Journey of Life and Mind

Public Talks on “Journey of Life and Mind”

 

The foundation invites the general public to attend  a conference/seminar on “Journey of Life and Mind” at Room 105 Mahachulalongkorn Building, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok.

There will be two public talks by Latri Khenpo Geshe Nyima Dakpa Rinpoche on “Samsara…Journey of Life and Mind” and “Life’s Last Journey”. There will also be an introduction of Rinpoche’s book “Opening the Door to Bon” in the occasion of  its being translated into Thai.

 

Program of Rinpoche’s Talks in English (with Thai translations)

Saturday 11 February 2012

9.10-10.15 hrs: Samsara…Journey of Life and Mind

10.15-10.30 hrs: Refreshments

10.30-11.30 hrs: Opening the Door to Bon. An introduction to Tibetan ancient wisdom

Sunday 12 February 2012

13.00-14.30 hrs: Life’s Last Journey

14.30-15.00 hrs: Refreshments

15.00-16.00 hrs: Discussion

For registration, please email us at 1000tara@gmail.com. There are no registration fees. Donation to support the activities are welcome.

 

Fearlessness

Going Beyond Fear In This Dark Age

A Dharma Talk with Bruno Nua

“The Buddha taught that the mark of an enlightened being is fearlessness. Someone who has gone beyond fear is free from all the obscurations and obstacles that prevent us from manifesting as buddhas and ultimately benefitting others.
Fearlessness is that which literally gives birth to a buddha. It is the Mother of all the buddhas.”
[from BUDDHA’S FAVOURITE WORDS, Bruno Tashi Rabjay]
FEAR
Dwelling in the realm of ego breeds delusion. Not resting in our true nature gives rise to a vicious cycle of attachment and aversion, which manifests as afflictive emotions. These come in many forms such as addiction and anger, but they all boil down to the same disturbing forces: I want … I don’t want.
Also known as Hope and Fear, the chaotic emotions that spring from our ego-clinging are the very things that make us suffer. If we could only cut through any one of them, the whole deluded house of cards would crumble and fall. Then we would be liberated forever and enlightenment would flow like a river.
For this reason, the Buddha taught that the mark of an enlightened being is fearlessness. Someone who has gone beyond fear is free from all the obscurations and obstacles that prevent us from manifesting as buddhas and ultimately benefitting others.
We are deeply afraid of so many things: fear of the unknown, fear of losing our minds. We are all but completely paralysed, not living to our full potential. This fear comes from our utter distrust of letting go and opening up – it is also a primal fear of the openness and the emptiness of our Buddha Nature.
In this light, the high point of the Heart Sutra is said to be the line:
There is no fear.
The full name of this sutra is The Heart of Transcendent Knowledge. By definition, it teaches that the key to full enlightenment is fearlessness. The whole theme of this particular sutra [Skt. Prajnaparamita Sutra] is Going Beyond. The preamble describes the Buddha Nature as being ‘beyond words, beyond thought, beyond description. Prajnaparamita … unborn, unceasing, with nature like the sky’. The essence of the sutra is its mantra:
Gaté, gaté, paragaté, parasamgaté, bodhi suaha.
It is the perfect utterance of one who has already gone completely beyond all fear: Gone, gone, gone all the way over, completely gone over to the other shore. Fully awake, Yes.
The openness and contentment it describes is a total fearlessness that is egoless. Because of this earth-shattering breakthrough, one is freed up to focus on the ultimate welfare of others. Consequently, the Mahayana lineages call the Prajnaparamita the Mother of all the buddhas. Fearlessness is that which literally gives birth to a buddha. Tibetan Buddhism even goes so far as to depict the fearless mother of all the buddhas in female form as Tara.
In this way, we come to an understanding of the essence of the Buddha’s teachings. The core message is not about elaborate philosophical treatises. Nor is it even about depicting the Buddha Nature in one form or another. All this serves a much simpler purpose. They lead us to a basic truth: Through meditation practice, we can awaken and connect with our true nature. By developing an unshakable conviction in our primordial purity, our aim is to go beyond all philosophies, all images, all concepts. Then we become completely free to lead others out of their suffering.

About the author

Bruno is a Meditation Instructor, Dharma Educator, and a dabbler in the Creative Arts. He was born in 1965 in Dublin, Ireland where he later trained as a Philosophical Theologian at Trinity College. While still working as an educator in that area, Bruno encountered the heart of the Buddha’s teachings when he first met Sogyal Rinpoche in the early 1990s, which also quickly led to meeting Ringu Tulku Rinpoche and Thich Nhat Hanh.
Since then, while continuing to be a student of Buddhism, Bruno has taught meditation and presented the Buddha’s teachings in many Dharma centres, including Rigpa Dublin where he was Managing Director for some years. He has also engaged with presenting these teachings in prisons and hospices, education and training establishments, and in Non-Governmental Organisations dedicated to Caring in the Community.
He is the Founding Director of many pioneering projects such as Buddhist Network Ireland, Dublin International Buddhist Film Festival, Open Space and Lotus Temple, and has represented Irish Buddhists on the Inter-Religious Council of Ireland.
Nowadays, as well as teaching Meditation and various courses in Applied Mindfulness and Engaged Buddhism, Bruno is also very much committed to guest-lecturing a variety of programmes on Buddhism in Colleges and Universities.

Buddhism and Civic Consciousness

I have just read a very good post on Buddhism and the need for taking care of our fellow human beings by a Thai author. He argues that ‘suffering’ or ‘duhkha’ is a fundamental conflict, such as one between our desire and the world — we suffer when the two do not connect; and he also says that Buddhists need to be more mindful of the plight of their fellow human beings, since we are all “suffering beings.” We are in the same boat, so to speak.

Here is a criticism of the kind of Buddhism that is being practiced in Thailand today. I am not talking about Theravada Buddhism, because Theravada Buddhists can be very kind to other human beings and all sentient beings too. This is not unique to Mahayana as pundits seem to believe. Caring for others is at the heart of Buddhism. The Buddha decided to come out of his Enlightenment to teach all of us simply because he cared for us. It is his love for us samsaric beings that prompted him to spend forty-five years tirelessly showing the way, teaching each of us differently according to our individual backgrounds and abilities, all in order that we “get it” and see that the lives we have been living for so long is pointless and there is a way out of this pointlessness which is achievable by everybody.

So the kind of Buddhism that the author is criticizing is not Theravada per se, but a social form of Buddhism that is being practiced in Thailand. Thai people emphasize the “merit making” aspect of Buddhism, so much so that somehow they seem to forget that this is only a path toward the goal. It seems that most Thai Buddhists mistake the path for the goal. We make merit not as an end in itself, but the merit helps us eventually “see” the way that the Buddha wanted us to see. Instead most Thai Buddhists see practicing Buddhism as little more than making merit and storing it in order to quality for some goodies that will happen afterwards. But that is not the heart of Buddhism.

We will understand the heart of Buddhism if we look at what the Buddha himself is doing. He left his princely, luxurious life to become a poor mendicant. This is terribly shocking, but when Buddhism is taught to Thai students this aspect is not emphasized much. The Buddha’s life story is related straightforwardly without letting this point seep into the listener’s mind. What does it mean for someone to abandon a wife, a son, a career, a home, a host of staffs and servants, a father, a mother, a bright future, to become a beggar? Why did the Buddha do that? What is the whole meaning of it? Reflecting on this and we eventually see how kind and compassionate the Buddha is to us. He took great sacrifice on himself so that all of us benefit. Not only did he abandon his palace, but during his practice he undertook very austere practices. We all know the story of how the Buddha tormented himself and was on the brink of death because he wanted to achieve Liberation. He wanted to know how to get rid of the sufferings — birth, old age, sickness and death — that afflict us all.

We don’t have to become exactly like the Buddha. But at least we can emulate him a little bit. Even this tiny bit will do us tremendously good. The whole point is that the Buddha did not all this for himself. It is not like, he wanted to become the Buddha, the Enlightened One, one that will be revered by millions of people. No, he did not want us to prostrate to him day in and day out. He did not want people to build gilded images of him and held him in highest respect either. All that he wanted was that we see the point and get it. He did all these sacrifices for us!

So this is what we can do. Instead of thinking only of ourselves — oh I am making this much merit today, so I will be eligible for even higher rewards afterwards, especially after I die — we should instead think of others and put their interests above our own. In fact this is the point of making merit, such as giving (dana). We give because we want others to be happy; we share what we have so that others can enjoy what we are enjoying too. We rejoice when others are happy. This is the real merit.

So what about civic consciousness? The author of the Thai article I mentioned earlier says that Buddhists should be more civic minded. He means Buddhists should not think only of themselves but they should care for others. When others in society are suffering we should not ignore them. We should understand, according to him, that suffering does not occur only at individual level, but at the structural level too. For example, there is an unjust system of distribution in society which leaves some very rich and some very poor. This is a simple example of the structural kind of suffering. Buddhists should strive to end that kind of suffering too. Thai Buddhists are usually blind to this, and in fact they have been programmed by the power-that-be that what they are doing (making merit and obtaining individual positive karmic results) is about the only thing they can do.

When we understand that injustice and structural kind of suffering all arise from human decision and intention, we realize that the individual level and the structural level are not that remote from each other. A good Buddhist, then, should do what he or she can to address both the individual and structural level of suffering. However, in Thailand Buddhists, especially monks, have been conditioned so much that they are expected to remain aloof from society and attend to their individual business only. That is wrong,and that is not what the Buddha taught.

So having strong civic consciousness is part of being a good Buddhist. Some Thai Buddhists may think that this is Mahayana. In fact ‘Mahayana’ or ‘Theravada’ are just labels, and neither term appears in the entire canon of the Tripitaka. The Buddha was neither with Theravada nor Mahayana nor Vajrayana nor what have you. He is with us. He wants us to get the point! It is the responsibility of those who can see something to help others who have not seen. This requires caring and helping others. This is what the Buddha taught us his students.

Don’t Think about the Result

A trick in practicing the Dharma is that when you do it, you should not expect any result to come by. To do so would mean that you are thinking ahead and do not focus on the present, which is what you need to do. Many people who are interested in practicing seem to be more interested in getting the result rather than just practicing. For them they want to know whether they are already a Stream Enterer (sotapanna) or not, and what he needs to be in order to become one. But the point of practicing is not just to become a Stream Enterer it is to focus one’s mind so that one gets rid of defilements so that we are free from suffering.

So don’t think of whether you have achieved any level of accomplishment. Just stay in the present. If you think of whether you have become this or that, or what you must do in order to become this or that, you won’t get very far in your practice. It’s like when you practice the piano. Instead of focusing on the piece you are practicing at the moment, you are worried about whether you have achieved the same level of accomplishment as this or that pianist. But then you won’t be focusing on the actual practice of the piece, which is the real point.

The Wheel of Dharma

Today is an important day in Buddhism. It’s the day when the Buddha gave the first sermon to his first batch of students. This is also known as the day when the wheel of Dharma was turned for the first time. What this means is that the Buddha’s first teaching set the religion of Buddhism going for the first time. There will be further turnings of the wheel according to the Mahayana and Vajrayana traditions, but the first turning was the most significant because it set everything going in the first place.

So what did the Buddha teach his first group of students? No less than the essence of the Buddhist message itself. The Buddha talked about the Four Noble Truths and the Middle Way. For most Buddhists these are simple messages that they have been exposed to ever since they are very young. However, the messages can be very profound and it encompasses all aspects of the Buddha’s own teaching.

Let’s start with the Middle Way. Ordinarily in the exposition of the Sutra containing the first sermon, the Dhammacakkappavatana Sutta, or the Sutta on the Turning of the Wheel, the Middle Way is explained as lying somewhere between two extremes, namely indulging in sensual desires and self mortification on the other. So many people think that the Buddha’s message is some kind of moderation. You do not indulge in too much sensual pleasure, but you do not completely deny it either. So the message, according to the standard interpretation, is that you should enjoy the pleasure only in moderation. In standard Thai Buddhism this is given as eating just for keeping the body going, not too much and not too little. To eat too little would be to fall toward the other side of the Middle Way. So the idea is: Not too much, not too little.

But the Buddha’s real message is much more than that. It is much more than just to look for a space between the two extremes, or an actual “middle” point between the two. While this idea may have a place in the teaching on the Middle Way, the Buddha’s real intent in teaching about this is much more than this. When the Buddha exhort his future disciples not to indulge in sensual pleasure and not to undertake self mortification, what he is driving at is that we should be attached both from sensual pleasure and its complete opposite, which may be likened to harming the body. The point is not just to find a moderation, as if we are to drink in moderation. That is not the Middle Way.

A problem with equating the Middle Way as moderation is that it is difficult to find where exactly the moderation really lies. One person’s “drinking in moderation” may be too much, or too little for others. And it is hard to see why enjoying something in moderation constitutes the Buddha’s profound teaching that is at the heart of Buddhism. In order to see this clearly let us look at the words of the Buddha himself in the Sutta:

There are these two extremes that are not to be indulged in by one who has gone forth. Which two? That which is devoted to sensual pleasure with reference to sensual objects: base, vulgar, common, ignoble, unprofitable; and that which is devoted to self-affliction: painful, ignoble, unprofitable. Avoiding both of these extremes, the middle way realized by the Tathagata — producing vision, producing knowledge — leads to calm, to direct knowledge, to self-awakening, to Unbinding.

It is clear that the Buddha sees the Middle Way as the path to Liberation and Enlightenment. But how do we find the Middle Way? Clearly one necessary condition is to avoid these two extremes. But to do that does not mean we look for the averaged point and strike there.

Avoiding indulgence in sensual pleasure and self affliction pertains to bodily behavior. So is the Middle Way to be found in the way of living conducted by the monks? Perhaps that is the case, but it is not possible that any monk who abides by the monastic rules alone will gain Enlightenment. So abiding by the monastic rules (or any other rules, including lay precept rules or sila) is going to be anywhere sufficient for Realization.

By giving the teaching on the Middle Way, the Buddha does not so much prescribe how Buddhists should behave as pointing out a path that anybody who would like to follow what the Buddha has already gone should take to become like him. So my Middle Way does not have to be the same as yours, even though your Way and my Way will, if they are both genuine Ways, lead to the same destination. In any case, what is required is that you fully understand the profound nature of the Middle Way. The Middle Way is not some kind of moderation (as has been said), but a realization that any “way” at all, any prescribed method based on attachment that this, and not that, must be correct, is ultimately unsatisfactory and hence will always lead one astray. One could still treading the Middle Way even though one is surrounded by all sorts of sensual pleasure; one only has to realize that all these sensual delights are just empty of their inherent characters and are nothing more or less than bubbles or illusions on a sunny day. If one is not attached to these delights then they are just what they are and nothing more.

Those who have studied the Buddha’s life story know that, before he became a Buddha, Prince Siddhartha tried every which way of gaining Realization that was available at his time. He tried meditation with his former teachers until he achieved the highest state of meditation that his teachers were capable of. Then he tried the self mortification route until he almost died. Then he realized that these were not the way toward cessation of suffering. He almost died when a village girl Suchata gave him rice and milk with honey. The Prince ate it up and regained his strength, the strength that was there until he eventually attained Enlightenment and became a Buddha. So the point was not self mortification or torture; and the point was not to indulge in the senses as he did when he was living at his palace. But then the really important lesson here is that these are only means toward the end. To eat rice with milk and honey was not to enjoy the pleasure of eating, but to gain strength for meditation. To enjoy the rice would mean that the mind is no longer free. And in the same way to starve oneself to the point of death also means that the mind is not free either, for now the focus is on the very act of fasting and starving, instead of giving the mind the freedom it needs to investigate and become focused.

So here lies the true Middle Way.  The Path to Liberation does not lie with any prescribed sets of bodily behaviors. In fact the Middle Way goes much deeper. It is also about not reifying things through saying that they exist, and it is also about not annihilating things through saying that they do not exist. But that is another story.

Kunga Sangbo Rinpoche’s Visit to Thailand 2010

ตามที่พระอาจารย์กุงกา ซังโป ริมโปเชจะเดินทางมาบรรยายธรรมและนำภาวนาตั้งแต่วันที่ 23 กุมภาพันธ์นั้น ริมโปเชมีความจำเป็นต้องเลื่อนการเดินทางถึงประเทศไทยเป็นวันที่ 27 กุมภาพันธ์ ทางมูลนิธิจึงต้องเลื่อนกิจกรรมต่างๆไปเป็นกำหนดการใหม่ ดังนี้

27 กพ พระอาจารย์เดินทางถึงประเทศไทย
28 กพ ประกอบพิธีมนตราภิเษกพระแม่ตารา พิธีเปิดศาลาเตวาวัฒนา และสวดมนตร์สำหรับการตอกเสาเข็มพระสถูป นำภาวนาเนื่องในวันมาฆบูชาที่ศูนย์ขทิรวัน
1 มีค  สอนฝึกสมาธิที่ศูนย์ขทิรวัน เดินทางกลับกรุงเทพฯ
2 มีค  รอการยืนยัน
3 มีค  1-4 pm บรรยายเรื่อง “ทำความรู้จักพระพุทธศาสนาวัชรยาน” ที่จุฬาลงกรณ์มหาวิทยาลัย 7-9 pm สอนฝึกสมาธิทงเลนที่บ้านมูลนิธิพันดารา
4 มีค  7-9 pm บรรยายที่ห้องโพธิคยา ตึกอมรินทร์โซโก้ (ขอเชิญผู้สนใจมาสนทนาธรรมกับริมโปเชและมาเรียนรู้เรื่องราวของมูลนิธิตั้งแต่เวลา 5 โมงเย็นเป็นต้นไป)
5 มีค พระอาจารย์เดินทางกลับประเทศจีน

ดังนั้นกำหนดการที่เปลี่ยนแปลงจะมีดังนี้ 1. งานมาฆบูชาภาวนาที่ศูนย์ขทิรวัน หัวหิน จะเริ่มในตอนเช้าวันที่ 28 กุมภาพันธ์ แทนที่จะเป็นวันที่ 26 อย่างที่ประกาศไว้ครั้งแรก และ 2. การบรรยายที่จุฬาลงกรณ์มหาวิทยาลัย เลื่อนจากวันที่ 23 กุมภาพันธ์ ไปเป็นวันที่ 3 มีนาคม

ขอขอบคุณทุกท่านที่ให้การสนับสนุนกิจกรรมของมูลนิธิพันดาราด้วยดีตลอดมา

Dear members,

Due to a necessary schedule change by Kunga Sangbo Rinpoche, we need to reschedule the event in Thailand as follows:

27 February: Rinpoche arrives in Thailand

28 February: Empowerment of Bodhisattva Tara; Opening Ceremony of the Dewa Wattana Pavilion; Chanting for the Pilings of the Tara Great Stupa; Meditation on the Magha Puja Day

1 March: Meditation Practice – Rinpoche travels back to Bangkok.

2 March: To be announced.

3 March: 1 – 4 pm –> Lecture on “Introduction to Vajrayana Buddhism” at Room 707, Boromratchakumari Bldg., Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University ;  7 -9 pm –> Tonglen meditation practice at the Foundation House, Lad Prao Road.

4 March: 5 – 7 pm –> Informal talks with Kunga Rinpoche; getting to know the Thousand Stars Foundation and participating in the activities, Bodhgaya Hall, Amarin Sogao Bldg.;  7-9 pm –> Lecture on “Abandoning the Ego” at the Bodhgaya Hall, 22nd Floor, Amarin Sogo Bldg., Ploenchit Road

5 March: Rinpoche returns to China

Khun Hiab’s Blog Post

Those of you who attended the conference on “Embracing Society with Love and Compassion” last weekend and would like to watch the video about the trip to Tibet last July by Kris and others can watch it now online by going to Khun Hiab’s post here.

Schopenhauer and Buddhism

My current project is writing a paper on Schopenhauer and Buddhism for presentation at the workshop on “Reception of Buddhism in German Culture,” which will be organized at Chulalongkorn University next month. So this is something I have been thinking for a while.

This led me to go back to Schopenhauer’s “The World as Will and Idea” translated by Haldane and Kemp. The copy from the library that I borrowed is so worn out that it literally crumbles when I open it, so I have to take a rather special care of the book. Moreover, the book has been eaten quite a lot by boring insects. So there is a lot of dust deposited by the book wherever I put it down. So reading it is quite an experience.

As is well known, Schopenhauer expounds that idea that the ultimate reality that underlies what we perceive is the will. The will manifests itself through our body; Schopenhauer said that the body itself is the objectification of the will. What this means is that the will, being the ultimate driving force behind reality, comes to be perceptible empirically only through its action of the consciousness that recognizes itself when it engages in a thought process directed at something. Since only human beings are capable of this action, Schopenhauer says that the will reveals itself through our own (as conscious human beings) act of willing, that is, thoughts, desires, or movement of the consciousness toward something else. And since Schopenhauer has argued earlier that material reality itself is ultimately speaking projection of the individual mind, material or external reality is just a picture that the will puts up. The world is at the same time both “will” and “idea”. It is “idea” in the sense of something directly perceptible as one thing rather than another. It is the same with Locke’s view. The German term for this is Vorstellung, which is perhaps better translated as “representation.” But somehow Haldane and Kemp translated as “idea” so we are stuck with this term in the book.

So the idea of the paper is that I will compare this with the Buddhist teaching, especially Nagarjuna’s view on Emptiness. The will and Emptiness are the same in that they are supposed to be ultimate reality. But there the similarity ends. Nagarjuna himself stated emphatically that Emptiness itself is empty, in that one should not reify Emptiness itself and take it as just another form of ultimate reality. On the contrary, “Emptiness” is just a name for whatever reality that is there for us, only when it is not conceptually or linguistically fabricated. There is absolutely no distinction or difference between Emptiness and perceptible reality. Schopenhauer’s will, on the other hand, has the characteristic of always driving and striving. This is lacking in Emptiness.

This is all for now. I’ll certainly come back to this later.

Rarity of Human Birth

Here is another treasured Dharma snippet from Luang Pu Doon:

“The Buddha’s 84,000 dharma teachings are only skillful means so that people start looking at their own minds. The reason why the Buddha taught so many things is because people’s defilements are so varied. But there is only one way to eliminate suffering, which is nirvana. It is very rare for us to have a chance to practice the Dharma, so if we let this chance go we will lose the opportunity to become liberated in this lifetime. And then you will live with ignorance for a tremendously long time before you will have this chance again. Therefore, when we are born so that we meet Buddhism, we need to be diligent in practice to realize nirvana. Otherwise you will lost this very rare opportunity. When the Dharma is forgotten, sentient beings will live in total darkness for a very, very long time.”

Malcolm David Eckel and “To See the Buddha”

This December Malcome David Eckel, noted scholar of Mahayana Buddhism, will travel to Thailand and give a lecture at the Department of Philosophy, Chulalongkorn University. This is a very welcome occasion as Buddhist scholars in Thailand do not have much chance to listen to and interact with scholars who work in other traditions of Buddhism. Eckel is known for his work on lesser known Indian masters. His book, To See the Buddha: A Philosopher’s Quest for the Meaning of Emptiness, is a study of the work of Bhavaviveka, one of the greatest masters of Indian Mahayana Buddhism. This is a translation and study of Bhavaviveka’s main work, Tarkajvāla (The Flame of Reason), and is filled with his interpretations. The theme of the book is on the various dimensions of “seeing the Buddha.” By doing so one gains an insight into the nature of the Dharma and thereby moving further along in the path toward Liberation.

“Seeing the Buddha” has been a problem for Buddhists ever since the Buddha himself entered parinirvana. What does it actually mean for one to “see the Buddha”? Surely just seeing the Buddha himself before he entered parinirvana (before he died) was not enough, because that would mean seeing him is not different from seeing any normal, sentient being in samsara. But there is something very special in seeing the Buddha. Is it the same as seeing a statue of the Buddha, as in Buddhist temples? That will come back to the same question. Seeing the Buddha is not the same as seeing you or me. But then what is so special with seeing the Buddha?

Eckel subtitled the book “A Philosopher’s Quest for the Meaning of Emptiness.” The ‘philosopher’ in question could be Bhavaviveka, who is after all the subject matter of the study in the book. Or it could mean Eckel himself. So by reflecting on what it means by seeing the Buddha, one enters on a quest for the maning of emptiness. But how are the two related? Is seeing the Buddha the sme as seeing emptiness?

Many Buddhists, Theravada and Mahayana alike, know the famous sentence from one of the Sutras where the Buddha said, “Those who see the Dharma, see me; those who see me, see the Dharma.” This is considered to be the standard way of the Buddha’s own idea about seeing him. Stricken with terminal illness and lying on his bed, the Buddha was asked who should succeed him as the Teacher and Leader of the Order. The Buddha, as is well known, did not name any successor. Instead he enjoined his students to take up the teaching itself, the Dharma, as their guide and their leader. The important thing is not that there be any leader of the Order, or any living supreme teacher or authority, but the Dharma itself. It is the task of the Buddha’s students to study, understand and take up the Dharma in their practices to eliminate suffering. So those who really see the Dharma see the Buddha because they really follow the Buddhist path.

To see the dharma comes in very different levels. It also includes seeing what Emptiness is, seeing Emptiness directly, coming face to face with it. So in a way the Buddha himself and Emptiness is one and the same. That is why Eckel’s and Bhavaviveka’s quest to see the Buddha is also their quest to “see” the nature of Emptiness.

*

Now let us consider some passages from Bhavaviveka himself as translated by Eckel in the book. The interpretations given here are entirely my own, not Eckel’s or Bhavaviveka’s. This is my own engagement with the text. You call it my own personal meditation of the meanings of the text — perhaps my own quest for the meaning of “Emptiness”:

269-270. Without apprehending [equality as an object], [the Buddha] understands the equality of different dharmas, because [dharmas] are equal in the sense that they do not arise or cease. Or [the Buddha] understands the equality of self and other. Therefore [the Buddha] is called Sambuddha among gods and human beings because [the Buddha] understands the equality without understanding equality.

Thoroughly understanding the ultimate nature of things as empty of their inherent characteristics, the Buddha sees everything to be the same. This is seeing without any conceptualization. The Buddha just “sees”. He sees everything as equal; none has any special feature that sets it apart from any other thing. In fact the word “thing” itself is inappropriate because the Buddha’s seeing does not differentiate one thing from another at all. This is why he does not see any differences in self and others. There is no self; there is no other. However, he sees all this without engaging in the conception of “being equal” for that would be just another conceptualization. Hence he “understands the equality without understanding equality.”

So this is how the Buddha sees the world. With neither self nor other, the Buddha does not distinguish himself (or herself) from what he (or she) sees. Hence the Buddha and reality is one and the same. So in the context what does it mean to see the Buddha? It is to see him or her as he or she sees the world. So in a way we become a Buddha ourselves. The dichotomy between subject (one who sees) and object (things seen) completely break down. To see the Buddha is to see things as the Buddha himself sees them.

Bhavaviveka goes on:

273. [The Buddha] is immeasurable because he understands the immeasurable. [The Buddha] is incalculable because he cannot be grasped. [The Buddha] is unthinkable because he cannot be an object of thought. [The Buddha] is incomparable because he cannot be compared.

The Buddha cannot be measured because any act of measurement presupposes dividing reality into parts, but since the Buddha does not see things to be composed of parts, and since there is nothing that divides subject from object, any act of measuring the Buddha fails to see the Buddha from the beginning. Likewise, he is not able to be calculated or thought of. The Buddha cannot be an object of thought, because being an object of though requires one to be engaged in a system of linguistic categorization and conceptualization. But the Buddha does not see things divided into concepts. He just “sees.”

So the Buddha herself is coextensive with the whole of reality. All that is, is the Buddha, and the Buddha is all that is. I am a Buddha; you are a Buddha. And in the same vein Bhavaviveka goes on:

274ab. [The Buddha] is indefinable because it is utterly impossible to specify that he is one thing rather than another.

Eckel emphasizes that Buddhist texts such as Bhavaviveka’s exists primarily to facilitate meditation of the meaning of reality as a means toward gaining Liberation. These are religious texts and one fails to grasp their true meanings if one overlooks these practical purposes for which the texts were written. So one practicies the Dharma by closely reading these texts and reflect on the meaning. One also does this in the context of meditation.

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I will give the details of Eckel’s talk at Chulalongkorn University later on here in this blog. Please stay tuned.