Chapter 4, Verse 13: Innumerable Buddhas have gone by, seeking out every sentient being; but through my own fault, I have not come into the domain of their cure.
Explain this verse using the analogy of a seed growing under the correct conditions.
Chapter 4, Verse 15: When shall I encounter the extremely rare appearance of the Tathagata, faith, human existence, and the ability to practice virtue,
Chapter 4, Verse 16: Health, daily sustenance, and lack of adversity? Life is momentary and deceptive; and the body is as if on loan.
Take a closer look at the Eight Leisures and Ten Endowments that characterize our precious human rebirth (see Geshe Chonyi’s text and look online, for example, Lama Zopa’s teachings on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archives http://lywa.org). It’s easy to gloss over these without fully appreciating their meaning. Pick one or two of the Ten Endowments and explain in your own words, what they mean to you.
Meditation on Death and Impermanence
I heard a heart breaking story on NPR about mothers grieving the loss of their sons who were American soldiers killed in Iraq or Afganistan. Even though their sons died several years ago, they still visit their graves a few times a week.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91824839. Please listen to the story and then meditate on their overwhelming sorrow. Imagine writing a letter to one of them giving words of comfort from a Buddhist perspective on death and impermanence. Relate this to Shantideva’s teachings. How might this help them let go of their pain?
– Posted by Dina Li
We have lots of challenging questions this week, so I’m answering them in parts. Here is the answer to the first question. The answers to the next questions will be following shortly.
Chapter 4, Verse 13: Innumerable Buddhas have gone by, seeking out every sentient being; but through my own fault, I have not come into the domain of their cure.
Q: Explain this verse using the analogy of a seed growing under the correct conditions.
Lisa W’s $.02: Anyone who has ever planted a garden understands that successful gardens just don’t happen. They require a lot of work. For example, you have to plant the appropriate seeds for the type of fruits or vegetables you want to grow. You also have to make sure that the seed is planted in the right soil (a lesson I learned the hard way trying to grow pumpkins in Virginia’s heavy clay soil), and that the plant also gets the right amount of sun. Not too much. Not too little. Not only that, but you have to make sure you plant the seed at the right time so that it doesn’t succumb to frost. Lots of people go so far as to start the seeds indoors in little peat pots to get a jump on the growing season. That doesn’t always guarantee that a frost won’t happen after the recommended time for planting. So, you still have to watch the weather and cover your plants with plastic if a frost might occur. Then in addition to all of this, there is the ongoing cultivation of the plants. You have to water them just the right amount, continuously remove weeds that grow up around the plants, and make sure that the plants have the right nutrients to grow to be their best.
As I’m typing this it sounds kind of exhausting, and to be honest with you, I really prefer just going to a farmer’s market. That gives me more time for Dharma practice!
That said, all of this is analogous to the level of patience and effort required to cultivate one’s mind. In my view, the preparation of the soil, the right light, watering, adding of nutrients, etc. is analogous to practicing the ten virtues and cultivating the six perfections. Weeding is analogous to refraining from the ten non-virtues and overcoming afflictive emotions by applying the appropriate antidotes to them. For example, if I want to overcome attachment, I should meditate on the inevitability of death. If I am patiently, diligently, conscientiously doing these things, I will create the merit and the karmic disposition to perceive a Buddha and benefit from their teachings. The trick is that I have to create the positive conditions, the fertile soil and ongoing care if you will, to be able to benefit from the teachings of a Buddha. Only I can do this. The Buddha can’t do it all for me. This is explained very nicely in Geshe Chonyi’s commentary:
“In the eighth chapter of his Ornament for Clear Realizations (Abhisamayalamkara), Maitreya Buddha said that just as dead seeds will not grow even if all the conditions, such as rainfall, fertilizer, soil, warmth and so forth are present, similarly, because of our own faults and mistakes, we have not come under the care of the buddhas. The buddhas have complete power, but, in order for that power to be effective, we must be ready from our own sides. Because of our own faults, this power does not have any effect. In this case, therefore, it is not the fault of the buddhas. (Geshe Chonyi’s commentary, page 166)”
Here’s the answer to Q2. I’m still working on the answer to Q3.
Chapter 4, Verse 15: When shall I encounter the extremely rare appearance of the Tathagata, faith, human existence, and the ability to practice virtue,
Chapter 4, Verse 16: Health, daily sustenance, and lack of adversity? Life is momentary and deceptive; and the body is as if on loan.
Q: Take a closer look at the Eight Leisures and Ten Endowments that characterize our precious human rebirth (see Geshe Chonyi’s text and look online, for example, Lama Zopa’s teachings on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archives http://lywa.org). It’s easy to gloss over these without fully appreciating their meaning. Pick one or two of the Ten Endowments and explain in your own words, what they mean to you.
Lisa’s $.02: Endowment # 5 has always been very interesting to me in how it can be interpreted. Usually, I’ve seen it interpreted a “having faith in the Dharma”, but sometimes I’ve seen it interpreted as “having the freedom to choose to have faith in the Dharma”. This is thought provoking because they are two separate issues in my opinion, and both are very important to our practice.
I am very blessed to live in the United States where I have the ability to practice any religion I want. I choose to practice Buddhism because that is what I have faith in, or perhaps more precisely, philosophically agree with, but faith is a crucial component. There are things I don’t fully understand, such as the laws of karma. (Shoot, I’d have to be omniscient to fully understand it, and that is quite a ways off.) Even though I don’t fully understand it, I have faith in the workings of karma based on a variety of reasons, including checking what I have learned with my own anecdotal experiences and the experiences of others. As these have proven to be correct in my experience, I have faith that other laws of karma that I don’t really understand will also prove to be correct. I’ve tried to explain this to people who have no faith in karma, or even worse, are not sure that they don’t live in a consequence free environment. Even if I didn’t believe in reincarnation (which I do), I can clearly see that our actions in this life have consequences. I’ve observed that the people who don’t get that tend to, more often than not, end up very unhappy people. Whenever I see this, it always provides another incentive to practice conscientiously with a goal of purifying the negative karma and accumulating positive karma. It’s not just an incentive, but also an opportunity for me to really, deeply appreciate that I have this understanding and this faith, and that ultimately I am going to be much better off because of that.
I could have all of the faith and understanding in the world and live in a place where I was forced to adhere to another religion that didn’t work for me, or where I was not allowed to practice any religion at all. Under those circumstances, prompted by an understanding of karma, I would strive to be the best person I could be, but it wouldn’t be the same because I would not be able to freely practice, and therefore would not get all of the support and guidance from wonderful Dharma centers like the Guhyasamaja Center. All of this is assuming that I even know what the Dharma is, which is getting into Endowments 5 – 10, but particularly #7. There are so many places where people don’t have this freedom of choice that we should never take for granted the opportunity to have that freedom, and use it to find the path that is right for us, so that we can make the best progress for ourselves.
If anyone is interested, I found the following resource at http://www.abuddhistlibrary.com to be very helpful:
http://www.abuddhistlibrary.com/Buddhism/A%20-%20Tibetan%20Buddhism/Subjects/The%20Stages%20of%20the%20Path/Lam%20Rim%20Outlines/lam_rim_outline.pdf
Q3: I heard a heart breaking story on NPR about mothers grieving the loss of their sons who were American soldiers killed in Iraq or Afghanistan. Even though their sons died several years ago, they still visit their graves a few times a week.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91824839.
Please listen to the story and then meditate on their overwhelming sorrow. Imagine writing a letter to one of them giving words of comfort from a Buddhist perspective on death and impermanence. Relate this to Shantideva’s teachings. How might this help them let go of their pain?
Lisa’s $.02: This is a really tough question, since I can’t imagine the pain of losing a child. I have lost people who were very important to me though, and not always though death but also through the inevitable changes life brings, so I will speak from that perspective for what it’s worth.
There was one woman in the NPR story that talked about watching her son’s friends go through major life experiences like marriage, and feeling like her son should be there. I relate to this because I’ve also felt that way about people I have lost. My studies of dependent origination have helped me to check this expectation, and to understand that there really are no guarantees. If everything dependently exists, if there is nothing about anything that is fixed and permanent, what is there to base a guarantee or an expectation on? The reality is that our very precious human rebirths are so very fragile (“like a water bubble”), and anything can cause our deaths at any moment. Perhaps I’ll live to be 100, or perhaps I’ll drop dead of an aneurism next week. I hope not, and all of this is a real downer to think about, but it does motivate me to make every moment of my life meaningful, including the time that I spend with all of the people that I care about. In addition to maintaining our health as best we can, I think making every moment meaningful is the best approach to dealing with the inevitability of death.
Chapter 4, Verse 13: Innumerable Buddhas have gone by, seeking out every sentient being; but through my own fault, I have not come into the domain of their cure.
Explain this verse using the analogy of a seed growing under the correct conditions.
Lisa — thanks for your beautiful response to Question 1. I like the way you described in detail each of the conditions and activities involved in gardening. It really emphasizes the conscious decision-making involved in cultivating the garden of the mind. As the Buddha taught, we don’t accumulate merit simply by passively NOT engaging in a non-virtuous action. Instead, we accumulate merit when we purposefully decide / turn-away from a situation where we could have acted in a non-virtuous manner (e.g., you find a wallet on the street and could take the contents and discard the rest, but instead you contact the owner and return it).
Q3: I heard a heart breaking story on NPR about mothers grieving the loss of their sons who were American soldiers killed in Iraq or Afghanistan. Even though their sons died several years ago, they still visit their graves a few times a week.
Regarding this question, along with understanding death and impermanence, it’s important to reflect on the nature of the mothers’ grief — their fundamental grasping and attachment to their sons based on ignorance. That might seem like a callous remark, but it’s not intended to be. As a parent, I consider my only son to be the most special boy in the whole world, I’m blind to all his imperfections. My love / grasping and attachment for him blows my impression of him way out of proportion. I cling to my image of him and am stunned when anyone criticizes him.
A true understanding of ultimate reality would, however, reveal that he is absent of inherent existence, that he is subject to causes and conditions like all phenomena. As such, grasping on to him as though he’s permanent and unchanging does not accord with reality.
There’s also perhaps an element of “good things shouldn’t happen to bad people” in a mother’s grief and the antidote to this way of thinking is to reflect on the natural law of karma.
I would also add that even though the grief that we feel may be excruciatingly painful to bear, there is nothing about that which inherently exists as well. The old adage that “this too shall pass” is correct and very applicable here. This too can pass because there is nothing about it that inherently exists or is permanent in any way. There have been an number of times when this understanding has helped me to get through a difficult loss. So, if you are grieving the loss of someone close to you and you are reading this, hang in there.