Call yourself a Buddhist?

I’ve been thinking a lot about labels lately. As a rule, I don’t like them. And my good friend Motherfunker presents a pretty good case against them in her wonderful post Life of Pi…lau

But I have also been thinking about commitment. And specifically about my commitment to Buddhism.

For well over a year now, I have been going to meditation and dharma classes held by an Order Member from the local Triratna Buddhist Centre. Initially, I had some reservations about the Triratna community (it just takes a quick Google search to find out why ). But my experience of the Order, and of the meditation they teach, and the dharma they transmit has in no way been negative. This week, I had the honour of attending my first ever mitra ceremony, where a very lovely lady M became a mitra. It was a very moving and beautiful ceremony.

So what is a mitra? Basically, in the Triratna Buddhist Order, a ‘mitra’ (the Sanskrit word for friend) is someone who makes the public declaration that they:

1. Consider that they are Buddhists
2. Want to live in accordance with the five ethical precepts; and
3. Believe that the Triratna Buddhist Community is the appropriate spiritual community for them

I have a regular meditation practice. I try to live my life in an ethical way, according to the five precepts. I study and endeavour to understand the dharma. But am I a Buddhist? I suppose I am in as much as I have faith in the Buddha’s teachings and I aspire to enlightenment. In some ways, I want to shout out loud “Yes! I am a Buddhist!” But then, I think, is it just my ego looking for a label?! Is calling yourself a Buddhist a way of trying to define yourself, as though there were some permanent, unchanging self to define? Does it even matter? Would becoming a mitra help me to feel more committed, or would I find it too restrictive?

Ach, I’m no good at this deciding whether to make a commitment lark. Maybe I’ll just wait and see for now

Book Review – Advice from the Lotus Born

Like a lot of dharma practitioners in the West, most of the books I read and have read are those written by Westerners about Buddhism, rather than being Buddhist scriptures or texts from the East. This book has been an exception that I am very glad to have made.

Advice from the Lotus Born is described as “A Collection of Padmasambhava’s Advice to the Dakini Yeshe Tsogyal amd Other Close Disciples”. I first came across it when my dharma teacher read the class an extract from it  talking about faith.

I produced the above journal page using some of the similes, and wrote about my thoughts in this post.

The style and language is very different to what one might expect from a modern Western dharma book but it really resonates with me. Similes abound, as do exclamation marks! As you can see from the photo showing my copy with plenty of page markers, there were lots of passages that appealed to me, provoked me, interested me.

I think the way I would best describe Padmasambhava’s approach to the dharma is fiercely uncompromising. For example:

To have faith doesn’t mean to whimper; it means to enter the right path out of fear of death and rebirth.  To be diligent doesn’t mean to engage in various restless activities; it means to exert oneself in the means of leaving samsaric existence behind.  To be generous doesn’t merely mean to give with bias and partiality; it means to be profoundly free from attachment to anything whatsoever.

There is nothing wishy-washy about this!!

He goes on to say:

Don’t mistake mere words to be the meaning of the teachings.  Mingle the practice with your own being and attain liberation from samsara right now.

As well as the uncompromising nature of the teachings, I am drawn to the poetic nature of the text.  I do so love a good simile, as I *may* have mentioned before .  The teachings also include songs and I have to include this extract from one which Padmasambhava is said to have sung to the King:

Your Majesty, listen here, take the cross-legged position,

Keep your body straight on the seat and meditate!

Keep your attention thoughtfee and unconfined by mental constructs.

As your focus transcends all types of objects,

Unfixed on any mark of concreteness,

Remain quiet, tranquil and awake!

When you remain like this, the signs of progress naturally appear,

As the clarity of consciousness that neither arises nor ceases

And as awareness utterly free of misconceptions.

This is the awakened state found in yourself,

Not sought elsewhere but self-existing – how wonderful!

How wonderful indeed!!

I recommend this book to lovers of the dharma, and lovers of beautiful prose.

Happy Birthday, Dalai Lama!

Marking the Dalai Lama’s 77th birthday, today is Compassion Day:

Ever since we first read Demi’s lovely picture book telling the life story of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, the boys have been quite fascinated by him. I think it was finding out that, as a child, he was really quite mischievous and liked to take things apart to see how they worked!

Anyway, Waif has written another of his poems in honour of the occasion:

Peaceful monks

Very kind

A monks mind

Is always kind

A robe red

The Buddha said

Peace

Barely cease

Meditation

The Time to Wake Up is Now

Rodney Smith, in his ego-shattering book, “Stepping Out of Self-Deception” notes three ways that lay Buddhism is inhibited. The first is the belief that monasticism and long retreats are the only way to realise one’s true nature. The second is misunderstanding the teachings of the long-enduring mind so that we believe that awakening can only arrive after a long, protracted practice history. The third, Smith says, is investing the sacred only within particular practices and conditions.

Reflecting on these, I created this journal page:

The time to wake up is now

What am I waiting for?

I don’t need to join a monastery or go off on year-long retreats.
I don’t need the perfect meditation cushion, a Tibetan singing bowl, Japanese incense, a beautifully carved wooden Buddha (nice as these may be!)
I can stop dividing my life into the sacred and “the rest”. Instead I can recognise that any moment can be a spiritual moment.
It doesn’t have to take years and years of diligent practice (unless I convince myself it does).

The question is: Do I want this or not?

I don’t need to wait for the future to be fulfilled.

The time to wake up is NOW! What am I waiting for?

How Do You Do It?

A church is not for praying
It’s for celebrating the light that bleeds through the panes (or is it pains?)

The lyric is from a Hot Chip song. I love love love it. Hope you do too

Buddha Meditate

Tuesday nights in our house are known as “Mum’s Buddha Night” – when I desert the family to go to a Buddhist meditation & study group. Last night I came home to find Waif had created this little picture and poem and left it beside the bed:

Here’s the poem (corrected for spellings ) – must do some work on the difference between where and wear!)

Buddha Meditate

Buddha is calm
Peace
Wears a robe
Meditate peacefully
Quiet
Closing eyes.

Didn’t he do a great job?

I am a bit wary of foisting religious beliefs onto my children, but do share with them any teachings that might be useful to them and make their lives easier and calmer. To that end we are reading together Thich Nhat Han’s book “A Pebble for Your Pocket“, which is a very gentle introduction to mindfulness for children.  It’s a lovely book – one that I would recommend to those of any faith or no faith, child or adult.

On Faith and Similes

I’ve been thinking a lot about faith just lately. I have a (mostly) daily meditation practice; attend a weekly dharma and meditation class; and more and more try to live my life in a mindful way. There is still a little part of me that holds back from calling myself a Buddhist though. Not doubt in the teachings of the Buddha per se, but difficulty with seeing how the religious aspects of faith fit in with the Buddha’s teaching. The Buddha said:

“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumoured by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.”

Of the Buddha’s teachings that I know, that I can experience for myself, that I understand – there is nothing so far that doesn’t agree with reason or that isn’t conducive to the good and benefit of one and all. And so, I guess, in a way, I can say I have faith in the Buddha’s teaching.

I created this art journal page after my dharma teacher read us a passage from “Advice from the Lotus-Born“. In the passage, the Bodhisattva Padmasambhava gives advice to his follower Tsogyal. The passage is quite beautiful, and full of wonderfully evocative similes (who doesn’t love a good simile?). I have included a few on my journal page. After reeling off scores of these “faith is like…” similes, Padmasambhava finishes by saying “Once faith has dawned from deep within you, all virtuous qualities arrive in a mountainous heap!” which makes me smile every time I read it

This art journal page uses crayon wax resist with watercolour paints and stamping with acrylic paint.  The words are written on watercolour-painted pages and collaged in place.