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Thursday, August 15, 2013

Lotuschef on [Your Own Interpretation 你个人的见解] (2)





I'm also reading the online version of GM's book No.45.

And this Chapter 10 is very enlightening, Diamond Sutra stuff that you love as well.
Anyway this early work of GM is still amazing and has comprehensive explanations on many things.
This is the same with what you've been speaking of.
Lol.
That FH has many things to study instead of reading the materials from the surface only.



Chapter 10 - Wisdom in the Threefold Contemplation
"...the Middle Way is 'to control your thoughts and purify your mind, expel confusion to understand the truth, to awaken to one's Original Nature, so as to transcend life and death.'"

In this world, there is a very special supra-worldly method of cultivation - the "meditation for luminosity". This is the top secret to transcend this human world. 

As long as the practitioner follows the teachings step by step, sooner or later he will understand the truth. 
In due course he will understand everything and have a clear grasp of the three perspectives in Buddhism: 
contemplation on the void of all existence, 
contemplation on the temporariness of all existence and 
contemplation on the truth of the middle way.



The ten spheres of Dharma, including the Four Noble Realms (Buddha,Bodhisattva, Solitary Realizer and Hearer) and the six secular realms (gods, human beings, demigods, hungry ghosts, animals and hell beings), can all be regarded as "empty"

Due to birth, old age, disease and death, no life can escape impermanence. 

Every form of existence is only momentary. 


According to existentialism, if I myself don't exist, then the Four Noble Realms and the six secular realms do not exist either. 
All Dharmas are empty. 
All forms of existence are empty. 

That is why a Buddhist verse says: "All things are impermanent. This is the Dharma for all things. Whatever is produced is also destroyed. Tranquil extinction is pleasure."


In Buddhist practice, the first question to ask is: "What does the attachment hinge on?"


The Buddha says: "Don't get attached to appearance, but follow the six kinds of practice by which a Bodhisattva attains Buddhahood (charity, observing precepts, perseverance  effort, meditation and wisdom). 

This means that one should be above all appearances, and understand the truth about Heaven and Earth. 

Look at everything without attachment to appearance, until nothing can be attained and nothing can be said. 

This is what the Diamond Sutra says: 
"No attachment to anything is practicing charity. 
You should have no thought about your merit in charity. 
You perceive no appearance of others, of yourself, of sentient beings, of a universal self. 
The four appearances are all seen as empty. 
This is the perspective of emptiness or void."


In Buddhist practice, the second question to ask is: "How to practice?"


The answer is: practice the temporary perspective. 
All appearances are to be seen as visionary and illusory, so that you practice with and attitude of neither taking anything or giving up anything. 
That is to say, you take everything as neither empty nor substantial. 
We all know that mountains, rivers, and the land in the Universe are not free from formation, evolution, decay and destruction. 

All appearances are temporary. 

Take human beings for example. Humans are composed of "earth, water, fire and wind"

As soon as impermanence comes, these four elements disintegrate. 
The human body is something temporary. 

The essence of our practice is to establish everything on this temporariness.

Genuine practice is to dwell on the temporariness without paying attention to appearance or action, until we finally transcend the formation and decline--cultivating the genuine by contemplating on temporariness. This is the "perspective of temporariness".


In Buddhist practice, the final question to ask is: "What is the conquest of the mind?"

The Buddha says: "Practice the Middle Way to generate a pure mind." 

The Buddha's verse goes: "Everything created by causes and conditions is empty. Its name is a false name. This is the teaching of the Middle Way." 


The Middle Way is an extraordinary understanding, which transcends time and space, but amalgamates all Dharmas. 

One can not get the mind of the past, the present or the future. 
It is the self-nature that generates the wisdom body--the realization of the Middle Way.
To put it simply, the Middle Way is "to control your thoughts and purify your mind, expel confusion to understand the truth, to awaken to one's own mind to reveal one's Original Nature, so as to transcend life and death."



My own insight on the three perspectives is:

The perspective of emptiness in one of wisdom.
The perspective of temporariness is one of attaining birth in the Buddha's Pure Land.
The perspective of the Middle Way is one of Self-Nature.



Cheers all 


Om Guru Lian Sheng Siddhi Hom 
Lama Lotuschef


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