A Tit for a Tat (92)

Tit: I don’t like him.
Tat: How well do you know him?
Tit: Not very well.
Tat: Then what you don’t like is just your incomplete and possibly wrong perception of him.
Tit: So?
Tat: Since you don’t like your perception of him, why cling to it?
Tit: Huh?
Tat: Why not keep your mind open to know him better?

Next aT4aT: http://moonpointer.com/new/2010/02/come-go-on-time
Previous aT4aT: http://moonpointer.com/new/2010/01/supposed-to-be-enlightened

Some believe that horror or violent films should not be seen as they will be imprinted onto the mind such that they will be fleshed out accordingly if one goes to hell. Here are some alternative views:

1. If one watches horror films to rejoice or relish in suffering of others, despite them being fictional, there is negative karma created. Conversely, if one watches any film to learn from it, despite it being fictional, there is positive karma created. Any film is essentially empty of any inherent characteristics and the result of watching it pivots upon one’s intention.

2. Good horror movies present extreme situations which offer extremely valuable lessons to – especially on the ugliness or darkness of human-nature and how it can be conquered. As a general guideline, those who feel they are not ready should not watch horror films – lest it disturbs peace of mind too greatly instead of having any positive effects.

3. Horror movies can present reality too. E.g A good semi-fictional film on World War II can convey the atrocities of war, to remind us not to go to war, lest we forget the suffering it brings. From experience, there are no films as horrible as stories based on real-life war incidents.

4. It is better to cultivate courage and conquer fears than to be squeamish or shy away from them constantly. Fear is a form of aversion that springs from delusion. Of course, one should also not cultivate the opposite – attachment to the fearsome, for that will be a delusion too.

5. When we shut ourselves from scenes of suffering, it is hard to cultivate compassion. As Stonepeace put it, ‘The sight of blood and gore is only good for one thing – to prevent further blood and gore.‘ For modern Buddhist teachers to relate to modern times, it is also important to know what popular culture is about, and to use them as skilful means to relay the Dharma.

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In one of the stories within the movie ‘New York, I Love You’, we see a very old couple bickering all the way as they made their way towards the beach – just to see it. At first, the audience is likely to have empathy for them. Well, it is more sad to see the elderly couple quarreling than to see a young couple doing the same. It is sad because we wonder where all the love has gone to, and why they stay together after all these years if the love is really gone. However, when they reach the beach, as they stood side by side gazing at the vastness of it all, the wife hugs her husband’s arm and rests her head against him in heartwarming silence. What a paradoxically accurate portrayal of commonplace worldly love!

Sometimes,
how much aversion we have towards someone
is a hint of
how much attachment we have towards someone.

Sometimes,
there is no clear line
dividing
attachment and aversion.

Sometimes,
we love our loves,
and other times,
we hate our loves.

Sometimes,
we call this a love-hate relationship.
Yet it is from this that we will learn to truly love,
to truly rise above attachment and aversion.

Related Article:

How to Fall in Love in the City of Love
http://moonpointer.com/index.php?itemid=1649

In ‘Highlander: The Search for Vengeance’, Colin the ‘immortal’s’ attachment to his lost lover drives him on a vengeful streak to stalk and kill her ‘immortal’ murderer… over the course of 2000 years. In the process, he fights in various wars of many eras in different lands to pursue him. Too blinded by hate to see love, he almost misses someone else in the present, who cares for him, who is likened to his past lover ‘reborn’. His was a case of literally undying love with undying attachment transformed into undying aversion for an undying enemy. While we might fantasize about ‘immortality’ being a blessing, it becomes a curse to him because he deludedly believed that the search for peace is via vengeance, which is its opposite.

An immortal with immortal pain. The real enemy was hate. With his gift of being hard to be killed, he still could and should do his best to curb evil, but there was no need to suffer from nursing a tormenting grudge while doing so. 2000 years is way too long not to realise the foolishness of hate, to not vanquish the enemy. As Stonepeace put it, ‘The fastest way to curb an enemy is to curb your enmity.’ The story was simple enough – one guy loves one girl, who fights one enemy for her. But… what if we could suddenly recall all our past lives, and our astronomical numbers of lovers and enemies? That would be a horror story, one with anguish unimaginable.

If we are to remember,
the countless loves lost
in innumerable previous lives,
of the immeasurable pain we felt,
will we still love anyone with the slightest attachment?

If we are to remember,
the countless enemies gathered
in innumerable previous lives,
of the immeasurable pain we felt,
will we still begrudge anyone with the slightest aversion?

Recently, there is a ‘method’ out there in the market, that claims to use Buddhist principles for recollection of past lives for healing purposes. Below are points of consideration about this method. (Yes, there is money involved in learning the method.) Please send this link to your friends who are involved. In the long run, it is negative materially (due to forking out too much money) and spiritually (as it doesn’t really help advance towards enlightenment). It’s possible to be addictive too.

1. Many Dharma concepts mentioned are sound, but when it comes to the ‘science of the regression method’ used, it seems shaky…. The Buddha recalled his past lives only on the brink (night) of enlightenment in samadhi, which suggests it is not easy to realise 宿命通. The mind must be very calm and very clear to recall past lives – which takes much spiritual practice. 宿命通 is considered a 神通. To easily attain a 神通 is too good to be true.

2. Even Arhats can only recall around 500 past lives, while the method suggests the ability to recall countless past lives.

3. Conscious recollection without meditation actually allows self-created, self-visualised and self-rationalised stories easier than via hypnosis or deep meditation. Note that all the participants already believe in rebirth and karma to some extent before participating. They are thus highly auto/self-suggestive. Hypnosis for non-meditators is also probably much more accurate.

4. Neither the facilitator nor the participant has actual 他心通 or 宿命通, which makes it impossible to check the accuracy of all the ‘regressed memories’. A case mentioned a past life as an alien lifeform. How can this ever be verified? Are the facilitators to accept whatever is ‘remembered’ blindly, just as the participants are too? As more and more stories might be spun, layers of delusion are built upon one another, that can lead to more confusion and assumption. One’s present life then becomes built upon a stack of self-created lies.

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The Buddha in the Surangama Sutra: “Bhikshus who do not wear silk, leather boots, furs, or down from this country, or consume milk, cream, or butter can truly transcend this world. When they have paid back their past debts, they will not have to re-enter the triple realm. Why? It is because when one wears something taken from a living creature, one creates conditions with it, just as when people eat the hundred grains, their feet cannot leave the earth. Both physically and mentally one must avoid the bodies and the by-products of living beings, by neither wearing them nor eating them. I say that such people have true liberation.” - http://www.cttbusa.org/shurangama6/shurangama6_2.asp

Comments: The gise of the above passage, though it does not mention wool, is that animal exploitation should not be supported (especially on the Bodhisattva path of safeguarding beings from harm). Notice that milk, cream and butter does not require killing to be derived too – just like wool - but there is still exploitation involved – before killing. While deriving wool (e.g. for lanolin) does not require killing, it is continual exploitation – up till the moment they get killed for meat. There is no happy retirement. Being de-wooled annually is just part of the process that leads them to the slaughter… to ‘milk’ them for all they are worth till they are ‘worthless’.

Some might rationalise that wool has to be sheared before it gets so long that it makes sheep too hot for summer conditions. But this is untrue as they will shed by themselves to suit weather conditions, while humans steal it in bulk too much and too fast. Even if this is true, before humans began trapping and domesticating animals (which is against a Bodhisattva precept), how did the sheep deal with ‘being too hot’? How would any sheep like being naked without their wool? It is an unnatural and even cold state that must trouble them them to some extent. Just like most humans don’t like to be shaved bald, why torment sheep by forcing them to endure what they do not want? The truth is, like honey, wool is not an innocent product. Some sheep do suffer (e.g. by fleece rot and flystrike) and die when their wool is stolen. For the hard facts on wool, please see http://www.veganviews.org.uk/vv77/vv77wool.html

羊毛张在羊身上，
何必带在人身上？ － 石子

Since wool grows on sheep’s bodies [for them],
why should it be worn on human bodies [for us]? - Stonepeace

Veganism is…

… vigilant awareness of consumption.
… a way to avoid harming more beings
… to be more and more aware, even if it makes life more troublesome,

Because of the great ‘trouble’
animals would otherwise endure,
veganism on our part is worth the trouble.

- Stonepeace

(Picture: A Buddhist making lamp offerings at a Tibetan temple near Mayadevi Temple)

May we always be mindful of Amita Buddha.
May we always aspire to swiftly become Buddhas.

Next India Adventure: Coming Soon
Previous India Adventure: http://moonpointer.com/new/2010/01/india-adventures-10-a-different-christmas-cheer

From Thich Nhat Hanh’s book ‘The World We Have: A Buddhist Approach to Peace and Ecology’:

The food we eat can reveal the interconnectedness of the universe, the Earth, all living beings, and ourselves. Each bite of vegetable, each drop of soy sauce, each piece of tofu contains the sun and of the Earth. We can see and taste the whole universe in a piece of bread! We can see the meaning and value of life in those morsels of food. Having the opportunity to sit with our family and friends and enjoy wonderful food is something precious, something not everyone has. Many people in the world are hungry. When I hold a bowl of rice or a piece of bread, I know that I am fortunate, and I feel compassion for all those who have no food to eat and who are without friends or family. This is a very deep practice. We don’t need to go to a temple or a church in order to practice this. We can practice it right at our dinner table. With mindful eating we can cultivate the seeds of compassion and understanding that will strengthen our determination to do something to help hungry and lonely people be nourished.

One thing we can do is to consider how much meat we eat. For over 2,500 years, many Buddhists have practiced vegetarianism with the purpose of nourishing compassion towards animals. Now we’ve also discovered that switching to a vegetarian diet may be one of the most effective ways to fight world hunger and global warming. The practice of raising animals for food has created some of the worst environmental damage on the planet and is responsible for one quarter of greenhouse emissions.* Our way of eating and producing food can be very violent to other species, to our own bodies, and to the Earth. Mother Earth suffers deeply because of our way of eating. Animals raised for meat are the world’s biggest source of water pollution; waste from factory farms and slaughterhouses flows into our rivers, streams, and drinking water. In the U.S. alone, hundreds of millions of acres of forest have been razed to grow crops to feed livestock. The precious tropical rainforests that keep our planet cool and provide a home for most of the plant and animal species on Earth are being burned and cleared to create grazing land for cattle.

Much of the millions of tons of grain we grow isn’t used to feed people but instead to raise cattle for meat and to make alcohol. An Environmental Protection Agency report on U.S. agricultural crop production in the year 2000 states that, according to the National Corn Growers Association, about 80 percent of all corn grown in the U.S. is consumed by domestic and overseas livestock, poultry, and fish production.** When you hold a piece of meat and look at it deeply, you will see that a huge amount of grain and water has been used to make that one piece of meat. A tremendous amount of grain and water is also used to make alcohol. Tens of thousands of children die of starvation and malnutrition every day; that grain could feed them. When we drink alcohol with mindfulness, we see that we are drinking the blood of our children. We’re eating our children, our mother, and our father. We are eating up the Earth.

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Christmas’ Eve with no carols or party to attend.
Immersed in total silence along the pitch dark countryside.
On a five hour bumpy ride to the next destination.
The night was getting a bit too cold.
But he was always on my mind.
Such warm loving-kindness, that he (the Buddha) always radiated, like he never left.
Finally, I am on a trip to walk where he once walked.

Next India Adventure: http://moonpointer.com/new/2010/01/india-adventures-11-lamp-offerings
Previous India Adventure: http://moonpointer.com/new/2010/01/india-adventures-9-wish-for-the-same-sky

I still remember the crisp air and clear stars.
From that night under the Kent’s wintry sky.
This night, under India’s sky in the same season,
I see mist and dust clouding lives of the poor.

I always thought that we share the same sky.
How could that night be so different from this one?
Tonight, I yearn for a world where we all really share the same sky,
To be equally unobscured by suffering and pain.

With the company of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas,
May we all reborn in the Land of Ultimate Bliss.

Next India Adventure: http://moonpointer.com/new/2010/01/india-adventures-10-a-different-christmas-cheer
Previous India Adventure: http://moonpointer.com/new/2010/01/india-adventure-8-the-far-reaching-ways-of-the-dharma

Sankasia was where the Buddha descended from Trayastriṃśa (Sanskrit; Pāli: Tāvatiṃsa) heaven after teaching his biological mother (Queen Mahamaya), who passed away on the 7th day after giving birth to him. Legends has it that three stairways – in gold, silver and crystal appeared when Shakra and Brahma, out of gratitude for the Buddha’s teachings in the heaven, escorted the Buddha back to Earth. It was said that the stairways were witnessed by King Asoka even after 300 years of the Buddha’s parninirvana. They even extended deep underground. King Asoka had ordered his men to dig into the ground, to see if there was an endpoint to the stairways… but there was no apparent end to them.

Overwhelmed and humbled by this miraculous phenomenon, he built a temple and erected an ‘elephant’ pillar to commemorate the location. Although both temple and pillar were destroyed with not much left, all pilgrims would surely wish to have adequate merits to witness the same miracle.

Next India Adventure: http://moonpointer.com/new/2010/01/india-adventures-9-wish-for-the-same-sky
Previous India Adventure: http://moonpointer.com/new/2010/01/india-adventures-7-invisible-precious-gem

A 72 year old man led us through the pages of history by telling of a majestic empire that once occupied the great Ajgar Fort. A palace that used to house three main queens and thousands of concubines. Now, the fort is bare and naked of looted gems, which used to decorate its walls. A sense of impermanence fills the air. Once a palace filled with life and celebration, it is now only to be flooded by curious tourists This reminds me, of how all the riches in the world cannot bribe to win the law of transience. I bought home an unseen but precious gem from this tour Ajgar Fort – a priceless lesson on impermanence.

Next India Adventure: http://moonpointer.com/new/2010/01/india-adventure-8-the-far-reaching-ways-of-the-dharma
Previous India Adventure: http://moonpointer.com/new/2010/01/india-adventures-6-the-sands-of-time

Taj Mahal tells of a very sad love story. It’s sad not because two who were deeply in love were separated by death, but because of the great attachment it embodies. The Mongol king spent 17 long years, much wealth and labour to build this extravagant monument to fill the voidness of his heart after his queen’s demise. The saddest part of this story is that he had to spend his remaining years overlooking Taj Mahal under house arrest by his own son. At times, we feel that no amount of comfort and luxuries we lavish on our loved ones (be they our spouses, lovers, children or parents) are ever enough. But the best way to show love is never really through material gifts, as they only please and last for a while. The gift of Dharma well given and received lasts life after lives – much longer than any elaborate monument itself – as the diamond (vajra) seeds of Dharma are indestructible!

Next India Adventure: http://moonpointer.com/new/2010/01/india-adventures-4-buddhism-is-not-hinduism
Previous India Adventure: http://moonpointer.com/new/2010/01/india-adventures-3-monument-of-emptiness

Seeing a cleaner dusting a stupa that housed the Buddha’s relics.
I wondered what would happen,
should it be left neglected?

It will become buried,
swallowed by the sands of time,
forgotten and lost in history.

Like a precious relic that is the Buddhadharma,
or our Buddhadhatu (Buddha-nature) too,
it will be obscured by dirt and such.

As stupas stand for the peak of enlightenment,
there will be a monument less
that reminds us of this ideal.

[The scenes in the two pictures above and below these lines
were a little unnerving as I wasn't sure if the men were repairing
other structures in the compound or dismantling them.]

[The identity of the main stupa and its compound can be seen below,
at the two signboards present.]

Next India Adventure: http://moonpointer.com/new/2010/01/india-adventures-7-invisible-precious-gem
Previous India Adventure: http://moonpointer.com/new/2010/01/india-adventures-5-compassion-will-prevail