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Your dhamma practice? What do you do.....?
Brian
Detroit, MI Moderator
What do you do for your dhamma practice? By this, I mean, what do you do that encourages you to perform acts of metta (loving kindness) and thus strengthens your kamma?
I help people with computer problems. Specifically, I help people remove spyware from their computers, for free. It gets to me sometimes. Lately I have been having actual bad dreams about people's computer startup logs and woken up sweating and thinking about it. It does get aggrivating sometimes, giving people the same advice over and over and over again and typing the same thing over and over and over again, and most of the time people don't bother to say thank you or to even let you know if it worked or not.. However, I find solace in the repetition and try to use this as a form of meditation. I find that at the end of the day, it really doesn't leave me with a sense of anger or frustration. I honestly hope that I am helping people with an obscure problem that most people can't help them with, and I'm glad I have that to offer to the world.
I help people with computer problems. Specifically, I help people remove spyware from their computers, for free. It gets to me sometimes. Lately I have been having actual bad dreams about people's computer startup logs and woken up sweating and thinking about it. It does get aggrivating sometimes, giving people the same advice over and over and over again and typing the same thing over and over and over again, and most of the time people don't bother to say thank you or to even let you know if it worked or not.. However, I find solace in the repetition and try to use this as a form of meditation. I find that at the end of the day, it really doesn't leave me with a sense of anger or frustration. I honestly hope that I am helping people with an obscure problem that most people can't help them with, and I'm glad I have that to offer to the world.
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Comments
i do my best on a daily basis to help those around me wether its with small favors or seeking solutions to their problems. whatever makes me feel like i've done some good
As it should! That's great! :smilec:
Other than that, I'm like Tycho, doing small favors for people, and I usually go out of my way do make another person happy, whether its letting someone go in front of me, or just giving a comliment ^_^
Seriously, money and finances faze me...i'm not mathematically minded at all, so you are a great help for folks like me....
As some may know, I teach Qi Gong (a passive Martial Art, like tai chi but slooooooooower!) and I incorporate the odd meditation/visualisation. I'm doing one next week (by popular demand) on the Blue Medicine Buddha - it should be good. Otherwise, I try hard to do what Mother Theresa recommends (see below.)
Instead of throwing out "scrap" water (like emptying the dog dish for a refill or something) down the sink, she pours it into plants. Instead of throwing out scrap food, she feeds it to the fish in our pond or the birds, etc.
I try to keep up with her, but she's good at it
I replied, "No, you have to treat everyday as if it's your first." He had to think about it for a minute and then he agreed. LOL
Where did your wife come up with "Feed a thousand souls a day"? My husband and I have a compost pile in our back yard and we throw of all our fruits and veggies scraps in there and it makes great soil for plants! But I love your idea - we could do so much more than we are doing. Can you give me more details on this? Thanks!
That is so wonderful. Everyone here does such wonderful things! I need to get to work on this!
But I also help people with Flash problems on a few forums. Many times it works like the 'mutual polishing' effect... I learn from the experience as well!
Feeding the birds, moving the snails from others' footfall, saying hello to spiders and then giving them a mantra before escorting them outside (far more dinner for spiders outside!), greeting people's pets, breathing with the trees, appreciating birdsong...
Smiling at people - in England it makes the world of difference!
RECYCLING!
On occasion I do some work raising funds for charity. I did a sponsored silence for three days - in a house of full of University students it wasn't as easy as you'd think it would be! I was able to raise £320 for a relief fund.
Praying for those in the midst of samsara, including myself.
But, being a student of Zen, my big daily practice is Zazen. Everything is practice
The stipend is really nothing but they also give me health insurance and at the end of my year long commitment I get money to pay back student loans.
I am also a big sister for Big Brothers, Big Sister, which is so rewarding in itself!
Charitable action is, indeed, part of the Right Action of the Noble Eighfold Path and acquires merit, but it is not specific to Dharma practice and study. Our very best efforts may (and ofeten do) have unexpectedly worse result. Our best intentions may bring disastrous outcomes.
The Buddha, and many other teachers, have stressed that kamma, whether positive or negative, is the very nature of samsara. The Noble Eightfold Path stresses neutral actions and thoughts. It is a delusion to believe that we are being "good Buddhists" because we are kind or generous.
IMHO, Buddhism is about the training of the mind so that we can abide in the clear view (Rigpa). Good people, doing good things, are everywhere and such kindness is certainly to be encouraged. Buddhism takes us beyond.
For that reason, I cannot consider such small actions of mine as "Dharma practice". That designation I reserve for specifically Dharma-based study, meditation and reflection, as well as for the moment-by-moment refocusing of my attention. Kind actions, in and of themselves, are as empty as nasty ones, arising from our individual kamma, psychology and desires.
The Protestant theologians of the 16th and 17th centuries had interesting discussions on the topic of "good works before justification", deeming them to have no spiritual value. As Buddhists, we may understand that our every action and thought has a dependent effect, arising from dependent causes, good or bad solely as temporary judgments.
Good actions arising from a troubled mind may have a temporarily beneficial effect but are subject to the laws of the Four Noble Truths and of impermanence. They also serve, many times, as reinforcement of ego-grasping rather than as lessons in impermanence and non-self.
Please understand: I am not against kind and charitable actions. They make the world a nicer place. I am simply saying that they are not Buddhist, or Christian, they are humanitarian. Buddhism demands much, much more of us.
Hahahaha! I couldn't help but laugh at emmak's post! Thanks for pointing that out to us Simon!
The point that I was trying to make is that enlightenment does not depend on our being kind-hearted. Being kind, acting lovingly, is not the preserve of any single religion, political party or philosophical theory.
Simon I don't do nice things because I think it is furthering me on my path. I do them because I like to.
I thought that if I could show you how I walk the path then maybe you could appreciate that, maybe, there are more than one way to look at this subject. And hence strenghten your own practice.
To keep it simple I will say this:
Where you see simplicity, I walk among buddhas.
Where you see 'empty' loving kindness, I sit with fellow bodhisattvas.
Where you see the wheel, I see enlightenment.
Also, something Elohim said (though not totally related) caught my attention.
What is this 'goal' you speak of?
I wonder what Shakyamuni would say about the dukkha you cause yourself by being goal based...
What will you do when you reach this goal - what's left?
Die, perhaps?
What will you do when you don't reach this goal - see this life as a failure?
The patriarch Nagarjuna spoke tusly:
Finally, I will bow deeply to you, my friends, for listening.
My only motivations for speaking are those of loving-kindness and I hope we can grow together.
To answer your question as best I can BSF - The Goal I am refering to is what, in the Pali Canon, the Buddha taught us to practice for. It is also referenced as Nirodha, Nibbana, the Goal, the Fruit of the Path, the Unconditioned, etc. The Noble Eight Fold Path or Magga is followed so that we are lead to this Goal.
A passage in the Pali Canon describes this Goal as "where the six senses & their objects cease — which can be experienced although not otherwise described, even in terms of existing, not existing, both, or neither."
Of course after much practice a bhikkhu (or layperson) understands and drops his attachment to wanting to achieve anything, but before he is able to do this he must first practice. The defilements must be removed so that we can see these truths clearly. That is why the Buddha taught us of the Four Noble Truths and the Eight Fold Path.
The Buddha did not die after he achieved this "Goal" of "Awakening". He taught his disciples for 40 years before his body ceased to function. At this point the Buddha had no "idea of self" and so who was it that died?
As for me, I do not know. I am not dead nor am I enlightened. I practice to practice. Whatever I "achieve" doesn't change the fact that this body will cease to function one day.
What I speak of is what I have learnt, practiced, and understood form the Pali Canon as well as the Thai Bhikkhus who have taught me. In your tradition I suppose they teach the Dhamma differently. I think that in any case they both use different approaches to teach the same thing.
As for the confusion between what each school defines a bodhisattvas as I think it's fair to point out that the first disciples of the Buddha all practiced with him to reach "the other shore". People think it is selfish to attain Nibbana for oneself, but how can you teach it without having attained it? Everyone must discover this truth by themselves. Even the Buddha only pointed the way, he cannot force you to look. The Buddha did not teach the Dhamma before he understood it. He practiced himself until he mastered his own mind, discovered the "builder of the house", "broke its rafters" and "attained the Unconditioned". To me that is the purpose of the Path. From the quote it sounds like the patriarch Nagarjuna is holding to some views of his own. (Before this offends anyone it's a joke.)
Anyway, I wish the Buddha was here so that he could teah me himself. But alas, he is not, and all I have to learn from are his words that were written down about 500 years after his death. I do not have all the answers myself which is why I am doing the best I can.
Thus there are days when my Taking Refuge is something towards which I move, and there are days when it is the place where I have always been.
Everything is as it is...
(a warm hug for my dharma brothers and sisters)
HHDL says his Religion is Kindness.... and although a work of fiction, I was inwardly delighted to see an English programme on tv (BBC cop show) where a Police Constable, named 'Clarky' was determined to be kind all day.... it was comical to see him panting after having finally caught a fleeing criminal, and between catching his breath, thanking him for giving him a much-needed bit of exercise - !! But he persevered all day, inspite of being belittled by his cop partner's girlfriend..... (this meeting was engineered by his partner, Bert, to prove that one couldn't be kind, ALL day.... Bert knows his girlfriend can't stand Clarky). She was telling him what a nut and a crank he was, and how stupid and ridiculous he always seemed to be.... he was obviously deeply hurt by this assault - but he turned to her and replied 'Louise, you are obviously free to think what you like; but I've known Bert much longer than you have, and I can promise you, I've never seen him happier than since he met you.' That totally floored her. Now that is Dharma/Sangha Practise.... to my mind.....
Anyways, I guess I should start paying more attention to the good things that I do--practice for mindfulness :bigclap: