"May they find consolation, may they be spared further pain and suffering"--is an simple act of compassion that goes from human soul to human soul. For me, it will have to suffice.

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 4/18/2007

The Buddha said...

"The kind of seed sown will produce that kind of fruit. Those who do good will reap good results. Those who do evil will reap evil results. If you carefully plant a good seed, You will joyfully gather good fruit."

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Mute

I've been rendered mute today, and not only by yesterday's events at Virginia Tech--though that would have been reason enough in itself for silence. No, I've been offline for a good part of the day, thanks to a cable glitch. All better now, I hope. I'll be back tomorrow.

Correction about Blue Cliff Monastery plus a Commentary on the Virginia Tech Massacre

PHOTO: "Non-Violence" sculpture donated to the United Nations from the government and people of Luxembourg in 1988.

In an earlier post I had announced the purchase of land to build the new Blue Cliff Monastery in the tradition of Thich Nhat hanh located in New York state in the U.S.A

Well, I misunderstood why the monastery will be named, "Blue Cliff." Originally I thought it was named for the hills near by. However, I received a new letter yesterday thanking me for my donation and explaining in more detail how the monastery got it's name. The following is from the letter I received from Thay's Unified Buddhist Church:

The center is named Blue Cliff Monastery after the monastery in China where the famous Blue Cliff Records (a record of the most famous koans) were compiled in the 12th century.

On another more serious subject I wanted to also write on the Virginia Tech massacre that occurred yesterday. My heart breaks in sadness for the victims, surviving students and their families involved in this cruel act of fear and delusion. May they be reborn in a world that will provide them the best chance for liberation. However, as this story unfolds even more I must also have compassion for the shooter as he is just as deserving of our love. Maybe even more so because he will most likely have some major karma to work off from this powerfully attaching event. May he be reborn in a scenario that will provide him the best chance to liberate himself from these strong karmic attachments and aversions.

How do we understand such unspeakable acts of violence? I know for myself that I felt fear and anger creeping into my mind after this incident. As panic began to set into my mind and kicked into high gear I recalled the Dharma--suffering is everywhere I reminded myself. We can not avoid it no matter how hard we might try to. I can either live in fear of every moment of my life and suffer even more or I can accept that one day I might indeed find myself caught-up in such a situation and perhaps even killed or injured--accept that potentiality and move on to enjoy my day. If I do not attach to the self then why should I be worried about losing my life or becoming injured? I try to meditate upon death and violence on a regular basis to train my mind not to fear such a natural and normal event. As my acceptance of death becomes stronger it frees me up to truly be in the moment and enjoy it because it may be my last moment in this particular space and time. When I remember that the present moment is the only moment I have--I do the best to live it to the fullest and try to pass that enjoyment and peace on to others.

The Dalai Lama and Thich Nhat Hanh (amongst others) are excellent examples in these violent times about letting go of hate, anger and fear. These two great men saw so much bloodshed in their homelands and yet they remain calm, peaceful and happy because they have fully accepted such suffering is the reality of this world. They do not let it attach and weigh down the infinite opportunities that the beautiful gift of each precious, present moment offers us. Both were driven out of their homelands, saw horrific things and lost friends and colleagues to war. Yet they do not let that get them down. They don't attach to that energy. They realize that where ever we find ourselves--that is our home. Accept it for what it is and if it is a rough moment then make the best out of it. Just as we'd decorate a cheap, run-down, ugly apartment to make the most of it. One might have to live in a run-down apartment in a dangerous neighborhood for a time but we accept that and try to make it the most beautiful run-down apartment we have ever seen. And realize that this won't last forever--one day one will live in a different situation.

This is a moment as well where we should meditate upon inter-being/interconnectivity for it is support networks that keep us connected together and not feel alone and unaccepted as this man seems to have been. Let us reach out to those "loners" in our lives and let them know that they are loved, thought of and supported. Understanding inter-being isn't enough for us--we must reach out and look after each other. This dove-tails nicely into the refuge of sangha but sangha means so much more then simply our circle of fellow followers. I believe that sangha (in a broader context) involves everyone in the world. When we realize these connections and our interdependency we want to care for others because they are us. Please hug someone today or send them a message of concern and thoughtfulness. Let us have the courage to rise above hatred and anger and soar in the reinvigorating and cleansing heights of compassion and love.

I can't imagine what pain and suffering these victims as well as their family and friends are going throw right now. May the victims come to one day forgive this man for their own peace of mind and happiness because as we know-hate begets hate, anger begets anger, revenge begets revenge and violence begets violence.

~Peace to all beings~

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 4/17/2007

Law of Cause and Effect

The second universal truth of the Buddha is that everything is continuously changing. Life is like a river flowing on and on, ever-changing. Sometimes it flows slowly and sometimes swiftly. It is smooth and gentle in some places, but later on snags and rocks crop up out of nowhere. As soon as we think we are safe, something unexpected happens.
Once dinosaurs, mammoths, and saber-toothed tigers roamed this earth. They all died out, yet this was not the end of life. Other life forms like smaller mammals appeared, and eventually humans, too. Now we can even see the Earth from space and understand the changes that have taken place on this planet. Our ideas about life also change. People once believed that the world was flat, but now we know that it is round.

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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 4/16/2007

Everything Changes

The second universal truth of the Buddha is that everything is continuously changing. Life is like a river flowing on and on, ever-changing. Sometimes it flows slowly and sometimes swiftly. It is smooth and gentle in some places, but later on snags and rocks crop up out of nowhere. As soon as we think we are safe, something unexpected happens.
Once dinosaurs, mammoths, and saber-toothed tigers roamed this earth. They all died out, yet this was not the end of life. Other life forms like smaller mammals appeared, and eventually humans, too. Now we can even see the Earth from space and understand the changes that have taken place on this planet. Our ideas about life also change. People once believed that the world was flat, but now we know that it is round.

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Wolfowitz: Not So Holy

That sense of moral rectitude with which the Bush administration swept into power... remember? They possessed the truths, the keys to the nation's progress. They were holier, by God, than thou. They were going to clean up the White House, clean up the government, clean up the country, clean up the world--and make it safe for their vision of democracy. Now, with virtually every last shred of the Bush retinue's reputation in tatters, comes Paul Wolfowitz, cheerleader in chief of the war designed to clean up the Middle East and the Bush appointee to head the World Bank. He marched into that office with missionary zeal and righteousness in his eye, bent on cleansing the institution of corruption--and brought his well-paid team of fellow missionaries with him, to the dismay of many who had been laboring there before. It seems, though, now, that as with so many of the Bush zealots, the rules simply did not apply to him personally. Seems that his lady friend deserved the boost his power could provide her with, to rocket her up the rungs of employment and remuneration.

Now comes the apology, the wish that he'd acted in a wiser fashion than he did. Shades of Don Imus, late of talk radio celebrity.

So is Wolfowitz any better than the Don? The problem lies in his assumption of privilege and rectitude, the blithe assumption that this kind of action was his right, that no one would stop to question it. And the truth is, that almost no one did. He could have gotten away with it, because so much of the Bush administration's policies and procedures went unquestioned for so long. It's a bleak picture these days, now that the questions are finally beginning to be asked, and no matter how bleak, I for one am grateful that the truth is coming out.

I tend to think that this is all a part of that "American literalism" I was talking about the other day, to take everything we're handed at face value. We could use a healthy dose of skepticism... Which brings me back, as always, to the Buddha. As I understand it, this august and enlightened mind cautioned us against taking even what he himself said at face value, and insisted that we not simply accept the "truths" that others lay on us, but rather test them out for ourselves through careful thought and critical observation. Do they work, in the real world? Do they bring about good results?

Sadly, in the case of our current administration, it turns out that virtually nothing holds up to that simple test. It's all, as we liked to say back in the homeland, an unmitigated cock-up.

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 4/15/2007

Nothing is lost in the universe

The first truth is that nothing is lost in the universe. Matter turns into energy, energy turns into matter. A dead leaf turns into soil. A seed sprouts and becomes a new plant. Old solar systems disintegrate and turn into cosmic rays. We are born of our parents, our children are born of us.
We are the same as plants, as trees, as other people, as the rain that falls. We consist of that which is around us, we are the same as everything. If we destroy something around us, we destroy ourselves. If we cheat another, we cheat ourselves. Understanding this truth, the Buddha and his disciples never killed any animal.

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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 4/15/2007

Nothing is lost in the universe

The first truth is that nothing is lost in the universe. Matter turns into energy, energy turns into matter. A dead leaf turns into soil. A seed sprouts and becomes a new plant. Old solar systems disintegrate and turn into cosmic rays. We are born of our parents, our children are born of us.
We are the same as plants, as trees, as other people, as the rain that falls. We consist of that which is around us, we are the same as everything. If we destroy something around us, we destroy ourselves. If we cheat another, we cheat ourselves. Understanding this truth, the Buddha and his disciples never killed any animal.

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Another Artist

Ellie and I did one of our regular gallery crawls Friday, and I was especially glad to have caught a friend of many years, Scott Grieger, before his show closed at Patricia Faure Gallery. Along with the consummate skill of a meticulous painter and a deep engagement with art history, Scott has a wickedly keen satirical eye and a healthy skepticism about the values of our current cultural circumstance.

His work has ranged easily over a wide variety of topics in the more than thirty years spanned by this retrospective exhibition. Early on in his career, he was happily “taking the mickey”—as we used to say in merrie olde England—out of the mainstream artists of his day, using self portraits to ape Robert

Rauschenberg’s famous goat, for example, with a tire around his middle, tilting up against the wall like a Richard Serra, or painting a football with a Barnett Newman stripe.

He has always paid critical attention to the icons and clichés that we so easily absorb into our culture, and to which we all too often risk surrendering our humanity. With the advent of the computer age, Scott’s hand was busy doing mock medieval illuminated manuscripts to explicate technological terminology like ROM.
He had fun with those artists who delight in reducing the act of painting to making words—and with art criticism’s infatuation with semiology—in works like “BEWARE OF GOD”, whose words were painted in huge white letters against a wall-sized red (for warning, I suppose) background.



(Thumbnail version: imagine MUCH larger!) He mocked the Italian arte povera gang with the mass production of gold-plated turds (his own) entitled “Crapola” to be sold in little boxes for $50 a crack.

He can also be pointedly political: one large painting mimics a blackboard with a large map of America (think Jasper Johns) emblazoned with the chalk-written message, “United States of Anxiety.” In the era of the Bush administration, the label is uncomfortably apt.

Along with this production, Scott has always exercised his painting chops with immaculate, often quite tiny paintings that rival old masters with their precision and skill—but usually with a twist of parody or dark humor. We happen to have an example in our house: against a washy background, two diminutive deer-like creatures, realistic in detail but for the placement of miniature Frank Stella paintings where there heads should be…

So, a pleasure to renew acquaintance with a sharp intelligence and an ability to share a good laugh at the expense of some of the pretensions of the art world and the culture. I trust he'll forgive my having somewhat abused his copyright to include pictures that I have pirated from various sources. I do have, after all, a rather limited circulation…

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 4/14/2007

The Last Years

Shakyamuni Buddha passed away around 486 BC at the age of eighty. Although he has left the world, the spirit of his kindness and compassion remains.
The Buddha realized that that he was not the first to become a Buddha. "There have been many Buddhas before me and will be many Buddhas in the future," The Buddha recalled to his disciples. "All living beings have the Buddha nature and can become Buddhas." For this reason, he taught the way to Buddhahood.
The two main goals of Buddhism are getting to know ourselves and learning the Buddha's teachings. To know who we are, we need to understand that we have two natures. One is called our ordinary nature, which is made up of unpleasant feelings such as fear, anger, and jealousy. The other is our true nature, the part of us that is pure, wise, and perfect. In Buddhism, it is called the Buddha nature. The only difference between us and the Buddha is that we have not awakened to our true nature.

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