Be a blank page....be a mirror.....

“As soon as you begin to believe in something, then you can no longer see anything else.” The truth you believe in and cling to makes you unavailable to hear anything new. Remember faith is not blind belief.

Holding on to beliefs limits our experience of life. That doesn’t mean that beliefs or ideas or thinking is a problem; the stubborn attitude of having to have things be a particular way, grasping on to our beliefs and thoughts, all these cause the problems. To put it simply, using your belief system this way creates a situation in which you choose to be blind instead of being able to see, to be deaf instead of being able to hear.

When you explain or hear the teachings, if your mind and the teachings remain separate, then whatever is explained will be inconsequential. Hence, listen in such a way that you determine how these teachings apply to your mind. For example, when you want to find out whether or not there is some smudge, dirt, or whatever, on your face, you look in a mirror and then remove whatever is there. Similarly, when you listen to the teachings, your faults such as misconduct and attachment appear in the mirror of the teachings. At that time, you regret that your mind has become like this, and you then work to clear away those faults and establish good qualities.

Happy Bodhi Day

Happy Bodi day, Dec. 8 Bodhi Day is the Buddhist holiday that commemorates the day that the historical Buddha, Siddhartha Gautauma (Shakyamuni), experienced enlightenment, also known as bodhi in Sanskrit and Pali. According to tradition, Siddhartha had recently forsaken years of extreme ascetic practices and resolved to sit under apeepal tree and simply meditate until he found the root of suffering, and how to liberate oneself from it.

Traditions vary on what happened. Some say he made a great vow to Nirvana and Earth

 to find the root of suffering, or die trying. In other traditions, while meditating he was harassed

 and tempted by the god Mara (literally, "Destroyer" in Sanskrit), demon of illusion. Other traditions simply state that he entered deeper and deeper states of meditation, confronting the nature of the self.

In the Pali Canon, there are several discourses said to be by Buddha himself, relating to this story. In The Longer Discourse to Saccaka (MN 36),  Buddha describes his Enlightenment in three stages:
During the first watch of the night, the Buddha discovered all of his past lives in the cycle of rebirth, realizing that he had been born and reborn countless times before.

During the second watch, the Buddha discovered the Law of Karma, and the importance of living by the Eightfold Path.

During the third watch, the Buddha discovered the Four Noble Truths, finally reaching Nirvana.

“

My heart, thus knowing, thus seeing, was released from  the fermentation of sensuality, released from the fermentation of becoming, released from the fermentation of ignorance. With release, there was the knowledge, 'Released.' I discerned that 'Birth is ended, the holy life fulfilled, the task done. There is nothing further for this world.'

”

In his words:

All traditions agree that as the morning star rose in the sky i

n the early morning, the third watch of the night, Siddhartha finally found the answers he sought and became Enlightened, and experienced Nirvana. Having done so, Siddhartha now became a Buddha or "Awakened One".^[2][5]

The enlightenment of the Buddha is yearly celebrated in many Buddhist countries.

Bodhi Day is observed in many mainstream Mahayana
 traditions including the traditional Zen and Pureland Buddhist schools of China, Korea, Japan, and Vietnam.^[6] In Japanese
 Zen, it is also known as Rohatsu. In Tendai and other Japanese sects, it is called either Shaka-Jōdō-e(釈迦成道会^?) or simply Jōdō-e (成道会^?).

Services and traditions vary amongst Buddhist sects, but all such services commemorate the Buddha's achievement of Nirvana, and what this means for Buddhism today. Individuals may choose to commemorate the event through additional meditation, study of the Dharma chanting of Buddhist texts (sutras), or performing kind acts towards other beings. Some Buddhists celebrate with a traditional meal of tea, cake, and readings.

The word Rōhatsu (臘八) is Japanese and literally means 8th Day of the 12th Month. It is typical for Zen monks and layman followers to stay up the entire night before Rohatsu practicing meditation, and the holiday is often preceded by an intensive sesshin.   It is observed on the Gregorian date of December 8 as a result of the Westernization of Japan during the Meiji Restoration (1862–1869).

Bodhi Day is not as popularly celebrated as Wesak Day, on which the birth, enlightenment (Nirvāna), and passing away (Parinirvāna) of Gautama Buddha are celebrated. Traditionally, Wesak Day is celebrated on the 8th day of the 12th lunar month in East Asian countries that still observe this calendar (See Chinese Calendar).

important points of Buddhism in today's world.

As a factor of the Buddhist path, faith (saddha) does not mean blind belief but a willingness to accept on trust certain propositions that we cannot, at our present stage of development, personally verify for ourselves.

Starting with this most simple of expressions, as Thich Nhat Hanh explicates dependent origination as a vision of radical interdependence, or what he calls “interbeing,” in which all beings support and are in turn supported by all other beings. This elaboration encompasses the foundation, the practice, and the fulfillment of spiritual life.

It is important to have strong spiritual friendships not spiritual in the rarefied sense, but in a really down-to-earth way, to have good friends in the dharma with whom you can talk things over, share experiences, share difficulties and whose spiritual support you're assured of.

We’re afraid all the time of what the future will bring—afraid we’ll lose our jobs, our possessions, the people around us whom we love. So we wait and hope for that magical moment—always sometime in the future—when everything will be as we want it to be. We forget that life is available only in the present moment.

If you separate from everything you have done in the past, everything that disturbs you about the future and apply yourself to living the life that you are living—that is to say, the present—you can live all the time that remains to you until your death in calm, benevolence, and serenity.

Meditation is about seeing clearly the body that we have, the mind that we have, the domestic situation that we have, the job that we have, and the people who are in our lives. It’s about seeing how we react to all these things. It’s seeing our emotions and thoughts just as they are right now, in this very moment, in this very room, on this very seat. It’s about not trying to make them go away, not trying to become better than we are, but just seeing clearly with precision and gentleness. We work with cultivating gentleness, innate precision, and the ability to let go of small-mindedness, learning how to open to our thoughts and emotions, to all the people we meet in our world, how to open our minds and hearts.

If we learn to keep our mind quiet through meditation, to just stay present with our feelings, to connect with our heart, to let go of the story lines, and to directly feel all the unpleasant sensations associated with our emotional hurts, then the heart will open and we can approach each situation from a wider perspective.

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