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Why Practice?
The 5 Stages:
1 - Accumulation Stage
2 - Preparation Stage
3 - Insight Stage
4 - Meditation Stage
5 - Perfection Stage
Tantra
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Gratitude & Joy
Our relationship with others:
Through Shamata meditation, we have come to understand the temporariness and ungraspable nature of the outside world, and the temporariness and ungraspable nature of our thoughts and feelings in relation to it. We have come to recognize that calmness and control of our body and mind are hindered by being either carried away or by dwelling on our thoughts and feelings in relation to the outside world.
We should have recognized the harm that comes from trying to treat the impermanent as permanent or trying to find permanent satisfaction in things that are only temporary. We have studied ourselves and we have studied the physical world around us and our interconnection with our physical surroundings. But we are more than just the physical reality around us and, also, our own thoughts and feelings do not exist in a vacuum.
There is also a sentient aspect to this reality. As we begin to loosen our hold on our small self, we realize that there is an interaction of thoughts, feelings, perceptions, intentions, and awareness with the thoughts, feelings, perceptions, intentions and awareness of others. We realize that we are an integral subset of the overall set of the 5 collections that make up the sentient world.
Vipashyana or insight meditation is about expanding our self definition beyond our small self into recognizing our true self nature and understanding the incredible degree of our interdependence with all beings around us. We recognize gradually that this strong division between ourselves and others is really artificial and something we have unconsciously created ourselves.
Through the study of this relationship with others, we also realize that the divisions we create between enemy, friend, and stranger are also artificial and not as permanent and fixed as we believe. We also learn about the part that we play in turning another sentient being into an enemy, friend, or stranger. The result is that we begin to recognize that all sentient beings are an equally integrated part of our sentient world.
This is often referred to as the net of Indra. It is mentioned in Chapter 43 of the Avatamsaka Sutra. We are like diamonds linked inseparably together by silver strings. All the diamonds are reflected in each individual diamond and each individual diamond is reflected in all other diamonds.
What this means for us is that we cannot escape our interconnection with other sentient life. We can ignore it, or try to push or pull against it, but eventually what we do affects the overall net and any actions in the rest of the net affects us. We cannot attach ourselves solely to one part of the net or remove our connection to any other part of the net.
Quite often we become afraid or overwhelmed by this notion. We can quite often have the notion that dealing with others is a burden or is too difficult or is "not our problem".
When we are approached with the idea of helping someone, what can arise is the feeling of being unable to help, or a feeling of not having the energy to do all that is required to help. This would lead to a feeling of resistance or reluctance. If we do not resolve these feelings of inadequacy, and this happens a few times, then, thanks to the laws of Karma, this tendency to be reluctant will arise automatically each time the idea to help someone occurs. We also tend, because of karma, to treat similar situations in the same way.
The same happens in dealing with difficult people. Instead of viewing it as our own lack of understanding or lack of knowledge of all the circumstances involved (such as the interaction between our goals or understandings and someone elses), we view it solely as an obstacle coming from the outside and so develop aggression in dealing with it or resistance or avoidance to dealing with these issues. Again, we tend to respond the same way, over time, in similar situations.
We can look at this lack of enthusiasm and reluctance as a sign of a loss of a more complete view of reality. Although, originally, these feelings may come about as a realization of our own lack of ability or energy, we also usually subconsciously include in those feeling the notion that we can never have that ability or energy. Also, feeling overwhelmed comes from the misguided idea that we need to be in control of the whole process all at the same time. The truth is that understanding and gaining skill in working with Indra's net is a process. We only need to be aware of the interconnection itself and then do our part within our portion of the net and learn as much as we can about the portion of the net immediately in front of us at this present moment. As long as we are working towards this understanding and skill, then we will see the signs of improvement in our whole set of relationships with others. This is because the whole net is reflected in even the small part in front of us and what we do in the small part will affect the whole net.
The importance of viewing the world as Indra's net is also to understand and realize that the beings around us provide us with many important and useful things. These things that they provide us are information, support, connection to the rest of the net, a sense of direction, and understanding and awareness.
Information
Even beings that we consider our enemies are providing us with information. There is bad news, and good news, and neutral news, but we need to accept it ALL as the current conditions that we have to work with. It's other beings who communicate these conditions to us. It's not really personal. Without their help in seeing the whole picture, our response to our reality would be inappropriate and partial. And actually, it is only by their response to our actions that we know the appropriateness or skillfulness of what we are doing. If we can learn to treat the reactions of others as messages instead of viewing their actions as a personal affront or as a mere obstructing of our goals, we can eliminate a great deal of suffering from our minds and more quickly achieve our goals including the goal of becoming Buddhas. So the first thing that other sentient beings provide for us is information about the reality we are living in - good, bad, or neutral.
Support
Other sentient beings provide us with support on an incredible amount of levels.
On the physical level, all of our food is available to us because of the work of many other sentient beings in terms of growing, harvesting, transporting, storing, and selling. If we eat meat, then another being has given up their lives (or had their lives taken from them) in order to sustain ours. Our shelters are built for us and the building materials are gathered, prepared, or manufactured and assembled by others. Textiles are manufactured, coloured, designed, cut and sold in order to provide us clothing to wear. Also doctors, nurses, and technicians of various sorts help us when we are sick to cure our illness and recover. This is how sentient beings help us on the physical level. People hire and pay us to work to support ourselves; they do things for us that we don't have the knowledge or skill to do, such as plumbing, electricity, mechanics, maintaining buildings and roads, fixing computers, negotiating with other countries and so on.
The biggest contribution to our existence on the physical level is that our parents have provided the raw material in egg and sperm to create our human body which we now take as our own. Not only that, but, when we were as yet unable to protect this new body ourselves, they did their best to keep us safe and well fed and healthy. They also gradually taught us to be independent and take care of ourselves. Many of us forget about these things as we view ourselves as "self-made" and have such a strong sense of me and my body.
On the mental, emotional, and spiritual levels, we learn about life, dreams, goals, desires, likes, dislikes, what's good, bad, and neutral from others, either directly or through reading, especially our parents and siblings. Whether all these lessons turn out to be valuable or not is not important. What is important is that we learn ALL of these things from our interaction with others. This is why a Spiritual Teacher is considered so important and lineage is so valuable. Without Teachers passing on the instructions of the Buddha from one person to another through generation after generation, we would never hear or have had an opportunity to learn these teachings. Without them, we would never head in the direction of learning spiritual matters that would benefit us over all future lifetimes. Therefore, it is only thanks to other sentient beings that we get physical, mental, emotional, and even spiritual, knowledge so that we would have collected enough knowledge to have some notion of independence and call it our own. They are also continually supplying support, even when we feel independent.
Connection to the rest of the Net
There is often a conflict that we experience between being alone and being connected with others; being in our own realm or dealing with the realms of others. The truth is that they exist together. Being alone is merely experiencing our unique place in the net and our uniqueness in reality. At the exact same time, we cannot avoid the fact that we are always linked to every other part of the world and every other being in the universe. Even in a cabin, all alone in the woods or in a cave, we are never completely alone. The cabin in the woods and the woods themselves are there because of the lives, efforts and struggles of other living beings.
From our Interaction with others, we learn about ourselves. Where our place is in the net. We learn and monitor what our ever-changing relative position is in terms of physical location, and mental, emotional and spiritual strengths and weaknesses. We learn what qualities other beings have and where we can learn from them. We learn to share and exchange. We need to be aware and understanding enough to recognize that this is happening and that other sentient beings are helping us by being messengers of the changes to our reality and our levels of understanding. This is on top of getting their support for our own physical, mental, emotional and spiritual position within that reality.
Gaining a Sense of Direction
Other sentient life provides us with two very important things at the level of a sense of direction.
First is that we are constantly getting signals about what steps are necessary to fulfill our intentions. Once we have set an intention in our minds, the Net of sentient life automatically sends us signals about what strings we have to pull in order to achieve our intentions. As we create an intention, all those forces in Reality that are affected by the direction of our intention come to the forefront of our experience. This will include not only things that support our intention, but areas where our intention will contradict other intentions that are out there, or where fulfilling our intention will require extra effort or negotiation with others. We don't need to take these things so personally, but we need to take care of these difficulties, if we really want to achieve the goal or goals of our intentions. Of course, we have to be aware enough, smart enough, and committed to our intentions enough to pay attention and follow through on these signals.
The second aspect is that reality is like an artist's supplies. We get a blank canvas, but that is not all that we get. We also get all sorts of supplies with it. We get different types of brushes, different colours and textures of paint, appliques - all sorts of materials to create with. And as the effects of our creation become visible, the world responds and provides related tools and the creation builds. As the creation builds, we adjust to head towards our final product. Once the creation is finished, the canvas dissolves into the overall reality around us and we can start a new creation.
We're not just talking about physical creations here. We are talking about creating relationships, and creating direction as well. And what is the direction we are creating?. What is the goal of these relationships?
Though these notions apply to any goal or ideal, from the point of view of Buddhahood and spiritual development, the goal is to eliminate the causes of suffering, master reality, and help others do the same. Sentient beings provide the resources and feedback we need to accomplish this. Very basically, our goals are to eliminate dissatisfaction, frustration, and confusion wherever we find it, and to increase contentment, patience, and understanding wherever it is lacking. The results will be Peace and Joy for everyone.
Gaining Understanding and Awareness
Because of the "silver threads" connecting us to all of reality and the fact that all of "the diamonds" are reflected in each individual diamond, we constantly have available to us complete awareness of the whole picture. The degree to which we see the whole picture depends on how narrow our view of our self is. For example, the narrowness of our view of what our home is. Is it just our house and our immediate family. Is it our town and the people in it. Is it just our country or is it the whole world and every being in it. The narrowness of our view of who or what is considered a welcome part of our reality and who or what we feel that we have to keep out. It is we who determine what level of reality we are willing to encompass. We also have to feel that we are capable of encompassing more of reality into our awareness. This is learned from sentient beings who become our spiritual guides and is a large part of the work of spiritual practices involving redefining our self. Also, sentient beings are always appearing to wake us up to the areas we need to work on. We work on gaining the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual strength and ease or comfort required to encompass a larger reality.
Placement Meditation:
Next Steps:
This leads us to the next steps in our practice of investigating the nature of our self which is the connection of our lives with others.
The two largest kindnesses that have been provided to us by others is life and a place to make our own creations. This means providing us with Bodies and Life through birth. It also means the momentary circumstances and raw materials that are created by beings around us with which we think, speak, and act and create. In both these ways, sentient beings act as our mothers.
Our birth mother took extra care of her body while she was carrying us, and endured the extra burden of feeding, washing, clothing and carrying for two. Our parents prepared a room, clothes, toys and a home for us.
Our mother also endured pain and extra effort of varying degrees in order to give birth to us. Once we were born, they cleaned us, fed us, and cared for us when we were ill. They gradually taught us how to take care of ourselves.
They also provided us with varying degrees of physical, emotional, and spiritual education and support. At least enough so that we are still alive and here today and able to study and learn these teachings.
In terms of setting up an environment for our creativity, each moment is an interaction with sentient life, even if we choose to be alone for a time. In each moment, we are presented with the circumstances and ability to interact with others. In this way also, sentient beings act as our mothers, creating the circumstances which surround our current thought, speech, and action.
The nature and form of the thought, speech, and action, that is given birth in these circumstances is up to us and, once we've chosen the nature of that birth (by impulse or deliberately), then the beings and circumstances around us will adjust as a reaction to this new birth / creation. This happens continually from one moment to the next. It is in the choosing of the direction and quality of this type of birth that we improve our spiritual accomplishments.
In these ways, sentient beings act as our mothers and provide us with a tremendous amount of resources that are totally at our disposal. On top of this, they have been providing us with these resources for lifetime after lifetime. It would only be fitting to desire to repay these beings for these tremendous kindnesses.
We need to continually remind ourself that we are also dependent on others for Information, Support, Connectivity, Direction, and Understanding. Not only do they provide this help for us now, If we have had many lifetimes, this means that they have been providing this help to us since beginningless time. That we have not become Buddhas yet is that, because we didn't know any better, we have not taken good enough advantage of their gifts.
Contemplating again and again these gifts and kindnesses from others will fill us with gratitude for all that they do and have done for us. We can also recognize that the tremendous amount of resources we have at our disposal is thanks to our relationship with others. This enthusiasm and gratitude will incite us to desire to repay them for these kindnesses and to feel positive in our relationships with them, even the momentary or negative ones.
If we are mindful each time we benefit from these kindnesses, we will arrive at a point where we automatically enjoy working with others and have the desire for other sentient beings to be happy.
Because of this, we will feel joy whenever we see them happy and we will rejoice in their successes. If we do not experience this joy, we can see this as a signal that we are not paying enough attention to the kindnesses that we have received and that is why our gratitude is not visible. Through this type of practice our Gratitude and Joy at others happiness and, as a result, our own overall joy, will increase continually.
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