Zen Koan #8: Parable of Great Waves – Buddhist Teaching on Mindfulness

Zen Koan #8: Parable of Great Waves - Buddhist Teaching on Mindfulness Zen Buddhism is usually characterized as a no dualistic Zen tradition. The truth can also be unwholesome—even though it’s truthful, it could be abusive towards somebody and done out of anger. Do not try to overcome the pain as if you had to burst through a barrier. The Buddha described observing the precepts as a gift: a gift both to yourself and to the people around you. You give protection to other people’s lives, their property, and their knowledge of the truth. Yes, the miseries of the retreat are quite real. In consummate totality, there is no sense of solitude.

You should see that there are no real differences between the various methods. Then we simply renew our commitment to stay open to others, aspiring to start fresh. When you attach to or reject anything, you are in a position of duality with that object. Otherwise, taking these two lines literally would imply that if one person becomes a Buddha, everyone else has to become a Buddha. However, if you are disposed to apperceive being a dunce, then take the time to climb the mountain. This is prevalent among neophytes.

Our path remains incomplete as long as this third treasure is omitted. When the mind is not making distinctions, there is no self, no other, no good, and no bad.

Zen Koan: “Great Waves” Parable

In the early days of the Meiji era there lived a well-known wrestler called O-nami, Great Waves.

O-nami was immensely strong and knew the art of wrestling. In his private bouts he defeated even his teacher, but in public he was so bashful that his own pupils threw him.

O-nami felt he should go to a Zen master for help. Hakuju, a wandering teacher, was stopping in a little temple nearby, so O-nami went to see him and told him of his trouble.

“Great Waves is your name,” the teacher advised, “so stay in this temple tonight. Imagine that you are those billows. You are no longer a wrestler who is afraid. You are those huge waves sweeping everything before them, swallowing all in their path. Do this and you will be the greatest wrestler in the land.”

The teacher retired. O-nami sat in meditation trying to imagine himself as waves. He thought of many different things. Then gradually he turned more and more to the feeling of the waves. As the night advanced the waves became larger and larger. They swept away the flowers in their vases. Even the Buddha in the shrine was inundated. Before dawn the temple was nothing but the ebb and flow of an immense sea.

In the morning the teacher found O-nami meditating, a faint smile on his face. He patted the wrestler’s shoulder. “Now nothing can disturb you,” he said. “You are those waves. You will sweep everything before you.”

The same day O-nami entered the wrestling contests and won. After that, no one in Japan was able to defeat him.

Buddhist Insight on The Difference Between Mindfulness and Concentration

This little thing in the breath has something to teach us. I didn’t know what an important practice it is and how beneficial it is in terms of purification. Those too are not freedom; they’re simply very groovy states of mind. When these men heard it, they were unable to camouflage the truth. That is the difference between mindfulness and concentration. What can truth or reality gain by all our practice? The American Theravada Buddhism monk and author Ajahn Sumedho writes in Teachings of a Buddhist Monk,

Some people do not know the difference between “mindfulness” and “concentration.” They concentrate on what they’re doing, thinking that is being mindful… We can concentrate on what we are doing, but if we are not mindful at the same time, with the ability to reflect on the moment, then if somebody interferes with our concentration, we may blow up, get carried away by anger at being frustrated. If we are mindful, we are aware of the tendency to first concentrate and then to feel anger when something interferes with that concentration. With mindfulness we can concentrate when it is appropriate to do so and not concentrate when it is appropriate not to do so.

Exquisite Architectural Temples and Heritage of Pattadakal, Karnataka

Chalukyan Architects Made Experiments with Various Styles of Architecture

Types of Temple Architecture in Pattadakal Pattadakal was a city bubbling with political and artistic activities throughout the time of the Western Chalukyas of Badami more than eleven centuries ago. Situated on the left bank of the river Malaprabha and contained by hillocks of red sandstone amidst scenic splendor, this location became sacrosanct and it was the sincere choice of the kings to carry out the numerous coronation (patta) ceremonies and hence it came to be called Pattadakal. It is also called Kisuvolalu and Sanskritised as Raktapura.

Group of Dravida and Nagara Temples Pattadakal

Along with Aihole and Badami, Pattadakal became a cradle of early Chalukyan temples. It is generally believed that the Chalukyan architects made experiments with various styles of architecture even before the silpashastras standardized them. Hence, scholars are fond of calling these places as workshops of architecture.

In point of fact, Pattadakal represents the final or culminating phase of the early Chalukyan style of architecture. There are no less than twelve worthy temples of the Chalukyan period at Pattadakal.

World Heritage Site -- Group of Temples, Pattadakal

Exquisite Temples and Get a Glimpse of Our Heritage Both Dravida and Nagara type of temples were built at Pattadakal during the reign of the early Chalukyan kings. Sangamesvara, Virupaksha, Mallikarjuna and Jaina temples belong to the Dravidian technique, whereas Galaganatha, Papanatha, Kasi Visvesvara, Kadasiddesvara and Jambulinga temples belong to Nagara or north Indian style.

From the sequential standpoint, the temple building- pursuit as known from the dated specimens started here from the beginning of the seventh century and sustained up until the middle of the ninth century CE.

Thus, three hundred years and more saw a splendid epoch in the evolution of temple architecture in Karnataka in general and Pattadakal in particular.

Early Chalukyan Temples in Pattadakal

Workshops of Temple Architecture in Pattadakal There were master architects like Revadi Ovajja, Anivarita Gunda, supported by sculptors like Changamma, Pullappan, Baladeva, et cetera. It also had the guidance of dance masters like Achalan and devadasis like Chalabbe. More than all, the early Chalukya kings, their queens like Lokamahadevi and Trailokyamahadevi and others, officials and ministers not only helped in building some of these Pattadakal temples but also gave generous grants of land and money for the fitting maintenance as well as the rituals in these temples.

It is but natural that hundreds of visitors both from India and abroad visit these exquisite temples and get a glimpse of our heritage. Hence, UNESCO has declared Pattadakal as a World Heritage site, a great honor indeed to Karnataka.

Silpashastra in Chalukyan Temples in Pattadakal

Warren Buffett on Time Management: “All You Need Is … Time”

Warren Buffett on Time Management: Warren Buffett once said on time management, “The rich invest in time; the poor invest in money.”

Buffett is currently the fourth richest men in the world. He can buy practically anything he wants to, and more than nearly everyone else could ever dream of.

Nevertheless there’s one thing that even Warren Buffett cannot buy, and that is time.

Here’s a brief transcript from a Charlie Rose interview:

Warren Buffett: I mean I can buy anything I want basically, but I can’t buy time.

Charlie Rose: And so to have time is the most precious thing you can have?

Warren Buffett: Yes, I better be careful with it. There is no way I will be able to buy more time.

Warren Buffett's Interview with Charlie Rose (Time Management) Charlie Rose: And living in Omaha makes that easy?

Warren Buffett: That makes it a lot easier. I, for 50 whatever, well for 54 years I spent five minutes going each way now. Just imagine that was a half an hour each way. You know. I know the words to a lot more songs and that’s about it.

Charlie Rose: It adds up. Doesn’t it?

Warren Buffett: It really adds up. Now if you’re doing an hour a day difference coming and going that’s two and a half percent of the person’s work week. That means 40 years you’re talking about a year.

An undisciplined mind will find every reason to do what should not be done and every excuse not to do what should be done. Warren Buffett once said, “The difference between successful people and very successful people is that very successful people say ‘no’ to almost everything.”

Ira Glass Time Management Technique

This American Life‘s Ira Glass talks with Lifehacker about how he works. When asked what his best time-saving shortcut or life hack was, he responded:

I’ve got nothing. Reading other people’s answers to this question on your website today made me realize I live my life like an ape. I eat the same breakfast and lunch everyday, both at my desk. I employ no time-saving tricks at all.

Though come to think of it, I guess my biggest life hack—and this is the very first time I’ve attempted to use the phrase “life hack” in a sentence—is that my wife and I decided to live just a few blocks from where I work. We did this because of our dog. Since I spend at least an hour every night walking the dog, I didn’t want to spend another 60 or 90 minutes a day commuting. I don’t have the time. Like lots of people, I work long hours.

Zen Koan #7: Parable of Announcement – Buddhist Teaching on Hardening Our Hearts

Zen Koan #7: Parable of Announcement - Buddhist Teaching on Hardening Our Hearts As access to the unconscious is important in many psychological domains, our data are potentially highly relevant in a wide array of areas. When you are thwarted, it is your own attitude that is out of order. It is not that the Buddha wants to save sentient beings. Afterwards, they opiate to return to it in each cogitation.

Conversely, the capacity of the unconscious mind is, presumably, vast. Several different things can be accessible or temporarily primed at the same time. When the method and experiences are no longer necessary to you, you will have returned to the source. However, in the course of practice it is compulsory to first get to the one. Even before attaining the Buddhist Way, practitioners should train themselves in the proper attitudes of one who is already enlightened.

When you have mindfulness, when you have enough courage to go back to yourself and embrace the suffering in you, you learn a lot. The beauty of the object did not radiate out any more, for the reason that it was surrounded by so many other beautiful things. Following on from interdependence there is also the question of our perception of reality in terms of our feelings of being separated from everything else and our consequent clinging to desire and aversion.

Zen Koan: “Announcement” Parable

Tanzan wrote sixty postal cards on the last day of his life, and asked an attendent to mail them. Then he passed away.

The cards read:

I am departing from this world.
This is my last announcement.
Tanzan
July 27, 1892

Buddhist Insight on War Begins When We Harden Our Hearts

The innate state of the mind is neither happiness nor unhappiness. Those who sow the seed of unhappiness, of pain and suffering, will certainly have to reap a full-grown crop of the same in the future. War begins when we harden our hearts. That seems to be the basic point. Many raise fortifications because such a path seems easier. Begin to be aware of that and notice just what’s there. The American Tibetan Buddhist nun Pema Chodron writes in Practicing Peace in Times of War,

This is a familiar scenario in our homes, in our workplaces, in our communities, even when we’re just driving our cars. We’re just driving along and someone cuts in front of us and then what? Well, we don’t like it, so we roll down the window and scream at them.

War begins when we harden our hearts, and we harden them easily—in minor ways and then in quite serious, major ways, such as hatred and prejudice—whenever we feel uncomfortable. It’s so sad, really, because our motivation in hardening our hearts is to find some kind of ease, some kind of freedom from the distress that we’re feeling.

Hasidic Judaism Quotes

Hasidic Judaism is a Jewish religious sect Hasidic Judaism or Hasidism is a Jewish religious sect that resulted from a spiritual revival movement in Western Ukraine during the 18th century and spread rapidly throughout Eastern Europe.

  • Rabbi Michel of Zlotchov once said to his children, “My life was always blessed in that I never needed anything until I had it.”
  • Rabbi Rami Shapiro writes: “Aren’t all religions equally true? No, all religions are equally false. The relationship of religion to truth is like that of a menu to a meal. The menu describes the meal as best it can. It points to something beyond itself. As long as we use the menu as a guide we do it honor. When we mistake the menu for the meal, we do it and ourselves a grave injustice.”
  • Soon after the death of Rabbi Moshe of Kobrin someone asked one of his disciples what was the most important thing to his teacher. The disciple thought and then replied, “Whatever he happened to be doing at the moment.”

Get to Know the 12 Disciples of Jesus Christ: Apostle #9: Simon, the Zealot

St. Simon from Rubens Twelve Apostles series

The holy apostle Simon is called “the Zealot,” (Luke 6:15; Acts of the Apostles 1:13) possibly to differentiate him from Simon/Peter. But there is a hypothesis that Simon, along with James the Younger, Jude Thaddaeus, and Judas Iscariot formerly belonged to the Zealots, a religious sect of “freedom fighters” severely opposed to Roman control over Judea. Some scholars maintain that Jesus made certain announcements recorded in the Bible of a groundbreaking nature that affiliated him with members of the Zealot movement. Still others presume that the word “zealot” when discussing to Simon only suggested that he was a zealous advocate of the faith.

According to the Gospel of the Twelve Apostles, a second-century Apocryphal work, Simon obtained his call from Jesus while with many of the other apostles at the Sea of Galilee (Matthew 4:18-22.) Yet a different account names Simon the husband-to-be at the Wedding in Cana, the juncture of Jesus’ first public miracle when he turned water into wine at the request of Mary, his mother. In this institution Simon was so stirred by the miracle that he exited the wedding merriments and his home to turn into one of Jesus’ apostles. The last reference of Simon is found in the Acts of the Apostles when, following the Ascension, he revisited to the city of Jerusalem with the other apostles and Jesus’ mother. (Acts of the Apostles 1:13–14)

The holy apostle is related with Thaddaeus in the Apocryphal Passion of Simon and Jude, which tells of their proselytization together in Persia. In the West the two are always combined in the ecclesiastic calendar and in the devotions of churches. An Armenian practice claims that he sermonized in Armenia along with Thaddaeus, Bartholomew, Andrew, and Matthias.

St. Simon the Zealot's (Simon Kananaios) cave in Abkhazia

Simon, the Zealot, Disciple of Jesus Christ

The New Testament tells us little of Simon, the Zealot, except that he was called by Jesus to be one of the Twelve Disciples. He is identified by Luke as “the Zealot,” referring to his membership in a Jewish sect which urged religious freedom in the face of Roman domination. Simon also is called the “Canaanite,” and this too refers not to his place of origin, but to his being zealous.

He must have been fervent in his beliefs, one who worked hard to hold high his ideas. Perhaps he hoped that Jesus would be a political Savior, who would overthrow the unjust rule of Rome.

But Simon did not try to make of Jesus a zealot; instead he changed himself into a humble disciple of the Christ.

His name is again mentioned as the apostles await the coming of the Holy Spirit, indicating his steadfast loyalty to Christ and his work with the early church.

  • Simon’s later life and the nature of his death are unknown.
  • The holy apostle Simon’s symbol is a book.
  • Holy days: in the East: May l0; in the West, with Jude Thaddaeus on October 28.