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embrace's Interests
General
OM MANI PEME HUNG
May we stand strong in truth. May we know love and never know hunger. May we live well in our convictions and never know a day of violence or suffering. May our every gesture show our gratitude and be our offering for a better world.
Seamos fuertes con la verdad. Podemos saber amor y nunca saber hambre. Podemos vivir bien en nuestras convicciones y nunca saber un dia de violencia o sufrimiento. Que todas nuestras acciones de gratitude y ofricimiento sean para un mundo mejor.
THE FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS:
1. All is suffering (dukkha).
2. Suffering is caused by desire/attachment.
3. If one can eliminate desire/attachment, one can eliminate
suffering.
4. The Noble Eight-fold Path can eliminate desire. Extremes of
excessive self-indulgence (hedonism) and excessive self-
mortification should be avoided.
THE NOBLE EIGHT-FOLD PATH:
1. The true understanding of the four noble truths.
2. Right Intent. Right aspiration is the true desire to free oneself
from attachment, ignorance, and hatefulness. [These first two are
referred to as praj?a, or wisdom.]
3. Right Speech. Right speech involves abstaining from lying,
gossiping, or hurtful talk.
4. Right Conduct. Right action involves abstaining from hurtful
behaviors, such as killing, stealing, and careless sex.
5. Right livelihood. Right livelihood means making your living in such
a way as to avoid dishonesty and hurting others, including animals.
[The above three are referred to as shila, or morality.]
6. Right Effort. Right effort is a matter of exerting oneself in
regulating the content of one's mind: bad qualities should be
abandoned and prevented from arising again; good qualities
should be enacted and nurtured.
7. Right Mindfulness. Right mindfulness is the focusing of one's
attention on one's body, feelings, thoughts, and consciousness in
such a way as to overcome craving, hatred, and ignorance.
8.Right Concentration. Right concentration is meditating
in such a way as to progressively realize a true
understanding of imperfection, impermanence, and
non-separateness.
Mara, the God of Confusion, realized this was his last chance to stop Siddhartha from attaining enlightenment and spreading wisdom throughout the world. Mara summoned armies, filled with fearsome creatures from other realms, and caused a terrible storm in order to distract Siddhartha from meditating. Mara is said to have ten armies - sensual desire, boredom, hunger & thirst, craving, sloth, terror, uncertainty, hypocrisy, undeserved notoriety, and pride. The contrasting solo sections in this piece represent attacks by the armies of sensual desire and terror respectively, while the main theme represents Mara’s malevolence followed by Siddhartha’s peaceful reply. Eventually, Mara realized that it was impossible to distract Siddhartha from his task, so he demanded that Siddhartha move from his place underneath the tree, asking Siddhartha what right he had to sit there. Siddhartha replied that he had earned the right to sit there because he had practiced the "Ten Perfections" of generosity, virtue, renunciation, wisdom, effort, patience, truthfulness, determination, loving-kindness and equanimity. Mara accused Siddhartha of of lying and asked him who had witnessed him practicing these perfections. Siddhartha replied by lowering his right hand and touching the earth, in a gesture referred to as "Calling the Earth To Witness". The earth’s response, represented by the gong hits, was a huge earthquake which caused the ground to split open and swallow Mara up along with all his armies."
The Ten Armies of Mara
Meditation can be seen as a war between wholesome and unwholesome mental states. On the unwholesome side are the forces of the kilesas, also known as "The Ten Armies of Mara." In Pali, Mara means killer. He is the personification of the force that kills virtue and also kills existence. His armies are poised to attack all yogis; they even tried to overcome the Buddha on the night of his enlightenment. Here are the lines the Buddha addressed to Mara, as recorded in the Sutta Nipata: Sensual pleasures are your first army, Discontent your second is called. Your third is hunger and thirst, The fourth is called craving. Sloth and torpor are your fifth, The sixth is called fear, Your seventh is doubt, Conceit and ingratitude are your eighth, Gain, renown, honor and whatever fame is falsely received (are the ninth), And whoever both extols himself and disparages others (has fallen victim to the tenth). That is your army, Namuci [Mara], the striking force of darkness. One who is not a hero cannot conquer it, but having conquered it, one obtains happiness. To overcome the forces of darkness in our own minds, we have the wholesome power of satipa??hana vipassana meditation, which gives us the sword of mindfulness, as well as strategies for attack and defense. In the Buddha’s case, we know who won the victory. Now, which side will win over you?
Buddhism’s Ten Perfections and Nirvana....
.. ..
Giving. As a full jar overthrown pours out the liquid and keeps back nothing, even so shall your charity be without reserve - as a jar overturned.
Duty. As a yak-cow, when the hairs of her tail become entangled in anything, would rather suffer death than injury to her tail, even so should you keep to your duty - as the yak to her tail.
Renunciation .As a man in prison,suffering pain for long, knows that there is no pleasure for him but only to await release, so shall you look upon your existences on earth as in prisons, and turn your face toward renunciation and await release.
Insight. As the beggar-monk shuns no families from whom he begs, whether lowly or high or in between, and acquires his daily fare, so shall you at all times question the wise and gain insight.
Courage. As the lion, king of beasts, whether when lying down or standing up, lacks no courage, but is ever light-hearted, so also shall you in each of your individual-existences hold fast to your courage.
Patience. As the earth bears all that is cast upon it, both the pure and impure, and feels no resentment nor rejoicing, so also shall you receive favors and rebuffs alike with indifference.
Truth . As the star of healing is balanced in the heavens, and swerves not from its path in its time and its season, so shall you remain fixed on your path of truth.
Resolution . As the stone mountain, firmly based quails not before the tempest, but abides in its place, so shall you abide in your resolution once resolved.
Loving-kindness. As water quenches the thirst of the good and the bad alike, and cleanses them of dust and impurity, so also shall you treat your friend and your foe alike with loving-kindness.
Serenity. As indeed the earth looks with serenity on all the pure and impure that are cast upon it, even so shall you approach with serenity both joy and sorrow - if you are to attain wisdom.
Thus many are the things which in this world make wisdom perfect; beyond these there are no others.
When he gains perfect wisdom and becomes master of himself, it is the belief of the Buddhist that he has gained salvation and is ready to enter Nirvana.
Nirvana is probably one of the most difficult concepts to define in a way comprehensible to the Western mind. Some have defined Nirvana as the state of Not-being. This is both correct and incorrect. For Nirvana is a release from the cycle of reincarnation and the end of individual existence. Nirvana is also the blissful state in which all suffering ceases and the individual is joined with the World-Soul.
"Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love."
~ Rainer Maria Rilke (Letters to a Young Poet)
Question everything. The Truth will bear scrutiny.
Never allow yourself to be silenced. For if you stay silent when you know you should speak out your heart may be haunted by it.
However destructive this engaging culture may be, however unimaginable man's deeds may become, we must remember that one life, sometimes one deed can change the course of history.
Be a source of love, forgiveness, and compassion. This is the most powerful antithesis to the destructive forces in our world. Honor life itself. Maintain under threat of death this antithetical stance. But do not let it prevent you from protecting children, elderly, or any other helpless innocents in mortal danger, with your life.
Imagine a small portion of people devoting themselves to love and forgiveness. If you feel resistant you must ask yourself why. Fundamentally it is what we have to do to correct our course of hate, violence, and our negligent value for life, in order to tip the scales in the other direction. And it must be done on the most basic level as one interaction at a time.
Lets face it - it is the individual choice en mass that engages war. It is the conduct of an individual that is destructive or creative. Create goodness. And decency. And respect for all life.
"To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never, to forget." - Arundhati Roy
Beyond the chatter of the mind there is this happening. It is always going on, yet rarely ever noticed. Our thoughts are a part, but it does not require them. It happens of itself, despite my grandest of notions. When the mind is still the background stands out and swallows "me" completely "I" do not exist, as once thought before.
I recently came to the notion that "If I can do a thing, I can also not do a thing." "Doing" and "not doing" are two sides of the same coin. Whatever side of the coin we may find ourselves on, we are already half way there to the other side. The connection between the two is obvious but often remains obscure in the face of conditioned patterns and habits. Most of the time we react to our conditioned habitual patterns and cycles immediately, without ever pausing to see it for what it is: A conditioned reaction. This reaction takes place so fast that it is rarely ever noticed or even considered.
I have been recalling my recent insight every time I find myself craving something like a cigarette. In that critical moment when the thought arises, I remember that if I can do this (smoke a cigarette), I can also not do it (not smoke it.) By calling my awareness to this fact when these thoughts and cycles arise, it has allotted me the space to make an actual choice as opposed reacting to an old familiar pattern.
This realization has become somewhat of a mantra for me. I've been invoking it every time I find my self reacting to something. If I can get mad, I can also not get mad, If I can be afraid of something, then I can also not be afraid of something, If I can crave something, then I can also not crave something." The possibilities seem endless. It’s amazing how the awareness at the right moment has made all the difference. Of course the old patterns still continue and return from time to time and that’s ok too. As the awareness interrupts the old patterns they are becoming less and less frequent. To use the analogy of a spinning wheel, once you stop spinning it, it will still go for awhile but eventually come to rest.
The language of friendship is not words but meanings. - Henry David Thoreau
It never fails to amaze me, how many people we can reach out and touch deeply. Thank you for reaching out and touching my heart with your kind sentiments! My birthday wishes are manifesting before me and you are very much a part of that! Namaste ~Rusti~
For attractive lips, speak words of kindness. For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people. For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry. For beautiful hair, let a child run his or her fingers through it once a day. For poise, walk with the knowledge you'll never walk alone. People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; Never throw out anybody.
Remember, If you ever need a helping hand, you'll find one at the end of your arm. As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself, the other for helping others. The beauty of a woman is not in the clothes she wears, the figure that she carries, or the way she combs her hair. The beauty of a woman must be seen from in her eyes, because that is the doorway to her heart, the place where love resides. The beauty of a woman is not in a facial mole, but true beauty in a woman is reflected in her soul. It is the caring that she lovingly gives, the passion that she shows, and the beauty of a woman with passing years only grows!
Wishing you well today and the rest of the week...
The word "Mandala" is a Sanskrit word that means essence or containing. It is a representation of the structure of life and is traditionally considered a diagram of how things are ordered within the physical world and universe as well as within our very own minds. Whenever I spend time gazing upon a Mandala, one thing always jumps out and becomes extremely clear: I am at the center of it. At the very center of the life, I experience. From this moment here, it is always me.
You are the center of the Mandala.
You are the point upon which the concentric axis of life and drama unfolds around.
You are the fulcrum upon which your entire existence spins about.
The circles of life and drama that surrounds you are vibrations from your center.
Finding the center beyond all the circles of drama and stories,
I find myself here again.
In this moment looking upon the cycles of Samsara.
