Via FB // Thubten Kway

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BUDDHA SPEAKS 

 

The Buddha told Ananda, “Today the Tathagata will tell you truly that all those with wisdom are able to achieve enlightenment through the use of examples.

”Ananda, take, for example, my fist: if I didn’t have a hand, I couldn’t make a fist. If you didn’t have eyes, you couldn’t see. If you apply the example of my fist to the case of your eyes, is the idea the same?”

Ananda said, “Yes, World Honored One. Since I can’t see without my eyes, if one applies the example of the Buddha’s fist to the case of your eyes, the idea is the same.”

The Buddha said to Ananda, “You say it is the same, but that is not right. Why? If a person has no hand, his fist is gone forever. But one who is without eyes is not entirely devoid of sight.

”For what reason? Try consulting a blind man on the street: ‘What do you see?’

”Any blind man will certainly answer, ‘Now I see only black in front of my eyes. Nothing else meets my gaze.’

”The meaning is apparent: if he sees blackness in front of him, how could his seeing be considered ‘lost’?”

Ananda said, “The only thing blind people see in front of their eyes is blackness. How can that be seeing?”

The Buddha said to Ananda, “Is there any difference between the blackness seen by blind people, who do not have the use of their eyes, and the blackness seen by someone who has the use of his eyes when he is in a dark room?”

”So it is, World Honored One. Between the two kinds of blackness, that seen by the person in a dark room and that seen by the blind, there is no difference.”

”Ananda, if the person without the use of his eyes who sees only blackness were suddenly to regain his sight and see all kinds of forms, and you say it is his eyes which see, then when the person in a dark room who sees only blackness suddenly sees all kinds of forms because a lamp is lit, you should say it is the lamp which sees.

”If it is a case of the lamp seeing, it would be a lamp endowed with sight - which couldn’t be called a lamp. And if the lamp were to do the seeing, how would you be involved?

”Therefore you should know that while the lamp can reveal the forms, it is the eyes, not the lamp, that do the seeing. And while the eyes can reveal the forms, the seeing-nature comes from the Mind, not the eyes.”

 

***THE SHURANGAMA SUTRA

 

Via FB // DZONGSAR JAMYANG KHYENSTE RINPOCHE

The Self

From time immemorial, we have been addicted to the self.

It is how we identify ourselves.

It is what we love most dearly.

It is also what we hate most fiercely at times.

Its existence is also the thing that we work hardest to try to validate.

Almost everything that we do or think or have, including our spiritual path, is a means to confirm its existence.

It is the self that fears failure and longs for success, fears hell and longs for heaven.

The self loathes suffering and loves the causes of suffering.

It stupidly wages war in the name of peace.

It wishes for enlightenment but detests the path to enlightenment.

It wishes to work as a socialist but lives as a capitalist.

When the self feels lonely, it desires friendship.

Its possessiveness of those it loves manifests in passion that can lead to aggression. Its supposed enemies – such as spiritual paths designed to conquer the ego – are often corrupted and recruited as the self’s ally.

Its skills in playing the game of deception is nearly perfect.

It weaves a cocoon around itself like a silkworm; but unlike a silkworm, it doesn’t know how to find the way out.

Via White Crane Institute // Today is INTERNATIONAL HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE DAY - Pink Triangle

 

Noteworthy

2018 -

Today is INTERNATIONAL HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE DAY

Why today? Well on this date in 1945 the Soviet Red Army arrived at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in Poland and liberated the survivors.

This is the day we remember the genocide of approximately 11 to 17 million people by the National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nazi) regime in Germany led by Adolf Hitler during World War II. This figure includes the deliberate extermination of six million European Jews, and the Nazi's systematic murder of Roma; Soviet civilians, Soviet prisoners of war; ethnic Poles; the disabled; Homosexual men; and political and religious opponents. Millions of lives taken by hatred and intolerance.

The term “holocaust” comes from the Greek holókaustos: hólos, "whole" and kaustós, "burnt".  It is also known as The Shoah.

The treatment and killings of the over 15,000 homosexual men is less known but we observe and remember them today. Between 1933-45, more than 100,000 men were arrested and registered by police as homosexuals ("Rosa Listen" or "Pink Lists"), and of these, some 50,000 were officially sentenced. Most of these men spent time in regular prisons, and an estimated 5,000 to 15,000 of the total sentenced were incarcerated in concentration camps. It is unclear how many of these 5,000 to 15,000 eventually perished in the concentration camps.

The leading scholar Ruediger Lautman however believes that the death rate in concentration camps of imprisoned homosexuals may have been as high as 60%. Homosexuals in camps were treated in an unusually cruel manner by their captors and were also persecuted by their fellow inmates. This was a factor in the relatively high death rate for homosexuals, compared to other "anti-social groups".

James D. Steakley writes that what mattered in Germany was criminal intent or character, rather than criminal acts, and the "gesundes Volksempfinden" ("healthy sensibility of the people") became the leading normative legal principle. In 1936, Himmler created the "Reich Central Office for the Combating of Homosexuality and Abortion". Homosexuality was declared contrary to "wholesome popular sentiment," and homosexuals were consequently regarded as "defilers of German blood." The Gestapo raided gay bars, tracked individuals using the address books of those they arrested, used the subscription lists of gay magazines to find others. They encouraged people to report suspected homosexual behavior and to scrutinize the behavior of their neighbors.

Tens of thousands were convicted between 1933 and 1944 and sent to camps for "rehabilitation" where they were identified by yellow armbands and later pink triangles worn on the left side of the jacket and the right trouser leg, which singled them out for sexual abuse. Hundreds were castrated by court order. They were humiliated, tortured, used in hormone experiments conducted by SS doctors, and killed. Steakley writes that the full extent of Gay suffering was slow to emerge after the war. Many victims kept their stories to themselves because homosexuality remained criminalized in postwar Germany. Around two percent of German homosexuals were persecuted by Nazis.

More recently however German state television channel Deutsche Welle updated this figure to "almost 55,000" deaths following the study of documents from archives in East Germany that had been inaccessible to researchers for decades after the war.

After the war, the treatment of homosexuals in concentration camps went unacknowledged by most countries. Some that did escape were even re-arrested and imprisoned based on evidence found during the Nazi years. It was not until the 1980s that governments acknowledged this episode, and not until 2002 that the German government apologized to the Gay community.

 

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Concentration camp prisoners with pink triangle marks

2018 -

THE PINK TRIANGLE: One of the oldest symbols of the modern Gay rights movement is the PINK TRIANGLE, which originated from the Nazi concentration camp badges that Homosexuals were required to wear on their clothing. It is estimated that as many as 220,000 gays and Lesbians perished alongside the 6,000,000 Jews whom the Nazis exterminated in their death camps during World War II as part of Hitler's so-called final solution. For this reason, the Pink Triangle is used both as an identification symbol and as a memento to remind both its wearers and the general public of the atrocities that Gays suffered under Nazi persecutors. ACT-UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) also adopted the inverted pink triangle to symbolize the "active fight back" against the disease "rather than a passive resignation to fate."

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Gay Wisdom for Daily Living from White Crane Institute

"With the increasing commodification of gay news, views, and culture by powerful corporate interests, having a strong independent voice in our community is all the more important. White Crane is one of the last brave standouts in this bland new world... a triumph over the looming mediocrity of the mainstream Gay world." - Mark Thompson

Exploring Gay Wisdom & Culture since 1989!
www.whitecraneinstitute.org

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Thich Nhat Hanh Memorial "Day of Mindfulness" Day 6 | Live from Plum Vil...

Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh invites his bell in the mountains of Deer Park

Via Daily Dharma: Welcome Whatever Arises

 Thoughts come and go. Feelings come and go. Allow yourself to experience the transient nature of thoughts and feelings, welcoming everything that arises as just this, not me, not mine.

Sandra Weinberg, “Eating and the Wheel of Life”

CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE

Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Action: Reflecting upon Bodily Action

 

RIGHT ACTION
Reflecting Upon Bodily Action

However the seed is planted, in that way the fruit is gathered. Good things come from doing good deeds; bad things come from doing bad deeds. (SN 11.10) What is the purpose of a mirror? For the purpose of reflection. So too bodily action is to be done with repeated reflection. (MN 61) When you have done an action with the body, reflect on that same bodily action thus: "Has this action I have done with the body led to my own affliction?" If, on reflection, you know that it has, then tell someone you trust about it and undertake a commitment not to do it again. If you know it has not, then be content and feel happy about it. (MN 61)

Reflection

While the practice has to do with being present in the moment, we are also encouraged to reflect on past action with the same diligence we apply to present action and intention for future action. If we have done harm in the past, it is healing to bring it out in the open by revealing it to another. Not necessarily a religious figure with the power to forgive—there is no such person in Buddhism—but simply a person you trust.

Daily Practice

Practice having no secrets. Whenever you do something, even a very small thing, that you feel was wrong or hurtful in some way, make a point of "coming clean" about it to someone. Perhaps you apologize to someone you’ve harmed or confess your errors to a trusted friend. With this as an ongoing practice, you may find yourself feeling lighter, unburdened by the things you do that are not quite right.

Tomorrow: Abstaining from Harming Living Beings
One week from today: Reflecting upon Verbal Action

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Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.