BUDDHISM

Whats (Not) In Your

Mind?All things come at first from MIND
Mind creates them, mind fulfills
them
Speak or act with tainted mind,
Youll drag around a cart of pain

All things come at first from MIND

Mind creates them, mind fulfills
them
Speak or act with lucid mind
And joy will follow like your
shadow.
The Dhammapada

 The whole aim

of Eastern
religion is to
shift selfidentity from
the light bulb
to the light
Joseph
Campbell
Enlightenment

Big Questions
1. How can we be happy? What prevents

it?
2. To Hell in a Hand Basket or Heaven on
Earth?
3. Buddhism A Raft out of Hell?
4. Did you know youre my Heros Journey?
5. Whats funny bout peace, love and
understanding?
6. Dr. Buddha: Dukkhalogist - 8-fold Path
7. Whats (not) in your Mind?
8. The Jewels in the What?
9. WWBK What would Buddha know?

Same Goal?
The only thing that is

unqualifiedly good is extended

vision, the enlargement of ones
understanding of the ultimate
nature of things (8).
What is the nature of things?
What is the state of the world?
Story Birdsnest

Some say the world will end in

fire.
Some say in ice.
From what Ive tasted of desire,
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great,
Fire and Ic
And would suffice.
Robert Fros

Fear and Desire The

Only Way?
The Last Flower
Gandhi I know a way out of
hell
Story Heaven and Hell
Buddha I teach suffering
and the end of suffering

The Three Poisons

1. Grasping/Desire

2. Aversion/Hatred/Fear
3. Delusion/Ignorance

Cause all suffering

Reflect Personality types

Buddhist View of Life

A. 6 senses - Sights, Sounds, Tastes,
Smells, Physical perceptions, Mental
perceptions

B. 6 accompanying consciousnesses
Sight and the seeing of it, etc.

C. 52 feeling/thought

reactions/responses (26 wise, 26

unwise) interplaying between sense
experiences and consciousness

Wise and Unwise

Responses to Life

Unwise/Unskillfu Wise/Skillful
l

Hatred
Jealousy
Fear
Anger
etc.

Love
Compassion
Generosity
Openness
Tranquility
Equanimity,
etc.

Two Ways of Living

1. Unwise/Unskillful Wandering about

at the whim of every desire,

impulse, emotion, like a stick in a
river, moody etc.
2. Wise/Skillful/Enlightened
intentional, deliberate, skillful, wise,
etc.
Quick Write - Name a person from your life, from a
story, or from history or news that you would
describe as enlightened or wise and give
specifics
Repeat for someone unenlightened or unwise

Gandhis morning
Let
our first act in the morning be to resolve
prayer
such as this:
I shall not fear anyone on earth
I shall fear only that which is sacred
I will not bear ill will towards anyone
I shall not submit to injustice
I shall conquer untruth by truth
I shall conquer hatred by love
And in resting in truth I shall bear all
suffering
And bring freedom of spirit to my own
heart and all those that I touch

Others
Love your enemies Jesus
Meet physical force with soul

force MLK
Make me an instrument of your
peace St. Francis of Assisi
Buddhist Quotes page 3 in
packet
Okay, but how?

Buddhism is a voyage across lifes

river a transport from the common
sense shore of ignorance, grasping
and death to the further bank of

Wisdo
m?
What is the wisdom weve lost in

knowledge?
Socrates = poster boy for Western
Wisdom what did he know?
All I know is that I do not know
Oracle at Delphi Know Thyself
What did Buddha discover?

Goal
Mindfulness/Awareness/
Enlightenment
The more
deeply we pay attention

the more deeply we experience that

we do not exist separate from the
sunlight or the clouds or the
earthwormsTo the extent that we
have learned to grasp and identify
with this limited life, we suffer. The
amount of our identification with it
is our delusion, our suffering. Jack
Kornfield

Big Ideas
1. Its all in the MIND Consciousness/

Awareness/Mindfulness/Enlightenm
ent
2. Life is suffering caused by 1) Selfish
Desire/ Grasping, 2) Fear/ Aversion,
and 3) Ignorance/ Delusion
3. Empty Self thru 8fold Path, Middle
Way
4. The Jewel is in the Lotus
5. Buddha nature and the Nirvanic
World

BUDDHA

"What are you"?

"I am Awake
"Buddha" = the
Awakened, the
Enlightened
Siddhartha Gautama
563-483 B.C.E.
Nepal/India
Sakyamuni (silent
sage)
Wisdom Incarnate

The Man Who Woke

A man judged by hundreds of millions
Up
of
people, from Ceylon [Sri Lanka] to

Japan, and throughout large sections of

the Asian mainland, to have exerted by
his intellectual integrity, moral
persuasiveness and spiritual insight,
the most pervasive influence on the
thought and life of the human race.
Del Byron Schneider
"The rest of us dream the dream known
as the awakened state of human life"

Classic Heros Journey

I. Prince, 4 Passing Sights, Great

Going Forth Quest, find the cause

of suffering

II. Finds Middle Way, Temptations

Enlightenment under Bodhi Tree
finds cause and end of suffering

III. Returns with a mission to preach

a religion of wisdom and compassion

Four Passing Sights

Journal Mindblower
1. old man - aging
2. sick people - disease
3. corpse - death
4. monk - withdrawal
"Life is subject to age and death where is the realm of life in which
there is neither?"
Fleshly pleasures lose their
charm, so at 29 goes into forest

 Learns Raja Yoga

ThewGreat Going
Hindu Gurus Forth
Tries austerity of
ascetics - didn't
work to bring
enlightenment, but
did lead him to
principle of
The Middle Way
like a string on an
instrument

Sits under peepul/Bo

Enlightenme
tree
(bodhi=knowledge) nt
Gaya in NE India
Vows - Let my skin
and sinews and
bones become dry.
all the flesh and
blood in my body dry
up, but never from
this seat will I stir,
until I have attained
the supreme and
absolute wisdom.

Temptation
(like Christs on the eve of his ministry)
1. Kama - desire - babes
2. Mara - death - empties finite self
Mara challenges his right to be there -

Buddha touches the earth to bear

witness
Lost in rapture for 7 days, tries to get up,
overcome by waves of bliss, stays 7x7
days
3. Mara appeals to reason, don't go back
- "How show what can only be found,
teach what can only be learned? Buddha
replies Some will understand.

 Lives message
Preaches 50 years -

withdraws
6 yrs, preaches 45.
3 mos, preaches 9.
3x/day
Dies c.483 B.C. at 80
Last words - "Work
out your own
salvation with
diligence."

Mission

The Silent
Sage
Sakyamuni - silent sage of the

Sakya Clan
One of the greatest personalities
of all time Smith
Wisdom incarnate - cool head/
rational (like Socrates) and warm
heart of infinite compassion(like
Francis)
transforming presence - moved
among kings and villagers with
equal ease, took no notice of caste

The Rebel
Unlike Hinduism, Buddhism sprang fully
Saint
formed as an Indian Protestantism against
Hindu perversions
6 Common Elements of Religion that were
corrupted
1. Authority
2. Ritual (People danced out their religion
before they thought it out)
3. Speculation metaphysics
4. Tradition
5. Grace
6. Mystery

What started was a religion almost entirely

devoid of each of these ingredients without

which we would suppose that religion could
not take root.

Original Buddhism

1. Empirical - know for yourself, validate

2. Scientific - cause and effect experiments
3. Practical - not speculative
4. Therapeutic - suffering and its end
5. Psychological v. metaphysical - began
with human problems instead of
universe
6. Egalitarian - women equal, caste
breaking
7. Individuals - Be lamps unto yourselves,
work out your own salvation with
diligence

Numerical too
and
2 Ways of Living
3 Poisons
Useful

"Suffering have I

3 Marks of Existence
3 Jewels
4 Noble Truths
4 Foundations of
Mindfulness
5 Precepts
5 Skandhas
5 Hindrances
6 Senses
6 Accompanying
Consciousnesses
6 Moments of Dukkha
7 Factors of
Enlightenment
8 Fold Path
52 Skillful and Unskillful
Responses To Life

explained - for
this is useful
its cause,
destruction and
path that leads
to its
destruction.

Kalama Sutta
"Do not accept what you hear by

"Do not accept what you hear by

report, do not accept tradition, do
not accept a statement because it is
found in our books, nor because it is
in accord with your beliefs, not
because it is the saying of your
teacher. Be lamps unto yourselves.
Those who either now or after I am
dead, still rely upon themselves only
and not look for assistance to anyone
besides themselves, it is they who
will reach the topmost height.

The Four
Noble Truths
Buddhas First
Sermon

Dr. Buddha 1.Dukkhalogist

Symptom: Dukkha suffering, transitory,
finite existence, life out of joint
2. Diagnosis: Tanha cause of suffering is
desire/selfish craving based on egoism.
Private fulfillment increases
separateness. Tanha - always present
when suffering is present, always absent
when suffering is absent
3. Prognosis: To cure Dukkha, get rid of
Tanha - release from the narrow limits of
self-interest into vast expanse of human
life How?
4. Remedy/Prescription: The Eightfold Path

Mindfulness Journal
Quick Writes

1. Who do you surround yourself

with? List people who enlighten
you, people who drag you down.
2. Write about a moment you had
today when you felt
Anxious, stressed, nervous,
dissatisfied, wanting, etc. OR
Peaceful, calm, relaxed, fulfilled,
happy, etc.

More Mindfulness Journal

Quickies
3. Stop and listen what are you

aware of about yourself or your

surroundings of which you
werent aware until you paid
attention?
4. What is most on your mind?
5. What are you aware of about
yourself or your world at this
point of your life of which you
were not aware as a child?

Dukkha = life out of

joint

1. Trauma of birth
2. Sickness
3. Aging
4. Fear of death
5. Being tied to

what you hate

6. Being separated
from what you
love

The Remedy - The

Path
intentional living,
Eightfold
rather than pulled and
pushed by impulse and
circumstance
series of changes
designed to release the
individual from
ignorance, impulse and
Tanha
Preliminary - Begin with
Right Association - yoke
wild elephant to tamed

The Eightfold Path

Right
1.Belief Noble Truths make up mind, then

2.Intent - Make up our hearts, dedicate

3.Speech 3 switches control us, become aware of

what our speech reveals about us, of how many

times and why we deviate from truth or
kindness, of motives
4.Conduct - understand motives before trying to
change behavior - how generous/selfless, follow
5 Precepts
5.Livelihood - what occupies our time. Promote life
6.Effort Middle Way, slow and steady, like an ox
7.Mindfulness Be aware, awake, conscious
8.Concentration - Raja Yoga regeneration - change
into a new creature who experiences the world in
different way.

Five Precepts
Buddhist version of the Ten
Commandments (2nd half)
Knowing how deeply our lives
intertwine, I undertake the
training to abstain from:
1. Killing living beings
2. Taking things not given
3. Sexual misconduct
4. False speech
5. Intoxicating drinks and drugs

All in your
Mind?
The Dhammapada:

"All we are is the

result of what we have thought."
"All things can be mastered by
mindfulness.

There is nothing either good or bad

but thinking makes it so Hamlet

For Buddha ignorance, not sin, is the

offender - sin is prompted by
fundamental ignorance of our true
nature

 Continuous self-

awareness/examination
freedom from unconscious, robot-like
existence
See everything as it is - "If we maintain
a steady attention to our thoughts and
feelings, we perceive that they swim in
and out of our awareness, and are in
no way permanent parts of us."
"We should witness all things nonreactively, especially our moods and
emotions, neither condemning some
nor holding onto others."

Ways to practice
Mindfulness

Meditate on fearful and disgusting sights

until they no longer bother us or repel us
Pervade world with thoughts of loving
kindness
become aware of every action - when
sleep takes over, whether breath is in or
out
special routine for complete withdrawal
Packet page 17 and 18

Mindfulness Experiment - Speech and

Action

Buddha's
1. Every emotion, thought or image is

Insights

accompanied by a body sensation and vice

versa
2. Obsessive patterns arise in mind and these
constitute misery/dukkha
3. Every mental and physical state is in flux,
none is solid and enduring, even pain - each
is comprised of series of discrete sensations
that can suddenly change.
4. We have little control over our minds and
physical sensations
5. There is nobody behind the
mental/physical events
No Self? No Observer? What up wit dat?

3 Marks of Existence
1. Anicca -

transitoriness/impermanence

2. Dukkha suffering
3. Anatta - absence of permanent
identity/soul

All Things Must Pass by George Harrison

Sunrise doesnt last all morning
A cloudburst doesnt last all day
Seems my love has up and has left you with no
warning
Its not always going to be this way
All things must pass
All things must pass away
Sunset doesnt last all evening
A mind can blow those clouds away
After all this, my love is up and must be leaving
Its not always going to be this grey

Anicca All Things Must Pass

Impermanence
Regard this world:

As a star at dawn,
a bubble in a stream,
a flash of lightning
in a summer cloud,
a flickering lamp
a phantom - and a dream.
This applies to the self too
hence:

Anatta No Soul doctrine

No soul/permanent self. What gets

reborn?
Bad habits Desire/Fear threads
each life to past and future
No spiritual substance/soul
transmitted - but ideas, impressions,
feelings, consciousness, memories
Desires and dislikes influencing my
mind have lineages
Not bound by personal history - can
break the chain through will

Karma, Tanha, Samsara,

Buddha's reincarnation differed

from Hindus who attribute rebirth

to Karma
Buddhists to Tanha - "as long as the
wish to be a separate self persists,
that wish would be granted. Desire
is key - it is possible to step
permanently out of the cycle of
rebirth whenever one wished
wholeheartedly to do so."

Nirvana?

 Arhat who extinguishes all

desires - reborn doesn't apply,

not reborn doesn't apply.
Response to disciple: You
ought to be bewildered - this
is "profound, recondite, hard
to comprehend, rare,
excellent, beyond dialectic,
subtle, only to be understood
by the wise."
Supra-sonic?
"blow out/extinguish"
boundaries of finite self, left
w/ boundless life

Nirva
na

 Far transcends the power of words -

individual awareness is eclipsed in the

blazing light of total awareness like a
star at sunrise
"Some say the dewdrop slips into the
shining sea - others prefer to think of
the dewdrop opening to receive the
sea itself.
"life of the Arhat is of increasing
independence from the causal order of
nature
Spiritual freedom brings largeness of
life - Buddha "embodied more of
reality.
If increased freedom brings increased
being, total freedom brings BEING

Big Raft and Little

Schism (split) btw Mahayana +

Theravada
Two Schools - both Yana - raft or ferry both claim to carry people across life's
shores to enlightenment
Maha - great, (Mahatma - Great souled),
Hina - little
Mahayana - "Buddhism for the people" Big Raft - linked to the Buddha's "Great
Renunciation"
Hinayana - Little Raft - Theravada - Way
of the Elders - linked to teachings in text

1. Are people dependent or interdependent

2. Is the universe friendly/helpful or
indifferent/hostile
3. Is the best part of a human being the head or
the heart? -Classicists rank thoughts above
feelings, Romantics the opposite

There
Are
Two
Kinds
of
People

Theraveda /
Hinayana

Mahayana

Where

Sri Lank, Burma, Thailand,

Cambodia

China, Korea, Japan, Tibet

How

Buddhas vision of society:

Monarchy, monastic
community (Sangha), laity

Grafted onto pre-existent

civilizations

Focus

Wisdom

Compassion

Buddh Entering Nirvana

as
Exampl
e

Great Renunciation of Nirvana

to preach

The
Ideal

Arhat holy monk who

remains in Nirvana after
death

Bodhisattva (wisdom being)

who passes up Nirvana and
vows to help all beings
achieve enlightenment

Goal

Attainment of Nirvana
requires constant attention

Religious practice is relevant

to everyone

Bodhisattva
One whose Being

(Sattva) is
Illumination (Bodhi)
Focus on Buddhas
renunciation of
Nirvana to teach on
his compassion
Buddha as saint

 School of Buddhist thought

and training in Japan

Zen = Japanese
mispronuncing of
Chan = Chinese
mispronuncing of
Dhyana = Sanskrit for
Zen
contemplation
Special transmission outside
scripture
from Buddha mind to
Buddha mind a succession
of teachers

The Lotus
Sermon

Buddha holds a
golden lotus
understood by
none except
Mahakayapa
passes down in
India through
28 patriarchs
and carried to
China in 520
A.D. by
Bodhidharma

Words, Words, Words

like stepping through Alice's looking
glass - topsy-turvy wonderland
Designed to break limits of normal
human reason/logic, (Logic is a
ladder), to blast through limitations
of language words are inadequate,
Beyond words and ideas to
experiences and realization
(Enlightenment) =
Satori

 1. Zazen seated
meditation
2. Koan logicbreaking riddles
3. Sanzen
conference with
master
validates,
encourages,
corrects

Three
aspects of
Zen
Training

Koan

shortest one night, longest 12 years.

What is the sound of one hand

clapping?
Reason is limited, a ladder too short to
reach to truths full heights and must be
supported by another way of knowing
Zen intends to upset the mind, unbalance
it and eventually provoke revolt against
limits of logic. Koan provokes, excites,
exasperates and eventually exhausts the
mind, reducing it to an impasse must
count on a sudden flash of insight

Satori See
beings
amazingness

Enlightenment

each equally a manifestation of

the infinite trees, leaves, *
%#@stick
Life is Beautiful
Jewel is in the Lotus, (X in O)
Unity of Buddha nature within
w/ Nirvanic world without
widen the doors of perception so
that the wonder of the Satori
experience can flood the everyday
world.

Zens Influence on Japan

Landscape

painting
Landscape
gardening
rock gardens
Martial arts
Tea Ceremony
Haiku

I look in a dragonflys
eye
And see the mountains
Over my shoulder

The flower I saw

Drift back to the
branch
Was a butterfly

Haiku

 Exp. of oneness with all,

bliss thru self-emptying,
transformative
experience of seeing
world differently
The Art of Attention
Kobe, Curt, Caddyshack,
Karate Kid
Love, and do what you
will St. Augustine
If you cant find
enlightenment in
doing the dishes

Conduits

Tibetan Buddhism
Mandala

 Nirvana in single life-use all hum. energies

Sounds, sights, motion can distract, but it
doesnt follow that they must.
Channel physical energies into currents
that carry spirit forward instead of
derailing it.
1.Mantras convert noise and distracting
chatter into holy formulae
2.Mudras choreographed hand gestures
3.Mandalas treat the eyes to icons whose
holy beauty draws the beholder in their
direction

Mantra

Om Mane Padme Hung

The Jewel is in the Lotus
Also a form of the name for the
Bodhisattva of compassion

Pray
er
Flag
s

 Bodhisattva not pope

or god-king
The
Dalai
Incarnates compassion
Uninterrupted current Lama
of spiritual influence
As rainforests are to
the earths
atmosphere, someone
has said, so are the
Tibetan people to the
human spirit in this
time of its planetary
ordeal (144).

The Three Jewels (Vows)

1. I take refuge in the Buddha
2. I take refuge in the Dharma (8-fold
path)
3. I take refuge in the Sangha
(community of Buddhists)

The Crossing
After reaching the other shore leave raft, 5

precepts, 8fold path, dukkha, karma, nirvana

all vital to those crossing, but lose relevance
to those who have arrived as a raft does on
land.
World is an activity of Nirvana itself not the
slightest distinction exists between them
good and evil disappear
Earth is the lotus land, this body is Buddhas
Bodhisattvas vow not to enter Nirvana until
the grass itself be enlightened.
River connects the banks, rather than divides
them
Buddhism prominent in all Asian lands except
India, which subsumed it, Buddhism sank back
into the stream

Thich Nhat
Hanh

Vietnamese

Zen Monk
Nominated by
MLK in 1967 for
Nobel Peace
Prize for work
rebuilding
villages
destroyed in
Vietnam War