Archive for category Buddhism
Buddhist Thoughts – Partner’s Communication
Living with your partner, or being close with anyone – yes, this could be a work colleague, as we all know that we spend more time at work than at home – causes conflicts. That is normal.
Now today’s quote suggests the following:
It is very important that you do not compare your actions to your partner’s or judge your partner’s behavior as unskillful. Rather, focus on your own actions and take responsibility for them. Recall those times when you looked into your partner’s eyes and saw the pain you caused this person you love to suffer. If you can admit your own faults, if you can see how hurtful your actions were and tap into a sense of concern for your partner’s well-being, then compassion and loving-friendliness will flow.
- Bhante Henepola Gunaratana, “Eight Mindful Steps to Happiness”
Bhante says that instead of fuelling the conversation and make it hostile, you should stop in your tracks and think. Take responsibility! Focus on your own action!
By doing so you are less or not at all hurtful. You focus on your own mistakes instead. Be understanding, reach out to your partner and sow the love.
In return you will receive love, happiness and less conflicts.
Have a great day.
Volker
Buddhist Thoughts about attachment
You might have noticed that I write less about Buddhism lately. No other reason but that I have less time, and that I run a bit out of some really good quotes. That will change again, I am sure.
I love to write a longer article about Attachment, however I currently review the Diamond Cutter book again. Said that, I still need to finish another MBA book I am reading. Only got two eyes for reading 
To be attached to one’s own happiness is a barrier to the true and perfect path. To cherish others is the source of every admirable quality.
- Tsongkhapa, “The Splendor of an Autumn Moon”
If you are attached to anything, your mind is not open for something new. If it is happiness you are attached to, you stand in your own way to find the right path.
Only if you are willing to give up any attachment and free your brain from any limiting thoughts, then you are free to find your path.
So, by cherishing others, you aren’t attached to your own happiness. And, you don’t create a new attachment, just share the love with other people and make them happy.
Could you wish for anything else?
Have a great day,
Volker
Buddhist Thoughts – Avoiding Thoughts
Another quote I really like:
It is crucial to know when it is appropriate to withdraw our attention from things that disturb our mind. However, if the only way we know how to deal with certain objects is to avoid them, there will be a severe limit as to how far our spiritual practice can take us.
- Lama Thubten Yeshe, “Introduction to Tantra”
Sometimes one continues thinking about things that are going on in one’s head. One cannot sleep or give any thought to something else. Maybe something in the future, a thought of what happens if etc.
It is important to know when to withdraw from those thoughts. Yes, we could just avoid them all but then we are limited in our believes.
Does that make sense? Yes, you should be dealing with all thoughts and some will be best avoided but most will teach you something. And resolving them will give you an advantage for your next big problem.
Never forget that you are the one in charge, deciding whether to deal with a situation and learn from it, seeing it as a challenge or rather to withdraw and avoid it. Latter won’t see you learning anything new.
Best wishes,
Volker
Buddhist Thoughts: Discomfort
Still fresh in the new year I want to continue citing some Buddhist quotes:
When you see a truck bearing down on you, by all means jump out of the way. But spend some time in meditation, too. Learning to deal with discomfort is the only way you’ll be ready to handle the truck you didn’t see.
- Bhante Henepola Gunaratana, “Mindfulness in Plain English”
What does that mean?
It means that you should be prepared at all times to avoid discomfort if you can. But, for some seldom for others often, you cannot avoid discomfort. The loss of a loved one, an accident, pain, a job loss or anything that life might throw at you.
So be prepared. Spend some time in meditation and calm your mind to be ready when the unexpected happens. Be ready to weather life’s storm.
Love and Kindness,
Volker
Buddhist Thoughts: Learning from difficult people
Just before Christmas, think of the following. It states my most practised and my most admired principle of Buddhism:
Eventually we will find (mostly in retrospect, of course) that we can be very grateful to those people who have made life most difficult for us.
- Ayya Khema, “When the Iron Eagle Flies”
I love that! I have been using this approach for many years. Whether it is a boss or whether it is a challenge at work, or at home. All those challenges you come across in life need to be solved in order for us to move on. If we master the challenge we get to the next one. If we die before we master the challenge, we will be confronted with a challenge that resolves a similar issue in our next life.
Hence, whenever you think you can escape life (suicide) or a situation (change jobs, avoid certain individuals), rest assured you come across the same situation again until it is resolved. The suffering, the ongoing samsara, will be part of this and future lives. The suffering will ease by solving one challenge, but the next one is around the corner.
Until we resolved them all. Until we become enlightened.
Buddha bless, have a great Christmas.
Volker
Buddhist Thoughts: Taking advantage
This week I found a very short quote but it is very fitting:
Do not think of studying Buddhism in order to gain some advantage as a reward for practicing Buddhism.
- Dogen
Of course, Buddhism is practised by many and even more, including myself, see it as a philosophy and practise not so much. However, whether you love the philosophy, practise Buddhism or whatever your motivation is: don’t use Buddhism to take advantage of anything. It creates bad karma.
Buddhist Thoughts – Tree
Buddhism for me is more of a philosophy, and I probably should use it less in a work context but more in a personal development context. But isn’t that almost the same? For me I suppose it is.
Anyway, I particularly like the following quote:
As a tree with strong uninjured roots, though cut down, grows up again, so, when deep craving is not rooted out, suffering arises again and again.
- Dhammapada
It is the same theme as previous quotes: Buddhism continues to tell us, and we need to listen, that if you have a challenge in life, a problem, that unless you overcome it, you will have to fight it. And, you have to fight that problem over and over again, until it is resolved. If you cannot resolve it, then you will have to resolve it in your next life.
Like a tree. Like a deep root. A problem cannot be solved by ignoring it. It can only be solved by solving it and coping with it. Only this way you rid yourself from the problem itself.
Have a great day,
Volker
Buddhist Thoughts: Nothing changes
Many years ago, someone used the picture of a boat to explain to me the following: You are sitting in a boat and you left the shore to get to the other side. But once you are in the boat, you don’t know where to sail. All you know is that the shore is in front of you, and that is where you want to be going. And, actually the person said, the path doesn’t matter, as the outcome is the same.
This was over 15 years ago.
The other day I read the following Buddhist quote.
When you ride in a boat and watch the shore, you might assume that the shore is moving. But when you keep your eyes closely on the boat, you can see that the boat moves. Similarly, if you examine myriad things with a confused body and mind you might suppose that your mind and nature are permanent. When you practice intimately and return to where you are, it will be clear that nothing at all has unchanging self.
- “Actualizing the Fundamental Point” by Zen Master Dogen
If you are in a boat, the shore is moving, not the boat. However, if you concentrate in the here and now, the very moment, you realise that actually the boat moves and not the shore. It depends how hard you concentrate and how much you focus on the moment.
Now, Zen Master Dogen makes the analogy. If you examine infinite things with a body that is confused….then you think that you are right and things are akward. But you soon find out, by focusing on your own mind and body, that it is the thing changing and yourself for that matter. As nothing stays as it is, nothing is unchanging: neither yourself, nor the things around you.
Important is that you focus on what is happening inside you. And you focus on what is changing. But you only find out by going deep inside you.
Buddha bless,
Enjoy your day.
Volker
Buddhist Thoughts: names and values
Another quote that got me thinking the other day:
Everything is as it is. It has no name other than the name we give it. It is we who call it something; we give it a value. We say this thing is good or it’s bad, but in itself, the thing is only as it is. It’s not absolute; it’s just as it is. People are just as they are.
- Ajahn Sumedho, “The Mind and the Way”
As you know I like to philosophise about those quotes. I enjoy taking a few minutes from my daily schedule and think deeply about it.
Anything we do, everything we touch: we give it a name. By doing so, we create an attachment. We give it a value: positive or negative. We judge everything.
However, a thing is just a thing. Not good or bad. Not hot or cold. Things are as we perceive them. The more neutral we perceiving them, e.g. the more neutral the value is, the less likely it will create an issue for us. An issue can be positive too.
And this is true for people also. For being attached to them because they are bad or because they are good. But they are people. They do as they wish. They have their own mind, and you should treat them just like that. Everything has its own value or perception. Everything is just as it is, the value is only in your mind: positive as well as negative.
May Buddha be with you.
Volker
Buddhist Thoughts: Buddha’s Life
You know when you think about Karma and about whether or not something you do is having an effect in your current or future life? Or at least I think that, as a Buddhist.
The quote below shows that all cause is in the NOW. All fear is in the past or present:
The cause is right now; the result is at the moment of death. When the resultant action is already manifest, how can you fear? Fear is over the past and present; since the past had a present, the present must have a past. Since there has been enlightenment in the past, there must also be enlightenment in the present. If you can attain now and forever the single moment of present awareness, and this one moment of awareness is not governed by anything at all, whether existent or nonexistent, then from the past and the present the Buddha is just human, and humans are just Buddhas.
- Pai-chang
So we should aim to live every moment, the present, at any one time. The present awareness, being aware of what is going on in the here and now is key to finding the right moment. You then, in this very moment, become enlightened. You will be omni knowledgeable of what is going on. You become Buddha.
Isn’t that a very comforting thought. To be present in the very moment gives you the chance to live Buddha’s life.
Love and Kindness from my part of the universe.
Volker
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