It is said in Buddhism that all sufferings are because of the illusionary concept of self. If you have an illusionary concept of self, you will have sufferings. Here sufferings refer to all kinds of emotions that trouble your mind. Because of the illusionary concept of self and mistaking things in this world and your [...]
Archive for the ‘Chan/Zen’ Category
Anger, suffering, and self
Posted in Chan/Zen on October 3, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
How to treat family life
Posted in Chan/Zen, Cross Culture Communication, Natural Learning on September 23, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Family life is a big part of human life. Every culture has to deal with this. From my experience, family life is a problem in both the west and the east. It is hard to have a normal mind about it. In the west, if I understand it correctly, it is called Family Baggage. In [...]
My spoof of Mandala
Posted in Chan/Zen on September 10, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
This is mandala of how I live my life.
Surely Zen is at the center of everything.
Then there are those things that I practice everyday. They are the kind of things that allows me to do things efficiently and effectively during a day. For example, Daily Activity (morning to night) includes the practice of Killing myself [...]
How to kill yourself in the early morning
Posted in Chan/Zen on September 10, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
When you get up in the early morning, more or less you had some dream in your sleep. Since a self is already generated, some efforts are needed to kill that self.
Once get up, wake up. Once wake up, get up. Try to be awake and do things fast after you get up. Do things [...]
When you totally rest
Posted in Chan/Zen on April 29, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
When you totally rest, your mind stops differentiating. You realize the world as one and you feel it is actually pretty good to feel that way (I mean you have the peace).
Life is moving very quickly. Follow the flow. Then there is peace.
When you move, you stay with one. When you don’t stay with [...]
Play, learn, create, and friends
Posted in Chan/Zen on April 29, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
We human beings have limitation. To live in the dynamic life process, it helps to have some very simple minimum guidelines in your mind. What helps me in practice is: only three things to do — play, learn, and create (I have posted on this a lot. They are the basic living activities.); friends (Friendship [...]
Don’t learn Buddhism
Posted in Chan/Zen on April 29, 2009 | 3 Comments »
Don’t expect Buddhism can solve all your problems. This is modern time and human civilizations have accumulated a lot of knowledge. As an individual, you have the responsibility to learn the knowledge to function responsibly in this world. You need to rely on thinking because you cannot see society clearly. That is the limitation of [...]
self exists
Posted in Chan/Zen on April 26, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
People practicing Buddhism know that Buddhism teaches of no-self. But here I want to tell you that self exists.
Why do I say self exists? Self exits because you have it.
People like to say that there is no self because you cannot find a solid separate independent entity as self. Saying that sounds like there is [...]
The Dharma Brothers
Posted in Chan/Zen on April 26, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
I watched the screening of this movie about one month ago. The prisoners in the movie had practiced in a very sincere way. Here are just some quotes from them (I don’t remember the exact words, so it is more a paraphrase):
“it is ok if i don’t get out of here for life. But it [...]
No solid and separate entity as self
Posted in Chan/Zen on March 17, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
I heard of this expression a lot. When people talk about no self or no ego they often say it is because there is no solid and separate entity as self. It sounds like there are solid and separate entities of other things. If you want to talk about existence or non-existence, I can say [...]
Relationship and Buddhism practice
Posted in Chan/Zen on March 17, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Listened to the talk given by Purna Steinitz of the Trimurti Ashram in the IDP.
Since he didn’t leave much time for asking questions, I didn’t get the chance to ask my question. But here you are.
First I want to make some modification to his definition of relationship. He said relationship is to observe the other [...]
Driving all blames into one self–about absolute and relative
Posted in Chan/Zen on March 8, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Heard of “Driving all blames into one self” in IDP discussion. If you are not there in the discussion, this might not make too much sense to you. Or it might.
This is a good case to illustrate the meaning of the absolute and the relative. Or what you called big mind and small mind. Actually [...]
Don’t waste your life on anything including Buddhism
Posted in Chan/Zen, What is Learning on January 18, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
I have been to many Buddhism centers in New York. What I saw is that very often the teachers were the confused ones. The teachers learned a lot of words. So they threw the words at the students. But the teachers didn’t really understand the teaching, and they mixed different things together, just making students [...]
No Self?
Posted in Chan/Zen on January 14, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
If there is no self, what kind of mind do you have right now?
Buddha’s teaching
Posted in Chan/Zen on January 14, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
When I read of Buddha’s sutra, it is always very clear.
For example,
“Like smelting gold ore, the gold does not exist as the result of smelting. Though it regains the original golden quality, it is perfected only after the process of smelting. Once it becomes true gold, it cannot become ore again.”
So our Buddha nature is [...]
Consciousness/experiences cannot be transfered
Posted in Chan/Zen, Foreign Experience, Random Thoughts, What is Learning on December 14, 2008 | 1 Comment »
In Zen, it is well-known that the masters insist that they have nothing to teach. They insist that their words cannot become the students’. The students have to experience for themselves.
Yes, the consciousness/experiences cannot be transfered from one person to another. You have to experience it yourself.
What I realized after coming to US is that [...]
When you walk
Posted in Chan/Zen, What is Learning on December 8, 2008 | 1 Comment »
When you walk, you are just walking. You are not making any decision. Then the space opens up, and you experience the unlimited space that is beyond any concept. All thinking and concepts are limited space. No matter how wonderful the thinking and concepts are, they are limited and are for the convenience of the [...]
Community vs. Networking Part 2
Posted in Chan/Zen, Cross Culture Communication, Culture, Grassroots on November 9, 2008 | 1 Comment »
In China, the media is very much controlled (in a different way the media in US is controlled), so it is hard to get to know what is going on at the national level. You read the reports in the news. You doubt what really happened. You read in the news that there is food [...]
No self, no problem
Posted in Chan/Zen on October 22, 2008 | 1 Comment »
When I talk about no-self, I don’t mean selflessness. Your selflessness still has a self. No self. All Buddhism practice is for cutting off yourself. When you practice Buddhism, practice putting everything down, including that selfless self. Don’t practice in a way that keeps affirming yourself.
Knowledge is for people who have problems. If you have [...]
