Opening the Hand of Thought

Kosho Uchiyama

(1912-1998)

The world we live in is not something that exists independently of our thoughts and ideas. Our world and these thoughts and ideas appear to us as a unified whole. Depending on what our thoughts and ideas are, our world may appear to us in completely different ways. These thoughts and feelings constitute our psychological condition. Moreover, our psychological condition is at the same time our physiological condition. When something breaks down inside of us physically, our minds no longer remain clear. And if our minds are not clear, then the eyes with which we see the whole world take on a gloomy appearance. On the other hand, when we feel healthy our minds brighten, and so consequently our outlook on everything becomes brighter.

Furthermore, our physiological conditions are tremendously influenced by the environment in which we live. The changes and conditions of climate and weather both affect us. This cause and effect relationship is particularly easy to see when you lead a life as unvaried and devoid of distractions as the sesshins at Antaiji.

The essential matter here is the attitude of just striving to wake up regardless of the conditions you are in. It is not about arriving at some state where all thoughts have disappeared. To calmly sit amidst these cause and effect relationships without being carried away by them is shikantaza.

Like the weather, there are all sorts of conditions in our personal lives: clear days, cloudy days, rainy ones, and stormy ones. These are all waves produced by the power of nature and are not things over which we have control. No matter how much we fight against these waves, there is no way we can make a cloudy day clear up. Cloudy days are cloudy; clear days are clear. It is only natural that thoughts come and go and that psychological and physiological conditions fluctuate accordingly. All of this is the very reality and manifestation of life. Seeing all of this as the scenery of life, without being pulled apart by it—this is the stability of human life, this is settling down in our life.

In The Record of Linji, Linji Yixuan (Rinzai) says:

.

The true practitioner of the Way completely transcends all things. Even if heaven and earth were to tumble down, I would have no misgivings. Even if all the Buddhas in the ten directions were to appear before me, I would not rejoice. Even if the three hells were to appear before me, I would have no fear. Why is this so? Because there is nothing I dislike.

For Rinzai, the appearance of all the buddhas in the past, present, and future was not something to rejoice over, nor was the appearance of the three hells something of which to be afraid. Of course, not being afraid of the appearance of some hell doesn’t mean that for Rinzai hell had no existence. For him, hell was a kind of scenery that was different from the scenery of the Buddhas. The point is that whether some hell, all the buddhas, or anything appeared before him, Rinzai saw all of these as the scenery of his life. For us this is nothing but the scenery of our zazen.

I hope that people who practice zazen will continue regular sesshins and daily zazen for at least ten years. It’s a tremendous thing to be able to give oneself to this kind of practice and not be caught up in distractions. Our deepest mental suffering will come up during these years of zazen, and we will be able to continue our practice only if we have the stability to see this suffering as the scenery of our life and not be carried away by it. Working through these ten years, we develop a posture of living out the reality of our true self.

If we lead this sort of life and sit zazen, at whatever age, there is no doubt that we will come to have a commanding view of who we are. When we live this way, not only zazen, but daily life itself, is such that we cannot find the value of our existence in what other people say or in things that we want. It is a life that is unbearable unless we discover the value of our existence within ourselves.

What is essential is for us to live out the reality of our true self whether we are doing one period of zazen, a five-day sesshin, or practicing for ten years or more.

The Activity of the Reality of Life

All of us, regardless of whether we realize it or not, are living out the self as the whole universe. Since this is such a critical point, I’ll repeat it here. Usually we make the idea of the small individual self the center of our world and become firmly convinced that this small individual self is our whole self, but this is not our true self.

The reality of life goes beyond my idea of myself as a small individual. Fundamentally, our self is living out nondual life that pervades all living things. This self is universal existence, everything that exists. On the other hand, we usually lose sight of the reality of the life of universal self, clouding it over with thoughts originating from our small individual selves.

When we let go of our thoughts, this reality of life becomes pure and clear. Living out this reality of life as it is – that is, waking up and practicing beyond thinking – is zazen. At this very point our basic attitude in practicing zazen becomes determined. The attitude of the practitioner in practicing zazen as a Mahayana Buddhist teaching never means to attempt to artificially create some new self by means of practice.

Nor should it be aiming at decreasing delusion and finally eliminating it altogether. We practice zazen, neither aiming at having a special mystical experience nor trying to gain greater enlightenment. Zazen as true Mahayana teaching is always the whole self just truly being the whole self, life truly being life.

We all have eyes to see, but if we close them and say that the world is in darkness, how can we say that we are living out the true reality of life? If we open our eyes we see the sun is shining brilliantly. In the same way, when we live open-eyed and awake to life, we discover that we are living in the vigorous light of life. All the ideas of our small self are clouds that make the light of the universal self foggy and dull. Doing zazen, we let go of these ideas and open our eyes to the clarity of the vital life of universal self.

We discover the attitude of zazen as true Buddhism when we believe that the truth of this small self as an individual entity is universal self and actually practice the reality of life in zazen. This zazen is referred to as the activity of the reality of life.

Kosho Uchiyama (1912-1998)

Excerpted from Opening the Hand of Thought – Foundations of Zen Buddhist Practice

*

Uchiyama Roshi begins with a powerful line that stops us right at the very beginning of this reading. To live the reality of true fluidity existing between ourselves and the world is a profound existence in anyone’s life and practice. Our practice starts right where we are each day; acknowledging the impact of internal and external weather, we begin each day with the material of daily life that changes with each day. Breaking through the bubble of limitation, our small sense of self, is available to us in each moment.

This awareness begins to subtly influence our actions in daily life. Even if this awareness comes without the big enlightenment experience some people have felt, living the reality of our self being the expression of Universal Self starts to change how we see ourselves and “others” here. We feel the joy and suffering of all beings around us as our own joy and suffering. Our actions naturally trend towards alleviating suffering and having compassion for all living beings.

To study the way is to study the self.

To study the self is to forget the self.

To forget the self is to be
enlightened by all things.

To be enlightened by all
things is to remove the barriers

between one's self and others.

Dogen

10 Steps to Mindfulness

"Smile, breathe and go slowly." - Thich Nhat Hanh, Zen Buddhist monk

The idea of being mindful - being present, being more conscious of life as it happens - may seem contradictory to those who are used to sacrificing living for pursuing their goals ... but cultivating mindfulness will help you achieve your goals and enjoy life more. In fact, you're more productive when you're mindful.

But more importantly, being present is undoubtedly the only way to enjoy life to the fullest. By being mindful, you enjoy your food more, you enjoy friends and family more, you enjoy anything you're doing more. Anything. Even things you might think are drudgery or boring, such as housework, can be amazing if you are truly present. Try it - wash dishes or sweep or cook, and remain fully present. It takes practice, but it's incredible.

Life in the Present: A 10-Step Approach

1. Do one thing at a time. Single-task, don't multi-task. When you're pouring water, just pour water. When you're eating, just eat. When you're bathing, just bathe. Don't try to knock off a few tasks while eating or bathing or driving. Zen proverb: "When walking, walk. When eating, eat."

2. Do it slowly and deliberately. You can do one task at a time, but also rush that task. Instead, take your time, and move slowly. Make your actions deliberate, not rushed and random. It takes practice, but it helps you focus on the task.

3. Do less. If you do less, you can do those things more slowly, more completely and with more concentration. If you fill your day with tasks, you will be rushing from one thing to the next without stopping to think about what you do. But you're busy and you can't possibly do less, right? You can. I've done it, and so have many busy people. It's a matter of figuring out what's important, and letting go of what's not.

4. Put space between things. Related to the "Do less" rule, but it's a way of managing your schedule so that you always have time to complete each task. Don't schedule things close together - instead, leave room between things on your schedule. That gives you a more relaxed schedule, and leaves space in case one task takes longer than you planned.

5. Spend at least 5 minutes each day doing nothing. Just sit in silence. Become aware of your thoughts. Focus on your breathing. Notice the world around you. Become comfortable with the silence and stillness. It'll do you a world of good - and just takes 5 minutes!

6. Stop worrying about the future - focus on the present. Become more aware of your thinking - are you constantly worrying about the future? Learn to recognize when you're doing this, and then practice bringing yourself back to the present. Just focus on what you're doing, right now. Enjoy the present moment.

7. When you're talking to someone, be present. How many of us have spent time with someone but have been thinking about what we need to do in the future? Or thinking about what we want to say next, instead of really listening to that person? Instead, focus on being present, on really listening, on really enjoying your time with that person.

8. Eat slowly and savor your food. Food can be crammed down our throats in a rush, but where's the joy in that? Savor each bite, slowly, and really get the most out of your food. Interestingly, you'll eat less this way, and digest your food better as well.

9. Live slowly and savor your life. Just as you would savor your food by eating it more slowly, do everything this way - slow down and savor each and every moment. Tune into the sights and sounds and awaken your senses to the world around you.

10. Make cleaning and cooking become meditation. Cooking and cleaning are often seen as drudgery, but actually they are both great ways to practice mindfulness, and can be great rituals performed each day. If cooking and cleaning seem like boring chores to you, try doing them as a form of meditation. Put your entire mind into those tasks, concentrate, and do them slowly and completely. It could change your entire day (as well as leave you with a cleaner house).

Keep practicing. When you get frustrated, just take a deep breath. When you ask yourself, "What should I do now, Self?" The answer is, "keep practicing."

"When you drive around the city and come to a red light or a stop sign, you can just sit back and make use of these twenty or thirty seconds to relax - to breathe in, breathe out, and enjoy arriving in the present moment. There are many things like that we can do." - Thich Nhat Hanh

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Source URL: http://www.thirdage.com/time-well-spent/10-steps-to-mindfulness

WHY SHOULD WE SPREAD SPIRITUALITY?

Dear Spiritual Workers,

We have started one Spiritual Website called www.thedivineshoppe.com where we are offering Free SPIRITUAL Articles reading and Free Spiritual Articles Writing for all, the only condition is that the Article must not defame any person or religion but must provide knowledge about religion, meditation, self realization, motivation, teach the welfare of mankind.

We feel the religion on the EARTH with all great quality, wisdom and knowledge must spread not just to spread a RELIGION but this is most sacred and proven path to teach mankind the WAY TO REACH SELF REALIZATION, which is the ultimate objective of the human Birth.

These Days you can See many religion spreading Hate and killing people, but they are still growing because they are using the media (TV, INTERNET etc.) to spread their religious thoughts (even though they himself are doing reverse).

So, my request to you all is just come forward and WRITE the Spiritual Articles on the website so, that anyone on this earth can see and know about the great Spiritual knowledge and Culture of the Religion as everyone know the importance of spreading our Culture & thoughts to spread peace on this Mother EARTH.

AT WWW.THEDIVINESHOPPE.COM THERE IS ONE CONTEST IS ON WHERE EVERY MONTH THEY WE CHOOSE ONE ARTICLE AS BEST ARTICLE OF THE MONTH AND THE WRITER OF BEST ARTICLE BE GIVEN PRIZE AND HIS NAME SHALL ALSO BE PUBLISHED ON THE WEBSITE FRONT PAGE.

Few People have already started Writing on the website, please visit the below link for reading the Spiritual Articles:

http://www.thedivineshoppe.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&id=28&Itemid=116

YOU CAN ALSO SUBSRIBE TO RECEIVE THE SPIRITUAL ARTICLES IN YOUR MAILBOX BY SUBSCRIBING THE RSS FEED

Monks With Guns: Discovering Buddhist Violence

By Michael Jerryson
Posted on January 12, 2010, Printed on January 12, 2010
http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/rdbook/2158/

The publication of Buddhist Warfare, a book I co-edited with Mark Juergensmeyer, is a bittersweet experience as it marks the culmination of a journey that began with an exploration of the peaceful aspects of Buddhism only to end up chronicling portions of its dark side. This journey, which consumed much of the last six years of my life, began in 2003 when my wife and I spent a little over a year in Thailand. It was then that I began to research Buddhist social activism which was going to be the topic of my dissertation.

Rather than look to archives, I decided to speak with Buddhist monks and nuns on the ground. I interviewed monks protecting the forests from big business and villagers from dangerous pesticides; I met and began to chronicle the activities of the first fully ordained Thai Buddhist nun, Dhammananda Bhikkuni; and I met with Thai Buddhist monastic intellectuals.

Military Monks

Then in January 2004, violent attacks broke out in the southern provinces of Thailand, some of which were directed at Buddhist monks. These attacks and the numerous ones to follow shocked the country. But, since contemporary issues and my research interests seemed to be converging, I thought: what better way to study Buddhist activism than to observe Buddhist monks engaged in peacemaking?

Unfortunately, I found very little of this.

During my visits between 2006 and 2008, southern Thai monks shared the challenges of living in their fear-infested communities. All but a few concentrated on survival; peacemaking was the last thing on their minds.

The constant fear and violence took a toll on them. Monks talked about the guns they had bought and now kept at their bedsides. Others spoke heatedly about the violent militant attacks on Buddhist civilians and monasteries. Although the cause of the violence is multilayered—owing much to corruption, drug trade, and corporatization—many monks also felt Islam was to blame. In their minds, the conflict was anchored to the larger discussion of religious violence: Muslims against Buddhists.

One day after teaching an English class for Buddhist novices at a monastery a young monk came over and pulled back the folds of his robe to reveal a Smith & Wesson. I later learned that he was a military monk—one of many covert, fully ordained soldiers placed in monasteries throughout Thailand. To these monks, peacemaking requires militancy.

Since my initial realization in 2004, I began to look critically at my earlier perspective on Buddhism—one that shielded an extensive and historical dimension to Buddhist traditions: violence. Armed Buddhist monks in Thailand are not an exception to the rule; they are contemporary examples of a long historical precedence. For centuries monks have been at the helm, or armed in the ranks, of wars. How could this be the case? But more importantly, why did I (and many others) hold the belief that Buddhism=Peace (and that other religions, such as Islam, are more prone to violence)?

Buddhist Propaganda

It was then that I realized that I was a consumer of a very successful form of propaganda. Since the early 1900s, Buddhist monastic intellectuals such as Walpola Rahula, D. T. Suzuki, and Tenzin Gyatso, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, have labored to raise Western awareness of their cultures and traditions. In doing so, they presented specific aspects of their Buddhist traditions while leaving out others. These Buddhist monks were not alone in this portrayal of Buddhism. As Donald S. Lopez Jr. and others have poignantly shown, academics quickly followed suit, so that by the 1960s U.S popular culture no longer depicted Buddhist traditions as primitive, but as mystical.

Yet these mystical depictions did not remove the two-dimensional nature of Western understanding. And while it contributed to the history of Buddhism, this presentation of an otherworldly Buddhism ultimately robbed Buddhists of their humanity.

Thupten Tsering, the co-director of “Windhorse,” encapsulates the effects of two-dimensional portrayal in a 1999 interview with the New York Times. “They see Tibetans as cute, sweet, warmhearted. I tell people, when you cut me, I bleed just like you.”

In an effort to combat this view and to humanize Buddhists, then, Mark Juergensmeyer and I put together a collection of critical essays that illustrate the violent history of Buddhism across Mongolia, Tibet, Japan, China, Korea, Thailand, Sri Lanka, and India.

Our intention is not to argue that Buddhists are angry, violent people—but rather that Buddhists are people, and thus share the same human spectrum of emotions, which includes the penchant for violence.

Although the book only arrived at bookstores last month, it apparently touched some nerves in the academic community before its release. Some have objected to the cover [image right], which they feel is not an appropriate subject for Buddhism. Ironically, that is the very reason this collection of essays is so important: to address the apparent and widespread inability to acknowledge the violent side to religious traditions. It is this inability that robs its adherents of their humanity.

In a way, I wish I could return to that dream of Buddhist traditions as a purely peaceful, benevolent religion that lacks mortal failures and shortcomings. But I cannot. It is, ultimately, a selfish dream and it hurts other people in the process.

Buddhist Warfare certainly contributes to the broader discussion of religious violence, but on a more intimate and local level, I hope this collection will effect some significant change in the way Buddhism is perceived in the United States. Only time will tell.

Michael Jerryson is co-editor with Mark Juergensmeyer of Buddhist Warfare, the first collection of essays on Buddhist violence from a comparative perspective (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010).

© 2010 Religion Dispatches. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/rdbook/2158/

Mind-Brain Change Meditation

Image via Wikipedia

Presented by Richard J. Davidson

In this talk, Richard J. Davidson will explore recent scientific research on the neuroscience of positive human qualities and how they can be cultivated through contemplative practice. Distinctions among different forms of contemplative practices will be introduced and they will be shown to have different neural and behavioral consequences, as well as important consequences for physical health in both long-term and novice practitioners. New research also shows that meditation-based interventions delivered online can produce behavioral and neural changes. Collectively, this body of research indicates that we can cultivate adaptive neural changes and strengthen positive human qualities through systematic mental practice.

Presentation

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12 Tips for Mindful Resolutions, Healthier Relationships, and a Rewired Brain

by Marsha Lucas, PhD on January 4, 2010

From my perspective, having a full, authentic life is about having healthy, vibrant relationships — your relationship with yourself, with others you know, with the world at large, and/or with something greater, if that suits you. Without relationships, there can’t be much else.

So how do you make changes in how you do your relationships? What behavioral psychologists know is that making changes — and keeping resolutions — needs to be broken down into small, achievable, and measurable steps.

If you want to make positive changes to support healthier relationships, pick one do-able thing — a small, achievable, measurable change. As you might reasonably guess (based on what I write about here all the time) my suggestion is to practice mindfulness meditation, as a way to rewire your brain to be able to “do” relationships in healthier ways (see my previous post, Nine Ways That A Meditating Brain Creates Better Relationships).

Then, if your resolution is to meditate, break that down into small, achievable, measurable steps as well. More on that in a moment — first, take a look at what goes into making a clear resolution to create a new habit.

Help yourself make meditation a resolution you can keep

First, get clear about why you’re doing meditation: What’s your intention? What’s your motivation? Challenge yourself to boil those two things down to one sentence each. (Or 140 characters each, if you’re a Twitterer.)
Then, know that “stuff” will get in the way, be it external stuff (like your pipes have burst first thing in the morning, so you need to take care of that rather than do your morning meditation), or, more likely, your internal resistance.

“What internal resistance?”, you say. “I really want to meditate regularly, it’s just that other stuff keeps getting in the way.” Consider these commonly lurking thoughts, which can rather sneakily turn into “external stuff,” or the belief that you can’t meditate:

• Nothing seems to happen when I meditate, so making time for it isn’t worth it.

• Something does happen when I meditate — meditation is changing me, and that’s scary, because then I’m in unfamiliar territory.

• I’m afraid of what I might discover or feel if I slow down, if I listen to myself, if I open my heart.

• I won’t be able to do it right/perfectly, so what’s the point?

All of these can be thought of as ways we shift our gaze away from the real culprit: our fear. The good news is that by meditating regularly, your fear won’t take your brain (or your relationships) hostage the same way any more. You’ll still experience your fear, but it’s more like sitting firmly in the saddle and holding the reins of the horse — it won’t gallop off with you helplessly dragging behind. So, meditating more will help you avoid it less.

Okay, enough about the philosophical part of the program — let’s get down to practical matters.

Here are a dozen tips for making your meditation practice a worthwhile habit that sticks:

1. Pick a time. For example, get to it immediately when you get up in the morning. Before coffee (gasp!), before a shower, plop yourself down and just do it. Meditation sets the tone for your nervous system for the day, so you’ll reap the benefits that much more – plus, you’ll feel noble and accomplished all day.
2. Let go of the idea that you can’t meditate. One thing I hear a lot is “I can’t make my mind stay focused.” There’s no “doing it right” – it’s a practice. The practice of brining your wandering mind back again and again is actually what researchers believe does the re-wiring in your brain. Having a mind that wanders is actually a useful tool in meditation. There is a video about how a difficult-to-focus mind can be an asset in meditation practice.
3. Set your calendar. Planning to do a new behavior every day for a year is beyond what most of us can accomplish — setting ourselves up for failure. Make your resolution just long enough to become a habit — and then do that same time period over and over.

How long does it take to create a new habit? (Here’s a link to a great post on this.) Estimates vary, because (a) people vary, and (b) the depth of the habit varies. For example, it takes less time to establish the habit of drinking a glass of water every morning than to get in the habit of doing fifty pushups every day. As for developing a meditation practice, in my experience, it takes most people one or two months of regular practice to make regular meditation a habit. The good news is that there are already measurable changes in your brain after just two weeks, according to one leading researcher, Richard Davidson, PhD.
4. Be the exception. Be aware that the dropout rate for new meditators is high — some say that only two in ten will be practicing, even periodically, after a year. Resolve to be the exception to the rule, and also know that you have good company with others who are struggling. Be kind to yourself about how hard it is to develop a new, healthy habit.
5. Keep your expectations in line with what meditation is, and what it isn’t. For example, don’t expect to always get an immediate “hit” or relief like you get when taking medicine (although you might feel that way during, or after, meditation). And remember that you’re changing your brain, not just decongesting your sinuses — it takes time.
6. Start small. I agree with Daniel Siegel, MD, who says that rewiring the brain can be helped by even as little as three minutes of mindfulness meditation, done regularly, and that the brain seems to benefit more from frequent, shorter meditations than less frequent, longer ones. I often recommend starting with five minutes a day, and perhaps working up to twenty if you feel it is working for you. (There are other benefits to longer meditations, but for the purposes of brain integration, it’s fine to go for less time, as long as it is regular and frequent.)
7. Have fun! Meditation can be serious, but it can also lead you in some delightful directions. I’ve actually fallen off a meditation stool from laughing so hard.
8. Do it naturally. I strongly recommend against using technological short-cuts like brain-wave inducers. The benefits of mindfulness meditation, from a brain-integration perspective, comes from the practiceof getting different parts of your brain working together. The techno “shortcuts” brag that they force the brain to switch gears — so you can just be the passive receiver. Passively getting your brain activity to change is like having someone else lift your arms for you when weightlifting.

(A relevant joke: A monk ordered a hot dog (vegan, I guess) from a hot dog vendor: “Make me one with everything.” (Insert first laugh here.) The monk pays for the $2 hot dog with a $5 bill. The vendor takes the cash and does nothing. When the monk asks for the $3, the vendor replies, “Change comes from within.”)

9. Learn the basics. When you’re first starting out, you might find it helpful to start with a guided meditation. (There are many good resources for this, including a free download, as well as guided meditations from people I respect a great deal, including Jack Kornfield, Sharon Salzberg, and Jon Kabat-Zinn – click here for specific recommendations.) Eventually, though, for the same reasons in#8 above, once you learn to meditate, and know more about how to guide yourself, then I recommend moving away from guided meditation. It can still be useful if you need a “refresher,” but training the brain to do the task of meditation on its own seems key in the sort of re-wiring seen in the research literature. Also, if you choose to use guided meditations to learn the ropes, then I recommend that it be without background music, if for no other reason than the music is an added “event” for the brain to process.

10. Change it up. Meditation doesn’t have to happen while you’re seated in lotus position in a perfect tranquil space (again, “perfection” is not required!) Due to an old ankle injury, I can’t sit cross-legged, so I meditate on a chair or stool. People with back or hip injuries sometimes lay down and use a chair under their lower legs to lay in “astronaut” position. You can do a walking meditation, meditation during yoga, meditation while eating — there’s even a raisin meditation. The focus of your meditation can also vary: It can be helpful to balance your practice between the sort of breathing/noticing practice (called insight meditation, or vipassana), and a series of focused intentions like metta practice (you can search “metta” and “Sharon Salzberg” for excellent resources on this form of practice).

11. Aim for imperfection. Know at the outset that you’ll not be perfect in keeping your resolution. Research on creating new habits shows that missing single days doesn’t reduce the chance of forming a habit. Additionally, positive reinforcement (giving yourself gold stars for the days you meditate, or your own personal equivalent) is demonstrably more effective in changing behavior than punishment (beating yourself up for the days that you don’t meditate).
12. Irritation and challenges can be meditation aids. Remember that having challenges when you meditate can make the session “easier,” and even more potent. If I have an itch during meditation, I don’t scratch it at first — I’m usually grateful to have something to focus on other than my breath. (If the itch continues — which, after focusing on it, it often doesn’t — then I can use it as a way to practice being mindful of my hand moving to scratch it, and of the sensation of the scratching — you get the point.) To quote Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, “sometimes negative emotions and problems are good for practice. If everything is good and convenient – there is a nice temperature in the room, I’m not hungry or thirsty – then there is not much meditation because it is easy to forget. But once you have some challenge or suffering, then it is easy to meditate.”

I hope you find these ideas helpful, and I invite your feedback.

I wish you a New Year filled with joy.

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THE DHARMA

http://www.viewonbuddhism.org/dharma.html

Do not accept any of my words on faith,
Believing them just because I said them.
Be like an analyst buying gold, who cuts, burns,
And critically examines his product for authenticity.
Only accept what passes the test
By proving useful and beneficial in your life.
The Buddha

INTRODUCTION

Dharma is a Sanskrit word with many meanings, but in this case, we will mainly use it in the meaning of the "Buddha-dharma" or the teachings of the Buddha. Probably the shortest summary the Buddha himself gave of his teachings is

"I teach on suffering and the way to end it".

Shakyamuni Buddha, the historical teacher gave many teachings during his life, and it is not very simple to condense these all into a small, comprehensive package.
Moreover, during the last 2,500 years, various different traditions have developed in Buddhism (see history), which all are based on slightly different interpretations of his teachings, and emphasize somehwat different practices.

The Buddha gave some remarkably modern-sounding advice just before his passing away on how to approach the teachings, called the Four Reliances:

Rely on the teaching, not on the person;
Rely on the meaning, not on the words;
Rely on the definitive meaning, not on the provisional;
Rely on your wisdom mind, not on your ordinary mind.

These kind of statements may clarify a bit why there is not simply 'one Buddhism'; every individual is encouraged to use their own intellect and wisdom to figure out what the teachings mean for them.

WHAT IS BUDDHISM?

This question is easier asked than answered. Lama Anagorika Govinda expressed it as follows in 'Living Buddhism for the West':

"Thus we could say that the Buddha's Dharma is, as experience and as a way to practical realisation, a religion; as the intellectual formulation of this experience, a philosophy; and as a result of self-observation and analysis, a psychology.
Whoever treads this path acquires a norm of behaviour that is not dictated from without, but is the result of an inner process of maturation and that we - regarding it from without - can call morality."

THE KALAMA DISCOURSE

One time, when the Buddha passed through the city of Kalama, people asked him: "So many teachers were here, and all of them gave us excellent teachings, but they contradict each other. What should we do?" The Buddha then gave the so-called Kalama Discourse and expounded on ten aspects that one should consider when listening to spiritual teachings. (See the full text of the Kalama Sutra.)
Summarised, the Buddha said:

"Do not believe a spiritual teaching just because:
1. it is repeatedly recited,
2. it is written in a scripture,
3. it was handed from guru to disciple,
4. everyone around you believes it,
5. it has supernatural qualities,
6. it fits my beliefs anyway,
7. it sounds rational to me,
8. it is taught by a respectable person,
9. it was said to be the truth by the teacher,
10. one must defend it or fight for it.
However, only when it agrees with your experience and reason, and when it is conducive to the good and gain of oneself and all others, then one should accept the teachings, and live up to them."

Or, as the Buddha taught:

"My teaching is not a philosophy. It is the result of direct experience...
My teaching is a means of practice, not something to hold onto or worship.
My teaching is like a raft used to cross the river.
Only a fool would carry the raft around after he had already reached the other shore of liberation."

To his favourite disciple, Ananda, the Buddha once said (from: Old Path, White Clouds by Thich Nath Hanh):

"If you were to follow the Dharma purely out of love for me or because you respect me, I would not accept you as disciple. But if you follow the Dharma because you have yourself experienced its truth, because you understand and act accordingly - only under these conditions have you the right to call yourself a disciple of the Exalted One."

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ADVICE TO WESTERNERS ON CHOOSING A SPIRITUAL PATH

"The most important thing is not to get trapped in what I see everywhere in the West, a "shopping mentality": shopping around from master to master, teaching to teaching, without any continuity or real, sustained dedication to any one discipline. Nearly all the great spiritual masters of all traditions agree that the essential thing is to master one way, one path to the truth, by following one tradition with all your heart and mind to the end of the spiritual journey, while remaining open and respectful towards the insights of all others. ...
The modern faddish idea that we can always keep all our options open and so never need commit ourselves to anything is one of the greatest and most dangerous delusions of our culture, and one of the ego's most effective ways of sabotaging our spiritual search."
From Sogyal Rinpoche's: Tibetan Book of Living and Dying

"Few people are capable of wholehearted commitment, and that is why so few people experience a real transformation through their spiritual practice. It is a matter of giving up our own viewpoints, of letting go of opinions and preconceived ideas, and instead following the Buddha's guidelines. Although this sounds simple, in practice most people find it extremely difficult. Their ingrained viewpoints, based on deductions derived from cultural and social norms, are in the way.
We must also remember that heart and mind need to work together. If we understand something rationally but don't love it, there is no completeness for us, no fulfillment. If we love something but don't understand it, the same applies. If we have a relationship with another person, and we love the person but don't understand him or her, the relationship is incomplete; if we understand that person but don't love him or her, it is equally unfulfilling. How much more so on our spiritual path. We have to understand the meaning of the teaching and also love it. In the beginning our understanding will only be partial, so our love has to be even greater."
Ayya Khema; When the Iron Eagle Flies

"Three qualities enable people to understand the teachings: objectivity, which means an open mind; intelligence, which is the critical faculty to discern the real meaning by checking the teachings of Buddha; and interest and commitment, which means enthusiasm."
His Holiness the Dalai Lama

Reason well from the beginning and then there will never be any need to look back with confusion and doubt.
His Holiness. the Dalai Lama, from The Path to Enlightenment

Unfortunately, there are questionable teachers, traditions and centers in the Buddhist world. Bad enough, the only website that simply listed them was pestered out of existence, so please, do use your critical intellect to analyse and test them as the Buddha advised, before you get seriously involved, I did list a few on this page with controversial teachers and groups. Putting your trust in a spiritual teacher is not a small matter, see also the page on a Spiritual Teacher.

FAITH

Buddhism appears to put less emphasis on faith than many other religions, still the very first words of Shakyamuni Buddha as a teacher were:

"Opened are the gates of immortality, you that have ears to hear, release your faith."

In Buddhism, faith is defined as: a positive attitude to virtue and objects worthy of respect. It is said to be the doorway for all positive qualities. Several different types of faith are distinguished:
a. Uncritical faith: motivation is for no apparent reason
b. Longing faith: motivation is led by an emotionally unstable mind
c. Conviction: motivated by sound reasoning
Although the first two types of faith may be helpful, it is explained that they may easily collapse 'when the going gets rough'. In other words, the uncritical and longing faith may easily be forgotten when difficult decisions are to be made. Only the conviction which has arisen from a sound understanding will form a good basis to work with. This is one of the reasons why most Buddhist schools emphasise critical study and proper understanding from the beginning onwards.

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SCRIPTURES - THE TIPITAKA

The many teachings of the Buddha are written down in traditional scriptures. The oldest collection of these were written in the Pali and Sinhalese language, and form the basis of the current Theravada tradition; the Pali Canon. The teachings of the Mahayana school were written in Sanskrit. (For a brief explanation of these schools, see The Three Vehicles.)

(The following text is mainly derived from the Asian Studies website of the Australian National University.)

The early Buddhist canon is traditionally referred to as the "Three Baskets" (Skt: Tripitaka; Pali: Tipitaka), consisting of:
(1) Vinaya: rules of conduct, which are mainly concerned with the regulation of the monastic order;
(2) Sutras: discourses purportedly spoken by the Buddha, and sometimes by his immediate disciples;
(3) Abhidharma, which includes scholastic treatises that codify and interpret the teachings attributed to the Buddha.

According to Buddhist tradition, this division was instituted at the First Buddhist Council. This canon was written in the Pali language which is believed to have been derived from a dialect used in the region of Magadha. The Second Council introduced some modifications to the rules of monastic discipline, and later councils added other texts to the canon. Initially, the canon was transmitted orally, but after a time of political and social turmoil King Vattagamani of Sri Lanka ordered that it be committed to writing. This was accomplished between 35 and 32 BCE. The Sutras and Vinaya were written in Pali, but some of the commentaries were in Sinhala. The Sinhala texts were translated into Pali in the fifth century CE. (More historical information in the Timeline page.)

The Vinaya Pitaka section of the Pali canon consists of rules of conduct, most of which are aimed at monks and nuns. Most of these are derived from specific cases in which the Buddha was asked for a ruling on the conduct of particular members of the order, and the general rules he promulgated still serve as the basis for monastic conduct. The Buddha never gave an exhaustive 'list of rules', so the vows for monks and nuns have been compiled afterwards.
The Vinaya section consists of five books:

(1) Pârâjika Pâli
(2) Pâcittiya Pâli
(3) Mahâvagga Pâli
(4) Culavagga Pâli
(5) Parivâra Pâli

The Sutra Pitaka (Pali: Sutta) section of the Pali canon is the collection of general teachings by the Buddha, traditionally divided into five collections (Nikaya):

(1) the "long" (Digha) discourses;
(2) the "medium length" (Majjhima) discourses;
(3) the "grouped" (Samyutta) discourses;
(4) the "enumerated" (Anguttara) discourses, which are arranged according to the enumerations of their topics; and
(5) the "minor" (Khuddaka) discourses, which comprise the largest section of the canon and the one that contains the widest variety of materials. It includes stories of the Buddha's former births (Jataka), which report how he gradually perfected the exalted qualities of a Buddha; accounts of the lives of the great disciples (apadana); didactic verses (gatha); an influential work entitled the Path of Truth (Dhammapada); and a number of other important texts.

The Abhidharma Pitaka (Pali: Abhidhamma) section includes seven treatises, which organise the doctrines of particular classes of Buddha's discourses. The Abhidharma writers attempted to systematise the profusion of teachings attributed to Buddha into a coherent philosophy. Their texts classify experience in terms of impermanent groupings of factors referred to as Dharma (Pali: Dhamma), which in aggregations are the focus of the doctrine (Dharma) taught by Buddha.
The Abhidharma section consists of seven books:

(1) The Dhammasangani Pâli
(2) Vibhanga Pâli, Book of Analysis
(3) Dhâtukathâ Pâli
(4) Puggalapaññatti Pâli
(5) Kathâvatthu Pâli
(6) Yamaka Pâli
(7) Patthâna Pâli

The Theravada tradition in countries of Southeast Asia follow the Pali canon and generally consider the texts of Mahayana to be heterodox. (See also the Three Vehicles.)

SCRIPTURES - OTHER COLLECTIONS

Other schools developed their own distinctive canons, many of which have very different collections of texts, although the doctrines and practices they contain are similar. Some schools, such as the Sarvastivadins, used Sanskrit for their canons, but today only fragments of these collections exist, mostly in Chinese translations. Although Mahayana schools developed an impressive literature, there does not seem to have been an attempt to create a Mahayana canon in India. The surviving Mahayana canons were all compiled in other countries. Canons compiled in Mahayana countries contain much of the material of the Pali canon, but they also include Mahayana sutras and other texts not found in the Pali canon.
The Chinese canon contains Mahayana sutras, Indian philosophical treatises, and a variety of other texts, but its compilation was not really systematic (as compared to the Tibetan canon). The transmission of Buddhist texts to China occurred unorganised over the course of several centuries, and during this time the tradition in India was developing and creating new schools and doctrines. The Chinese canon was transmitted to Korea and Japan.
The Tibetan canon consists of the Kangyur and Tengyur, and contains a wealth of Mahayana sutras translated from Sanskrit, treatises (shastra) by important Indian Buddhist thinkers, tantras and tantric commentaries, and miscellaneous writings that were deemed important enough to include in the canon. The Tibetan translators had access to a wide range of literature, due to the fact that the canon was collected in Tibet many centuries after the Chinese one. Tibet and Mongolia both follow the Tibetan canon, which according to tradition was redacted and codified by Buton Rinpoche (1290-1364).
In addition to this canonical literature, each school of Buddhism has created literature that it considers to be authoritative.

It is noteworthy that the Buddha never encouraged one authoritative 'fixed and firm' set of scriptures, as A.G.S. Kariyawasam noted:

"Once a couple of bhikkhus suggested to the Buddha that his teaching be written down in a rigid language wherein even a dot cannot be altered as in Vedic Sanskrit. The Buddha categorically disapproved the suggestion stating that it would be an offence to do so and laid it down as a directive that each person or a group of persons should master his teaching in their own mother tongue (sakaya niruttiya)."

TREATMENT OF THE SCRIPTURES

Because the scriptures represent the Buddha's teachings, and are regarded the true source of happiness for all sentient beings, anything containing Dharma teachings or names of your teachers should be treated with the greatest respect. These texts should not be placed on the floor or under other objects, one should not step over or sit on them, or leave them where they might become damaged or stained by food or drink. Ideally, they should be kept at a high and clean place, separate from worldly writings and wrapped in cloth when being carried around.
Although this may seem strange to people who are not used to this tradition, it is said that treating Dharma texts with disrespect creates negative karma.

Should you need to get rid of Dharma materials, they should not be thrown in the rubbish, but burnt in a special way. Briefly described: do not incinerate such materials with other trash, but separately, and as they burn, recite the mantra OM AH HUM. As the smoke rises, visualise that it pervades all of space, carrying the Dharma to all sentient beings, purifying their minds, alleviating their suffering, and bringing them all to happiness, up to and including enlightenment. Some people may find this practice a bit unusual, but it is given according to tradition, and it forms an interesting practice of mindfulness.

Just for fun:

Prince Gautama who had become Buddha saw one of his followers meditating under a tree at the edge of the Ganges river. Upon inquiring why he was meditating, his follower stated he was attempting to become so enlightened he could cross the river unaided. Buddha gave him a few pennies and said: "Why don't you seek passage with that boatman. It is much easier."

Some people like my advice so much that they frame it upon the wall instead of using it.
Gordon R. Dickson

Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish, and he will sit in a boat and drink beer all day.
Unknown

Lotus Therapy

By BENEDICT CAREY

The patient sat with his eyes closed, submerged in the rhythm of his own breathing, and after a while noticed that he was thinking about his troubled relationship with his father.

“I was able to be there, present for the pain,” he said, when the meditation session ended. “To just let it be what it was, without thinking it through.”

The therapist nodded.

“Acceptance is what it was,” he continued. “Just letting it be. Not trying to change anything.”

“That’s it,” the therapist said. “That’s it, and that’s big.”

This exercise in focused awareness and mental catch-and-release of emotions has become perhaps the most popular new psychotherapy technique of the past decade. Mindfulness meditation, as it is called, is rooted in the teachings of a fifth-century B.C. Indian prince, Siddhartha Gautama, later known as the Buddha. It is catching the attention of talk therapists of all stripes, including academic researchers, Freudian analysts in private practice and skeptics who see all the hallmarks of another fad.

For years, psychotherapists have worked to relieve suffering by reframing the content of patients’ thoughts, directly altering behavior or helping people gain insight into the subconscious sources of their despair and anxiety. The promise of mindfulness meditation is that it can help patients endure flash floods of emotion during the therapeutic process — and ultimately alter reactions to daily experience at a level that words cannot reach. “The interest in this has just taken off,” said Zindel Segal, a psychologist at the Center of Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, where the above group therapy session was taped. “And I think a big part of it is that more and more therapists are practicing some form of contemplation themselves and want to bring that into therapy.”

At workshops and conferences across the country, students, counselors and psychologists in private practice throng lectures on mindfulness. The National Institutes of Health is financing more than 50 studies testing mindfulness techniques, up from 3 in 2000, to help relieve stress, soothe addictive cravings, improve attention, lift despair and reduce hot flashes.

Some proponents say Buddha’s arrival in psychotherapy signals a broader opening in the culture at large — a way to access deeper healing, a hidden path revealed.

Yet so far, the evidence that mindfulness meditation helps relieve psychiatric symptoms is thin, and in some cases, it may make people worse, some studies suggest. Many researchers now worry that the enthusiasm for Buddhist practice will run so far ahead of the science that this promising psychological tool could turn into another fad.

“I’m very open to the possibility that this approach could be effective, and it certainly should be studied,” said Scott Lilienfeld, a psychology professor at Emory. “What concerns me is the hype, the talk about changing the world, this allure of the guru that the field of psychotherapy has a tendency to cultivate.”

Buddhist meditation came to psychotherapy from mainstream academic medicine. In the 1970s, a graduate student in molecular biology, Jon Kabat-Zinn, intrigued by Buddhist ideas, adapted a version of its meditative practice that could be easily learned and studied. It was by design a secular version, extracted like a gemstone from the many-layered foundation of Buddhist teaching, which has sprouted a wide variety of sects and spiritual practices and attracted 350 million adherents worldwide.

In transcendental meditation and other types of meditation, practitioners seek to transcend or “lose” themselves. The goal of mindfulness meditation was different, to foster an awareness of every sensation as it unfolds in the moment.

Dr. Kabat-Zinn taught the practice to people suffering from chronic pain at the University of Massachusetts medical school. In the 1980s he published a series of studies demonstrating that two-hour courses, given once a week for eight weeks, reduced chronic pain more effectively than treatment as usual.

Word spread, discreetly at first. “I think that back then, other researchers had to be very careful when they talked about this, because they didn’t want to be seen as New Age weirdos,” Dr. Kabat-Zinn, now a professor emeritus of medicine at the University of Massachusetts, said in an interview. “So they didn’t call it mindfulness or meditation. “After a while, we put enough studies out there that people became more comfortable with it.”

One person who noticed early on was Marsha Linehan, a psychologist at the University of Washington who was trying to treat deeply troubled patients with histories of suicidal behavior. “Trying to treat these patients with some change-based behavior therapy just made them worse, not better,” Dr. Linehan said in an interview. “With the really hard stuff, you need something else, something that allows people to tolerate these very strong emotions.”

In the 1990s, Dr. Linehan published a series of studies finding that a therapy that incorporated Zen Buddhist mindfulness, “radical acceptance,” practiced by therapist and patient significantly cut the risk of hospitalization and suicide attempts in the high-risk patients.

Finally, in 2000, a group of researchers including Dr. Segal in Toronto, J. Mark G. Williams at the University of Wales and John D. Teasdale at the Medical Research Council in England published a study that found that eight weekly sessions of mindfulness halved the rate of relapse in people with three or more episodes of depression.

With Dr. Kabat-Zinn, they wrote a popular book, “The Mindful Way Through Depression.” Psychotherapists’ curiosity about mindfulness, once tentative, turned into “this feeding frenzy, of sorts, that we have going on now,” Dr. Kabat-Zinn said.

Mindfulness meditation is easy to describe. Sit in a comfortable position, eyes closed, preferably with the back upright and unsupported. Relax and take note of body sensations, sounds and moods. Notice them without judgment. Let the mind settle into the rhythm of breathing. If it wanders (and it will), gently redirect attention to the breath. Stay with it for at least 10 minutes.

After mastering control of attention, some therapists say, a person can turn, mentally, to face a threatening or troubling thought — about, say, a strained relationship with a parent — and learn simply to endure the anger or sadness and let it pass, without lapsing into rumination or trying to change the feeling, a move that often backfires.

One woman, a doctor who had been in therapy for years to manage bouts of disabling anxiety, recently began seeing Gaea Logan, a therapist in Austin, Tex., who incorporates mindfulness meditation into her practice. This patient had plenty to worry about, including a mentally ill child, a divorce and what she described as a “harsh internal voice,” Ms. Logan said.

After practicing mindfulness meditation, she continued to feel anxious at times but told Ms. Logan, “I can stop and observe my feelings and thoughts and have compassion for myself.”

Steven Hayes, a psychologist at the University of Nevada at Reno, has developed a talk therapy called Acceptance Commitment Therapy, or ACT, based on a similar, Buddha-like effort to move beyond language to change fundamental psychological processes.

“It’s a shift from having our mental health defined by the content of our thoughts,” Dr. Hayes said, “to having it defined by our relationship to that content — and changing that relationship by sitting with, noticing and becoming disentangled from our definition of ourselves.”

For all these hopeful signs, the science behind mindfulness is in its infancy. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, which researches health practices, last year published a comprehensive review of meditation studies, including T.M., Zen and mindfulness practice, for a wide variety of physical and mental problems. The study found that over all, the research was too sketchy to draw conclusions.

A recent review by Canadian researchers, focusing specifically on mindfulness meditation, concluded that it did “not have a reliable effect on depression and anxiety.”

Therapists who incorporate mindfulness practices do not agree when the meditation is most useful, either. Some say Buddhist meditation is most useful for patients with moderate emotional problems. Others, like Dr. Linehan, insist that patients in severe mental distress are the best candidates for mindfulness.

A case in point is mindfulness-based therapy to prevent a relapse into depression. The treatment significantly reduced the risk of relapse in people who have had three or more episodes of depression. But it may have had the opposite effect on people who had one or two previous episodes, two studies suggest.

The mindfulness treatment “may be contraindicated for this group of patients,” S. Helen Ma and Dr. Teasdale of the Medical Research Council concluded in a 2004 study of the therapy.

Since mindfulness meditation may have different effects on different mental struggles, the challenge for its proponents will be to specify where it is most effective — and soon, given how popular the practice is becoming.

The question, said Linda Barnes, an associate professor of family medicine and pediatrics at the Boston University School of Medicine, is not whether mindfulness meditation will become a sophisticated therapeutic technique or lapse into self-help cliché.

“The answer to that question is yes to both,” Dr. Barnes said.

The real issue, most researchers agree, is whether the science will keep pace and help people distinguish the mindful variety from the mindless.

A variety of meditative practices have been studied by Western researchers for their effects on mental and physical health.

Tai Chi

An active exercise, sometimes called moving meditation, involving extremely slow, continuous movement and extreme concentration. The movements are to balance the vital energy of the body but have no religious significance.

Studies are mixed, some finding it can reduce blood pressure in patients, and others finding no effect. There is some evidence that it can help elderly people improve balance.

Transcendental Meditation

Meditators sit comfortably, eyes closed, and breathe naturally. They repeat and concentrate on the mantra, a word or sound chosen by the instructor to achieve state of deep, transcendent absorption. Practitioners “lose” themselves, untouched by day-to-day concerns. Studies suggest it can reduce blood pressure in some patients.

Mindfulness Meditation

Practitioners find a comfortable position, close the eyes and focus first on breathing, passively observing it. If a stray thought or emotion enters the mind, they allow it to pass and return attention to the breath. The aim is to achieve focused awareness on what is happening moment to moment.

Studies find that it can help manage chronic pain. The findings are mixed on substance abuse. Two trials suggest that it can cut the rate of relapse in people who have had three or more bouts of depression.

Yoga

Enhanced awareness through breathing techniques and specific postures. Schools vary widely, aiming to achieve total absorption in the present and a release from ordinary thoughts. Studies are mixed, but evidence shows it can reduce stress.

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