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A Person of Freedom

April 26, 2010 in Philosophy by Danny | 2 comments

Upcoming Retreat:6/18/10 – 6/20/10 Tai Chi Retreat at CrossRiver Wilderness Centre near Calgary
http://www.crossriver.ca/dharmazentaichiqigongbuddhismretreat.asp

Slavery is the system by which people are owned by other people as slaves. In human society, if most people work as forced labour (unfree labour), this kind of society is called a slave society. In modern times this old style of slavery has mostly disappeared, but I feel we have walked into newer version. Although there is nobody forcing us, we have become slaves of material desires, a slave to loans; school loans, car loans, house loans, credit card loans….
I can still remember how I thought during my childhood in Taichung, Taiwan. Near my house was an American church school. When I was a teenager I often walked around outside the school because I liked to see the foreigner riding their bikes wearing their backpacks. It became a kind of symbol of freedom for me. I daydreamed of having a job on a ship so I could travel around the world.
After studying Taoist and Buddhist philosophy and actually traveling to other countries, I realized that owning physical freedom is not real freedom. When you don’t have any concerns in your mind then you have true freedom. I know it is not easy to do.

There is a zen story that goes like this:
A general was toying with his prized antique. It slipped and almost fell to the ground.
“Aiyah! That was close!” the general said. He became silent for some moments thinking. “I have commanded tens of thousands of troops to risk my life in battle and was never afraid. Why then did I become so agitated over a small cup?”
He finally realized it was attachment that brought about fear of loss, thus causing him anxiety. Hence he flipped the cup over his shoulder and smashed it. After this there was nothing that could make the general anxious.

From this story we know that if we have any attachments, it will cause us anxiety. Then we are not truly free people. Where there is thought and feeling of gain and loss, there is pleasure and sorrow. To go beyond good and bad, gain and loss, is true freedom.
An ancient text, translated literally as the “Vegetable Root Discourse” or Càig?ntán; tells us like this:
“Mountains and rivers and Earth are already nothing but dust, while man, of course, is but dust within dust. Bodies made of blood and muscle will surely return to bubble and shadow, while human affairs, of course are but shadows within shadows. If the highest wisdom is not obtained, there will be no heart of understanding!” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caigentan

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True Happiness

April 14, 2010 in Philosophy by Danny | No comments

Upcoming Retreat:6/18/10 – 6/20/10 Tai Chi Retreat at CrossRiver Wilderness Centre near Calgary
http://www.crossriver.ca/dharmazentaichiqigongbuddhismretreat.asp

There is an article in the Daily Mail named; “Money does buy you happiness… if your friends have less of it” The article goes on to say; “Money makes you happy – but only if you have lots more than your friends and neighbours. Owning the house of your dreams, the car you always longed for and having millions in the bank doesn’t stop that desire to keep up with the Joneses, researchers have found. And if the Joneses have more than you do, you’ll be miserable. It seems envy at being lower in the social pecking order tarnishes the satisfaction of being well off.
Psychologists looked at the happiness levels of 10,000 people who took part in the British Household Panel Survey and compared these with their income. The results showed that although salary is important to a certain extent, a person’s social standing or status matters more.
And that’s where the Joneses come in. “The standard of living has gone up for each individual over the past 40 years but it has gone up for everyone,” said researcher Dr Chris Boyce from the University of Warwick. “Our cars are faster now but our neighbours have faster cars too, so we haven’t got that advantage over people close to us. Without the biggest home, or the fastest car then it doesn’t give you that same excitement as it would have. Earning 1million a year appears not to be enough to make you happy if you know your friends all earn 2million a year.”
Dr Boyce feared many of us are racing to earn more money at the expense of building strong relationships. As Hyacinth Bucket discovers in the BBC comedy Keeping Up Appearances, trying to outdo…
“If everyone has to work hard to be better than other people, it suggests that if we all worked a little bit less we could find the time to do things that might be a bit more productive for our wellbeing,” said Dr Boyce, an economic psychologist. It’s not the first time we’ve been warned that striving to keep up with the Joneses is bad for our health. Previous research found those who feel eclipsed by their friends’ material success are more likely to develop heart disease, diabetes, ulcers and high blood pressure.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1259789/Why-money-CAN-buy-happiness–earn-friends.html

There is one phrase In Chinese go like this “yuán mù qiú yú”. It means “Climbing a tree to catch a fish.” An equivalent English saying is “One cannot get blood from a stone.” From this article we may think that it is possible that money can bring true happiness, but it really is a case of “climbing a tree to catch fish.”

There are three different levels of happiness:
The first is contest happiness. Through overcoming a competitor the victor feels happy. This nature of this kind of happiness is brief and followed with restless. This is because there is always another competition waiting for you and nobody can always win.
The second is conditional happiness. This kind of happiness is familiar to most people. When an outside condition seems favorable to you, you feel happy i.e. you get that new “toy” you’ve always wanted. However, when that condition changes, you lose the happiness too i.e. the “toy” breaks, or your friend has a fancier “toy.”

When we stop to seeking happiness from outside ourselves and start looking for inner happiness, then we will find the third happiness; “True Happiness”. Thus, happiness should not necessarily be sought after, for if one but avoids those things which cause suffering, happiness will exist on its own.

I believe that it is instinctual for people to look for ways to achieve happiness. But many people don’t know that they can decide that they can be a happy person just by themselves. When you are sick you can be happy, when you are poor you still can happy, even when you are dying you still can make yourself happy. Why do you want to let your environment guide your happiness?

Zen Master Wumen Heikai tells it like this: “Spring has its profusion of flowers, Autumn has its resplendent moon. Summer has its cooling breeze; Winter has its soft carpet of snow. If you don’t have a heart full of vexations then every season is a good seaon.”

Whatever is phenomena (a fact, occurrence, or circumstance observed or observable) is ephemeral. Everything has a bright and dark side to it in this world. Those who only see the dark side of things bring suffering and pain upon themselves. Those who can see at the same time the bright side of it, every day is a good day!

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Buddha Mind And Bullshit Mind

April 2, 2010 in Meditation, Philosophy by Danny | 3 comments

Upcoming Retreat:6/18/10 – 6/20/10 Tai Chi Retreat at CrossRiver Wilderness Centre near Calgary
http://www.crossriver.ca/dharmazentaichiqigongbuddhismretreat.asp

Su Shi (1037 – 1101), better known as Su Dongpo, was one of the Song dynasty’s most influential poets and essayists. Su Dongpo was an avid student of Buddhist teachings, and often discussed them with his good friend, the Zen master Foyin. The two lived across the river from one another – Su Dongpo’s residence on the north side and Foyin’s Gold Mountain Temple on the south side. One day he went to meditate with Zen Master Foyin at Golden Mountain Temple. After Su Dongpo had experienced a total relaxation of body and mind, he asked Zen Master Foyin, “Zen Master, what do you think of my sitting posture?” “Very magnificent. Like a Buddha!”
      Su Dongpo was very delighted to hear that. Zen Master Foyin then asked him, “Scholar, what do you think of my sitting posture then?”
      Su Dongpo, never giving up any chance to tease and jeer at Zen Master Foyin, immediately replied, “Like a pile of bullshit.”
      Zen Master Foyin was very delighted to hear the answer and did not utter another word.
      Su Dongpo thought he had beaten Zen Master Foyin because the Zen Master was wordless while being compared to a pile of bullshit. He was so proud of himself that he told everyone he met, “Today I won.”
     
This news soon reached Su’s sister Su Xiaomei. She asked him, “Brother, how was it that you beat Zen Master today?” Su repeated the whole story vividly to his sister. Su Xiaomei, talented and smart as she was, told Su Dongpo straight to his face, “Brother, you actually lost. It is because Zen Master’s mind is actually that of a Buddha that he could see you as a Buddha. As your mind is like a pile of bullshit, you, of course, saw him as a pile of bullshit.”
      Su Dongpo, realizing his Zen practice was far inferior to Zen Master Foyin’s, was speechless.
Afterward Su Dongpo practiced meditation and got better. One day after meditating, Su Dongpo felt inspired and wrote the following poem:
I bow my head to the heaven within heaven
Hairline rays illuminating the universe
The eight winds cannot move me
Sitting still upon the purple golden lotus

      Impressed by himself, Su Dongpo dispatched a servant to hand-carry this poem to Foyin. He felt certain that his friend would be just as impressed. When Foyin read the poem, he immediately saw that it was both a tribute to the Buddha and a declaration of spiritual refinement. The “eight winds” in the poem referred to praise, ridicule, honor, disgrace, gain, loss, pleasure and misery – interpersonal forces of the material world that drove and influenced the hearts of men. Su Dongpo was saying that he had attained a higher level of spirituality, where these forces no longer affected him.
      Smiling, the Zen master wrote “fart” on the manuscript and had it returned to Su Dongpo. Su Dongpo had been expecting compliments and a seal of approval, so he was shocked when he saw what the Zen master had written. He hit the roof: “How dare he insult me like this? Why that lousy old monk! He’s got a lot of explaining to do!”
      Full of indignation, Su Dongpo ordered a boat to ferry him to the other shore as quickly as possible. Once there, he jumped off and charged into the temple. He wanted to find Foyin and demand an apology. He found Foyin’s door closed. On the door was a piece of paper, with the following two lines:
      The eight winds cannot move me
      One fart blows me across the river

      This stopped Su Dongpo cold. Foyin had anticipated this hotheaded visit. Su Dongpo’s anger suddenly drained away as he understood his friend’s meaning. If he really was a man of spiritual refinement, completely unaffected by the eight winds, then how could he be so easily provoked?
      With a few strokes of the pen and minimal effort, Foyin showed that Su Dongpo was in fact not as spiritually advanced as he claimed to be. Ashamed but wiser, Su Dongpo departed quietly. This event proved to be a turning point in Su Dongpo’s spiritual development. From that point on, he became a man of humility, and not merely someone who boasted of possessing the virtue.

In Buddhist practice, a teacher will usually remind students to be careful of feelings and conceit. This is because, after practicing for a while, many people will start to believe they people of great virtue and become conceited. When they see other people making mistakes they can’t tolerate it: just like Su Dongpo. He liked Foyin praising him, saying he looked like Buddha while he could only see others as looking like bullshit. This also happens with martial artists when they start to criticize other people’s skills. What is true practice and cultivation? Not in meditation, not when you feel peace. It is in living present in every moment. I have to remind myself of this sometimes.

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The Way Of The Traditional Chinese Medicine Health Regime

March 20, 2010 in Philosophy, Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) by Danny | No comments

Upcoming Retreat:6/18/10 – 6/20/10 Tai Chi Retreat at CrossRiver Wilderness Centre near Calgary
http://www.crossriver.ca/dharmazentaichiqigongbuddhismretreat.asp

“In the old days the sages treated disease by preventing illness before it began, just as a good government or emperor was able to take the necessary steps to avert war. Treating an illness after it has begun is like suppressing revolt after it has broken out. If someone digs a well only when thirsty, or forges weapons only after becoming engaged in battle, one cannot help but ask: Aren’t these actions too late?”
—–Huang Di Nei Jing (Yellow Emperor Inner Classic) Suwen Chapter 2: THE ART OF LIFE THROUGH THE SEASONS

Health is a foundation of life; with good health you can enjoy your life more. Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) has been catching the attention of the World War II baby boomers as they’re approaching retirement. The more senior of baby boomers are slanting towards natural foods and natural body, mind, and spirit cures. They are realizing that Western medicine’s high technology treatments have limitations when it comes to promoting their health and managing chronic health problems. That’s why modalities like Acupuncture, TCM diet and TCM exercises are getting popular in North America. Over several thousand years the East has developed a philosophy and special customs designed to maintain good health that are quite different from that of Western medicine. Now the Western world is starting to pay attention and even study them. Here is introduction to TCM concepts and the way of the TCM health regime.

The TCM concept of health:
1.Emphasizes the universal: The human body is viewed as part of the cosmos. Traditional Chinese medicine considers our human body as a small universe; one that is in communication with the cosmos. Mother Nature influences human beings all the time, therefore TCM emphasizes the human body in unity with Mother Nature. To be suitable, the way of anyone’s health regime must be adjusted to follow climate changes and the four seasons.

2.Body and mind are part of an undividable whole. TCM emphasizes both body and mind; not only the tangible body’s health, but also practising the mind and spirit. Body does influence the mind and the mind also will affect the body: both need to be balanced.

3.Yin Yang is in balance: According to TCM thought, when your Yin Yang is balanced you are a healthy person. The objective of any health regime is to get the Yin Yang of body and mind balanced. What is Yin? In simple terms Yin is the material base that constitutes our body. And what is Yang? Yang is the energy. Yin and Yang are opposites but they can’t stand alone; they influence each other and depend on each other. Whatever is upward, outward, external, active, dry or heat belongs to Yang. Whatever is downward, inward, internal, passive, damp or cold belongs to Yin. So illness occurs because of too much or too little of either Yang or Yin. As you do things to decrease excesses and increase deficiencies thereby rebalancing your Yin and Yang the illness will naturally vanish.

4.The five Primary Elements are balanced. The Five Primary Elements are metal, earth, fire, water, and wood. They complement each other much in the same manner as Yin and Yang: they can’t stand alone; they influence each other and depend on each other. Wood can produce fire, fire produces earth, earth produces metal, metal produces water, and water produces wood. Wood hurts earth, earth hurts water, water hurts fire, fire hurts metal, metal hurts wood. The liver and gallbladder belongs to the Wood element, the heart and small intestine to the Fire element. Spleen and stomach is ruled by Earth, lungs and large intestine by Metal and kidneys and bladder by the Water element. A deficiency or excess in any of these elements produces illness in its corresponding organ so correcting the imbalance will restore health.

The TCM way to keeping good health:
1.Keep a regular pattern to your daily life and balance to your diet. This is the easiest aspect of the TCM health regime. Many of us do this naturally. It is best if you go to bed before eleven o’clock every night. This is because TCM thinks that from11:00pm to 1:00am your gallbladder rests and from 1:00am to 3:00 am your liver rests. If you always stay up late or even all night this will damage the function of both. Variety in your diet is important. After I moved to Canada I saw how lots of people eat too much meat and too little fruit and vegetables.

2.Suitable and sustained exercise. Everyone knows that doing exercise is very important to promoting health but not every body will do it. Also not every exercise should be practiced as a part of a regular health regime. From research we know Yoga, Tai Chi, and Chi Kung are good choices. If you can do it every day then you can easily get the benefits.

3.Keep an unconcerned frame of mind. The speed of modern life, multitasking and frequent interactions with other people causes a lot of stress in many different ways. We see more and more people with nervous disorders like panic attacks, obsessive-compulsive disorder, maniac-depression and even Schizophrenia. What causes this? It is because people just care about the body’s health yet ignore mind and spirit health even though body, mind and spirit are together. But how can we strengthen and keep healthy our mind and spirit? For over two thousand years Taoist and Buddhist philosophy have told us how to practice our mind and meditation is a good way to eliminate stress.
Below is a research article link about meditation:
“More than just relaxing, meditation helps improve self-image of anxiety sufferers” http://news.stanford.edu/news/2009/june3/meditate-060309.html

Traditional Chinese Medicine arose from our ancient people’s conflict with their natural environment. Generation by generation the unceasing accumulate of experience gained through continuous trial and error resulted in the practices of today. I hope this introduction can offer some different ideas and alternative practices to people looking for improvements to their health regime.

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False And Genuine: Detachment From Material Desires

February 13, 2010 in Philosophy by Danny | No comments

Upcoming Retreat:6/18/10 – 6/20/10 Tai Chi Retreat at CrossRiver Wilderness Centre near Calgary
http://www.crossriver.ca/dharmazentaichiqigongbuddhismretreat.asp

Do you like delusions or truth? Many people keep a false front; projecting success and joy. Other people look on, believing this is reality, feeling envy. Culture and media supplies people with images of what success is, like a BMW. Then people delude themselves enough to repeat it parrot style. Real is simple and natural, but it is difficult, because you have work against the influence of media and culture. Especially when everybody is inebriated only you stay sober.
Recently I read a News article called “Millionaire Gives Away Fortune Which Made Him Miserable” The article says: Austrian millionaire Karl Rabeder is giving away every penny of his £3 million fortune after realizing his riches were making him unhappy.
Mr Rabeder, 47, a businessman from Telfs is in the process of selling his luxury 3,455 sq ft villa with lake, sauna and spectacular mountain views over the Alps, valued at £1.4 million.
Also for sale is his beautiful old stone farmhouse in Provence with its 17 hectares overlooking the arrière-pays, on the market for £613,000. Already gone is his collection of six gliders valued at £350,000, and a luxury Audi A8, worth around £44,000. His entire proceeds are going to charities he set up in Central and Latin America, but he will not even take a salary from these.
“For a long time I believed that more wealth and luxury automatically meant more happiness,” he said. “I come from a very poor family where the rules were to work more to achieve more material things, and I applied this for many years,” said Mr Rabeder.
But over time, he had another, conflicting feeling.
“More and more I heard the words: ‘Stop what you are doing now – all this luxury and consumerism – and start your real life’,” he said. “I had the feeling I was working as a slave for things that I did not wish for or need.
I have the feeling that there are lot of people doing the same thing.”
However, for many years he said he was simply not “brave” enough to give up all the trappings of his comfortable existence.
The tipping point came while he was on a three-week holiday with his wife to islands of Hawaii.
“It was the biggest shock in my life, when I realised how horrible, soulless and without feeling the five star lifestyle is,” he said. “In those three weeks, we spent all the money you could possibly spend. But in all that time, we had the feeling we hadn’t met a single real person – that we were all just actors. The staff played the role of being friendly and the guests played the role of being important and nobody was real.”
Since selling his belongings, Mr Rabeder said he felt “free, the opposite of heavy”.
But he said he did not judge those who chose to keep their wealth. “I do not have the right to give any other person advice. I was just listening to the voice of my heart and soul.”
“http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/austria/7190750/Millionaire-gives-away-fortune-which-made-him-miserable.html”
THe Chinese Taoist philosopher named Zhuangzi (Chuang-Tzu), in his book Nanhua zhenjing Chapter 18: Perfect Enjoyment tell us like this: “Is there a way to be perfectly happy in this world or not? Is there a way to live longer or not? If there is, what can you do and what can you depend on to accomplish those things? What should you avoid and what should you accept? What should you move towards and what should you stay away from? What should you enjoy and what should you hate?
The things admired in this world are having wealth, being moral, living a long life and being famous. What brings enjoyment are having a comfortable place to live, eating flavorful foods, wearing beautiful clothes, looking at pretty colors, and hearing delightful music. What’s looked down on are being poor, being vulgar, dying young, and those who are filled with hate. What’s disliked are not being physically healthy, not having flavorful food to stimulate the taste buds, not having fancy clothes to wear, not being able to see bright colors, and not being able to listen to delightful music. If someone doesn’t acquire those things, they become depressed and anxiety-ridden. Those are stupid ways to treat the body!
The wealthy cause suffering to their bodies and make themselves sick because they try to accumulate more and more riches, but they never seem to get enough. That’s treating the body as being superficial.
People who want to be moral spend all their time day and night wondering if others see them as being kind or not. That’s being negligent towards the body.
If a person spends their whole life worrying about when they’re going to die, then their lives would simply revolve around worrying and they’d just be extending their misery. That’s taking yourself even farther away from your body.
People of high morals could be lined up so the rest of the world could observe how good they were, but that wouldn’t be enough to keep them alive. Can we really determine whether what we think is good is really goodness or really not goodness? Even if we decide that someone is good, that’s still not enough to keep them alive. If we decide that someone isn’t good, that might be enough to keep other people alive.
Therefore it’s been said:
“Faithfully listen to admonishments. Squat down and obey. DO NOT disagree.”
When Zi Xu (an adviser to the kings of the state of Wu who was forced to commit suicide) disagreed he suffered great injury to his body. If he hadn’t disagreed, then he wouldn’t have ended up becoming so famous. Can anything really be considered to be good or not?
As for when ordinary people express happiness, can we really determine if their happiness is coming naturally from within them or if it’s a release from unhappiness? When I observe the common people having fun, they socialize with each other in groups, rushing on and chattering incessantly as though that’s the only thing they can do. Even though they all say they’re happy, I’m not sure if they’re happy, but I’m also not sure if they’re unhappy. Maybe they’re just appearing to be happy, but they’re really not? Personally, I find more happiness in not being involved in all that activity, yet ordinary people would find what I do to be very uncomfortable.
Therefore it’s been said:
“In perfect happiness the sense of happiness vanishes. In perfect honorability the sense of honor vanishes.”
In this world, no one can know what results might occur from acting in ways that are considered to be either right or wrong. Even so, if no actions are taken, right and wrong become settled of themselves. To be perfectly happy throughout your entire life – only by taking no actions would it keep multiplying and accumulating. Please try to get the gist of these words. Without taking any actions the heavens are clear, and without taking any actions the earth is stable. Since neither of them do anything, they conform to each other and all living things transform naturally. What wasn’t there before is suddenly there, and there’s no sense where it came from! What is there suddenly vanishes, and it doesn’t even leave an image behind! All living things become involved in all sorts of things, and they go along with what happens and keep developing without even being aware they’re doing it.
Therefore it’s been said:
“Heaven and earth don’t do anything, yet nothing is left undone.”
Among people, who would be able to achieve this type of nonaction?
( Translation by Nina Correa) “http://www.daoisopen.com/ZZ18.html”

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