FROM SLIDE SHOW: Paths to Perfection: Contemplative Practices in Christianity and Buddhism / B. Alan Wallace The Sources of Suffering Buddha: The origin of suffering lies in ignorance and craving. “Finally, there is still a path of seeking God within yourself:
the path of the removal of limits…When…you conceive that
God is better than can be conceived, you reject everything that is limited
and contracted…“if you seek further, you find nothing in
yourself like God, but rather you affirm that God is above all these
as the cause, beginning, and light of life of your intellective soul…You
will rejoice to have found God beyond all your interiority as the source
of the good, from which everything that you have flows out to you.” “Shariputra, this very Dharmakaya is called the realm of beings
when it is concealed by a sheath of boundless afflictions, wandering
repeatedly through births and deaths in beginningless samsara, buffeted
by the waves of samsara… Shariputra, this very Dharmakaya is called
the Tathagata, Arhat, Samyak-sambuddha when it has become free from the
veils of all the afflictions, has passed beyond all sufferings…” First of all seek three things: (1) to free yourself of all anxiety
regarding both real and imaginary things, (2) to strive for a pure conscience,
with no lingering sense of self-reproach, and (3) to be completely detached,
so that your thoughts are not drawn to anything worldly, not even to
your own body. “Do not engage in any vices whatsoever. Devote yourself to a
bounty of virtue. Completely subdue your own mind. This is the teaching
of the Buddha.” “Since the intellect of those recently embarked on the spiritual path continually darts away again as soon as it has been concentrated, they must continually bring it back once more; for in their inexperience they are unaware that of all things it is the most difficult to observe and the most mobile. That is why some teachers recommend them to pay attention to the exhalation and inhalation of their breath, and to restrain it a little, so that while they are watching it the intellect, too, may be held in check.” Calming the Mind in Buddhism “Shariputra, take the analogy of a potter or a potter’s
apprentice spinning the potter’s wheel: If he makes a long revolution,
he knows it is long; if he makes a short revolution, he knows it is short.
Shariputra, similarly, a Bodhisattva, a great being, mindfully breathes
in and mindfully breathes out. If the inhalation is long, he knows the
inhalation is long; if the exhalation is long, he knows the exhalation
is long. If the inhalation is short, he knows the inhalation is short;
if the exhalation is short, he knows the exhalation is short. Shariputra,
thus, a Bodhisattva, a great being, by dwelling with introspection and
with mindfulness, eliminates avarice and disappointment towards the world
by means of nonobjectification…” “One type of watchfulness consists in closely scrutinizing every
mental image or provocation. A second type of watchfulness consists in
freeing the heart from all thoughts, keeping it profoundly silent and
still…this inner stability produces a natural intensification
of watchfulness; and this intensification of watchfulness gives contemplative
insight into spiritual welfare.” “Whatever sorts of thoughts arise, without suppressing them,
recognize what they emerging from and what they dissolve into; and stay
focused while you observe their nature. By doing so, eventually the motion
of thoughts ceases and there is stillness… each time you observe
the nature of any thoughts that arise, they will vanish by themselves,
following which, a vacuity appears. Likewise, if you also examine the
mind when it remains without movement, you will see an unobscured, clear
and vivid vacuity, without any difference between the former and latter
states. That is well known among meditators and is called ‘the
union of stillness and motion.’” After withdrawing your awareness from all worldly concerns, focus your
attention on your heart. “To start with you will find there darkness
and an impenetrable density. Later, when you persist and practice this
task day and night, you will find, as though miraculously, an unceasing
joy. For as soon as the intellect attains the place of the heart, at
once it sees things of which it previously knew nothing. It sees the
open space within the heart and it beholds itself entirely luminous and
full of discrimination.” “Having nothing on which to meditate, and without any modification
or adulteration, place your mind simply without wavering, in its own
natural state, its natural limpidity, its own character, just as it is.
Remain in clarity, and rest the mind so that it is loose and free…Occasionally
inquire, ‘What is that awareness of the one who is focusing the
interest?’ Let the awareness itself steadily observe itself. At
times, let your mind come to rest in the center of your heart, and evenly
leave it there. At times, evenly focus it in the expanse of the sky and
leave it there. Thus, by shifting the gaze in various, alternating ways,
the mind settles in its natural state.” “Through grace God in His entirety penetrates the saints in their
entirety, and the saints in their entirety penetrate God entirely, exchanging
the whole of Him for themselves, and acquiring Him alone as the reward
of their ascent towards Him; for He embraces them as the soul embraces
the body, enabling them to be in Him as His own members…the intellect,
because of its freedom from worldly cares, is able to act with its full
vigor and becomes capable of perceiving the ineffable goodness of God.” “Once you have recognized all phenomena included within samsara
and nirvana as the play of your own appearances alone, you will actualize
the great, all-pervasive realm of pristine space, which is self-originating,
spontaneous, primordial consciousness…due to the unceasing power
in the nature of primordial consciousness, there is total knowledge and
total awareness of all phenomena, without its ever merging with or entering
into objects. Primordial consciousness is self-originating, naturally
clear, free of outer and inner obscuration; it is the all-pervasive,
radiant, clear infinity of space, free of contamination.” “If these are examined by one who is well-versed in the scriptures
and reasoning by which one distinguishes between provisional and definitive
meanings, they are seen, not as mutually incompatible, like hot and cold,
but as coming down to the same point.” Supernatural Revelation Natural Revelation Michael Shermer, Founding Publisher of Skeptic magazine: “Everybody
has eyes and ears and a brain that perceives and so on. I think they’re
all equally unreliable as eye-witnesses. We’re very bad at recounting
things we think we saw.” “Let empiricism once become associated with religion, as hitherto,
through some strange misunderstanding, it has been associated with irreligion,
and I believe that a new era of religion as well as philosophy will be
ready to begin... I fully believe that such an empiricism is a more natural
ally than dialectics ever were, or can be, of the religious life.” Conducted by accomplished contemplatives from different traditions in collaboration with cognitive scientists
|