"All is Burning" (The Fire Sermon)

Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly; Ven. Nanamoli/Osbert John S. Moore (Āditta-pariyāya Sutra, Three Cardinal Discourses of the Buddha, Wheel No. 17, BPS.lk)

LA is burning, Springs fire, LA Times cover (Mel Melcon/framework.latimes.com)

Gayasisa, Gaya Head, or Brahmayoni Hill, where the Buddha delivered the Fire Sermon.

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A world on fire (weakonomics.com)

English speakers might be familiar with the name of this discourse due to T.S. Eliot's titling the third section of his celebrated poem, The Waste Land, "The Fire Sermon." In a footnote, Eliot states that this Buddhist sutra "corresponds in importance to the Sermon on the Mount."

-Alexander W. Allison, Herbert Barrows, Caesar R. Blake, Arthur J. Carr, Arthur M. Eastman, and Hubert M. English, Jr. (1975, rev.), The Norton Anthology of Poetry, NY: W.W. Norton Co., p. 1042, Note 9.

The Sutra

Thus have I heard. On one occasion the Blessed One was living at Gayā, at Gayāsīsa, together with 1,000 monastics. There he addressed them.

“Meditators, all is burning. And what is the 'all' that is burning?

 

“The eye [Note 20] is burning, forms [21] are burning, eye-consciousness is burning, eye-contact [22] is burning, also whatever is felt as pleasant or painful or neither-painful-nor-pleasant that arises with eye-contact as its indispensable condition, that too is burning!

Woman sets boyfriend on fire (splash)

"Burning with what? Burning with the fire of lust, burning with the fire of hate, burning with the fire of delusion. I say it is burning with birth, aging and death, with sorrows, with lamentations, with pains, with griefs, with despairs.

 

“The ear is burning, sounds are burning…

 

The Fire Sermon (Wiki graphic)

 “The nose is burning, fragrances are burning…

“The tongue is burning, flavors are burning…

“The body [23] is burning, tangibles are burning…

“The mind [24] is burning, ideas (mental objects) [25] are burning, mind-consciousness [26] is burning, mind contact is burning, also whatever is felt as pleasant or painful or neither-painful-nor-pleasant that arises with mind-contact as its indispensable condition, that too is burning.

Burning with what? Burning with the fire of lust, with the fire of hate, with the fire of delusion. I say it is burning with birth, aging and death, with sorrows, with lamentations, with pains, with griefs, with despairs.

What to do in the face of fire when all (Camarillo) is in flames? (latimes.com)

 
“Meditators, when a noble follower who has heard (the truth) sees thus, that person finds estrangement in the eye, finds estrangement in forms, finds estrangement in eye-consciousness, finds estrangement in eye-contact, and whatever is felt as pleasant or painful or neither-painful-nor-pleasant that arises with eye-contact as its indispensable condition, in that too one finds estrangement.

 
“One finds estrangement in the ear… in sounds…

“One finds estrangement in the nose… in fragrances…

“One finds estrangement in the tongue… in flavors…

“One finds estrangement in the body… in tangibles…

Brain (mind/heart) on fire (salon.com)

“One finds estrangement in the mind, finds estrangement in ideas (mental objects), finds estrangement in mind-consciousness, finds estrangement in mind-contact, and whatever is felt as pleasant or painful or neither-painful-nor-pleasant that arises with mind-contact as its indispensable condition, in that too one finds estrangement.
 

“When one finds estrangement, passion fades out. With the fading of passion, one is liberated. When liberated, there is knowledge that one is liberated. One understands: ’Rebirth is exhausted, the supreme life has been lived out, what can be done is done, of this there is no more beyond.’”

That is what the Blessed One said. The meditators were glad, and they approved his words.

ENDNOTES

20. EYE [the sensitive portion of the eye], and so on: the six, beginning with the eye and ending with the mind (q.v.), are called the six “Bases for Contact (see Contact) in oneself,” and are also known as the six “Doors” for perception. Their corresponding objects are called “external bases.” (“Sense-organ” is both too material and too objective). This is because the emphasis here is on the subjective faculty of seeing, etc., not the associated piece of flesh seen in someone else or in the looking-glass, which, in so far as it is visible, is not “seeing” but “form” as the “external” object of the seeing “eye in oneself,” and insofar as it is tangible is the object of the body-base in oneself, and insofar as it is apprehended as a “bodily feature” is the object of the mind-base in oneself. Here the eye should be taken simply as the perspective-pointing-inward-to-a-center in the otherwise uncoordinated visual field consisting of colors, which makes them cognizable by eye consciousness, and which is misconceivable as “I.” The six Bases in Oneself are compared to an empty village, and the six External Bases to village-raiding robbers.

21. FORMS: the first of the six External Bases, respective objective fields or objects of the six Bases in Oneself (see EYE). The same Pali word rūpa is used for the eye’s object as for the first of the five categories, but here in the plural. Colors, the basis for the visual perspective of the eye (q.v.), are intended primarily. (See also under FORM [materiality]: Pali rupa (what appears, appearance). As the first of five categories (q.v.) it is defined in terms of the Four Great Elements [or material qualities], namely, earth (hardness), water (cohesion), fire (temperature), and air (distension and motion), along with the negative aspect of space (what does not appear), from all of which are derived the secondary phenomena such as persons, features, shapes, etc.: these are regarded as secondary because while form can appear without them they cannot appear without form. It is also defined as “that which is being worn away” (ruppati), thus underlining its general characteristic of instability).

22. CONTACT: the Pali word phassa comes from the verb phusati (to touch, sometimes used in the sense of to arrive at, or to realize), from which also comes the word photthabba (tangible, the object of the Fifth Base in oneself, namely, body-sensitivity). But here it is generalized to mean contact in the sense of presence of object to subject, or presence of cognized to consciousness, in all forms of consciousness. It is defined as follows: “Eye-consciousness arises dependent on eye and on forms; the coincidence of the three is contact (presence), and likewise in the cases of the ear, nose, tongue, body and mind. Failing it, no knowledge, no consciousness of any sort whatever, can arise at all.” This fundamental idea is sometimes placed at the head of lists of things defining Determinations (q.v.).

23. BODY: the Pali word kaya is used both for the physical body and for any group, as the English word “body” is. In Pali it is also used in the sense (a) for the physical frame, namely, “this body with its consciousness” in a general sense, sometimes called “old action,” and then it forms the subject of body contemplation as set forth in the Satipatthāna Sutra, the aim of which is to analyze this “conglomeration” into its motley constituents. Or else it is used in a strict sense, as here, namely (b) that “door” of the subjective body-sensitivity or tactile sense, the perspective-pointing-inwards-to-a-center in the otherwise uncoordinated tactile field of tangibles consisting of the hard, the hot-or-cold, and the distended-and-movable. (See also under EYE).

24. MIND: the Pali word mano belongs to a root meaning to measure, compare, coordinate. Here it is intended as that special “door” in which the five kinds of consciousness, arising in the other five doors (see under EYE), combine themselves with their objective fields into a unitive perspective-pointing-inwards-to-a-center, together with certain objects apprehendable in this mind-door, such as boundlessness of space, etc. (and names, fictions, etc.). Whatever is cognized in this door (see under Consciousness) is cognized as an idea (q.v.) as opposed to the bare objects of the eye uncognized by it as well. Here it makes this otherwise uncoordinated field of ideas cognizable by mind-consciousness (q.v.). And in the presence (with the contact) of ignorance (of the Four Noble Truths) it is misconceived as “I.” It is thus the fusing of this heterogeneous stuff of experience into a coherent pattern, when it also has the function of giving temporal succession and flow to that pattern by its presenting all ideas for cognition as “preceded.” In the Abhidharma, but not in the Sutta Collection, “the (material) form which is the support for mind” is mentioned (implying perhaps the whole “body with its consciousness”), but not further specified. This would place mind on a somewhat similar basis to the eye-seeing, as meant here in its relation to the objective piece of flesh (see under EYE). Later notions coupled it with the heart. Now fashion identifies it with the brain; but such identifications are not easy to justify unilaterally; and if they in any way depend upon a prior and always philosophically questionable assumption of a separate body-substance and a mind-substance, they will find no footing in the Buddha’s teaching where substances are not assumed.

25. IDEA [mind object]: the word dhamma [things, phenomena] is gerundive from the verb dharati (to carry, to remember); thus, it means literally a “carryable, a rememberable.” In this context of the six pairs of Bases it means the rememberables which form the mind’s special object; as distinct from the forms seen only with the eye, the sounds heard with the ear, the fragrances smelled with the nose, the flavors tasted with the tongue, and the tangibles touched with the body, ideas are what are apprehended through the mind-door (see under Eye, Forms and Mind, and also Contact). These six cover all that can be known. But while the first (see FORMS) are uncoordinated between themselves and have no direct access to each other, in the mind-door the five find a common denominator and are given a coordinating perspective, together with the mind’s own special objects. So the idea as a rememberable, is the aspect of the known apprehended by the mind, whether coordinating the five kinds of consciousness, or apprehending the ideas peculiar to it (see Mind), or whether apprehending its own special objects. This must include all the many other meanings of the word dhamma (Sanskrit dharma). Nirvana (nibbāna), insofar as it is knowable — describable — is an object of the mind, and is thus an idea. “All ideas are not-self.” What is inherently unknowable has no place in the Dharma (Teaching).

26. MIND-CONSCIOUSNESS: if it is remembered that each of the six pairs of Bases, the five consisting of eye, ear, nose, tongue, and body, being coordinated by mind, are open to anyone’s self-inspection; and that consciousness is considered here as arising dependently upon each of these six pairs of Bases and in no other way whatsoever (since no other description rejecting all six is possible without self-contradiction); then this notion of mind consciousness should present no special difficulty.

Three Pivotal Buddhist Sutras

Dhr. Seven and Amber Larson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly; Ven Nanamoli/Osbert John S. Moore (trans.), "Three Cardinal Discourses of the Buddha," Wheel No 17 (BPS.lk)

The Buddha with Dharma chakra , wheel of truth, above in Thailand (Nippon_newfie/flickr)

Not doing any kind of harm,
Perfecting profitable skill,
And purifying one’s own heart:
This is the Buddha’s teaching.
—Dhammapada 183

Afghan Buddha, Gandhara (BBC)

The message of the Awakened Ones, so stated as it is in the Dhammapada ("Dharma imprint" or "Path of Truth") in the plain terms of good and evil, upholds the same values that every great compassionate religion shares. But the seed of good (skillfulness) has to grow in the soil of truth. How the tree grows depends on the nature of the soil in which it is planted, which is where it draws its nourishment.

With humans as the custodians of the true, the fulfillment of the good depends on how truth is conceived by us to be. By our acts we verify it. A wandering ascetic called Siddhartha Gautama, it seems, a son of the Sakyans (Scythians, Afghans, Central Asians) who went forth into homelessness from a Sakyan clan (tribe), has come… Now a good report of Master Gautama has been spread to this effect:

“That Blessed One is such since he is accomplished and fully enlightened, perfect in true knowledge and conduct, sublime, knower of worlds, incomparable leader of persons to be tamed, teacher of devas and humans, awakened and blessed… He teaches a Dharma that is good in the beginning, good in the middle, and good in the end, with its own special meaning and phrasing; he exhibits a supreme life that is utterly perfect and pure.” Now it is good to see such Accomplished Ones (MN 41).

So it was said of him at the time. But what, then, was the fundamental basis of that Dharma? Of the many ways that such a question might be answered, perhaps this is the simplest and best: “He expounded teachings peculiar to buddhas: suffering, its origin, cessation, and the direct path to its cessation” (MN 56).

These four fundamentals are known as the Four Noble or Ennobling Truths in that they lead to spiritual nobility, that is, the various ariyan stages of enlightenment.

This, with the cognate teaching of no self (the impersonal characteristic of ultimate reality), may be said to constitute the distinct and unique ground of the teachings of buddhas; this is what marks them, sets them apart, and entitles them to the unique epithet “Buddha,” distinct from the “noble ones,” which refers not only to buddhas (teaching and nonteaching) but to disciples who awaken from the illusion (become enlightened) by the path-of-practice, the Middle Way, made known by buddhas.

The three discourses here presented display precisely, in all its incomparably serene simplicity, without assumptions, those special fundamental teachings, from which all Buddhism branches, and to which it all points back.

 

The first discourse displays these Four Noble Truths as something to be realized and verified for oneself here and now; the second discloses the contradictions which infect all “self” or “ego” conceits; the third echoes the second from another angle.

The circumstances that led up to the discovery of these Four Noble Truths and to the delivery of these three sutras or discourses were briefly as follows. The Bodhisatta -- as the Buddha refers to himself while striving and developing the Ten Perfections leading up to his great enlightenment -- was 29-years-old when he left the householder life, where he enjoyed the extreme of luxury. He went forth into wandering asceticism in order to find not a palliative but the true and incontrovertible way to make a complete and final end of all suffering for himself and all living beings.

This world is surely full of woe, because it is born and ages gets sick and dies. But to fall from one kind of existence only to reappear in another, again and again without end, compounds the problem exponentially. Yet, the world knows of no actual escape from this suffering, from aging and death. There are temporary respites to be sure with sojourns in various heavens (sagga). Is there an escape from disappointment and dissatisfaction, from ageing and death? (SN 12:65).

The Bodhisatta studied and practiced under two of the foremost teachers of samādhi (concentration, the absorptions, mental collectedness, calm, and serenity), and reached the highest meditative attainments possible thereby. But that was not enough: “I was not satisfied with that as a dharma; I left it and went away” (MN 36).

The Bodhisatta Siddhartha (Lahore Museum)

He then spent the better part of the next six years in the practice of meditation and asceticism, eventually trying every sort of extreme self-mortification.

During this time he was helped along by five fellow ascetics, who hoped that if he discovered the “deathless state” (nirvana, final liberation) he would be able to communicate his discovery to them. This extreme asceticism also failed to gain enlightenment and glimpse nirvana (deliverance from suffering).

“By this grueling penance I have attained no distinction higher than the human ideal worthy of a noble one’s knowing and seeing. Might there be another way to awakening?” (MN 36). 

He decided to try again the path of concentration, attained through mindfulness of breathing, though this time not pushed to the extreme of serenity, but guided instead by ordered consideration (mindful-contemplation).

Calm/insight meditations (Ezioman/flickr)

He remembered, “While my Sakyan father [King Suddhodana] was busy and I [as a child of 7-years-old] was sitting in the shade of a rose-apple tree, then quite secluded from sensual desires, secluded from unprofitable ideas, I had direct acquaintance of entering upon and abiding in the first absorption (jhāna) -- meditation, which is accompanied by initial application and sustained attention, with happiness and pleasure born of seclusion. Might thisbe the way to enlightenment?”

And following upon that memory came the recognition: “This is the way to enlightenment” (MN 36). He now gave up self-mortification and took food again in order to restore to his emaciated body strength sufficient for his purpose. Then his five fellow ascetics left him in disgust, judging that he had failed and was merely reverting to what he had forsaken.

Gaining Enlightenment

Big Buddha Tian Tan, Lantau island, Hong Kong (Michael Jevons/flickr.com)

 
But now abandoned and in solitude, his new balanced effort rooted in virtue, based on unifying strong concentration (absorption), and guided by the ordered (mindful) consideration of insight brought about by contemplation (anussati, mindfulness in the sense not just of bare attention, vigilance, and wakefulness but of careful consideration of the question, "Why is there this suffering?" which is contemplated in terms of directly seeing Dependent Origination), at length brought success. He discovered the way to the goal -- the complete end of all suffering -- he had sought for so long. 

"So I, too, found the ancient path, the ancient trail, travelled by the Enlightened Ones of old” (SN 12:65). Five faculties in balance had brought him to his goal: they were the four, namely, energy, mindfulness, concentration, and understanding (wisdom), with confidence (faith) in the efficacy of the other four -- the five that "merge into the Deathless” (SN 48:57).

According to tradition, the Buddha's “great enlightenment” took place on the night of the Vesākha-month full moon (corresponding to our April-May).

After invitation by first Sakka then Brahma, the Buddha resolved to communicate his discovery of liberation through wisdom (insight) to humans and devas. For his first audience he considered his two teachers of the previous six years, but they had passed into brahma worlds where liberation would not be possible for aeons (kalpas).

Teaching the five ascetics (mahathep.exteen.com)

So he chose the five ascetics who had shared his self-mortification before abandoning him. He realized that they were now at Benares (Varanasi) -- India’s “eternal city.” So in due course he went there to rejoin them. Just two months after his great awakening he delivered his sutra -- the “Setting Rolling of the Wheel of the Dharma” or “Bringing into Existence the Blessing of the Dharma” -- with the five ascetics as his human hearers and many more devas.

Tradition says it was the evening of he Āsālha full moon (July-August), the day before the rainy season (vas) begins, and he began to speak at the moment when the sun was dipping, and the full moon simultaneously rising.

This, his first discourse, made one of his hearers, the ascetic Kondañña, a “stream-enterer” [one who entered the "stream," sota, a word which also means "ear," as in one who entered upon the path-and-fruits by hearing] with his attainment of the first of the four progressive stages of enlightenment. The four other ascetics soon followed in his footsteps.

The second sutra or sermon, on the impersonal characteristic of not-self (anatta), was delivered to the same five, and it brought them to the fourth and final stage, that of arhatship, full enlightenment: “and then” as it is said, “there were six arhats in the world” (Vinaya Mahāvagga 1).

These are the first two discourses presented here, and they were the first two sutras ever uttered by the Buddha. The third, the “Fire Sermon,” was delivered some months later to an audience of 1,000 forest ascetics converted from the heaven-bent practice of fire-worship. All three discourses deal only with wisdom/understanding (paññā), among the faculties mentioned above as required to be balanced.

Walking Buddha (Nippon_newfie/flickr)

But understanding, in order to reach perfection, has to be aided by and brought into balance with the other four factors. In other words, it has to be founded upon concentration (collectedness, nondistraction, the unified or unscattered mind/heart), which is founded upon virtue (non-remorse, “habit without conflict,” a mind/heart free of misgivings, worries, remorse).

A high degree of concentration (though not necessarily developed to the fullness of all the absorptions, but lightly just the first four, not necessarily mastering them fully but being acquainted with them and able to enter and emerge; later this certain course was expanded with the more uncertain development of lighter versions or "access-concentration"). Only in this way can insight-wisdom reach the ultimate goal of unshakable liberation.

Virtue and concentration alone -- without the guidance of wisdom/understanding -- can do no more than suppress the defilements, but they cannot of themselves alone lead to final liberation. Now the hearers of all these three discourses were, like the Buddha himself, all ascetics already expert in the techniques and refinements of both virtue (sīla) and concentration (right samādhi, sometimes defined technically as the first four absorptions).

So the Buddha had no need to instruct them about what they already knew very well. Similarly he had no need to expound the doctrine of action (karma) and its ripening (vipāka, phala), with which they were already acquainted through the ancient teachings or their own insight by way of having developed the divine eye through the absorptions.
 

What he had to do was first to show how it is possible to go astray toward the opposite extremes of sensual-indulgence and self-torment and second to describe the facts, to show how things are, clearly and succinctly enough to stir his hearers to the additional spontaneous movement of understanding essential and indispensable for the final discovery of liberation, each for oneself. (“A 'Perfected One,' a samma-sam-buddha, is one who shows the way” MN 70).

 
Now let us let these three sutras speak for themselves. Their incalculable strength rests on their simplicity and in their actuality. The profound truth is here, discoverable even through the foggy medium of translation. More

The Foolish and the Wise (sutra)

Crystal Quintero, Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly (Bala-Pandita, SN 12.19)

"If the traveler cannot find [greater or equal] to go with one, let one travel alone rather than with a fool for company" (H. Hopp Delaney/H-K-D/flickr.com).

I think therefore I am not...

At one time the Blessed One was residing in Savatthi where he said: "When a foolish person is obstructed (hindered) by ignorance and craving, this body is the result.

There is both this body (internal rupa, dhatu) and external name-and-form. Here within this teaching, dependent on this duality, there arises contact at the six sense bases.

Touched by one or all of these, the foolish (unthinking person) is sensitive to pleasure and pain (which one necessarily misunderstands and identifies with rather than seeing them clearly and dispassionately as ti-lakkhana, as bearing the Three Universal Marks of Existence).

"A great rock is not disturbed by the wind; the mind [heart] of a wise person is not disturbed by either honor or abuse" -- or any of the eight worldly conditions of life.

The Wise

Great minds think a d--- Michele Bachmann

"When a wise person is obstructed by ignorance and craving, this body is the result. There is both this body (internal) and external name-and-form. Here within this teaching, dependent on this duality, there is contact at the six sense bases. Touched by one or more of these, the wise person is (also) sensitive to pleasure and pain.
 
"So what difference, what distinction, what distinguishing factor is there between the wise person and the foolish person?"
 

The fool is his own worst enemy... (H-K-D)

[The monastics replied:] "Venerable sir, for us the teachings (Dharma) have the Blessed One as their root, their guide, and their explainer. It would be good if the Blessed One himself would explain the meaning of this statement. And having heard it from the Blessed One, the monastics will remember it."
 
"In that case, meditators, listen and give close attention. I will explain."
 
"As you say, venerable sir," they responded.
 

Wise Reflection (BPS.lk)

The [Buddha] explained, "The ignorance with which the fool is obstructed, the craving with which the fool is linked, through which this body has resulted, has not been abandoned by the fool, and that craving has not been destroyed/abandoned. Now why is that? It is because the fool has not practiced the supreme life for the ending of suffering.

"Therefore, at the break up of the body, one is headed for yet another body (form). Headed for a body, one is not entirely freed from rebirth, aging, death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, disappointment, or despair. I tell you, one is not entirely freed from disappointment and suffering.
 

"Gods" Sakka and Brahma go to the Buddha

"However, the ignorance with which the wise is obstructed, the craving with which one is linked, through which this body has resulted, has been abandoned by the wise, and that craving has been destroyed/abandoned. Now why is that? It is because the wise person has practiced the supreme life for the ending of all suffering.

"Therefore, at the break up of the body, one is not headed for yet another body. Not headed for a body, one is entirely freed from rebirth, aging, death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, disappointment, or despair. I tell you, that person is entirely freed from disappointment and suffering."

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)

Real independence on Independence Day

Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, CC Liu, Pat Macpherson, Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly

A bathing suit beauty used to sell inexpensive clothes is, ironically, not any symbol of freedom. But it is business-as-usual in the USA (americanapparel.net). See femen.org.

 

Waking up in a sleeping world

There are two forms of independence that are of paramount importance in Buddhism.

One is independence from any teacher; the other is freedom from all suffering.

The first is achieved by insight. It is liberating-knowledge that no longer depends on anyone else. It has been personally verified and has the effect of certainty beyond all doubt.

• But as Engaged Buddhists out to save the world, shouldn't we forego this spiritual mumbo-jumbo and and help wake people up, at least help wake up America? The shocking truth is this: "You can't wake up someone who is only pretending to be asleep." It is not that they don't know how, or why, or what for. One can step into a cage and start yelling, "Come on, come on, everybody run, escape, get out of the cage!" Will they go and be free? No, they're like to attack you. But you can go, be free, come back, remind some. Some will see. Are you free as you point at the cage door that's actually unlocked even though it says locked? Get free then help free others, or get on a quest for freedom and offer mutual assistance. It's not one or the other. There is no wisdom without compassion no matter what anyone says or fears or call selfish. Be free.

One's confidence in the "Three Treasures" becomes absolute by this personal verification:

1. The Buddha, the teacher, is indeed enlightened;
2. this Dharma, this teaching, indeed leads the one who practices in accordance with it to enlightenment;
3. those who successfully practice it -- the taught, the Noble Sangha (adepts, lay and monastic practitioners who range from stream winners to arhats) -- in the past, now, or in the future have indeed verified it for themselves and gotten beyond all doubt.

Nirvana is ultimate freedom

I'm not free but I have this nice shirt

What is it that is being personally verified?

In a sense, it does not matter what is true or Truth. What matters is what we realize. It remains something for someone else until then. What is true. Three things are certainly true -- and by their Truth are liberating. They lead to complete freedom. That is why the Buddha taught them. He pointed out the Path to Freedom.

The Path of Freedom (pariyatti.org)

The three are the Three Characteristics of Existence: all things are changeable, all things are ultimately disappointing, all things are impersonal.

"Everything changes," but Truth does not change. That is because Truth is not a "thing." The explanation is technical: There are only two kinds of "things" (dharmas) in Buddhism, the conditioned and the unconditioned.

Everything that depends on conditions (components, supports, causes) is a conditioned thing. Everything that does not depend on conditions is an unconditioned thing -- and only one thing, one element, is unconditioned: Nirvana is the unconditioned element. In that sense it is not a thing like all other phenomena.

• Nirvana is a real thing, an existing reality

All other phenomena depend on aggregates (groups of things), factors, elements that make up the whole. Everything, with only one exception is like this. Therefore, sometimes nirvana is called true in a world of change, disappointment, and emptiness.

1. If things are void, why do we pursue them? It is because we think they are full and offer the possibility of fulfillment. We think they are ours.
2. If things are disappointing, why do we pursue them? It is because we think they are satisfying and offer the possibility of fulfillment. We think they can serve as the basis for enduring happiness.
3. If things are always changing, why do we pursue them? It is because we think they are stable and offer the possibility of fulfillment. We think they will not let us down.

The Buddha walked the Path and then pointed it out to others as he walked around India

 

Quest for Truth and liberation

We have to ask ourselves this question, just as Prince Siddhartha once asked himself:

 

If I am always changing, always ultimately disappointing, always not what I seem, Why do I pursue things that are also always changing, always disappointing, and always not what they seem?
 

With this question he could successfully let go of the unimportant and search for the important, search for the unchanging, the satisfactory, the true. This was his spiritual (supersensual) quest. He found it and talked about it in the Four Noble Truths.

 

This is the essence of Buddhism, all its diverse teachings reduced to four simple things that are true, but their Truth hardly matters if we do not realize them for ourselves. Stating them without realizing them is compared to being a shepherd counting another's flock.

 

Fortunately, we can study them, learn them, and realize them, realization being by far the most important. All (conditioned) things are disappointing (unsatisfactory, unfulfilling, off center, ill, defective).

 

That is the first liberating truth. Instinctively, we turn away. We don't want to hear that. The mind/heart argues, "I can name a bunch of stuff that's not!" If one actually looks, one will realize that the only "thing" that is not disappointing is nirvana. That is the third liberating truth.

 

The second truth is that the disappointment of conditioned-things has a cause. All (conditioned) things have causes and conditions and are therefore unstable, unreliable, fickle, fragile, crumbling, slipping away, leading to disappointment.

 

The fourth and final truth is that there is a path, a way to the realization of the third truth, the unconditioned-element, and that is the Noble Eightfold Path.

• Liberation is deliverance (vimokkha, moksha)

What does WISDOM have to do with it?

Wisdom (paññā, prajna, understanding, knowledge, insight) comprises a wide field. The specific Buddhist wisdom, as part of the Noble Eightfold Path to deliverance, is insight (vipassanā).

It is direct-knowledge that brings about the four stages of enlightenment (bodhi) and the realization of nirvana.

And it consists of the penetration -- the full realization -- of these three things: the impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, and egolessness (anattā) of all forms of conditioned existence.

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)