Hinayana - Mahayana poem

If one by one, the thoughts it my head,
would slowly repeat, what they'd just said.
Allow me some time, to see what's real,
perhaps then yes, I'd know what I feel,
and simply be, content with me

And when you're in pain, or shed a tear,
I'll promise myself, to have no fear,
and always do, my best for you,
so that everyone, may realise,
we're already here, in paradise

Raising Bodhichitta,
All Yours, Jerry

How to reincarnate?

Last months I've been reading quite a lot of basic (hinayana) Buddhism as a preparation for attending Shambhala's sutrayana seminary coming Autumn in Dechen Chöling, our retreat centre in France. Of course the teachings on the five skandha's were discussed as well, explaining how we humans create a sense of "self" out of the following five components:

1. Form: (tangible) objects such as our World, food, home, work and our bodies;
2. Feeling: very fundamentally: we like something, dislike it or don't really care;
3. Discrimination: our ability to tell the difference between objects (and times);
4. Formation: continuous mental conceptualisation, comments, judgements etc.;
5. Consciousness: 5 sense perceptions, mind, ego and "the Eighth consciousness".

The Eighth consciousness is taught to possess the qualities of omniscience and luminosity. It is also referred to as 'the warehouse' where our karmic seeds are stored for future phenomena to become. I've heard about this earlier, and that time connected it with the idea of reincarnation: the Eight consciousness is where I store the results of my actions: if I'm a good practitioner, I'll have a fortunate reincarnation; if I misbehave, I'll be born a monkey, a donkey or even worse ;)

While reading the dharma, I have put more emphasis on the bottom line of Buddha's teachings: emptiness. The five skandha's themselves are to be seen as empty, and therefore there is no "me" that can be reincarnated in the first place. Not realising that is the root of samsara, and perpetuates the extremely convincing experience of being a "real person". This is by the way the sole "purpose" and result of the Seventh consciousness, the ego, which incessantly puts "me" and "I" labels on everything we come across in our experience. Although this believe in "me" may be a misunderstanding, we cannot simply ignore it. Rather, I believe it is wise to explore our experience very closely...

Doing so, this is how I see it now: the Eighth consciousness is not an individual thing; there is no such thing as "my" Eighth consciousness as opposed to "yours". It is rather a 'warehouse' of all karmic seeds in the universe together; or in other words: it is simply the truth: phenomena as they are. With our actions we are painting a picture for the future. If we paint compassion and wisdom, we establish the outlines for next generations having better opportunities to hear the dharma and attain buddhahood. If we blot confusion and neurosis, the canvas becomes blurred and tomorrows people might not believe the possibility of clairvoyance or enlightenment at all any more. This is how I believe that "reincarnation" and the Eighth consciousness make sense: on a hinayana level, we first learn to make our lives spotless and renounce from creating more suffering in the World. Then on a mahayana level, we pick up the brushes and start to paint in beautiful colours many inspirations and aspirations of building an enlightened society. This has been done in the past by people just like us; perhaps it WAS us; and it might still be done in the future by people who could be our "reincarnations"; but only if we are fearless warriors today!

Ki ki so so!

The existence of God...

Buddhists don't seem to believe in God, but many of them won't deny the existence of God eihter. What logic lies beneath such an attitude?

One person is convinced that God exists: An entity somewhere in Heaven who watches over us people, guiding us, filling our hearts with love, forgiving our mistakes and binding us together as human beings. "God will save us all", he preaches. But another person is sure that 'God' is fake, just an imagination to tackle the mistery of life, a children's story or even an excuse for warfare. "Religion causes more problems than salvation" he protests. Which of these persons is right?

In Buddhism, 'being right' must be considered in a personal, relative sense: the believer is right because he is 'convinced' that God exists, and the non-believer is also right becasue he is 'sure' that God does not exist. It is perfectly well possible for both people to consider themselves right at the same time. In fact, we have an interesting situation here: as human beings we are part of one common thing we call 'existence', or 'life'. However, each and every one of us experiences it in an individual way. Having slightly different bodies, sense-perceptions, socio-cultural heritage, education, likings and dislikings, each of us creates and holds a personalised version of something that we could call 'the truth'. It happens so that there are certain things that we all agree on, like the law of gravity and the fact that water is wet. Other things however, we tend to be uncertain about, such as whether God exists or not.

A Buddhist approach to deal with such a dilemma would be to contemplate the observer; that is: to study our 'ego' or 'self'. In stead of arguing about what is 'real' outside of ourselves, Buddhism encourage us to have a non-judgemental look at what is happening within our minds; how our 'personalised truths' are put together. Where do our thoughts come from anyway? Why do we tend to place so much value on certain beliefs, and what are actually the consequences of (unawarely) doing so? For a Buddhist, the basic question is not whether God exits, but rather to learn who the observer is, who our 'self' is.

In my personal experience, I can neither prove, nor deny the exsistence of God, and I choose to foster the value that anyone may believe what they want. What I do know however, is that my 'self' appears to be much more complex and deceiving (and interesting to study) than I had ever imagined...

Curiously excavating myself,
Yours, Jerry

What is "ignorance"?

I have been puzzled for quite some time about the meaning of this Buddhist term. This morning I received the following insight:

Ignorance is that state of being
in which one is not able or willing
to see all phenomena as they are,
and therefore create a substitute:
the Conditioned World (samsara).

"not able" refers to ignorance in the sense of not knowing.
"not willing" refers to ignoring all that we actually do know.

The Conditioned World is a collection of patches of two kinds:

• Regarding the passive "not able" ignorance, they fill up the gaps of our lacking knowledge with assumptions, beliefs, expectations, logic etc., leading for example to disagreement and disappointment.
• Regarding the active "not willing" ignorance, they cover up our consciously chosen nonvirtuous deeds with excuses, justifications, resolutions etc., leading for example to self-doubt and restlessness.

Seeing this, one may develop the motivation to gradually let go of actively ignoring virtuous deeds, and so, become passively more open to insights resulting from walking the Noble Eight-fold path.

Naively yours, Jerry

Bad-news paper?

Why do newspapers contain so much 'bad' news?

It seems to me that people more easily agree on what is 'bad', than on what is 'good'. Most of us disapprove scandals, violence, natural disasters etc., and hearing such news gives us something to talk about without running the risk of 'not fitting in'. But when it comes to the things that interest us, we are much more diverse and specific; something that appeals to me might be boring for you, and having a nice conversation may be tricky. For example, I enjoy talking about spiritualism, science and sustainability, but not about politics or economy, which may be your interests or that of the population's majority. Now, if the main objective of a newspaper is to sell as many copies as possible; what do you think they'll have to report?

If you prefer 'positive' news; have a look at Ode Magazine

Interestingly yours,
Jerry

Welcome poem

With a wink ;) I'm letting go,
of all I think, that I may know.
It may be real, it may be true,
I'll just reveal, my mind to you.
And if you wish, I'm glad to see,
what you publish, or write to me :)

With love, Jerry