Sand Mandala

During the first two days of the Dalai Lama’s talks, monks from the Tashi Lhunpo Monastery created a Vajrasattva sand mandala. The intricate design is painstakingly built up from individual grains of coloured sand. At noon on the last day of the lectures, in accordance with tradition. the mandala will be destroyed and distributed in flowing water to spread its blessing.

An Introduction To Buddhism

The Dalai Lama is currently presenting a series of public talks and teachings in Nottingham UK, and prior to seeing the Dalai Lama himself, I attended an introductory lecture, organised and presented by the Dharma Network, entitled ‘An Introduction to Buddhism’. There were four guest speakers, including a Monk (pictured above) and Nun from the Tibetan Tashi Lhunpo Monastery.

As a Nichiren Buddhist, and a previous practitioner of Buddhist Meditation, I was interested in the differences and similarities between the two schools.

The lecture started with the Buddhist Monk explaining about the relevance of Buddhist Teachings today, and integrating Buddhist principles into people’s busy, 21st Century lives, based on a Buddhist Practise, the interdependence of all living things and compassion to others.

The Nun talked about how a Buddhist practise based on meditation can quieten the unruly mind, and explained that when she first joined a Monastery, even though her surroundings did not change from day to day, her state of mind changed regularly, until a quietness gradually settled as her attachment to her previous (Western) lifestyle gradually loosened its grip.

The next speaker elaborated on this Meditation on Emptiness and talked about the Four Noble Truths and The Eight-Fold Path.

Lastly the fourth speaker told of the necessity to take accountability for one’s own life, and related a story of difficulty with a work colleague, and how it gradually got worse and eventually invaded his mind on his days off and when trying to sleep. He was overjoyed when this colleague left, only to be replaced by another, whom he instantly disliked and the whole thing started all over again, until he realised that the problem was himself. He used Buddhist Meditation to cultivate positive thoughts about this perceived difficult relationship and gradually things began to change.

There is obviously a strong commonality, as both schools originate from the teachings of Shakyamuni but it seemed to me from this introductory lecture that Tibetan Buddhism, (and I may be doing it a disservice here) at least from the perspective of a new student, is complicated and somewhat acedemic, in contrast to the accessibility and simplicity of Nichiren Buddhism.

Buddha In The Hood

There is an excellent website called Buddha In The Hood (http://buddhainthehood.com) with some great articles and podcasts, including a lecture by Dr. Eric Hauber on the Unique Buddhist Perspective On Life And Death. VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED! (To listen, visit the site direct or subscribe via iTunes).

Complaining

This is an extract from a presentation called Facing Life’s Difficulties by David Hare (www.positiveopposite.com). Makes a great read and I hope you enjoy it:

NEVER COMPLAIN!
The first thing is not to complain. Not ever. Tell all your friends, “the complaints department is closed.” This is very important. Complaint sucks away our good fortune, it denies our Buddhahood and that of other people. It is, as the gosho says, “conduct utterly unbecoming of a worthy man.” (Or woman, obviously!) Nichiren’s life comprised one challenge after another plus great persecution, yet he never complained and hence enjoyed great victories in the end.

By complaint I don’t especially mean whingeing out loud. Complaint is very insidious, it can be rumbling away in the back of your mind for years, a soundtrack that you don’t even notice after a while, because it’s become a habit. Because you are a Buddha, you can choose instead a soundtrack that is always the joyful song of daimoku and the grateful rhythm of gongyo. Remember, it is a privilege to be able to do gongyo and daimoku, not an obligation.

When you complain and blame, you slander yourself by giving away all your power to the thing or person you are blaming. In other words, you are failing to understand the oneness of life and the environment and have forgotten that when you use the power inside you to change your heart for the better, the outside world must, through the law of cause and effect, respond in kind.

Secondly, it’s important not to dwell on negative karma or ‘mistakes’ that you think you have made in the past. If the person you have now become would not make the same ‘mistakes’ again, you are condemning an innocent person by criticising yourself. Nothing is ever wasted in Buddhism. Instead of asking yourself “why am I suffering?” or wondering what you’ve done in the past ‘to deserve this’, it’s much better to focus on the future and ask yourself: “Thanks to my past experiences, what is my mission now for Kosen Rufu? How can I use what I have struggled with and open my heart to benefit my fellow members?” This is the spirit of SGI, this movement that Sensei describes as ‘ordinary people leading ordinary people to enlightenment.’

Its An Age Thing

Q. How do you know when you are getting old?

A. When a girl in the row behind at a screening of the excellent Rolling Stones Scorsese film looks wide-eyed at Keith Richards launching into ‘Jumping Jack Flash’ and says to her father who is sat next to her. “Dad, isn’t that the guy from The Pirates Of The Caribbean?”

Change Your Mind

There was an excellent programme on BBC2 this week, called Alternative Therapies, in which Professor Kathy Sykes investigated the effects of meditation, and examined scientists’ claims that it can actually change your brain.

Starting out in Nepal, a Buddhist Monk taught her a breathing meditation, explaining that meditation can heal mind, body and spirit and generate compassion and emotional stability.

Next it was off to the University of Wisconsin where Dr Richard Davidson had conducted an experiment, inspired by Buddhist Monks, which studied the effects of meditation on a group of ordinary people, and particularly how their stress levels reacted before and after.

All the subjects reported less anxiety and more happiness.

Dr Davidson went on to explain that the results also show a significant shift in brain activity over time, and that there was a shift of activity in the right-hand side of the brain to the left. People who have more left-sided activity report more enthusiasm, happiness and well-being. He conculded that learning to meditate improved your well-being and actually changed your brain.

People thought that the adult human brain was fixed, but more evidence now shows that physical changes can take place, for example, when learning a new skill. Her next investigation showed a group of people learning to juggle, and over a three month period, it was proven that the visual area of the brain actually changed. Learning a new skill actually changed the physical structure of the brain by a process called Neuroplasticity. More skill effects more change, effective all through adult life.

Here then, came the question – Could this physical change in the brain be brought about by thought alone?

Dr Sara Lazar of Massachusetts General Hospital conducted an experiment on a group of everyday people, some of whom practised a breathing meditation, and some who had never meditated at all.

Using the results from MRI scans, it was shown that for the meditators, the Cortex, and particular the Insula, where most of the processing for thoughts and emotions takes place was 0.1 to 0.2mm thicker than those of the people who had never meditated, and that the longer that people had been meditating, the thicker this part of the brain was.

So..it would seem that through thought alone, you can literally change your brain.

Ripples

In Buddhism. Esho Funi explains that the self and the environment are part of one and the same thing, and by changing yourself, it follows that the environment has to change too.

Developments at work over the last two or three months have been quite suprising, and I would like to share this experience.

When I first started practising, I felt self-conscious about telling people at work about it, but as my practise began to develop, I found myself increasingly at ease and began talking openly about it.

Co-workers’ reactions have been mixed, however most are at least a little curious how or why someone chooses to live their life differently.

Two or three members of staff now regularly talk to me about situtations in their lives, and ask how a Buddhist might approach or view it differently. “Nothing seems to phase you”, they say. ‘It must be great. I wish I was like that..” I explain that no-one is exempt from life’s problems – its whether you choose to be consumed by them or not., and that Buddhism has given me the means by which I can put that theory into practise.

As a result of these conversations, one of my colleagues has recently borrowed ‘The Buddha Geoff & Me’, and after thoroughly enjoying reading it, has asked about the practise in more detail, and who knows, she might take up my offer to attend a meeting as a guest!

And lastly..my sister bought a copy of the Daily Wisdom desk calendar from Taplow when I receved Gohonzon, and it turns out that the people in her office look forward to reading it every day!

Some Great Quotes On Happiness

A friend shared these at a meeting a while back and I think they’re great! (Thanks, Anna!)

Bette Davis:

You will never be happier than you expect. To change your happiness, change your expectation.

Hugh Downs:

A happy person is not a person in a certain set of circumstances, but rather a person with a certain set of attitudes.

Martha Washington:

The greatest part of our happiness depends on our dispositions, not our circumstances.

Helen Keller:

True happiness is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.

Spike Milligan:

Money can’t buy you happiness, but it does bring you a more pleasant form of misery.

Harriett Meyerson:

Happiness comes only from appreciating what you have right now. You can even be happy by appreciating your troubles because they are helping to build your character.

Robert G Ingersoll:

Happiness is the only good. The time to be happy is now. The place to be happy is here. The way to be happy is to make others so.

Benjamin Disraeli:

Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action.

SGI-USA New Website

Just a quick post to inform that the SGI-USA has launched a new website today with a new look, and lots of new content.

The Sound Of The Universe

A great little snippet from a recent meeting…I hope you like it.

Mark Whittle, an astronomer at the University of Virginia has recorded the sound of the universe.
The simulations generated a growing hiss that resembles a roaring jet plane flying low overhead.
It represents the first million years of the cosmos and it is compressed into about 5 seconds for easy listening.

The initial sound is a chord close to a major third, Whittle said, adding that he’s drawn to associating human emotions with music. “Majors are buoyant and happy chords, whilst minor chords are sad and melancholy”.

We are like instruments in an orchestra. We must tune ourselves to the natural frequency of the universe in order to be in rhythm with it.

Practice to the Gohonzon alows us to do that.

The full article can be found here -

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/big_bang_sound_040601.html

Also, you can download the sound from the downloads section on the right hand side of this site.