Via Lionsroar / Four Steps to Magical Powers

Four Steps to Magical Powers

Before you fully embark on the path of the bodhisattvas and buddhas, says Chan master Sheng Yen, you must first practice the four steps to magical powers. What are these steps and what are the magical powers you need?

In both the early Buddhist and Mahayana traditions, there are records of supernatural powers being used. But what did the Buddha do when he was hungry? Did he conjure up a feast or have one catered by a deity? No, he walked around with his alms bowl begging for food. After he attained buddhahood, he walked from village to village spreading the dharma. He didn’t fly through the air. He didn’t magically erect monasteries but instead relied on laypeople to build them and to sew robes for the sangha. Before entering parinirvana, he received an offering of food that was tainted. You would think that he would have used his supernatural powers to know the food was bad, but instead he ate it and became very sick. So even though the Buddha possessed supernatural powers, he did not use them in self-centered ways.

Via Daily Dharma: Take a Chance on Peace

A good community is needed to help us resist the unwholesome ways of our time. Mindful living protects us and helps us go in the direction of peace. With the support of friends in the practice, peace has a chance.

—Thich Nhat Hanh, “The Fertile Soil of Sangha”

Via Daily Dharma: Nothing but Awareness

Awareness is nothing special. It’s natural. In fact, it may be the most natural—the only natural—thing there is.

—Andrew Olendzki, “Keep It Simple”

Via Daily Dharma: What Really Is the Present Moment?

The present moment is not defined solely by letting go of past and future, nor by accepting and appreciating what arises right now, but by choosing in this very moment how we make sense of the world.

—Jack Petranker, “The Present Moment”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - July 11, 2018

Over the years, in working with people who are grieving, I’ve encouraged them first of all to surrender to the experience of their pain. To counteract our natural tendency to turn away from pain, we open to it as fully as possible and allow our hearts to break. We must take enough time to remember our losses – be they friends or loved ones passed away, the death of long-held hopes or dreams, the loss of homes, careers, or countries, or health we may never get back again. Rather than close ourselves to grief, it helps to realize that we only grieve for what we love.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Opposing Selfishness

Our goal is to help people think like Buddhists—to get rid of the poisons of the mind and selfish opinions. It’s not to judge but rather to see the other side of a situation, and to see the other side of people.

—Interview with Mauricio Hondaku by Marie Scarles, “Meet a Sangha: Nambei Honganji, Brazil Betsuin”

Via Daily Dharma: Find Your Home Within

Anyone can build a house of wood and bricks, but the Buddha taught that that is not our real home. Our real home is inner peace.

—Ajahn Chah, “Our Real Home”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - July 8, 2018

When meditation works as it should, it will be a natural part of your being. There will no longer be anything apart from you to have faith in. Hope starts the journey, faith sustains it, but it ends beyond both hope and faith.  

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Prioritize Accomplishments That Last

The results of your actions can carry well past death, so make sure that you don’t sacrifice the goodness of your thoughts, words, and deeds to save things that will slip through your fingers like water.

—Thanissaro Bhikkhu, “What is True Safety?”

Via Daily Dharma: Be Wary of Distorted Perceptions

When layered, perceptions become distorted, sticky, and weighty. Essentially, we think we know something, then we are off and running—all based on past experiences, preferences, and beliefs. [But] usually . . . it’s all in our minds.

—Ruth King, “Mindful of Race”

Via Daily Dharma: The Power of Interdependence

When we consider that everything we experience results from a complex interplay of causes and conditions, we find that there is no single thing to desire or resent, and it is more difficult for the afflictions of attachment or anger to arise.

—H.H. the Dalai Lama, “Mahayana/Vajrayana Practice”

Happy Birthday, Tenzin Gyatso!

He’s the spiritual leader of the Tibetan people, a worldwide icon for peace, and the incarnation of the bodhisattva of compassion.

But Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, prefers to think of himself as a “simple Buddhist monk.” 

 

The Dalai Lama was born 83 years ago today to a farming family in Amdo, a northeastern Tibetan province. He was recognized as an incarnation of the former Dalai Lama when he was 2 years old, and started his monastic schooling four years later. He was awarded his geshe degree—the equivalent of a PhD—in 1959, and later that year was forced to flee to India to escape the Chinese invasion. This year the Dalai Lama, who recently said he expects to live another 15–20 years, will celebrate his birthday in Ladakh. After that, it's back to his typical schedule: up at 3 a.m. for meditation, listening to the BBC while he eats breakfast, and studying Buddhist texts and commentaries.

Via Daily Dharma: Transform Anger into Clarity

Anger is traditionally thought to be close to wisdom. When not projected outward onto others or inward toward the self, it gives us the necessary energy and clarity to understand what needs to be done.

—Thanissara, “Don’t Worry, Be Angry”

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Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - July 4, 2018

 

We can’t mask impurities for very long. When we suppress or repress them, they gain energy. Eventually we all have to deal with our same old karmic obstacles. Maharaji used to enumerate them with regularity: kama, krodh, moha, lobh – lust, anger, confusion, and greed. It’s the spectrum of impulses and desires that condition our interior universe and our view of reality. We have to take care of this stuff, so we can climb the mountain without getting dragged back down.

This clearing out opens the door for dharma, for being in harmony with the laws of the universe on both a personal and social level. If you do your dharma, you do things that bring you closer to God. You bring yourself into harmony with the spiritual laws of the universe. Dharma is also translated as “righteousness,” although that evokes echoes of sin and damnation. It’s more a matter of clearing the decks to be able to do spiritual work on yourself.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Walking the Path to Inner Freedom

It is the inner meditative practice, especially in the midst of outer conditions, that leads to the unification and eventual reconciliation of inner and outer, self and other.

—Stuart Smithers, “Freedom’s Just Another Word”

Via Daily Dharma: Slow and Steady Wins the Race

To recognize our suffering and respond to it with compassion is a gradual process, and it must be done with sensitivity and care.

—Beth Roth, “Family Dharma: Leaning into Suffering”

Via Purple Buddha Project /11 Inspirational Quotes As Mindful Reminders | Motivational & Mindful

Life Quotes of the Day

Many people try to find a spiritual path where they do not have to face themselves but where they can still liberate themselves–liberate themselves from themselves, in fact. In truth, this is impossible. We cannot do that. We have to be honest with ourselves. We have to see our gut, our real shit, our most undesirable parts. We have to see that. That is the foundation of warriorship and the basis of conquering fear. We have to face our fear; we have to look at it, study it, work with it, and practice meditation with it. - Chögyam Trungpa Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction. - E.F. Schumacher So the tree rustles in the evening, when we stand uneasy before our own childish thoughts: Trees have long thoughts, long-breathing and restful, just as they have longer lives than ours. They are wiser than we are, as long as we do not listen to them. But when we have learned how to listen to trees, then the brevity and the quickness and the childlike hastiness of our thoughts achieve an incomparable joy. Whoever has learned how to listen to trees no longer wants to be a tree. He wants to be nothing except what he is. That is home. That is happiness. - Herman Hesse The mind is a superb instrument if used rightly. Used wrongly, however, it becomes very destructive. To put it more accurately, it is not so much that you use your mind wrongly—you usually don’t use it at all. It uses you. All the things that truly matter — beaut…y, love, creativity, joy, inner peace — arise from beyond the mind… - Eckhart Tolle When public schools are judged by how much art and music they have, by how many science experiments their students perform, by how much time they leave for recess and play, and by how much food they grow rather than how many tests they administer, then I will be confident that we are preparing our students for a future where they will be creative participants and makers of history rather than obedient drones for the ruling economic elite. - Mark Naison The voice of the intellect is a soft one, but it does not rest until it has gained a hearing. Ultimately, after endlessly repeated rebuffs, it succeeds. This is one of the few points in which it may be optimistic about the future of mankind, but in itself it signifies not a little. - Sigmund Freud How do you let go of attachment to things? Don’t even try. It’s impossible. Attachment to things drops away by itself when you no longer seek to find yourself in them. - Eckhart Tolle If you are alone you belong entirely to yourself. If you are accompanied by even one companion you belong only half to yourself or even less in proportion to the thoughtlessness of his conduct and if you have more than one companion you will fall more deeply into the same plight. - Leonardo da Vinci  People think dreams aren’t real just because they aren’t made of matter, of particles. Dreams are real. But they are made of viewpoints, of images, of memories and puns and lost hopes. - Neil Gaiman  We must become so alone, so utterly alone, that we withdraw into our innermost self. It is a way of bitter suffering. But then our solitude is overcome, we are no longer alone, for we find that our innermost self is the spirit, that it is God, the indivisible. And suddenly we find ourselves in the midst of the world, yet undisturbed by its multiplicity, for our innermost soul we know ourselves to be one with all being. - Hermann Hesse Just fully being skillful involves total lack of inhibition. We are not afraid to be. We are not afraid to live. We must accept ourselves as being warriors. If we acknowledge ourselves as warriors, then there is a way in, because a warrior dares to be, like a tiger in the jungle. ​- Chögyam Trungpa

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