Ayya Khema

Via both The Buddhist Blog and lotusinthemud I found a really interesting quote from Venerable Khema. (Check out the links for the quote - figured repeating it a third time was a bit redundant. 0.O) I wasn't familiar with the Venerable so I did a little research. Resources I found:

• Gathered resources here.
• A Wikipedia article here.
• To Be Seen Here and Now: Ten Dhamma Talks from a meditation retreat at Pelmadulla Bhikkhu Training Centre, Sri Lanka, by Sister Ayya Khema - I've yet to read these, but I look forward to it.
• Path and Fruit, a Dhamma Talk by Sister Ayya Khema - Another one I look forward to reading.
• Here's my search on Google video. A few are in English, most are in German.
• Ayya Khema: A Personal Tribute by Urgyen Sangharakshita.
• A collection of three of her writings, which includes a copy of To Be Seen Here and Now.

A brief summary of her life, quoted directly from Wikipedia:

Ayya Khema (August 25, 1923 - November 2, 1997), a Buddhist teacher, was born as Ilse Ledermann in Berlin, Germany, to Jewish parents.

Khema dodged the Nazis during World War II, but was interned by the Japanese. She eventually moved to the United States. After travelling in Asia she decided to become a Buddhist nun in Sri Lanka in 1979. She was very active in providing opportunities for women to practice Buddhism, founding several centers around the world. In 1987 she co-ordinated the first ever International Conference of Buddhist Nuns.

Khema wrote over two dozen books in English and German. Her autobiography, I Give You My Life, is an adventure story sprinkled with nuggets of spiritual wisdom.

Among her many other accomplishments, Ayya Khema was the spiritual director of Buddha-Haus in Germany, founded with her guidance. (An English language version of their website can be found here.) Her ashes rest in a beautiful stupa there:

As you can tell (^_^), I've gathered a lot of online resources to read and listen to. So far I'd say her speaking and writing style are very accessible and interesting to lay-person-me. I'd be very interested to know if any of y'all have read her books, and what your opinion is, or perhaps even which one is your favorite, if you've read much by her.
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Image sources - Sangha: Munks [sic] and Nuns in the Buddhist Community by Friedrich Reg and the Buddha-Haus.

Finished

About a week ago, I finally finished Thây Hanh's The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching. This is a tremendously useful read - I really think that this is definitely one time that the book lives up to the title.

When I was a kid I taught myself how to speed read - a tremendously useful skill, if you can keep your retention level up (I'm still at about 98%, thank goodness.). However, this is not a book that can be read trivially. I read this one SOOO slowly and carefully, going back over passages frequently.

I don't know that this is the first book I'd give someone who expresses an interest in Buddhism to me, but it would be the first one I'd recommend to someone I knew to be *seriously* interested.

Chö-kor Düchen

Via the Palyul Yahoo forum, from http://www.pcddallas.org/Tibetan_Calendar_2007.htm

TODAY is Chökhor Düchen July 18, 2007

There are four major Special Buddha Days or "Festivals" (düchen) in a year which relate to the life of Buddha Shakyamuni.

During these days, it is said that the effects of positive or negative actions are multiplied 10 million times, so practice is strongly advised.

...

Chokhor Düchen - Buddha Shakyamuni First Turns the Wheel of Dharma

...

Chökhor Düchen July 18, 2007 (Tibetan Chö-kor Düchen-14th day of 6th lunar month): the "First Turning of the Wheel of Dharma" (first teaching) is celebrated. For the first seven weeks after his Enlightenment, Buddha did not teach. Encouraged by Indra and Brahma, he then gave his first teachings at Sarnath on the Four Noble Truths.

Well, there you are. If you didn't know, now you do.

Best Mindfulness Book by Hanh?

In keeping with my current explorations of mindfulness in the everyday, does anyone have a favorite book on mindfulness by Thich Nhat Hanh? Or another book/source of Dharma that springs to mind as a favorite/something really useful? If anyone has a suggestion, I'm all (very grateful) ears!

(Oh - I should add - two I've contemplated are The Miracle of Mindfulness and Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life.)

Online Dharma Resources

Just a little micro-post as I'm evidently wont to do (^_-) : I've started sort of a personal resource blog that I add online dharma resources to when I find them or think about it. Perhaps it might be helpful to someone else: Online Dharma Resources.

Hurrah!

Last night I went for my first Dharma Study, though it was a bit of a drive - I had to haul my cookies all the way to Gulf Breeze (just outside of Pensacola) to visit Palyul Changchub Choling. They're "... a sangha or group who study and practice Tibetan Buddhism in the Nyingma tradition according to the Palyul nam-cho practices.[Links are mine]"

I doubt I can go every week right now (2 hrs in a car with $3 gas), but they're such a great group, and I can do preliminary practices (Ngondro) with them and take refuge the next time the lama comes. I've thought about it, and I think Tibetan Buddhism is the best place for me to start right now, although I have a great deal of respect for the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh. Going to the study group last night felt so right - I was comfortable with the meditation session and the dharma discussion - I felt at home in the material and even felt like I had something to contribute to the discussion. (For what it's worth, they were discussing What Makes You Not a Buddhist by Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse. I don't have it, but it seems like an interesting read, if slim. Maybe once I've caught up on my other Dharma reading....Apparently, this is a much lighter/easier work than their last selection, which was a book on Dzogchen.)

Perhaps soon I can go back, and maybe I'll even remember to bring my camera. ^_^

Diamond Sutra 101

I stopped by Ven. Rinchen Gyatso's blog today and found links to the beginning of this great 12 part lecture series on the Diamond Sutra by Venerable Hyun Gak (né Paul Muenzen). I found a better source for the lectures via Google, so I thought I'd include them below, if anyone's interested. They're from the Korean Buddhist Television Network.



Here are links to the other eleven parts (each about 40 minutes long): Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12. (As a heads-up, there are up to 2 brief ads before parts 3 through 12.)

Love

Via Entering the Path I found a quote by Brad Warner:

“Transcending emotions doesn’t mean you have no feelings. You have them. But you recognize them for what they are and respond appropriately without letting them develop into what we call emotions, which are really just feelings that have been blown way out of proportion.”

To an extent I agree with this. However, in my humble, unschooled opinion, he's oversimplifying things. The breadth and depth of the palette of human emotion is a good thing, with a potential for great beauty. It's an essential part of what it means to be human, I think. If a human incarnation is to be viewed as a precious thing - an opportunity not to be wasted - it seems to me that human emotion is something not to be wasted, as well.

Problems arise when emotional experience becomes an attachment. Recently, just as I was ending my meditation practice, I had the thought that emotional pain can very easily become an attachment if one is unable or unwilling to move beyond past experience. However, not all emotion is pain and not all emotion is attachment. One can experience intense pain, one can experience intense emotion. I don’t believe suffering is dependent on either. It’s all in how you greet your experience.

There is much emphasis in Buddhism on loving-kindness and compassion. Compassion - the root of lovingness and kindness – is an emotion. I can’t think of another way to describe it. When one practices compassion and – as a consequence – kindness, one experiences great joy. This is not (should not be) the end result of practicing loving-kindness, but it’s a wonderful lagniappe. The emotional rewards of being loving are the fruit, not the tree.

The context of Mr. Warner's blog entry relates mostly to romantic love, so I'll focus my comments on love, specifically. To truly know and love someone - once one has moved beyond romantic love and on to the deeper realities of everyday love - can be one of the great joys of life. Within the structure of real love (whether it be filial, marital, or what-have-you), there is a great deal of room for mindfulness, compassion and understanding. Love can provide a fantastic context for one's daily practice - great opportunities for growth are to be found in our daily interactions. One might even argue that they are necessary for love to continue to ripen and expand.

I am a humble (I hope.), unknowledgeable student of Dharma. So perhaps I simply don’t understand the Truth of what Mr. Warner is saying. I also am not as well-read in Zen thought as I am in the other branches of Buddhism. So perhaps my lack of understanding lies there. In any case, for now, I’ll have to disagree. In my mind a feeling is an itch, and an emotion such as love - while a much “larger” issue – is still a useful experience.

Interesting Words

I really like this:

Buddhism is not a religion or philosophy; it is not a psychology or a science. It is example. It is a method of liberation.
-- Jusan Frankie Parker

Everyday Dharma

More from Tenzin Palmo:

We have to transform those ordinary actions of our day into dharma practice because otherwise nothing is going to move. And it’s very important to realize that every person that you meet, everything that you do, with the right attitude and a little awareness and skillful means — we can transform everything — all our joys and sorrows. Where else is the dharma? Obviously the dharma is every breath we take, every thought we think, every word we speak, if we do it with awareness and an open, caring heart.

Concerning Practice ...

"...practice should not be an ordeal."

From a Tenzin Palmo Interview ...

Obviously being relaxed doesn’t mean that you make no effort. To become effortless takes a lot of effort. It’s good to compare it to learning an instrument or learning a sport. When you learn an instrument, it takes an awful lot of time to just learn the scales, and then eventually when you have completely mastered the instrument, the music plays for you. But you still have to keep practicing. And it takes an awful lot of practice. Nonetheless, if you diligently practice, hours and hours and hours and hours, you probably won’t get it. You’ll probably just end up hurting your fingers. The very best players, when they are practicing, put everything they’ve got into it. But then they leave it for a while. And it’s the same in dharma practice. One has to find a balance. I don’t say that when you leave it you forget all about the dharma or practice, but there have to be times when you throw yourself into it, and then there are times when you just relax and realize that wherever you go, you cannot get out of the dharma. The dharma is here. And the dharma is in your heart. Where else would it be?

"We can move mountains with a single breath."

So, I was reading Rinchen Gyatso's booklet "You Can Move Mountains: An Introduction to the Mind-Science of Dharma" and found this quote:

People don’t like to talk about suffering.... We don’t like to think about the ways in which we cause our own and other’s suffering, because that would mean we would have to change our lives.

He also writes:

[...] we can dramatically change not only our experience of the world, but also ultimately the experience of all beings that share this world with us, if we begin to make small changes in our own minds. With each breath, we turn a little to the right, a little bit closer to fully embodying the wisdom and compassion that exists within us.

I take from this that a constant move towards love and compassion will ultimately leave (when I/we die) the world a better place. Rinchen Gyatso continues:

We are not the victims of circumstance: we create our circumstances. Within each of us lies the power to change our lives, and to positively affect the people around us. Like ripples in a pond, we can change everything and create the world we truly want; a world filled with people who work for peace and the benefit of others.

As war and strife continue around us, as violence bubbles up in our world, we must keep from feeling helpless, that nothing we do matters. Everything matters. In The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching, Thich Nhat Hanh writes:

In the year 255, Vietnamese Meditation Master Tang Hoi taught that our consciousness is like the ocean with the six rivers of our senses flowing into it. Our mind and our body come from consciousness. They are formed by ourselves and our environment. Our lives can be said to be a manifestation of our consciousness.