Some wordplay below on a string of words
that stand for what might arise sequentially
while one practises mindfulness of Buddha:

…念佛念佛念佛念杂念杂念杂念佛念佛念佛念佛念佛…

念佛: Mindfulness of Buddha
念杂: Mindfulness of stray thoughts
杂念: Stray mindfulness
佛念: Buddha mindfulness

A Tit for a Tat (110)

Tit: I forgot to remind you something.
Tat: About what? Maybe I can help refresh your memory?
Tit: I forgot what it’s about entirely!
Tat: But you didn’t forget you were supposed to remember it!

Remember to forget what you should;
Don’t forget to remember what you should.

- Stonepeace

Next aT4aT: http://moonpointer.com/new/2010/03/strange-cab-phenomenon
Previous aT4aT: http://moonpointer.com/new/2010/03/unchanging-love

I used to be quite a severely unforgiving person. (Fortunately, things have improved greatly since.) The slightest bit of evil that I see others do I would condemn so greatly that I would slap a label of ‘evil-doer’ on the person for life. I would shun this person for indefinite time till that person redeems oneself in some sufficient way. Even though it is ‘natural’ to imagine the person who offends to deserve suffering, I realised that the one who suffers the most in the moment is myself – for bearing a grudge. This is really uncompassionate both ways because the alienation does not help to better either person at all. Now, don’t you beat yourself up for being unforgiving. You need to forgive yourself for being unforgiving to others too! Below is an article on forgiveness that I wrote for TheDailyEnlightenment.com six years ago on a similar vein of thought…

Bodhisattvas are thoroughly respectable
because they never lose the least respect for others [as all have Buddha-nature],
while helping the so-called ‘less respectable’
become thoroughly respectable with the Dharma.

- Stonepeace

The Bodhisattva Who ‘Cried’ Truth

Once upon a very ancient time, there was a Bodhisattva called “Never Despise”, because whenever he sees someone, no matter bad they might seem, he respectfully says, “I do not despise you, for you will become a Buddha.” Despite their apparent faults, he practised seeing their pure Buddha-nature, the potential to be Buddhas, (or the hidden potentials within them which are not different from other Buddhas’, full of perfect compassion and wisdom). Those who did not understand got angry, throwing sticks and stones at him. Never Despise would humbly retreat some distance, before calling back to them, reaffirming that it is indeed true that they would become Buddhas.

With this core practice of deep reverence of the Buddha-nature in others, it led him to perfect the six perfections of generosity, morality, patience, energy, concentration and wisdom. He subsequently attained Buddhahood, guiding countless others to do the same. As revealed in the Lotus Sutra, this Bodhisattva was none other than Shakyamuni himself in a previous life. He became the Buddha by virtue of awareness of his Buddha-nature, and by cultivating this awareness in others. The Bodhisattva was seen by some as the proverbial “boy who cried wolf” when he was only telling the truth. How ironic is it that the Buddhas see “themselves” in us while we belittle ourselves. Our innate Buddha-nature is like the most beautiful unseen “image” trapped in the block of marble. To set it free, all we have to do is to chisel away the unneeded parts – our defilements of greed, hatred and delusion.

When we cease to have faith in each other or ourselves, we cease walking the Bodhisattva path of helping each other become Buddhas. When we think a person who always turns a deaf ear to our Dharma advice is hopeless, we are disbelieving the Buddha’s teaching that we all have perfect Buddha-nature. Our primary mission is not to instantly “save” all beings with the Dharma - but to try our best in each instant, despite all odds, as Bodhisattva Never Despise did… for as long as obstinate beings are not yet touched by our sincerity and the Dharma. How do we make the world a better place if we do not believe we can all be better persons? Our imperfect human nature is temporary; but our perfect Buddha-nature is timeless. May we “Never Despise” ourselves, as we gain confidence in our Buddha-nature through spiritual practice. May we “Never Despise” one another, as we gain confidence in one another’s Buddha-nature. If we lose heart in Buddha-nature, we lose our most immediate refuge! Never give up!

A Tit for a Tat (109)

Tit: What is True Love?
Tat: That which does not become hate.
Tit: Huh?
Tat: Love that is not true enough easily becomes hate.
Tit: How can love become hate?
Tat: Because it is based on attachment, when it is unrequited, it can become aversion!
Tit: What about True Love?
Tat: It remains unchanged even when it is unrequited or when the beloved is lost!

Next aT4aT: http://moonpointer.com/new/2010/03/forgot-what-to-remember
Previous aT4aT: http://moonpointer.com/new/2010/03/who-is-the-real-one

Where there is attachment, it can become aversion.
Where there is no attachment, it cannot become aversion.

- Stonepeace

A Tit for a Tat (108)

Tit: I don’t understand her.
Tat: Why?
Tit: Sometimes, she is difficult.
Tat: So?
Tit: Sometimes, she is easy-going.
Tat: So?
Tit: So, who is she really?
Tat: Both yet neither! She is always changing. She is change itself!
Tit: But which is the real ‘her’?
Tat: Must there be one ‘her’?
Tit: Why not?
Tat: If there is only one ‘her’, who never changes, how can ‘she’ become better?

Next aT4aT: http://moonpointer.com/new/2010/03/unchanging-love
Previous aT4aT: http://moonpointer.com/new/2010/03/same-same-but-different-bowls

The last cosmic scene of ‘Men in Black’ (which is the only part that stuck to me) reminds me of a part of the Vimalakirti Nirdesa Sutra – especially the parts in blue below. Prepare for a mind-blowing experience as you try to imagine this part of the sutra.

The Licchavi Vimalakirti replied, “Reverend Sariputra, for the Tathagatas and the bodhisattvas, there is a liberation called ‘Inconceivable.’ The bodhisattva who lives in the inconceivable liberation can put the king of mountains, Sumeru, which is so high, so great, so noble, and so vast, into a mustard seed. He can perform this feat without enlarging the mustard seed and without shrinking Mount Sumeru. And the deities of the assembly of the four Maharajas and of the Trayastrimsa heavens do not even know where they are.

Only those beings who are destined to be disciplined by miracles see and understand the putting of the king of mountains, Sumeru, into the mustard seed. That, reverend Sariputra, is an entrance to the domain of the inconceivable liberation of the bodhisattvas.

“Furthermore, reverend Sariputra, the bodhisattva who lives in the inconceivable liberation can pour into a single pore of his skin all the waters of the four great oceans, without injuring the water-animals such as fish, tortoises, crocodiles, frogs, and other creatures, and without the nagas, yaksas, gandharvas, and asuras even being aware of where they are. And the whole operation is visible without any injury or disturbance to any of those living beings.

“Such a bodhisattva can pick up with his right hand this billion-world-galactic universe as if it were a potter’s wheel and, spinning it round, throw it beyond universes as numerous as the sands of the Ganges, without the living beings therein knowing their motion or its origin, and he can catch it and put it back in its place, without the living beings suspecting their coming and going; and yet the whole operation is visible...

“Reverend Sariputra, I have shown you only a small part of the entrance into the domain of the bodhisattva who lives in the inconceivable liberation. Reverend Sariputra, to explain to you the teaching of the full entrance into the domain of the bodhisattva who lives in the inconceivable liberation would require more than an aeon, and even more than that.”

From http://www2.kenyon.edu/Depts/Religion/Fac/Adler/Reln260/Vimalakirti.htm

Hi everyone, sorry for the long wait…
Here are some of the photos, with more coming up

Album : India

Next India Adventure: http://moonpointer.com/new/2010/09/death-is-rebirth
Previous India Adventure: http://moonpointer.com/new/2010/01/india-adventures-11-lamp-offerings

A Tit for a Tat (107)

Tit: My bowl of soup noodles has too little soup!
Tat: My bowl of soup noodles has too much noodles!
Tit: Do you prefer more soup or more noodles?
Tat: I prefer more soup with more noodles!
Tit: Hey! Your bowl looks the same as mine!

Next aT4aT: http://moonpointer.com/new/2010/03/who-is-the-real-one
Previous aT4aT: http://moonpointer.com/new/2010/03/out-of-sight-out-of-mind

A Tit for a Tat (106)

Tit: Because you shelved it, I forgot about it.
Tat: If you are mindful of it, you wouldn’t forget it.
Tit: I would be mindful of it if you didn’t shelve it!
Tat: If you are really mindful of it, it wouldn’t matter if I shelved it!

Next aT4aT: http://moonpointer.com/new/2010/03/same-same-but-different-bowls
Previous aT4aT: http://moonpointer.com/new/2010/03/groundless-fear

(pic:tangkoko.co.uk)

A Tit for a Tat (105)

Tit: Why didn’t you put it in your bag to bring it home?
Tat: Because I was afraid I would forget to bring it back to work.
Tit: Why not put it back in your bag after use at home to bring it back?
Tat: Because I am afraid I would forget to put it back.

Next aT4aT: http://moonpointer.com/new/2010/03/out-of-sight-out-of-mind
Previous aT4aT: http://moonpointer.com/new/2010/03/excuse-for-less-mindfulness

‘Summer Wars’ tells of how virtual reality as a ‘Second Life’ spills over to reality, till it becomes indispensable to real life when it gradually replaces aspects of it. In reality, like the illusory in Samsara, nothing is merely virtual once it is taken seriously with much energy and emotions invested. Though virtual worlds are created out of visions of a better world as fantastical getaways, they can only be as paradisaical as its inhabitants are enlightened.

When too many important things are connected online, it’s likened to putting all of one’s eggs in a basket. And the terror of it all is that it’s ‘only’ a virtual basket. ‘Summer Wars’ demonstrates this horror with a balance of humour though. The way I look at it, it’s eventual indeed – that future wars will be waged in virtual worlds – especially when their existence become so important that they become precious.

Watch the above. Enough said.

The best short video so far, from http://www.mercyforanimals.org/dairy
on the dark truth behind the dairy industry.
Please seriously consider giving up any food that has dairy content.

Evidence gathered during the investigation reveals:

~ Cows with bloody open wounds, prolapsed uteruses, pus-filled infections, and swollen joints, apparently left to suffer without veterinary care

~ “Downed” cows – those too sick or injured to even stand – left to suffer for weeks before dying or being killed

~ Workers hitting, kicking, punching, and electric-shocking cows and calves

~ Calves having their horns burned off without painkillers, as a worker shoved his fingers into the calves’ eyes to restrain them

~ Calves having their tails cut off – a painful practice opposed by the American Veterinary Medical Association

~ Newborn calves forcibly dragged away from their mothers by their legs, causing emotional distress to both mother and calf

~ Cows living in overcrowded sheds on manure-coated concrete flooring

~ Workers injecting cows with a controversial bovine growth hormone, used to increase milk production

Thankfully, compassionate consumers can choose to withdraw their support of these abusive industries by adopting a vegan diet. Each time we eat we can choose kindness over cruelty.

From one of the last page of David Small’s autobiographical graphic novel ‘Stitches: A Memoir’:

‘My mother died in 1970, age 58. Maturity, reflection and some family research have unearthed a few facts, which gave a slightly different picture of this taciturn and difficult person. Her physical problems were beyond what I could imagine or understand as a child. Because nothing in our family was ever discussed outright, I only became aware of some of them years after her death.

Born with her heart on the wrong side of her chest, she suffered multiple heart attacks toward the end of her life. She also had only one functioning lung. If this had been her story, not mine, her secret life as a lesbian would certainly have been examined more closely. I keep recalling a line from the novelist and poet Edward Dahlberg:

“Nobody heard her tears.
The heart is a fountain of weeping water
which makes no noise in the world.”‘

Throughout the earlier pages of the book, Small’s Mother was depicted as an idiosyncratic and unpleasant person, someone loveless he struggled to live with when Small was… very small. The true story with its hindsights as above reminded me, that behind every person’s seemingly unkind or difficult nature is great suffering. The more loveless and misunderstood a person seems, the more that person needs love and understanding. If we ought to be compassionate even with the less compassionate, compassion is indeed for all. Together with wisdom, it is what will truly save us all!

We often want too much love, while we give too little love.
When others are loved too little, how can they love us much?

- Stonepeace

In the ‘retelling’ of ‘Beowulf’ by Gareth Hinds, King Hrothgar tells Beowulf the following after they slays Grendal and the monster’s Mother:

‘Take thou, therefore, good heed, O Beowulf,
against pride and arrogance.
Choose the better path: profit eternal.
Now, indeed, thou art in the pride of thy strength and the power of youth;
but there will come of a surety, sooner or later,
either sickness or the sword;
fire shall consume thee or the floods swallow thee up.
Be it bite of blade or brandished spear, or odious age,
or the eyes’ clear beam grown dull and leaden.
Come in what shape it may; death will subdue even thee, thou hero of war.’

Grendal and his Mother too assumed they were invincible, just as Beowulf did. Often, we become great monsters or great heroes when we think we are undefeatable. Yet, unless one is a true conqueror, a Buddha, no one can conquer ageing, sickness and death. The path of spirituality, that quells pride and arrogance is the one that profits eternal. Of course, like all good cautionary tales of old, Hrothgar’s prophesy-like warning did come true in time, according to the legend.

Related Article:

The Dharma of the ‘Beowulf’ Myth (Movie Review)
http://www.buddhistchannel.tv/index.php?id=12,5517,0,0,1,0

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