Monks Buddhism Quotes

Whatever a monk keeps pursuing with his thinking and pondering, that becomes the inclination of his awareness.

Too lazy to be ambitious, I let the world take care of itself. Ten days' worth of rice in my bag; a bundle of twigs by the fireplace. Why chatter about delusion and enlightenment? Listening to the night rain on my roof, I sit comfortably, with both legs stretched out.

When mountain-climbing is made too easy, the spiritual effect the mountain exercises vanishes into the air.

It seems the guys who are best at sex approach it with the serenity of a Buddhist monk. They are never going to beg for it and when the time is right (and all signs point to yes), then they take charge masterfully and completely.

I loved the quiet places in Kyoto, the places that held the world within a windless moment. Inside the temples, Nature held her breath. All longing was put to sleep in the stillness, and all was distilled into a clean simplicity. The smell of woodsmoke, the drift of incense; a procession of monks in black-and-gold robes, one of them giggling in a voice yet unbroken; a touch of autumn in the air, a sense of gathering rain.

Once the caravan reached the Kashmir Valley between the Great Himalayas and the Pir Panjal Range, in the northernmost region of the Indian subcontinent, Jesus continued the journey with a small group of locals until he completed the last leg on his own, guided from one place to another by the local people. Some weeks later, he made it to the Indian Himalayan region where Jesus was greeted by some Buddhist monks and with whom he sojourned for some time. From that location, he then went to live in the city of Rishikesh, in India's northern state of Uttarakhand, spending most of his time meditating in a cave known as Vashishta Gufa, on the banks of the River Ganga. Jesus lived in those lands for many months before he continued traveling to the northeast, until he arrived in the Kingdom of Magadha, in what is presently West-central Bihar. It so happened that it was here, in Magadha, that Jesus met Mari for the first time, the woman better known today as Mary Magdalene...

A certain recluse monk once remarked, ‘I have relinquished all that ties me to the world, but the one thing that still haunts me is the beauty of the sky.

Monks, even if bandits were to savagely sever you, limb by limb, with a double-handled saw, even then, whoever of you harbors ill will at heart would not be upholding my Teaching. Monks, even in such a situation you should train yourselves thus: 'Neither shall our minds be affected by this, nor for this matter shall we give vent to evil words, but we shall remain full of concern and pity, with a mind of love, and we shall not give in to hatred. On the contrary, we shall live projecting thoughts of universal love to those very persons, making them as well as the whole world the object of our thoughts of universal love — thoughts that have grown great, exalted and measureless. We shall dwell radiating these thoughts which are void of hostility and ill will.' It is in this way, monks, that you should train yourselves.

A certain recluse monk once remarked, ‘I have relinquished all that ties me to the world, but the one thing that still haunts me is the beauty of the sky.

Jason: I know, but I wanted to see you again. It was actually pretty easy to wait. I just sort of sat quietly and let my mind drift away. Thought about you and the infinity of the universe. Janet: Kind of like a monk.

Buddha once saw a jackal, a wild dog, run out of the forest where he was staying. It stood still for a while, then it ran into the underbrush, and then out again. Then it ran into a tree hollow, then out again. Then it went into a cave, only to run out again. One minute it stood, the next it ran, then it lay down, then it jumped up. The jackal had the mange. When it stood, the mange would eat into its skin, so it would run. Running, it was still uncomfortable, so it would stop. Standing, it was still uncomfortable, so it would lie down. Then it would jump up again, running to the underbrush, the tree hollow, never staying still. The Buddha said, “Monks, did you see that jackal this afternoon? Standing, it suffered. Running, it suffered. Sitting, it suffered. Lying down, it suffered. It blamed standing for its discomfort. It blamed sitting. It blamed running and lying down. It blamed the tree, the underbrush, and the cave. In fact, the problem was with none of those things. The problem was with his mange.” We are just the same as that jackal. Our discontent is due to wrong view. Because we don’t exercise sense restraint, we blame our suffering on externals. Whether we live in Thailand, America or England, we aren’t satisfied. Why not? Because we still have wrong view. Just that! So wherever we go, we aren’t content. But just as that jackal would be content wherever it went as soon as its mange was cured, so would we be content wherever we went once we rid ourselves of wrong view.

Reincarnation isn't something in which I choose to believe but rather a truth I accept. Most people will never know the meaning of their friendships, passions, choices and even challenges. I embrace them, knowing that there’s always a perfect correlation between everything, including between us and the ones that love us and betray us at the end. That’s how I know I’m almost never traveling somewhere but returning, or not meeting someone but fixing the past, or facing a challenge but ending a karmic cycle. If I was a Buddhist Monk, a Scottish Doctor, a French Monarch, or a Spanish Templar, none of that really matters, not as much as what I experienced and believed during that time, not as much as what I did ten years ago or what I believed during my childhood, not as much as who I am now and what I can do with my life at present time.

We can create some information about Buffalo, milk and its nutritional values. We can exchange that information with each other for money, appreciation etc. A monk living alone in jungle doesn't know words such as Buffalo, milk or nutrition. He just wonders, "Green grass enters into this big black thing and a white liquid comes out of it. How!" He can't exchange this wonder with anyone but it transports him to eternity.

It is my prayer that nations will no longer send their young people to fight each other, not even in the name of peace. I do not accept the concept of war for peace, nor of a 'just war,' in the same way that I cannot accept the concepts of 'just slavery,,' 'just hatred, or 'just racism.

Nothing exists by itself alone. We all belong to each other; we cannot cut reality into pieces.

The monks find comfort, contentment, and even joy in the simplest of tasks, living each moment to its fullest by grounding themselves in the present.

Actually, everything is in-between.

No separate me loved the world. The world was love. My perfect home. Vast and intimate. Every particle was alive with love, fluid, flowing, without barriers.

On my journey from the fantastical to the practical, spirituality has gone from being a mystical experience to something very ordinary and a daily experience. Many don’t want this, instead they prefer spiritual grandeur, and I believe that is what keeps enlightenment at bay. We want big revelations of complexity that validates our perceptions of the divine. What a let down it was to Moses when God spoke through a burning bush! But that is exactly the simplicity of it all. Our spiritual life is our ordinary life and it is very grounded in every day experience. For me, it is the daily practice of kindness, mindfulness, happiness, and peace.

The desire not to distress the giver of food, and to avoid the extreme austerities of certain brahmanas and shramanas, led to Buddha to turn down suggestions that meat and fish consumption be prohibited for Buddhist monks.

Our preferences, our likes and dislikes—everything is a product of our own mind. In Zen Buddhism we say, “When you reach enlightenment, there are no likes or dislikes.” When we can see things for what they are, our predilections disappear.

That’s it?” Joshua asked, as he hopped off his post and winced upon landing. “Why did we set up twenty posts if we were only going to use three?” “Why were you thinking of twenty when you can only stand on one?” answered Three. “I have to pee,” I said. “Exactly,” said the monk. So there you have it: Buddhism.   Each

Those who had seen eyes like hers before understood instantly that she was a woman who had suffered, but wore it well, with dignity and grace. Rather than dragging her down into depression, her pain had lifted her into a peaceful place. She was not a Buddhist, but shared philosophies with them, in that she didn’t fight what happened to her, but instead drifted with it, allowing life to carry her from one experience to the next. It was that depth and wisdom that shone through her work. An acceptance of life as it really was, rather than trying to force it to be what one wanted, and it never could be. She was willing to let go of what she loved, which was the hardest task of all. And the more she lived and learned and studied, the humbler she was. A monk she had met in Tibet called her a holy woman, which in fact she was, although she had no particular affinity for any formal church. If she believed in anything, she believed in life, and embraced it with a gentle touch. She was a strong reed bending in the wind, beautiful and resilient.

The Zen Monk Kyō Has Changed His Name to Mujū Dōryū. I Wrote This Verse to Celebrate The Great Prospects That Lie Before Him Unwillingness to remain in the ruts of former Buddha patriarchs Unsurpassed aspiration and fierce passion to achieve the Way These are precisely the qualities found in a true Zen monk Attained the very moment you "have been there and back.

After this examination there are still gaps of doubt and apparent contradiction. And it is natural that it be so, because the Eternal Return is an experience. There lies its importance: in the fact of being. The Eternal Return is not the reincarnation as it has been spread in our days. Original Buddhism, on the other hand, could be pointing to something similar. Buddha was a shastriya, that is, a prince of the warrior caste, not a brahman, or priest, and his Doctrine was also for heroes and warriors. Then, it has been transformed by the monks. Buddha, like Nietzsche, talks about a reincarnation without mentioning the soul. What is it that reincarnates, then? As in Nietzsche it could be that 'atom-seed', or 'all those conditions that determine its existence and that they come back to give themselves', in the turn of the Energy, or of the Light that finds the old image. The Buddhist would want to be liberated, to leave the Circle; that's why it kills desire, that makes return. The Will to Power, as we have seen, returns to its 'archive', wishes to possess again its 'non-existence'. The difference: Nietzsche wants to return eternally, incorporates the Will and considers Nirvana a dream of decadents, of warriors who have become priests, monks. However, we do not know what Buddha really thought, because he did not talk about these things, nor did he explain Nirvana. Maybe, he just wanted to get out of this Circle to enter to fight in another wider Circle, that is more immense.

The Swede carefully read the papers in order to be able to explain to her why the monk had done what he did. It had to do with the South Vietnamese president, General Diem, it had to do with corruption, with elections, with complex regional and political conflicts, it had to do with something about Buddhism itself. . . . But for her it had only to do with the extremes to which gentle people have to resort in a world where the great majority are without an ounce of conscience.

In what is now known as Bodh Gaya…a Buddhist temple stands beside an ancient pipal, descended from that bodhi tree, or “enlightenment tree,” and I watched the rising of the morning star and came away no wiser than before. But later I wondered if the Tibetan monks were aware that the Bodhi tree was murmuring with gusts of birds, while another large pipal, so close by that it touched the holy tree with many branches, was without life. I make no claim for the event: I simply declare what I saw at Bodh Gaya.

We can rejoice that our world does have many bodhisattvas who can be found on every path of return, sowing seeds of faith, resolve, and confidence. Kwan Yin, for example, always finds ways to be with those who are suffering. She fears nothing, and uses whatever means are appropriate to the circumstance. She takes on whatever form is needed— monk, politician, merchant, scholar, woman, child, god, or demon. Can we listen deeply like Kwan Yin? Using every form and means possible in the spirit of Kwan Yin, we will bring help to our world.

In Buddhism monks recite daily the Five Remembrances, which are: I will lose my youth, my health, my dear ones and everything I hold dear, and finally lose life itself, by the very nature of my being human. These are bitter reminders that the only thing that continues is the consequences of our action. The fact that all the things we hold dear and love are transient does not mean that we should love them less but—as I do Karen and Serena—love them even more. Suffering, the Buddha said, if it does not diminish love, will transport you to the farther shore.

If he hadn’t become a Buddhist monk, Sawaki Roshi would have been successful in a worldly sense in business, politics, or the military. Instead, he devoted his life to wholeheartedly practicing Dogen Zenji’s just sitting, or shikantaza, which according to him was good for nothing. For him, social climbing in pursuit of fame and profit was meaningless. The Japanese expression for “waste” is bonifuru, which means “sacrifice,” “lose all,” or “ruin.” So when we say he wasted his life, we use the expression in a paradoxical way—like saying that zazen is good for nothing.

I was only beginning to enter into the infinite subtlety of Gregorian chant. It was - and remains - the only public prayer I have ever been able to engage in without feeling like a phony and a jackass. But then, one day in 1965 or so, it was simply abolished. With a stroke of his pen, Pope John XXIII - who had such good ideas about other things - declared that liturgy would henceforth be in the vernacular language of the people. That was, effectively, the end of Latin chant. Then all those monks and nuns who had devoted hours and hours a day began to sicken and fall into depressions, but nobody noticed for a long time. Maybe, as I can well believe, the music toned up their systems in some mysterious way. Or perhaps chant really was a language that God understood. Faced with numerous liturgical scholas shrieking away in the new vernacular hymns, Divinity may have covered its ears and withdrawn, leaving the monks to pine. We parish musicians, illiterate in anything written after the 13th century, stumbled around trying to score liturgies for guitar and bongo drums, trying to make sense of texts like "Eat his body! Drink his blood!" It wasn't because the music got so bad that I quit going to Mass, but it certainly was the beginning of my doubts about papal infallibility.

Other religions, particularly Jainism, Buddhism and Hinduism, have demonstrated even greater empathy to animals. They emphasise the connection between humans and the rest of the ecosystem, and their foremost ethical commandment has been to avoid killing any living being. Whereas the biblical ‘Thou shalt not kill’ covered only humans, the ancient Indian principle of ahimsa (non-violence) extends to every sentient being. Jain monks are particularly careful in this regard. They always cover their mouths with a white cloth, lest they inhale an insect, and whenever they walk they carry a broom to gently sweep any ant or beetle from their path.

A man may take his own life for many reasons, and it is impossible to make a general statement; but whenever suicide is a gesture—done, that is, to impress or influence or embarrass others—it is always, so it seems to me, a sign of immaturity and muddled thinking. However much we may admire the fortitude of this Vietnamese monk, the wisdom of his action remains very much in doubt. I do not know the details of the provocation offered by the Catholic Head of State, but the monk appears to have killed himself 'fighting for the cause of Buddhism'. Certainly this action is infinitely more honourable than the setting fire to churches and the crowning of statues that seem to be the favoured methods of giving battle in this country; but it does not follow that it is any the less misguided.

This reaction to the work was obviously a misunderstanding. It ignores the fact that the future Buddha was also of noble origins, that he was the son of a king and heir to the throne and had been raised with the expectation that one day he would inherit the crown. He had been taught martial arts and the art of government, and having reached the right age, he had married and had a son. All of these things would be more typical of the physical and mental formation of a future samurai than of a seminarian ready to take holy orders. A man like Julius Evola was particularly suitable to dispel such a misconception. He did so on two fronts in his Doctrine: on the one hand, he did not cease to recall the origins of the Buddha, Prince Siddhartha, who was destined to the throne of Kapilavastu: on the other hand, he attempted to demonstrate that Buddhist asceticism is not a cowardly resignation before life's vicissitudes, but rather a struggle of a spiritual kind, which is not any less heroic than the struggle of a knight on the battlefield. As Buddha himself said (Mahavagga, 2.15): 'It is better to die fighting than to live as one vanquished.' This resolution is in accord with Evola's ideal of overcoming natural resistances in order to achieve the Awakening through meditation; it should he noted, however, that the warrior terminology is contained in the oldest writings of Buddhism, which are those that best reflect the living teaching of the master. Evola works tirelessly in his hook to erase the Western view of a languid and dull doctrine that in fact was originally regarded as aristocratic and reserved for real 'champions.' After Schopenhauer, the unfounded idea arose in Western culture that Buddhism involved a renunciation of the world and the adoption of a passive attitude: 'Let things go their way; who cares anyway.' Since in this inferior world 'everything is evil,' the wise person is the one who, like Simeon the Stylite, withdraws, if not to the top of a pillar; at least to an isolated place of meditation. Moreover, the most widespread view of Buddhists is that of monks dressed in orange robes, begging for their food; people suppose that the only activity these monks are devoted to is reciting memorized texts, since they shun prayers; thus, their religion appears to an outsider as a form of atheism. Evola successfully demonstrates that this view is profoundly distorted by a series of prejudices. Passivity? Inaction? On the contrary, Buddha never tired of exhorting his disciples to 'work toward victory'; he himself, at the end of his life, said with pride: katam karaniyam, 'done is what needed to he done!' Pessimism? It is true that Buddha, picking up a formula of Brahmanism, the religion in which he had been raised prior to his departure from Kapilavastu, affirmed that everything on earth is 'suffering.' But he also clarified for us that this is the case because we are always yearning to reap concrete benefits from our actions. For example, warriors risk their lives because they long for the pleasure of victory and for the spoils, and yet in the end they are always disappointed: the pillaging is never enough and what has been gained is quickly squandered. Also, the taste of victory soon fades away. But if one becomes aware of this state of affairs (this is one aspect of the Awakening), the pessimism is dispelled since reality is what it is, neither good nor bad in itself; reality is inscribed in Becoming, which cannot be interrupted. Thus, one must live and act with the awareness that the only thing that matters is each and every moment. Thus, duty (dhamma) is claimed to be the only valid reference point: 'Do your duty,' that is. 'let your every action he totally disinterested.

There appears to have been institutionalized bias against women right from the earliest times. I don’t think anybody sat down and thought, “Oh, let us be biased.” It’s just that it was part of the prevailing social scene. As the years passed, everything was recited and recorded from the male point of view. I am sure this was not intentional, it was just how it happened. Because most of the texts and the commentaries were written from the male point of view—that is, by monks—women increasingly began to be seen as dangerous and threatening. For example, when the Buddha talked about desire, he gave a meditation on the thirty-two parts of the body. You start with the hair on the top of the head and then go all the way down to the soles of the feet, imagining what you would find underneath if you took the skin off each part; the kidneys, the heart, the guts, the blood, the lymph and all that sort of thing. The practitioner dissects his body in order to cut through the enormous attachment to physical form and see it as it really is. Of course, in losing attachment to our own bodies, we also lose attachment to the bodies of others. But nonetheless, the meditation that the Buddha taught was primarily directed towards oneself. It was designed to cut off attachment to one’s own physical form and to achieve a measure of detachment from it; to break through any preoccupation the meditator might have about the attractiveness of his own body. However, when we look at what was being taught later, in the writings of Nagarjuna in the first century, or Shantideva in the seventh, we see that this same meditation is directed outwards, towards the bodies of women. It is the woman one sees as a bag of guts, lungs, kidneys, and blood. It is the woman who is impure and disgusting. There is no mention of the impurity of the monk who is meditating. This change occurred because this tradition of meditation was carried on by much less enlightened minds than that of the Buddha. So instead of just using the visualization as a meditation to break through attachment to the physical, it was used as a way of keeping the monks celibate. It was no longer simply a means of seeing things as they really are, but instead, as a means of cultivating aversion towards women. Instead of monks saying to themselves, “Women are impure and so am I and so are all the other monks around me,” it developed into “Women are impure.” As a consequence, women began to be viewed as a danger to monks, and this developed into a kind of monastic misogynism. Obviously, if women had written these texts, there would have been a very different perspective. But women did not write the texts. Even if they had been able to write some works from the female point of view, these still would have been imbued with the flavor and ideas of the texts and teachings designed for males. As a result of this pronounced bias, an imbalance developed in the teachings.

Skardu was a predominantly Buddhist region in fifth century India. Faxian mentions a magnificent Stupa that held the relics of Buddha. He mentions a tooth relic and a spittoon which were kept in the Stupa. The Stupa had an order of more than a thousand monks and their disciples, practiced Hinayana Buddhism. Sadly, today there are no Stupas standing in Skardu, which would remind us of its Buddhist heritage. Most of them being lost to iconoclasm. As recently as June 2020, Buddhist rock carvings were vandalised in Chilas region of Gilgit-Baltistan.

In my monastery, as in all those belonging to the Zen tradition, there is a very fine portrait of Bodhidharma. It is a Chinese work of art in ink, depicting the Indian monk with sober and vigorous features. The eyebrows, eyes, and chin of Bodhidharma express an invincible spirit. Bodhidharma lived, it is said, in the fifth century A.D. He is considered to be the First Patriarch of Zen Buddhism in China. It might be that most of the things that are reported about his life have no historical validity; but the personality as well as the mind of this monk, as seen and described through tradition, have made him the ideal man for all those who aspire to Zen enlightenment. It is the picture of a man who has come to perfect mastery of himself, to complete freedom in relation to himself and to his surroundings—a man having that tremendous spiritual power which allows him to regard happiness, unhappiness, and all the vicissitudes of life with an absolute calm. The essence of this personality, however, does not come from a position taken about the problem of absolute reality, nor from an indomitable will, but from a profound vision of his own mind and of living reality. The Zen word used here signifies "seeing into his own nature." When one has reached this enlightenment, one feels all systems of erroneous thought crushed inside oneself. The new vision produces in the one enlightened a deep peace, a great tranquility, as well as a spiritual force characterized by the absence of fear. Seeing into one's own nature is the goal of Zen.

The principle of cause and effect is called in Buddhism the principle of "inter-origin." The birth, growth, and decline of things depend on a number of conditions and not upon a single one. These conditions are called pratyayas. The presence of a thing (dharma) implies the presence of all other things. The enlightened man sees this thing not as a separate entity but as a complete manifestation of reality. A Vietnamese Zen monk of the twelfth century, Dao Hanh, said, "If it is of existence, everything exists, even a speck of dust; if it is of emptiness, everything is empty, even this universe.

In Japanese Buddhist temples the presiding monk watched the stick of incense burn to tell when it was time to stop meditating and begin the next communal activity.

The foundation of the Chosŏn dynasty (1392- 1910), with its pronounced Neo-Confucian sympathies, brought an end to Buddhism's hegemony in Korean religion and upset this ideological status quo. Buddhism's close affiliation with the vanquished Koryŏ rulers led to centuries of persecution during this Confucian dynasty. While controls over monastic vocations and conduct had already been instituted during the Koryŏ period, these pale next to the severe restrictions promulgated during the Chosŏn dynasty. The number of monks was severely restricted—and at times a complete ban on ordination instituted—and monks were prohibited from entering the metropolitan areas. Hundreds of monasteries were disestablished (the number of temples dropping to 242 during the reign of T'aejong [r. 1401-1418]), and new construction was forbidden in the cities and villages of Korea. Monastic land holdings and temple slaves were confiscated by the government in 1406, undermining the economic viability of many monasteries. The vast power that Buddhists had wielded during the Silla and Koryŏ dynasties was now exerted by Confucians. Buddhism was kept virtually quarantined in the countryside, isolated from the intellectual debates of the times. Its lay adherents were more commonly the illiterate peasants of the countryside and women, rather than the educated male elite of the cities, as had been the case in ages past. Buddhism had become insular, and ineffective in generating creative responses to this Confucian challenge.

Foreign pressures on the late Chosŏn court brought the first real break in this state of affairs. Japanese suzerainty over Korea began in 1905 with the appointment of a Japanese adviser to the Chosŏn dynasty throne and was formalized in 1910 with the official annexation of Korea. Ironically, perhaps, the Japanese colonial presence was initially of some advantage to Buddhism. Japan was itself a Buddhist country and its envoys empathized with the pitiable plight of Korean monks under the Chosŏn administration. It was Japanese lobbying at the turn of the century, for example, that forced the Kojong (r. 1864-1907) government to remove restrictions on Buddhist activities in the capital and allowed Buddhist monks to enter the cities for the first time in some three hundred years.

The mainstream of Chinese Ch'an provided the background tradition for Buddhism in Vietnam, particularly Vietnamese Zen Buddhism. An Indian monk and student of the third patriarch of Chinese Ch'an, Sêng-ts'an, a Chinese monk and disciple of the prominent master Pai-chang, and a second Chinese monk and follower of the famous Hsüeh-t'ou founded the first three schools of Zen Buddhism in Vietnam. Other schools of Buddhist philosophy and practice were also introduced to the country, and various indigenous sects grew up around celebrated Vietnamese masters. In the later development of Vietnamese Zen, the Lâm-Tế (C. Lin-chi, J. Rinzai) branch of practice came to the country and found firm basis for its growth through the innovations of a talented Vietnamese master, so that today most Buddhist monks, nuns, and laymen in Vietnam belong to the Lâm-Tế Zen tradition.

Throughout the history of Buddhism in Vietnam many distinguished monks, both foreign and native, contributed to the nation's welfare and enriched Vietnamese culture through their Buddhist activities, often serving as national masters or advisors to the king on important matters, compiling or writing various Buddhist works, and excelling in literary accomplishments.

Dōgen's big question when he was a young monk was this: If Buddhism teaches that we're all perfect just as we are — and it does teach that — then why do we have to undergo training? A whole lot of Shōbōgenzō is Dōgen's attempt to answer that question.

The historical reason we chant the Buddhist sutras is to honor our earliest ancestors in the practice. The first Buddhists didn't trust the written word to be a good carrier of their teachings. So for the first two hundred years or so, the Buddha's teachings were not written down; they were memorized. In order to do this, the monks gathered and recited Buddha's words. We still do that today, even though it's all also available in written form now. This is because we've found that chanting the words together helps us remember them better than just reading them by ourselves. These activities also have a deeper purpose in helping to build a feeling of community. When people do activities together they feel more kinship with each other. When we chant we do other things like hit a wooden fish to keep time, burn incense, bow, and so forth. This active stuff, with all its movements and coordination, helps bond the group.

In contrast to [Thomas] Merton, who hazarded "with diffidence" statements about Buddhism and was acutely aware that, as a Catholic priest and monk, he could not be sure that he had trustworthy insights into the spiritual values of a tradition with which he was not really familiar (Merton 1967, 5), Suzuki was always confident in his own judgment on Christianity. However, his interpretation of Christianity remained superficial and polemical. He argued, for example, that Christian tenets such as the crucifixion are merely symbolical, "while Buddhism is . . . free from the historical symbolism of Christianity" (Suzuki 1949–1953, 1: 152).

Although there may be ten thousand different forms of the Buddhist teachings, the different schools and different systems are merely different faces of the one reality.

The task of reforming Buddhism demands a revolution in the teachings and the regulations of the Buddhist institutes. When the training can form a sufficient number of good students, then there can be a real reform of Buddhism. We have no choice but to bring Buddhism back into everyday life. War has waged disaster. Separation and hatred has reached a high degree. There are so many agonizing cries of death, hunger, and imprisonment. How can anyone feel peace of mind by dwelling undisturbed in a monastery?

When monks deny the existence of the I, they are not denying the existence of humanity or of man in general; but that of the ego only.

I think that all that time I’d spent accepting the fact that I was already dead made me sort of a walking zombie among the living back home. Every person I looked at I would see as horribly disfigured, shot, maimed, bleeding, and needing my help. In some ways it was worse than being in Iraq, because the feelings were not appropriate to the situation and because I no longer had my buddies around to support me emotionally. I spent a good deal of time heavily dependent on alcohol and drugs, including drugs such as Clonazepam prescribed by well-meaning psychiatrists at the VA, drugs that were extremely addictive and led to a lot of risky behavior. However, I still had a dream of learning how to meditate and entering the spiritual path, a dream that began in college when I was exposed to teachings of Buddhism and yoga, and I realized these were more stable paths to well-being and elevated mood than the short-term effects of drugs. I decided that I wanted to learn meditation from an authentic Asian master, so I went to Japan to train at a traditional Zen monastery, called Sogen-ji, in the city of Okayama. Many people think that being at a Zen monastery must be a peaceful, blissful experience. Yet though I did have many beautiful experiences, the training was somewhat brutal. We meditated for long hours in freezing-cold rooms open to the snowy air of the Japanese winter and were not allowed to wear hats, scarves, socks, or gloves. A senior monk would constantly patrol the meditation hall with a stick, called the keisaku, or “compassion stick,” which was struck over the shoulders of anyone caught slouching or closing their eyes. Zen training would definitely violate the Geneva Conventions. And these were not guided meditations of the sort one finds in the West; I was simply told to sit and watch my breath, and those were the only meditation instructions I ever received. I remember on the third day at the monastery, I really thought my mind was about to snap due to the pain in my legs and the voice in my head that grew incredibly loud and distracting as I tried to meditate. I went to the senior monk and said, “Please, tell me what to do with my mind so I don’t go insane,” and he simply looked at me, said, “No talking,” and shuffled off. Left to my own devices, I was somehow able to find the will to carry on, and after days, weeks, and months of meditation, I indeed had an experience of such profound happiness and expanded awareness that it gave me the faith that meditation was, as a path to enlightenment, everything I had hoped for, everything I had been promised by the books and scriptures.

Zen funeral rites typify both the promise of universal salvation characteristic of Japanese Buddhism and the dominance of funeral services in the activities of Japanese Buddhist temples. In fact, Japanese Buddhist funerals—the single most important Buddhist ritual still observed by the vast majority of Japanese—largely derives from rites that were introduced and popularized first by Zen monks.

Studies of Japanese Zen rarely include consideration of any aspects of Zen practice that fail to conform to the criteria of otherworldly meditation and enlightenment. The other activities of Zen monks typically are dismissed as vulgar popularizations. More attention is paid to ideal constructs than to what Zen monks actually did (and do). Yet to ignore the so-called non-Zen practices within Japanese Zen is to overlook a vital component of both Zen history and Japanese religion. Many so-called popular rites do not represent random syncretism but are performed in a distinctly Zen manner, the exegesis of which promises to reveal much about how Zen functions as a viable Japanese religion.

The earliest attempt to form an independent Zen group in Japan seems to have been led by Nōnin, who taught his form of Zen at Sanbōji (a Tendai temple in Settsu) during the latter part of the twelfth century. Because Nōnin's following, which styled itself the Darumashū (after Daruma, i.e., Bodhidharma, the semilegendary founder of the Chinese Ch'an school), failed to secure a permanent institutional base, scholars had not fully realized Nōnin's importance until recently. As early as 1272, however, less than eighty years after Nōnin's death, Nichiren had correctly identified Nōnin as the pioneer leader of the new Zen groups. Eisai, a contemporary of Nōnin, also founded several new centers for Zen practice, the most important of which was Kenninji in Kyoto. In contrast to Nōnin, who had never left Japan, Eisai had the benefit of two extended trips to China during which he could observe Chinese Ch'an (Jpn. Zen) teachers first hand. The third important early Zen leader in Japan was Dōgen, the founder of Japan's Sōtō school. Dōgen had entered Eisai's Kenninji in 1217 and, like Eisai, also traveled to China for firsthand study. Unlike Eisai (or Nōnin), after his return to Japan Dōgen attempted to establish the monastic structures he found in China. Dōgen's monasteries, Kōshōji (Dōgen's residence during 1230–1243) and Eiheiji (1244–1253), were the first in Japan to include a monks' hall (sōdō) within which Zen monks lived and meditated according to Chinese-style monastic regulations.

There is no global authority to ascertain and to confirm "authentic" Buddhists. While Buddhist sanghas (monastic communities) have the power to defrock monks from their particular community, there is no global platform to survey all monks, much less an institution to assess the viability of Buddhist laity.

In Theravāda Buddhist traditions, monks represent ideal behavior to the laity. This is partly due to their unworldly aspirations (laukika), but it also has much to do with the fact that the standardized discourse on ethics, known as the Vinaya Piṭaka, is located within the monastic guidelines. This source provides rules of conduct for monks and simultaneously serves as a moral compass for the laity.

These three divisions are known respectively as: the Vinaya Piṭaka, this being the portion of the canon that is concerned with regulating the life of Buddhist monks and nuns; the Sūtra Piṭaka, the collection of sūtras, i.e. of discourses given by the Buddha; and thirdly, the Abhidharma Piṭaka, which is concerned with the systematic explanation and ordering of key teachings and analyses, i.e. teachings and analyses that are to be found in the Sūtra Piṭaka. It seems that the term piṭaka itself only came into use in the 2nd century BCE.87

Whatever the origin of the term, the entire canon is known as the Tripiṭaka, the threefold collection. These three divisions are known respectively as: the Vinaya Piṭaka, this being the portion of the canon that is concerned with regulating the life of Buddhist monks and nuns; the Sūtra Piṭaka, the collection of sūtras, i.e. of discourses given by the Buddha; and thirdly, the Abhidharma Piṭaka, which is concerned with the systematic explanation and ordering of key teachings and analyses, i.e. teachings and analyses that are to be found in the Sūtra Piṭaka. It seems that the term piṭaka itself only came into use in the 2nd century BCE.87

These three divisions are known respectively as: the Vinaya Piṭaka, this being the portion of the canon that is concerned with regulating the life of Buddhist monks and nuns; the Sūtra Piṭaka, the collection of sūtras, i.e. of discourses given by the Buddha; and thirdly, the Abhidharma Piṭaka, which is concerned with the systematic explanation and ordering of key teachings and analyses, i.e. teachings and analyses that are to be found in the Sūtra Piṭaka.

The Prātimokṣa is, in its fully developed form, an inventory of rules which must be observed by the monks and nuns. It is, in theory, chanted regularly at each upavasatha day by the various nikāyas, i.e. local monastic communities.

Listen to how dramatically Walpola Rahula, a Buddhist monk who in 1959 published an influential book called What the Buddha Taught, put the matter: “According to the teaching of the Buddha, the idea of self is an imaginary, false belief which has no corresponding reality, and it produces harmful thoughts of ‘me’ and ‘mine,’ selfish desire, craving, attachment, hatred, ill-will, conceit, pride, egoism, and other defilements, impurities, and problems. It is the source of all the troubles in the world from personal conflicts to wars between nations. In short, to this false view can be traced all the evil in the world.

How do you know, what you claim to know?

Just as the Prātimokṣa, analysed in the Sūtravibhaṅga, regulates the life of the individual monk, so the Karmavācā, elaborated in a similar way in the Skandhaka, regulates the life of the whole monastic community.

These are essentially concerned with explaining the origin of all aspects of the organization of the Saṅgha, and cover such things as admission to the Order, the ritual of confession, i.e. the recitation of the Prātimokṣa – the rules of personal training, the rainy season retreats, food and medicine, proper dwellings, permissible clothing, the proper resolution of disputes between monks, the nature of schism in the Saṅgha, along with a host of other things.

The Vinaya Piṭaka is essentially a legal code concerned with rules of conduct for the monks and nuns, but not with the systematic exposition of Buddhist morality. The latter is encapsulated in various lists of precepts, found in numerous places within the Sūtra Piṭaka, that Buddhists chant regularly as an expression of their commitment to the Path, and try to observe in their lives.

Whilst in later centuries the monks tended to reduce the recitation of the Prātimokṣa to the chanting of a liturgy, in origin it was an opportunity to search their hearts for any failings in their practice of the precepts, and to accept admonishment from others if that was due.

However, these were clearly monks who had a vision of spiritual development that transcended monastic formalism, and perhaps this should be linked with the trend apparent in some early schools that questioned the status of the arhat.

The first and most serious class contains four rules, known as the pārājika dharmas, and involves expulsion from the Saṅgha. These four rules prohibit sexual intercourse (the monk and nun were required to be completely celibate), theft, the taking of life, and boasting of supernormal attainments. Expulsion for these offences was irrevocable (although we should note that people could otherwise freely leave and re-enter the Order up to seven times.) Other offences involve lighter punishments, such as temporary expulsion from the Order, expiation, and/or confession.

There are also numerous rules governing etiquette – such as how food should be placed in the mouth, what sort of noises should not be made while eating, and how the robes of the monk or nun should be worn.

During my time here, I learnt that one could not escape the secular world anymore than one could escape the web of karma that one had sown. True enlightenment comes not from isolation but immersion. The monks in the temples never really abandoned the world. Their doors were always open, and they took up arms when necessary as they had demonstrated countless times before. Their severance with attachment was to connect them with greater compassion, a higher love.

The style of the sūtras is highly repetitious, because for the first four to five centuries they were preserved exclusively by oral recitation – a tradition taken over from the brahmaṇical Vedic transmission. The Pāli Sutta Piṭaka was only written down for the first time at the end of the 1st century BCE, in Sri Lanka, at a time when it seemed possible, through the scarcity of monks who held it in memory, that the whole Tipiṭaka might be lost.

Finally, some schools also compiled a Kṣudrakāgama (Pāli Khuddaka-Nikāya), the ‘smaller’ or ‘inferior’ collection. Clearly this division was adopted as an appropriate place for items that did not fit easily into the other four divisions, and it therefore has something of a miscellaneous character. The Pāli Sutta Piṭaka happens to be one that did contain such a division, which, in this case, is composed of fifteen different texts. They are very diverse in character, some very late, such as the Buddhavamsa and Cariyāpiṭaka, but others are very early and of great interest for giving a glimpse of the early character of the Buddha’s teaching and activity, at a stage before it had become extensively formulated. Among these early texts one can include the famous Dhammapada, the Sutta Nipāta, the Itivuttaka and the Udāna. The Khuddaka-Nikāya also contains the Thera- and Therī-gāthā, ‘Verses of the Elder Monks and Nuns’ – usually spontaneous verse utterances of the disciples of the Buddha. One of the most popular sections of this Āgama is that of the Jātaka, the stories of the previous lives of the Buddha.

These four rules prohibit sexual intercourse (the monk and nun were required to be completely celibate), theft, the taking of life, and boasting of supernormal attainments. Expulsion for these offences was irrevocable (although we should note that people could otherwise freely leave and re-enter the Order up to seven times.) Other offences involve lighter punishments, such as temporary expulsion from the Order, expiation, and/or confession.

My mother said to me, 'If you are a soldier, you will become a general. If you are a monk, you will become the Pope.' Instead, I was a painter, and became Picasso." – Pablo Picasso

There are also some stories of enlightened women practitioners and teachers in early Buddhism. We see a blossoming of women gurus, and also the presence of female buddhas and of course the dakinis. In many stories, these women taught the intellectual monks in a very direct, juicy way by uniting spirituality with sexuality; they taught based on using, rather than renouncing, the senses. Their teachings took the learned monks out of the monastery into real life with all its rawness, which is why several of the Tantric stories begin with a monk in a monastic university who has a visitation from a woman that drives him out in search of something beyond the monastic walls.

The quest to rid ourselves of complete colonization by noise and to recover our sense of quiet goodness should be as necessary and perpetual as our quest to rid ourselves of air pollution.

When I listen to that distant call [of the cuckoo], I become freshly aware of a sense of oneness with everything that exists. At such moments I come to see that everything is flowing together like a timeless river, and I become thoroughly convinced of this reality. The invisible becomes clearer than the visible, and the eternal becomes closer than the present. ,,, One of the tragedies of modernity is that artificial sounds are making it impossible to hear the sounds of eternity. They are cutting off the sounds that come from within the deepest part of us.

[B]lossom anew every day. ... A practitioner, like the water, should continue to flow endlessly toward the great sea. Today’s flower is not the same as the one that blossomed yesterday. And a practitioner, like a flower, should blossom anew every day.

Zen monasteries are hidden away in the forested mountains of Japan, China and Korea. Monks live extremely sparse lives to remove all material wealth from themselves—they wear only robes, they shave their heads, they go for brisk pre-dawn hikes and eat mostly rice. It’s hard to get further away from materialism. Obviously nobody reading this book is going to do all that stuff, but we can still meet the monks partway, no? When we dematerialize our lives, we are admitting to ourselves the real world in which we live. We are facing reality headfirst and not distracting ourselves with smartphones or excess goods. We’re saving time to enjoy quality meals, vacation time and our children and families.

I thought back then to what the abbot of Tofukuji had said, explaining how even a businessman or journalist had something to gain from a night in a monastery, and a taste of stillness. One had to learn how not to spend time, he had suggested. 'When you're hurrying around too quickly,' he had said, 'there's a part of the world you can't see. If, for example, you're taking a wrong direction in your life, it's only when you stop and look at things clearly that you can revise your direction and take a more proper course. The message of Zen is that in order to find ourselves, we've got to learn to stop.

As I wandered back in the dying light, lit up with a sense of rapture and of calm, I remembered the line of the poet Shinsho, 'No matter what road I'm travelling, I'm going home.

As I wandered back in the dying light, lit up with a sense of rapture and of calm, I remembered the line of the poet Shinsho, 'No matter what road I'm traveling, I'm going home.

The small village pagoda often does not have a well qualified Zen master, since most people, and in particular the villagers, cannot practice Zen as taught in the monastery. This must be performed by qualified monks and possibly by a few educated laypeople. For this popular Buddhism in Vietnam is a mixture of some basic Zen elements and many practices of the Pure Land (Amidist) sect, which is a sect of Mahayana Buddhism that is very popular among the masses.

Basing their teaching on the essay on the Amitabha Sutra by the great monk Van The, the Vietnamese Zen masters have thus realized a synthetic doctrine combining Zen and the Pure Land practices that suits the masses of the people. Except for the pure Zen monasteries, almost every pagoda in Vietnam practices this combined Zen-Pure Land doctrine.

As is common to any church organization, both conservative and progressive elements are present in the Buddhist Church. The former is slow to respond to the need for actualizing Buddhism, while the latter desires to speed up the reorganization of the Church in order to take a more active part in the life of the society. The young monks belong to the latter element, grouped as they are about the Church's cultural and social institutions but lacking key positions in the Church itself. The influence of their thought and action is strong among the population, however. They have a greater awareness of the issues that Vietnam has to face in economics, culture, education, and social welfare and are anxious to make use of the potential resources of Buddhism in order to solve these problems. The young monks naturally have the support of the intellectuals and younger generation. However, this support is not the Church's support. Conservative dogmatism and fear of change have always hindered progress. The real issue is how the Buddhist Church can get on with its internal revolution while fulfilling its duty toward society.

For instance, if you believe that actions can have an impact on future rebirths, your calculations will be very dierent from what they would be if you believed that actions gave no results, or gave results that went no further than this lifetime. In giving clear answers to these larger questions, the Dhamma oers much more than a guide to the present. It explains how to recognize past mistakes so that you can learn from them, and how to plan for a satisfactory future. In providing this framework, the Dhamma gives you standards for deciding which kinds of actions will be skillful and which ones won’t. As the Buddha said, the primary duty of any responsible teacher is to provide a student both with the confidence that there are such things as skillful and unskillful actions, and with standards for recognizing, in any given situation, which is which. Any interpretation of the Dhamma that neglects this framework—or treats the issue of what happens at death as a mystery—counts as irresponsible.

The Mahayana arose after the Theravada and is the path of universal—rather than individual—liberation. The Mahayana laid the groundwork for a Dharma practiced not just by monks, but by laypeople who could integrate practices and principles into everyday life,

While aesthetic richness has prevailed in Indian spiritual life form ancient times, there has also been a parallel puritanical aspect among Indian people. This puritanism was prevalent in various traditions of monks, and evolved into the systems of Buddhism and Jainism. Monks of these two religious paths prohibited the use of objects that were pleasing to the senses, and prescribed forcible control of the mind and senses, suppression of the emotions and instincts, and renunciation of worldly enjoyments. Those monks who became experts in this austere type of penance often developed supernatural psychic powers like telepathy and hypnotism. Even though Patanjali denounced the attainment of such powers (siddhis) as being impediments to liberation (Yogasutra, IV.36-37) still they tended to have considerable influence on people from all walks of life. Brahmanic thinkers were inflienced as well, but wisely accommodated the ideals and practices of these monks by placing them into the renunciatory and seclusionary periods of a practitioner’s later lifetime (the third and fourth stages which follow the student and householder stages). Tantric theologians did not accept puritanism. Instead they propagated a spiritual path that focused on the simultaneous attainment of enjoyment (bhukti), and liberation (mukti). They accepted both of them as the goal of human life, and developed philosophies and methods that could be followed equally by both monks and householders. They did not approve of any form of forcible control or repression of the mind, emotions, and senses, but rather emphasized that such practices could create adverse reactions that might simply deepen a practitioner’s bondage. — B. N. Pandit, Specific Principles of Kashmir Shaivism (3rd ed., 2008), p. 118.

One of the most interesting is that which follows the Leke faith. This is a kind of Buddhism based on the worship of Maitreya, the Buddha who will next appear in this world. However, unlike other Buddhists, their faith does not include the worship of sacred images, pagodas or monks. Their principal religious monument is a wooden structure without walls. In the centre is a tall pole bearing a sacred umbrella. The people of the Leke faith abide by ten rules of conduct which seem to reflect Buddhist ideas. The

It’s also not surprising that most Cambodians lack ambition or any hope for a better life. Their religion, Theravadist Buddhism, taught them to shun status and eschew material possessions because “contentment is wealth,” as the monks still say. In the pagoda schools, monks preached that children should be pleased with the lives they had and not aspire for more. Theravadist

Zen is a branch of Mahayana Buddhism. It was brought to China roughly 15 centuries ago, in 6 CE. Zen was brought to China by an Indian Buddhist monk, Bodhidharma. There, it was known as “Ch’an,” which is the Chinese interpretation of the Sankrit term “dhyana,” meaning a mind that is immersed in meditation.

All of you are perfect just as you are and you could use a little improvement. This Life Lesson is a direct quote from Shunryu Suzuki-roshi, a Sōtō Zen monk and teacher who helped popularize Zen Buddhism in the United States14, and it serves as a guiding principle for continuous improvement in my life.

Addressing people who were similarly confused as to what path in life to follow, the Buddha once suggested to the Kālāma people: “Do not be satisfied with hearsay or with tradition or with legendary lore or with what has come down in scriptures or with conjecture or with logical inference or with weighing evidence or with liking for a view after pondering over it or with someone else’s ability or with the thought: ‘the monk is our guru.’ When you know in yourselves: ‘these things are wholesome, blameless, commended by the wise, and being adopted and put into effect they lead to welfare and happiness,’ then you should practice and abide in them.

The difference between a modern artist and a Buddhist monk is in the approach. The artist goes into the void empt and returns with a souvenir, if you will. The monk approaches the void with a traditional body of knowledge and arrives at emptiness. Our world, no less than that of the monks, is full of junk that gets in the way of spiritual practice. The artist plays with the junk, the monk orders it into nothingness.

Most people tend to excuse themselves with the opportunities they have in life, with how many years of school they have, with the people around them. And in doing so, they fail in realizing many other things, such as the fact that not many are lucky enough to give birth to a world bestseller on spirituality, wealth and success in life. Yes, your child may be a little reincarnation of an awesome buddhist monk, of an alchemist or a famous knight templar. Why most people can’t see these things, and keep looking at the past for answers, is something that still puzzles me.

Before his death the Buddha asked his disciples to follow the Dharma, not any teacher or tradition. He put no one over the community of monks and nuns. The Dharma was to guide them. So for us, there is no blind belief or blind faith in Buddhism. We simply believe enough in the possibility of liberation and we are wise enough to see the suffering in our existence to have the faith to begin practice.

Now, for example, as a Buddhist monk, I find Buddhism to be most suitable. So, for myself, I've found that Buddhism is best. But that does not mean Buddhism is best for everyone.

Zen is an especially intriguing school of Buddhism because it brings to mind paradoxical images of monks happily living quiet lives, meditating on mountaintops, as well as powerful martial artists.

One of the oldest recitations of faith in Buddhism is taking refuge in what is called the Triple Gem: the Buddha himself, that person who awakened under the Bodhi Tree twenty-five hundred years ago; the Dharma, the truth, the law, and the body of teachings; and the Sangha, which means, in particular, the order of monks and nuns and, more generally, the community of wise beings. “I take refuge in the Buddha, I take refuge in the Dharma, I take refuge in the Sangha.

Buddha initially excluded women from his monasteries. When pressed, he made their entry conditional upon perpetual subservience to the lowliest (newest) male monks. Was this an example of unchanging wisdom? Or were some of his ideas not so enlightened, but rather a function of his place in history? His agenda to end suffering has had millennia to test itself and has failed. Are people just not good enough or smart enough? Is there something wrong with people or is something wrong with the agenda? His methodology for ending suffering was tied to the concept of enlightenment, which involves renouncing both the self and self-centeredness. So as an essentially renunciate religion, Buddhism is also essentially authoritarian, with Buddha being the absolute authority on what to renounce and how to go about it. Some modern Buddhists would bristle at calling Buddhism renunciate. They would say that through dis-identifying or detaching from the illusion that there is a self, self-centeredness effortlessly leaves. We view this as their illusion.

What emerges, though, is the idea that perceptions, memories, associations and thoughts may need a resting mind in order to make their way through our brain and form new connections. Eastern traditions have been aware of this through meditative practices for thousands of years. In Buddhism, monks train to calm their minds. Western society has instilled in us a belief that every moment of every day must be filled with activity. Indeed, it is almost a moral obligation in the US to be as busy as possible. I will try to show that for certain things the brain likes to do (for example, coming up with creative “outside of the box” solutions)