America's Buddhist burial mound at Sedona

Crystal Quintero, Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly; photographers Pete/Karevil, Glen Carlin

Vajrayana Buddhist prayer flags flying over Boudhanath, Nepal (Pete/Karnevil/flickr)

 

Wisdom and Compassion

The dome at the base of Boudhanath Stupa ("Enlightenment Reliquary," a UNESCO World Heritage Site) outside Kathmandu, Nepal represents the entire world. When a person awakens (represented by the opening of the eyes of wisdom and compassion) from the illusory bonds of the world, that person has reached the state of enlightenment. Complete liberation (nirvana) awaits and is already visible when this is accomplished.

America needs a great Buddhist stupa!
Xochitl, Amber Larson, Dhr. Seven, Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly

Sedona's Buddhist Stupa, Sedona, Arizona (Glen_Carlin/flickr.com/collage)

 

Flags over Sedona Stupa (Glen Carlin)

We have one! We have other smaller ones, too. Every Buddhist temple in America wants its own old-world reliquary, a white mound to entomb spiritual treasures.

Pagodas, dagabas, chortans, mandala-mounds, and so on all house priceless reliquary objects -- either minute amounts of the historical Buddha's funerary ashes or relics (strange physical byproducts of enlightenment manifesting as beautiful glass-like beads and other formations that survive or are produced during cremation) or the remains of arhats, honored teachers, and world rulers (chakravartins).

Then there's the great Tibetan stupa at SMC in Colorado, too (shambhalamountain.org)

• 

  Small side-chortan in Sedona

  Wait a minute. How in the world could there be so many of the Buddha's cremation ashes to supply all the world's stupas? It's ludicrous; it's like all that wood the Medieval Christians sold as authentic bits of Christ's own Roman cross. The answer is very simple. If we begin with one cup of actual cremation remains, then we can divide that, but as with any precious powder, it is watered down with a neutral substance: one part relic ashes with one million parts neutral ashes = 1,000,001 parts authentic Buddha ashes. Stranger still, "relics" multiply, so they are not limited to what was available the first day. Moreover, not only the Buddha's remains are used but those of many arhats. There are still arhats, still funeral pyres, cremation remains, and so long as the Dharma is practiced even by one person, there is a chance for more.

Amazing Anasazi (Hopi) ruins at Tuzigoot, Clarkdale, Arizona (americansouthwest.net)

 

Wooden Buddha (Glen Carlin)

City councils are very reluctant to approve of such building requests. There is a campaign to bring one to Los Angeles by the Los Angeles Buddhist Vihara.
 
But one already exists, built by Tibetan Buddhists in northern California. Across the USA there are small ones and plans, or at least dreams, for more.

Buddha profile (Glen Carlin)

However, there is at least one great one already: It is in our spiritual center where Native Americans recognized vortices of power and energy, Sedona, Arizona.

Wisdom Quarterly visited with Xochitl and Dr. Rei Rei to visit the Anasazi sites and this amazing hidden gem hidden on the west side of the American Southwest's most beautiful town.

To visit, choose the cooler months. Sedona is amazing year round, with winter snows the blanket the red rocks. It is one of the most picturesque landscapes in the world, a lower extension of the once Buddhist Grand Canyon. (How could the Grand Canyon ever have been Buddhist? It was).

• VIDEO: Native Buddhist artifacts, Grand Canyon
• Were the Anasazi [Native Americans] Buddhists?
• Buddhist cave temples found in Grand Canyon
• AUDIO: Ancient Egyptians in the Grand Canyon 
• Grand Canyon's secret underground Buddhist temple?  
• Native American Buddhism and Tibet 

Hovering above the massive stupa is a gorgeous wooden Buddha carving surrounded by many American offerings: trinkets, flowers, incense, glass beads, Native American jewelry, coins, notes, flags...adding to the splendor of the U.S. Southwest (Glen_Carlin/flickr.com).

Sedona, Arizona is "the most beautiful place on earth" (visitsedona.com)

Yes, but how do I get to enlightenment?

Amber Larson, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; Vas Bana from the Bhikkhu Sangha at LABV

The Buddha with florid wall depicting celestial devas and guardians (Dboo/flickr)

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Wisdom Quarterly has to stay aware of [operative] Netanyahu and the CIA's atrocities, maintain yogic attention bringing together body and mind with the bridge between them, spirit (breath). The world and ourselves in it is all well and good, but what about enlightenment?

 

According to the Buddha's message about the understanding of the nature of disappointment (unsatisfactoriness, suffering) should be the main purpose of an intelligent person with the rare opportunity to be reborn as a human being.

As the result of listening to the Buddha's message a person can understand the nature of the suffering we face in day to day life. If someone knows 

1. the real nature of suffering, one knows
2. the cause of suffering,
3. the cessation of suffering, and
4. the path that leads to the cessation of suffering.

Therefore, the understanding of the Four Noble Truths pivots on understanding disappointment. This understanding conduces to getting rid of it and attaining real happiness.

What is the CAUSE of all kinds of suffering? When some experience arises through our senses with the combination of mind and matter, if we have no real knowledge or understanding, we take it as permanent and we delight in it. Then when it changes, ceases, or disappears -- which it must inevitably do -- we suffer because of our ignorance into the true nature of phenomena and the nature of causes and effects, the way things come to be and fall away.

But if someone knows the situation as it actually is, one tries to avoid becoming involved in it -- delighting, craving, then clinging -- and finds release from disappointment/suffering.

One reflects on experience as it actually is just as it is. The experience arises and passes away at that moment without remaining as anything to cling to. One is free to enjoy it without being fooled as to what it is or is not. And unconfused, unperplexed, one experiences pleasure and pain with equanimity, not falling under the spell of delusion, wrong views, or ignorance.

A path to the further shore (Satorinihon/flickr)

Here we have a real path to make an end of suffering, to overcome disappointment, to heal pain and sadness, a Noble Eightfold Path.

This is central to Buddhism. All teachings taught by the Buddha to the world can be summarized under the Four Noble Truths, of which the path-of-practice may be the most important. As much as we may strive for knowledge, courage, compassion, or confidence, we can practice the path to enlightenment and get the result in this very life if we are kind, honest, and intelligent.

What is the first step of the path? CONTINUED IN PART 2

The Center of the Buddhist World: Bodh Gaya

Dhr. Seven, Crystal Quintero, Seth Auberon, Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly; Asian Art Museum, Pasadena (asianart.org); kathmanduandbeyond.com (photo); iloveindia.com

Great Enlightenment Temple (Maha Bodhi Cetiya), Bodhgaya, India (kathmandubeyond.com)

 

BODH GAYA, India - The wandering ascetic Siddhartha searched for a suitable tree to strive under. He chose one but was so weak from self-starvation and severe austerities that were it not for a maiden who mistook him for a dryad, a tree spirit manifesting in human form, he would have failed.

The maid ran to tell the mistress who daily made offerings at the tree. They prepared a rich meal of rice, milk, creme de la creme, and sweet treacle (coconut tree syrup).

Go back, be rich, prince! - Mara, I see you.

They approached the emaciated ascetic offered it. He was so weak they had to revive him, which disgusted the Five Ascetics, Siddhartha's fellow mendicants who abandoned him for accepting anything from a woman's hand. After all their help restoring him to health, Siddhartha realized the body was necessary for the quest. It was not the obstacle to be overcome, but rather it was the heart/mind. He left in search of a suitable place to strive, bathing in the river Neranjara, convinced that success was near.

Under Bodhi tree ("Enlightenment Tree") at the platform seat (Glenn Losack M.D./flickr)

 

Mara makes obstacles, kills, distracts.

He came to an awe inspiring grove and chose a tree that legend says was born the same day he was, which would have made it 34-years-old. Under its delightful shade he made a seat and determined not to give up until he realized the answer to, Why do we suffer?

But rather than striving with vigor, he realized that that had been fruitless and brought him to the verge of death.

Instead, he wondered why he had been avoiding the happy meditative absorptions (that go from supersensual bliss, joy, rapture all the way to very subtle unbiased equanimity) available to him. He realized, he would later say, that immersed in and obsessed by his austerities, he feared pleasure -- but why fear pleasure not tangled up with sensuality?

How to gain enlightenment


Siddhartha the ascetic wondered if this might be the way to enlightenment -- these pleasant absorptions -- and a certainty came upon him.
 
(In many past lives as a wandering ascetic he had developed, enjoyed, and benefited from the absorptions, which lead to spiritual bliss, supernormal powers, and enhanced consciousness, so at some level of subtle awareness he felt certain that they could help him now).
 

Relax, you've got plenty of time.

But many ascetics develop the meditative absorptions -- the zens, dhyanas, jhanas, chans -- and find that they are not enough. They can serve as an excellent basis for practicing successful insight meditation, contemplative practices in the temporary purity of mind/heart provided by immersing oneself in the absorptions, emerging, and immediately practicing for insight (vipassana).
 
Entering the first four jhanas successively and emerging, Siddhartha then asked himself the all-important question: What is this suffering due to? He realized that this was conditioned by that, but that was conditioned by something else. And he went back and back through 12 causal links (called Dependent Origination) to realize how things arise, how this present suffering arises, how it is he had come to be through an unfathomable past.

Moreover, he realized that there was a weak link in this chain, a point in the cyclical process which he could do something about: craving. Part of the chain depended on desiring, craving, and clinging to sensuality, to views, to continued becoming in superior states of existence.

Inside the main shrine of the Maha Bodhi ("Great Enlightenment") Temple in Bodh Gaya ("Enlightenment Grove"), Bihar (vihara) state, India (bharat), there is a golden statue under glass (Simon Maddison/maddison_simon/flickr)

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Sensual craving, clinging to views
While he could not will himself not to desire, not to crave, there was a way to bring about the cessation of craving: One could look at things just as they really are. For example, whatever one lusts, why does one lust after it?

WARNING: Don't look!

Partly, it is because it is pleasing, appealing, beautiful, and alluring -- until we keep looking and start to notice that it is flawed, falling away, aging, based on things completely unlike it. Say we find a body appealing, its beautiful skin and proportionality, its alluring fragrance and softness. If we look and keep looking, it will not be but a few hours before we notice impurities, offensive odors, "soil" coming out of all its openings -- mucus, ear wax, spittle, feces, urine, sweat, fat, gas.
 

Walking corpses (femen.org)

The realization is so shocking, so real, that the mind/heart shrinks back. One becomes dispassionate, disillusioned, and there is a moment of freedom, seeing things as they really are.
 
We are quickly re-illusioned; we run to it as our only safety and comfort in a harsh world, and we die still firmly in the grip of delusion, craving, and aversion (to all that is repugnant).
 
The heart/mind will not stand for the painful and disappointing truth. But, Siddhartha wondered, we were to stay with it? It allows an opening for systematic insight exercises, and one can break through to a realization that this has gone on not only in this life, this existence, but in countless past lives, past existences, past states of consciousness, past homes, past births, past states of becoming. And something more shocking is true: It is not only the gross impurities that are repulsive, there is a very subtle illusion going on:

That thing, that thing

Sid broke through (Songkhram_Ahuwari)

That thing, that composite-heap, is not one thing but countless parts, each of which is constantly falling away and being replaced. That thing -- all things -- that seems so stable, so likely to provide pleasure and satisfaction, actually provides a constant illusion and inevitable disappointment.

We never realize this; we cling to it instead as if maybe next time it will satisfy us, fulfill us, grant us lasting happiness and contentment. It fails, and fails, and fails, and yet we keep doing it seeing no other choice than to chase after illusory things. And it is not only sensual pleasures, but intellectual views (speculations, theories, philosophies, opinions, sides, real delusions about ourselves, about the world we think we see, feel, and taste out there).

Stop seeking. Live and die again.

Siddhartha's mind/heart let go, shrank back, pulled away, turned from, abandoned its clinging, its craving for this deception, and he saw things as they really are, profoundly realizing that "all things that come to be are subject to falling away; how could it be otherwise."

In other words, once one sees that things are not what they seem but are instead a painful trap, an mesmerizing illusion, a wheel we have been treading, a process the ancient mystics long ago named samsara -- this endless "continued wandering on." See, death would not be the end, death had never been the end, but just then Death got angry.

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Samsara, the Wheel of Existence, the process of rebirth and redeath, the "continued wandering on" is like my hamster's wheel, a source of endless distraction with no origination point and no end. It does not unravel by itself but will keep going and going endlessly. However, there is a way to get off this useless and painful pursuit. More fun

Mara (Cupid) is beautiful

Mara, the personification of death, would not stand idly by as someone came so close to the answer awakening from this fitful dream, where Death imagines itself the supreme ruler. Mara Namuci the "demon" with an army of ogres (male and female yakkhas) came to unseat the Bodhisat (bodhisattva, bodhisatta, the "buddha-to-be," the being-intent-on-enlightenment).
 
Siddhartha persevered and remembering countless past lives, past conditions, past times when these same things had been true, these lines pursued, never seeing this Dependent Origination of things.

Attack before he realizes the Truth!

He broke through and became the Buddha ("supremely awakened teacher"), a title signifying his perfectly awakened state. One should not cling to this title because the Sage of the Shakyas (his family clan name) has gone by many titles, Mahavira ("Great Hero"), Tathagata (the "Wayfarer or Welcome One and Well Gone One"), Bhagava ("Blessed One"), and so on.

We say the historical Buddha because the former Prince Siddhartha Gautama (Gotama) realized that there had been other Awakened Ones in the distant past and in the future, a precious few who taught, many more who could not, and those striving to accomplish this level of realization and teaching ability.
 

Tibetan monks use wooden planks to do 100,000 prostrations to the Bodhi tree (not shown)

What is "right thinking"? (Thich Nhat Hanh)

Thich Nhat Hanh; Amber Larson, Dhr. Seven, Crystal Quintero (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

WALDBROL, Germany - Thich Nhat Hanh (Thay) gave a 102-minute Dharma talk at the European Institute of Applied Buddhism.

The talk is in English with simultaneous German translation. This is the first Dharma talk of the German Retreat on the theme "Are You Sure?"

The talk begins at 12 minutes into the recording following two chants by the Plum Village monastics.

Let us begin immediately with the concept of dualist thinking and Right Thinking. [Right Thinking refers to the second Noble Eightfold Path factor, often translated as Right Intention, but it seems that what Thay is actually talking about here is the more profound Right View, which is the first factor of the Path.] How do we see the interconnection between things?

For example, how do we see the interconnection between happiness and suffering or all the elements of a lotus flower? The lotus is made of non-lotus elements. 
 
EXPLANATION
Wisdom Quarterly on the wisdom that goes beyond

Li'l Buddha book (literatureismyutopia.tumblr)

[Thay teaches that a lotus flower is composed of non-lotus elements like water, mud, air, sunlight, and so on. These things are not themselves lotus flowers, but a lotus flower does not exist without them.

Whether we accept this insight as true or not, Why is it important? It is important because the Buddha teaches a more profound insight necessary for enlightenment: The "self" ("soul" or "ego") is composed of all non-self elements -- form (body, materiality, the Four Great Elements), feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousnesses (eye consciousness, ear consciousness, etc.)
 

Buddha and Angel' (K/Xiangjiaocao/flickr)

In just the same way, whatever is considered a "lotus" is a construct, a dependently-originated, conditionally-arisen thing that does not exist apart from its component parts.

Since the components are not the whole, not the "thing," the thing's existence is illusory, a dream, born of ignorance of how things really are. What illusion? The illusion that there is a thing there apart from its components! It is not a thing but, paradoxically, it is not nothing. It, whether we are talking about a lotus or a self, arises always and only completely dependent on causes and supporting conditions.
 
Great News

Gold Buddha (Chris & Annabel/Chngster/flickr)

This is great news, but it is an ultimate truth; conventionally, of course, there is a flower -- look, it's this thing I'm holding in my hand. There is a self -- look, it's this thing holding up the flower.
 
There is a world, suffering, and everything else. It is great news that things are dependently-arisen because, if this is a painful dream, we CAN wake up. If this is an illusion, we CAN become enlightened. Others have -- others like Thay and certainly the Buddha and the earliest disciples.

Enlightenment, nirvana, final liberation means seeing things as they truly are, for it is the Truth that sets a person free. Just as ignorance is trapping and binding us to suffering, rebirth, more suffering, and this endless round of wandering, so enlightenment means the end of ignorance about the the Four Noble Truths.

Have you ever heard of the Buddhist teaching or concept of Dependent Origination? It may be the most important thing the Buddha ever said. He describes it in this way: Seeing dependent origination is seeing the Dharma; seeing the Dharma is seeing dependent origination. It is due to not seeing this dependent origination that not only you but I have wandered from life to life, suffering and searching. One who sees the Dharma sees me, and so on. What could possibly be so important?

"Dependent Origination" as a formula is a set of 12 causal links. In the simplest terms, the formula goes like this: Wait. Why do we want to know this formula? Because it leads to enlightenment, nirvana (the complete end of all suffering), and deathlessness, that's why. Oh, okay, then go on. The formula runs: "Because of this, that comes to be; with the ending of this, that ends." Wait, what's this? What's that? The 12 links beginning with ignorance. Do you know how Siddhartha became enlightened? Most people do not.

How did the Siddhartha become enlightened?

Why do beings suffer, why is there suffering?

He became enlightened because he kept asking a question. He had asked it in many previous lives as a bodhisattva (buddha-to-be), and he asked it as a prince, then asked it as a renunciant, then as a meditator:

"Why is there suffering?" After learning how to enter the jhanas, the meditative absorptions, for about six years, he went off on his own without a teacher, still asking this question.
 
He sat under a heart shaped leaf tree still asking this question. The answer that dawned on him, after emerging from mind/heart-purifying absorption was Dependent Origination working backward to a first cause:

There is suffering, this always-unsatisfactory and often-painful state we find ourselves in. What is it dependent on? It is dependent on formations...and so on all the way back to ignorance. Ignorance is not really a "first cause," a prime mover, a causeless cause as in Western philosophy, Christian theology, and linear logic.

There was not one ignorance but lots of instances of it at every moment. Our suffering does not have just one cause; our suffering is being constantly replenished, giving rise to all the necessary causes and conditions. It is a dynamic, circular process.

• The Heart Sutra (the core of the Prajna Paramita or the "Perfection of Wisdom" literature) is exactly this: understanding and penetrating "not-self" also called "emptiness" with insight. What is not-self? It is the "wisdom that has gone beyond." It breaks down or unpacks the Five Aggregates: "Form is emptiness, and the very emptiness is form. Feeling is emptiness, and the very emptiness is feeling," and so on.

When the "self" comes into existence, what has come into existence? No-thing really, just an illusion dependent on causes and conditions like the Five Aggregates that are the basis of clinging. But it is not nothing, as evidenced by the fact that by insight meditation, purified and supported by absorption, it is possible to discern the causes and conditions, the factors, the components, the parts that give the illusion of there being something that just came into existence.

There is no being, only becoming, no static entity, just a dynamic process, no personality, just a series of mental and physical processes. What goes out of existence at every moment? Not a "being" -- as there never was a being, not even for one moment, only becoming. What goes out for the enlightened person? Only ignorance, only the illusion, only the frightful dream.

If all of this sounds shocking, it is. What an awakening! But it can be confirmed in many lines and teachings scattered all over the Buddhist texts. One of the most famous is:

"Mere suffering exists, no sufferer is found;

The deeds are, but no doer of the deeds is there;

Nirvana is, but not the person who enters it;

The path is, but no traveler on it is seen." 

 

There's a Meditation for Dummies in the series

The profound teaching of egolessness or not-self is not a teaching the Buddha, or Thay, directly gives ordinary instructed worldlings.

 

But it is the deeper meaning of "lotuses being composed of all non-lotus elements." Most monastics cannot grasp it for a long time as they are training to understand it. For it is subtle, deep, and goes against the stream of all of our assumptions. A clever person would never figure it out by mere reasoning.

 

No, no, What about that Descartes, the Westerner? He said it best: "I think; therefore, I am!" Yes, and didn't he jump the gun? Based on the evidence, all that one could conclude is, "Thinking is; therefore, thinking is going on."

 

Thinking -- that is, impersonal cognitive processes which are explained at length and in excruciating detail by the Buddha and cataloged in the voluminous Abhidharma and available for any and all of us to verify for ourselves during insight meditation -- does not need a self, a thinker. 

 

In fact, it is the process of thinking and cognizing that gives rise to the illusion/assumption of a self, not the other way around. And to assume that there is self, and to futher assume that self/the thinker is eternal or unchanging, permanent, destined for eternity in paradise or a pulverizing place of punishment is the sad state of the majority of the world's religionists. Isn't it great news that reality is not this way; it's not unfair and without a cause, not just some God's whim, not a random error of a cold universe that accidentally got a some heat in it....

 

Wait. What about karma? The five karmic causes (ignorance, karmic-formations, consciousness, mind-and-matter, six sense bases) of the past birth are the condition for the karmic-results of the present birth. And the five karmic causes of the present birth are the condition for the five karmic-results of the next birth. It is said in the Path of Purification (Vis.M. XVII):

"Five causes were there in the past,

Five fruits we find in the present;

Five causes do we now produce,

Five fruits we reap in the future."]

Gardening Analogy

A good gardener knows how to make good use of the mud just as a good mindfulness practitioner knows how to make good use of her suffering.

The goodness of suffering [is using it to grow]. When you understand suffering then understanding and compassion arises -- the foundation of happiness.

From the "Sutra on the Full Awareness of Breathing," we have exercises handed down by the Buddha to help our practice with suffering.

• Generate a feeling of joy.
• Generate a feeling of happiness.
• Recognize painful feelings.
• Calm down the painful feelings.

Mindfulness is an energy that helps us know what is going on in our body and our feelings [sensations]. How do we bring relief to our painful [physical] feelings and emotions?
 

Thay, Thich Nhat Hanh

There are three kinds of energies we should try to generate: mindfulness, concentration, and insight.

There are four elements of True Love and being present for those we love. By taking care of our suffering and our lives, we can learn to take care of the world. 

In the last 10-minutes, walking meditation instructions are given.

(Plum Village Online) Thay, Thich Nhat Hanh, teaches from Germany: Are you sure?

• PODCAST: AUDIO download (1:43 - 94.1MB) embed
• Domains of Mindfulness Practice
• Embrace the Whole Cosmos
• Conditions of Happiness
• We Are Peace
• The Holiness of Mindfulness, Concentration, and Insight
• Applying Buddhist Teachings to the Classroom
• Breathing and Interbeing 
• Full of Wonder 
• Touching the Wonders of Life 
• Energies of Buddhism 
• Blue Cliff Monastery
• Deer Park Monastery
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Magnolia Grove Monastery
• Planting Seeds of Compassion
• Plum Village

This entry was posted in Breathing, European Institute of Applied Buddhism, Retreats, Walking and tagged 2013 German Retreat, concentration, EIAB, German, Insight, mindfulness, Right Thinking, True Love on July 1, 2013.

Question: "I'm NOT supposed to LOVE?"

Ashley Wells, Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly (ASK MAYA)

Quench your mind/heart because dispassion is the key to enlightenment and liberation. Not by passion or anger or delusion can one find happiness and freedom. Clinging and hating are tangled up in ignorance. Untangle.

• QUESTION: Anonymous asks, "We aren't supposed to want love? Should I live alone for the rest of my life? I am new to this blog. Please forgive me if you have answered this question."

This is a great question. Thank you. The conundrum arises from our assumptions. What do we (you and us) mean by "love"? Do we mean universal altruism, loving-kindness (metta), compassion (karuna), unselfish joy (mudita), and impartiality (upekkha)? We don't think so. These are five expressions of love that ancient Indians (Pali/Sanskrit) and Greeks (agape = "unconditional love," etc.) had a better grasp of than we do in English because of all of their words for love like friendliness (metta) vs. sensuality (kama), equanimity (upekkha) vs. indifference,  agape vs. eros, arete vs. bad and so on. What does Wisdom Quarterly mean when we say "love"?
 

I'm supposed to be alone and not in love?

We mean affection (pema), attachment manifesting as clinging (upadana), selfish-desire (tanha), not wanting (a-karuna) or being unwilling to sit with someone's suffering (rather than being with them in their need, con+passion= "with suffering"), not deriving joy from others' joy (a-mudita) but wanting instead our own joy even at the cost of others' happiness, partiality rather than equanimity (upekkha). And what will happen as a result?

"Karma" means that fruits (phala) and mental resultants (vipaka) follow in line with intentional-actions, whether those actions/deeds are mental, verbal, or physical. Whatever is rooted in greed, aversion, or delusion will produce a miserable, unpleasant, unwelcome result.

You can see what buddhas see (DM).

This is the way it is; we don't see it because it is spread out over time between planting a karmic seed and its fruit, which comes to fruition fortuitously when it gets the chance, which can be aeons later. So we confuse what we just did with what just happened and come to believe, "Oh my actions must not be harmful because nothing happened as a result!" We do not know that and are only laboring under the assumption that intentions and results must be linked closely in time when we can all see that that is in no way the case. We haven't even developed the "divine eye" (dibba cakkhu) to see karma coming to fruition for ourselves and others, yet we make the claim. Or we say, "There's no such thing as karma!" and give our proofs: "I did such and such, and nothing happened; therefore, nothing is wrong with doing as I did; nothing will come of it."

What is our karma, and what will happen to us as a result? Anonymous, when you ask, "We aren't supposed to want love? Should I live alone for the rest of my life?" what do you mean by "love"?
 

(Bauhaus) "All We Ever Wanted Was Everything" with the young actor David Bowie. Oh we can live together and be happy forever! Yes, love, we'll live happily ever after!
 
Surely you don't think we are saying that people in general, or Buddhists in particular, should NOT cultivate altruism, loving-kindness, compassion, unselfish joy, impartiality (unbiased equanimity). We think you should love, but love is not "love" the way we normally mean it. You know how we as Westerners normally mean it. These are the Four Divine Abidings (Brahma Viharas), excellent (Greek, arete) forms of "love," excellent sources of merit (puñña), excellent karma!

The Love Addiction Series

I want to meditate, but my compulsions (OB)

What we have been suggesting in a recent series of articles is that the normal, common kind of "love" that we as Americans hold up as ideal and cultivate unthinkingly (some of us more than others) is quite harmful.
 
No person wishing for his/her own good, the good of others, or the good of both would continue in this way. But we do. Why do we? It is because we are not being mindful, not thinking, not engaging in wise action, not being compassionate, not living up to our actual and professed ideals.
 

American loves lives on "West Coast"

What should YOU do, Anonymous? Would you like us to tell you? Your question implies that you want us to tell you what to do as if we can know what's best for you. You know what you want.
 
But let us guess: You want to suffer (to be disappointed, dissatisfied, unfulfilled). That's real passion! We can tell you're very passionate (in the throes of suffering). And so, naturally, you want painful progress (dukkha-patipadā). Maybe Suffering is your teacher, as Eckhart Tolle points out, Suffering being most people's only teacher.
 
("Like Crazy") Love rules! Love is the best! Love rocks! We have nothing higher to live for!
 

Of course, this is possible, but we think the opposite: You want relief, freedom from pain and disappointment. You want joy, peace, pleasure, and fulfillment. Then what is the Way to it -- selfish, unthinking, clinging "love"? An American marriage, which is a business contract (ask a lawyer if you don't believe us), a mortgage, sexual thrills, a bunch of dependents, emotional attachments, desperate clinginess? Is that what you want, Anonymous, is that who you are? That's what they're tempting us with, that's what they're offering us, that's why we date, isn't it?

And that's what we've been taught and conditioned to want -- told that that's the way to fulfillment and a happy life. Yet, spirituality teaches us something better. But we don't want to give up our pleasure even for a better (more sublime) pleasure.

 

HONEY TRAP? Tie a jar or coconut to a tree where monkeys can see. Carve out a hole just big enough for a hand to wriggle in. Place honey or a banana or something good in center. Wait for curious monkey. Monkeys are so foolish and greedy that they will reach in to grab the sweet without realizing that their clenched fist will trap them. As long as they cling to the object, their hand can't get free. If they would only let go, their hand would slide out of the trap, and they could run to safety. But they can't let go, they can't, they can't; they're just too greedy and foolish. So the hunter comes up and does as he wishes, slaying them where they stand, cutting them up limb from limb.

 

You see, Anonymous, we are monkeys. We have our hand in the honey trap, and the hunter is coming to kill us. What should we do? Ahh-ahh, before you say "Let go," have you considered that we want the honey we're grasping that's holding us to the trap? Don't go telling us to "let go" of our little sliver of sweetness in this cold heartless world with your religious mumbo-jumbo!
 
We're spiritual not religious. We want it ALL! Like Bauhaus, "All we ever wanted was everything"! Give us enlightenment, AND let us keep our sexy, clingy, hopelessly pathetically attached forms of "love."

• Nothing higher to live for?

One of many human honey traps. Oh, just look at the poor monkey, doesn't realize what's going to happen when the hunter arrives to claim what the monkey can't let go of internally. Run, monkey, run!

• "Renunciation" is internal letting go

Lust, paradise, and the Buddha's brother

The Buddha's mother, the first Buddhist nun

Anonymous, did you ever hear the story of Nanda, the Buddha's brother? Most people don't know he had a brother or a sister (same father, mother the sister of his deceased biological mother who went on to become the world's first Buddhist nun) or a child or a wife or three mothers or a rich and powerful father.

 

Why don't you get these, and then that way you won't be alone? We don't want, nor do we advise, you to be alone. That answers your second question. We want you to be with people, preferably noble friends (kalyana-mittas). The way you're going, you may end up alone. So alter course, and move in the direction of stable relationships. Whether you marry temporarily or do better by sealing permanent relationships with noble friends, there is no going at it alone. The Buddha's attendant, his cousin Ananda, once said to him: "I think half of the supreme-life is having noble friends." The Buddha scolded him, "Do not say so, Ananda, do not say so! Noble friends are the whole of the supreme-life." The Buddha is one's best friend in the supreme-life. Maybe at first that comes from faith (saddha), but it grows to the absolute certainty of an asekha:
 

The Buddha's ex-wife, who became a nun

Nanda was getting married to the most beautiful woman in all the realm, the "Belle of the Land," Janapada Kalyani. The Buddha came to visit his home country somewhere west of the Indus river in Afghanistan or beyond, way in the northwest of India. He was eager for the honeymoon with his beautiful fiance. Then the Buddha really got him. In a very superficial way, one could say he tricked him out of his marriage, his royalty, his earthly riches. It's a very amazing story. But for anyone who doesn't penetrate what was really going on and why, what the Buddha already knew and what Nanda was about to find out just before it was too late, was that the Buddha was acting out of compassion, and in many places Nanda had the chance and choice to go back. At first, only respect was holding him back, and then it was his own insight.

In brief, the Buddha finished his family's alms-offering then handed his monastic-bowl to Nanda, who carried it for his half-brother, the former prince and Great Sage of the Shakyas, walked him to the door thinking to hand it back to him there. But the Buddha walked outside. Nanda followed thinking to hand it back at the gate. Beautiful Janapada Kalyani, combing her wonderful washed hair, saw him going from the veranda, and wondered why he was leaving, but just shouted out to him, "Come back to me soon, my love!"
 
The Buddha walked beyond the gate without turning to collect his bowl. Nanda thought to follow him back to the monastery (probably a cave in Bamiyan or Mes Aynak or any of the ancient Afghan Buddhist sites) and return it to him there then get back to his wedding plans honeymoon preparations. When they arrived, the Buddha turned and seeing that Nanda had followed him all the way to the monastery, naturally asked, "Oh did you want to become a monk?" In other words, Oh did you, like your wiser, more spiritual, possibly older (see below) brother and so many of your royal cousins you loved in childhood, want to join us in renouncing that dusty, burdensome homelife and live here with us in our left-home life?
 

What am I doing sitting here when I could be having sex and getting high on love?!

  

JP: "Come back to me soon, Nanda!"

Without thinking, or not wanting to imply that they had made a poor choice in choosing to live like beggars when they were all born fabulously rich and privileged, Nanda answered YES. The Buddha called for someone to ordain him then gave him a meditation subject.

Before he could say, "Wait, no, I meant no; I'm getting married to this hot woman tomorrow!" or explain what had happened, he was clean shaven, in robes, and meditating in his kuti (hut, cave, room, cell). But he couldn't concentrate or achieve the absorption (jhanas) like other wandering ascetics (shramans), spiritual recluses (bhikkhus), mendicant meditation masters (theras). All he could do was think about sex.

 

All my family and belongings! (motifake.com)

Before long, oppressed by thoughts of sexy Janapada Kalyani, he came to the Buddha to quit and get back to the palace. The Buddha surprised him by saying that that was fine, but he wanted to show him something first. Look. Taking hold of the Buddha's robe, Nanda was whisked away on an astral travel journey, a trip to paradise.

They traveled through the sky, over the Earth, over a burnt field, and there was a she-monkey there sitting on a stump with a burnt nose. They ascended to pleasant celestial plane in space where there was a brilliant, sparkling, white granite mansion being washed by a large number of pink footed celestial nymphs.
 

Western art: Nymphs and Satyr (xahlee.org)

And Nanda asked the least beautiful of these delightful and alluring beings what they were doing. She answered that they were preparing the platform/palace/mansion of Nanda for his arrival.

"But Nanda lives on Earth," Nanda said. "Yes, but thereafter he will come here, and we will serve him." (They would be his wives, his harem, the celestial nymphs people mock Islam for talking about). Nanda stepped back to the Buddha and said, "She says this is for me?" The Buddha asked, "What do you think of these nymphs, Nanda?/Isn't Janapada Kalyani beautiful?" "Jana-pada-who?" exclaimed Nanda. "Your beautiful fiance, the one you're leaving us to go back to, the 'Belle of the Land'!"
 
"Venerable sir, Janapada Kalyani, my former fiance, can't compare to these nymphs. Even the ugliest one. She doesn't even possess one-sixteenth part the beauty of any of these; she doesn't even come into the count! Why compared to these nymphs, Janapada Kalyani resembles that monkey we saw on the way here with its nose and tail burned off."
 
"Let's go, Nanda," the Buddha said. On the way down to Earth, they took a detour. They descended to a frightful subterranean hell, where frightful beings were stoking a fire for a large iron cauldron of oil. And Nanda asked these scary demonic figures what they were doing. "What the hell's it to you, $#@&!? Not that it's any of your damn business, but we're making preparations for that scumbag Nanda."

"But, sir, I have it on good authority that Nanda will be reborn in a celestial world with a mansion," Nanda explained. "Yeah, but after that, he will be reborn right here, and we'll do as we wish with him, slaying him, flaying him..." Nanda stepped back to the Buddha. "Did you hear that, venerable sir?"

"Let's go, Nanda," the Buddha said gently. "Now you see how things stand; now you see how samsara, this endless round of the playing out of karma, goes." [We're filling in the colorful language in case you hadn't noticed, Anonymous. The is the gist, the sentiment of what was said and meant.]
 

Knowing-and-seeing results from persistence

When they returned to the monastery, Ven. Nanda went quickly to his chambers and resumed his meditation. The other monastics noticed his sudden turnaround and asked him about it. They teased him about missing his sexy wife, which he had formerly talked so much about returning to. But now he was all silent and committed to meditating. He explained to his monastic relatives and friends, the other Shakyas, how wonderful heaven is, full of gorgeous nymphs and shimmering palaces, so that with good karma one can earn that. Seeing his foolishness, they began anew to tease him, but this time they said, "Nanda has been bought for 500 nymphs! Nanda is a hireling! He works [meditates, see kammatthāna] for nymphs!"

• Kammatthāna: literally, "working-ground," "field of exertion, effort, or striving" (i.e., for meditation), is the term in the Commentaries for "subjects of meditation"; see bhāvanā.

Even though his fellow monastics gently ribbed and mercilessly teased and taunted him, Ven. Nanda stuck to it, clearing his mind of lust for Janapada Kalyani, of fear of karmic retribution in unfortunate realms, and aspired just for those nymphs. But when he attained the absorptions (jhanas), finding them superior even to the "heavenly lusts" and appetites of the lower celestial planes, he kept going and cultivated liberating-insight, as the Buddha, his trusted brother had instructed him.

• Actually, they would have been age-peers, almost exactly the same age because Nanda's mother, Maha Pajapati Devi, who was the sister of the Buddha's biological mother, Queen Maha Maya Devi, was co-wife of the polygamous king, their father. And when the latter passed away just a week after her son Siddhartha's birth, the former took over nursing, caring for, and raising Prince Siddhartha as her own, turning over the primary care of Nanda to a nurse in the royal palace. Queen Maya, who was considered the "first wife" would have been more beautiful, the more pleasing long time companion of King Suddhodana. Contrary to our modern opinion that this is sexist and patriarchal, her sister would surely have been happy to co-marry the king and thereby live together with her sister as royals from the ruling family of the rich crossroads capital of Kapilavastu (in the vicinity of modern Kabul and Bamiyan according to Dr. Pal), having and raising kids at the same time like virtuous-Kardashians, then taking over the role of Queen Kim with her sister's passing. The Shakyas were a fiercely proud, tough, formerly-nomadic warrior peoples not like the more refined people of Brahminical India, much like hearty Afghans/Central Asians today.

Novice's devotion in a sacred cave (13som)

When Ven. Nanda reached enlightenment, he continued to meditate, experiencing the bliss of release from ignorance, karma, samsara, rebirth, and all further forms of suffering.
 
But his fellows were dissatisfied and they complained to the Buddha: "Nanda's a hireling! He works for nymphs!" Knowing better the Buddha had Ven. Nanda summoned. "They say you're a hireling, Nanda, that you work for nymphs, that I promised you nymphs if you would meditate." Ven. Nanda was abashed for it having once been true that he worked for such a petty aspiration as superhuman sensual experiences in that lowly heavenly world they visited, having lost the healthy dread of what they had seen would happen in that subterranean fallen/hellish plane of existence (niraya).
 
Ven. Nanda implicitly declared his attainment by stating that he had released the Buddha from his implied promise of heavenly splendor the moment he realized the Truth. His fellow monastics were shocked and abashed, not realizing they were mocking and complaining about an arhat, an enlightened disciple of the Buddha. They quickly returned to their kutis to meditate and follow the example of the one they had wasted so much time and made such unskillful karma berating. The end.
 
Anonymous, does our overkill answer make sense? Does this famous Story of Nanda make sense as applying to your dual question?

Question. Selfish "love," sensual lust, desperate clinging, emotional attachment, pathetic obsession, does it arise in a person for her/his own good, for the good of another, for both? Or does it bring harm?

Love is a snare, a trap, a lie leading us to buy the ways of the world without thinking and only realizing too late what bargain we made? When the Dhammapada speaks ill of desire, clinging, and passion, we recoil. No, we like those! We want those! "Passion" (which literally means "suffering" in English) is good, it's zesty, it adds spice to life. You're question was very good because people don't want to get caught up in words and thinking, paying attention and actually analyzing anything. We want it spelled out, or we'll learn from experience. But most of us won't learn even then.

What the Buddha said makes sense, a lot of sense. If one stays superficial, it is easy to debunk karma, spirituality, religion, and claims of all kinds. That's nonsense. That's not science. We know everything; the ancients knew nothing! The purpose of an "American Buddhist Journal" is to spell out all the ways that Buddhism does apply, does make sense, does offer a Path to the end of all suffering. And it's beautiful even if it seems to us sexist and full of it. For instance, did you notice a gaping hole in Nanda's story? We know you did.
 
We know what you're thinking, Anonymous! "Hey, but what about Janapada Kalyani?! The Buddha was wise, exceedingly wise; he thought of that, too. Here is her story: The Beautiful Princess Janapada Kalyani's spiritual journey

• VIDEO: I'm in love! ("West Coast")
• Wisdom? The Discourse on Right View (sutra)
• Knowing and Seeing (Pa Auk Sayadaw)