Friday, February 26, 2016

The Wheel of The Existence

The Living Journal – The Wheel of the existence.
(For general introduction only)
Samsara is the whole round of existence, Samsara with its miseries, is the true cause of suffering. To Samsara belongs everything which proceeds from a chain of other causes and which is thus involved in Karma and delusion.

Its essential nature is misery; its function is to provide a basis for the spread of misery and by nature to attract miseries for the future.

Samsara is divided into three worlds:-
1] The world of the senses - Beings in these worlds enjoy external sensual pleasure.

2] The world of the form – Beings can not enjoy external sensual pleasures but with the capability enjoy the undisturbed pleasure of internal contemplation.
 
3] The world of the formless – Beings in these worlds, the objects of the five senses do not exist, nor the five sensual organs with which we enjoy. There is only a bare mind or consciousness that devoid of distractions and beings exists and dwells entirely in a state of equanimity.
Samsara may also be divided according to the nature of the beings it contains and by this system, known as the Wheel of life of the six realms. Buddhist cosmology typically identifies six realms of existence, The Wheel of six realms or the Karmic Destinations, which is known as the cyclic of existence. 

Cyclic of existence is beginingless which means that each being has lived countless lifetimes and as such, there is no being that has not been our mother or father at one existence or another. 

Buddhism therefore teaches that every being is in fact a kind mother being who has, in the past, shown great love, kindness and protection to each one of us and that we should in turn be ready to repay them with similar acts of kindness. 

This is a very important aspect of Buddhist practice that will help one to develop loving compassion and this is why the first precepts of Buddhism is refrain from KILLING.
The Law of the twelve stages of causes or dependent
The law is also known as the law of Dependant origination or the Wheel of Life and is a discourse on the process of birth and death. It deals with the causes of rebirth and suffering with the view of helping mankind to get rid of their ills of life. It is not an attempt to solve the riddle of an absolute origin of life. It merely explains the “simple happening of a state, dependent on its antecedent state.

Ignorance of the truth of suffering, its cause, its end and the way to its end, is the main cause that set the Wheel of the six realms in motion. The Buddha said; ignorance is the deep delusion wherein we here so long are circling round.

The twelve Causes and their interdependent relationship are as follows:-
1] Ignorance
2] Action
3] Consciousness
4] Form and existence
5] The senses
6] Contact –Love Making
7] Sensation
8] Craving
9] Grasping
10] Existence
11] Rebirth
12] Old age and death
The Wheel of the six realms
1] The God or The Devas realms.
2] The Asura the Demi–Gods or Titan realms. 
3] The Human realm.
4] The Animal realms
5] The Preta – gati or Hungry Ghost realms
6] The Hell realms.  
1] The God realms - Include beings in the realm of celestial form and celestial formless, and  are the happiest realm as those beings who dwell there are enjoying with great power, wealth and long life. They are enjoying with continual pleasure and sensual delight, mitigated only by the fact that they too must eventually grow old and die and pass on to the other states once their karmic forces end or die out. Those beings born into the god realms are mainly due to one having lived virtuously and generously towards others.
2] The Asura the Demi–God or Titan realms - Is populated by “jealous gods” who should be as happy as the celestial beings, but their minds are clouded with anger and envy over the better fortunes of the god realm. Take a closer look at the picture of the Wheel of the six realms, there is a tree growing from the realm of the Asura to the realms of the Gods.

This is a “wish-fulfilling” tree whose fruits and flowers can fulfill every desire which the Asura or the Demi-Gods they are unable to get hold of. This causes them great frustration, anger and jealousy and therefore constantly wage against the Gods and try to claim the fruits of their tree. 

However they are always defeated because the Gods are farmore powerful due to their karmic legacy. Despite being a heavenly realm the Asuras live in a great suffering due to the delusion of anger and jealousy. The male Asura suffering is further increased by being born with a monstrous looks while the female Asura are born exquisitely beautiful and the female Asura only yearn for the love of the handsome Gods and rejecting their own kind.
3] The Human realm - Is where we are, it is filled with the up and downs of life, and we should be grateful for this conditions to be around. These bring about the awareness of the bliss of happiness and the misery of suffering and therefore become the way causes that lead to a spiritual practice.

It is the most fortunate realm to take rebirth into the world where one is able to listen to the Dharma and practice it to attain enlightenment. In the God realms the Gods are far too happily engrossed with their pleasures to bother about further cultivation while the Asura realms are too much affected by anger, jealousy and dissatisfactions of their existence. 

The Human Realm is the only realm of the six from which beings may escape samsara. Enlightenment is at hand in the Human Realm, yet only a few open their eyes and sees it. Rebirth into the Human Realm is conditioned by passion, doubt and desire.


4] The Animal realms – Born due to the result of their willful ignorance and are therefore unable to derive any benefit from the Dharma. Animals live only by instinct and must face daily reality of searching for food or mate and killing or be killed
5] The Hungry Ghost realms – The living spirits born here due to there are associated with addiction, obsession and compulsion. Who are afflicted constantly with the miseries of hunger and thirst. These beings with huge, empty stomachs, but they have pinhole mouths, and their necks are so thin they cannot swallow any food or water.
6] The Hell realmsAs the name suggests, the Hell realm is the most terrible of the Six Realms. Hell beings have a short fuse; everything makes them angry. And the only way hell beings deal with things that make them angry is through aggression, violence. There are many different regions of hell, and the living beings in each of them also vary in nature, accordingly to their past Karma. Hell living beings only await the exhaustion of their karma to end their indescribable sufferings.
In the center of the Wheel of the six realms is seeing there are Three Animals which signifies the three poisons or three root causes of the suffering existence as follows:-

1] The rooster represents the passionate desire and attachment.
2] The snake represents hatred, enmity and aversion.
3] The boar represents the darkness of ignorance,ego & delusion.
Buddha 
In the top right corner, Buddha is showing the way. He is outside the Wheel of the six realms and to demonstrate that Buddha has escaped the cycle of life and death. Buddha is pointing to the Yama and the Wheel to instruct his followers the true nature of existence. 

The above explanation of the Wheel of the six realms helps us to understand clearly that our existence and sufferings are the result of the cause and effect and conditions which are without beginning of birth, death and rebirth. This Wheel of the six realms is a unique and superb representation of Samsara, the world of birth and death, it included all kind of living beings exist are classified into six types.
Mara is the king of the death and demons
The frightening figure holding the wheel of life is held between the jaws of the King the Demons, The Mara or Yama. Yama is the Lord of Death or Monster of Impermanence. He has three eyes and wears a crown of skulls.

W
ho always attempts to rule the mind of mankind and holding all living beings in a state of delusion.  Yama symbolises the impermanence of everything. The beings, he holds are trapped in eternal suffering by their ignorance of the nature of the universe. Buddhism teaches that death is not the end and is not to be feared. 

* Footnote *
Please consult your Guru or a qualified lineage master for Vajrayana practice! Should a devotee even want to start studying and contemplating the Vajrayana practice, then it is truly necessary to first have completed the preliminaries and to be certain and sure that bodhicitta has arisen and developed in one’s mind.

Vajrayana features countless skillful and powerful methods which, if they are practiced in the proper way, can make the process of accumulation and purification incredibly swift and direct. It is absolutely necessary to have the pure motivation and to know that Vajrayana practice is not carried out to increase one’s own power, ego and benefit.

Thank you for reading, may you find peace and great bliss. With your support it helps to spread the precious Buddha’s precious Dharma and turning the Dharma wheels in the world.

Aspiration For Bodhichitta
For those in whom the precious bodhichitta has not arisen
May it arise and not decrease
But increase further and further.

Nagarjuna's Dedication of Merit
By this merit may we obtain omniscience then.
Having defeated the enemies wrong-doings.
May we liberate migrators from the ocean of existence.
With its stormy waves of birth, old age, sickness and death.

*Note
I do not own or infringe any copyright of these pictures.
Pictures courtesy and credit to the rightful owners.

Saturday, February 20, 2016

The Twelve Sacred Vows and Dharma Protectors of Medicine Buddha

TADYATA OM BHEKHANDZYE BHEKHANDZYE 
MAHA BHEKHANDZYE
RADZA SAMUDGATE SVAHA
Buddha Shakyamuni gave the Medicine Buddha teachings at the perfect moment and at the perfect place – Vaishali, India. Buddha Shakyamuni presented the teaching that would be preserved as the Sutra of the Medicine Buddha. This teaching became very prominent in India and came to Tibet in the eighth century. 

Master Shantarakshita, who was known for the beautiful praises and sadhanas that he composed for all the Medicine Buddhas, first introduced the Medicine Buddha teaching in Tibet. His teachings on the Medicine Buddha have been passed down in an unbroken lineage. The Medicine Buddha practices are important in all schools of Tibetan Buddhism.
According to Buddha Shakyamuni’s teachings, there are seven other emanations of the Medicine Buddha, each with his own color and pure land. Sangye Menla, the Medicine Buddha is blue and dwells in pleasing upon seeing. These various Medicine Buddha emanations are of various colors, such as gold, yellow, pink, red, and blue.

Medicine Buddha (Sangye Menla in Tibetan) the manifestation of the healing energy of all Buddhas. He wears monastic robes and sits on a lion throne. The color of his body is dark blue and His left hand holds a bowl filled with nectar and another hand holds a stem of Arura.
By reciting his holy mantra it is a very powerful method and increasing healing powers for oneself and others, but also for overcoming the inner sickness of attachment, hatred, ignorance and the purification of negative physical and mental karma. Thus to meditate on the Medicine Buddha can help decrease physical and mental illness and suffering. 

If we can recite Medicine Buddha mantra every day and is good to do at least 5 malas, this will purify negative karma and will help you never to be reborn in the lower realms. According to Medicine Buddha sutra that even if an animal hears the Medicine Buddha mantra it will never be reborn in the lower realms.

If we don’t purify negative karma, when dying because of negative karma that not been purified, so we will be reborn in the lower realms as a hell being, hungry ghost or animal, and repeatedly without end. We need to purify the negative karma now. If you cannot bear the sickness now, how can we bear the suffering of the lower realms?
Medicine Buddha mantra prevents us from experiencing these related suffering, it is more precious than gold, diamonds or wish-fulfilling jewels all this wealth means nothing because it can’t purify all the negative karma. 

Medicine Buddha mantra is precious because it leaves imprints of the whole path to enlightenment in your mind; it helps you to have realizations of the enlightenment. 

Medicine Buddha mantra is extremely powerful for healing physical illnesses and purification of negative actions and karma. It ceases all the gross and subtle defilements and makes you achieve enlightenment. Besides the benefits you receive from reciting Medicine Buddha mantra and also these are the benefits just from hearing the mantra. 

The Twelve Sacred Vows of the Medicine Buddha upon attaining Enlightenment, according to the Medicine Buddha Sutra:-


1] To illuminate countless realms with his radiance, enabling anyone to become a Buddha just like him. If this does not come to pass, may I not reach enlightenment.

2] May all sentient beings born in my Eastern Lapis Lazuli Pure Land radiate glowing light – a light that dispels all dwelling in darkness. If this does not come to pass, may I not reach enlightenment.

3] Whoever is born in that Eastern Lapis Lazuli Pure Land, may they always enjoy material abundance and be free of all worldly concerns. If this does not come to pass, may I not reach enlightenment.

4] May the beings in that Eastern Lapis Lazuli Pure Land possess a stable vision of the pure view. If this does not come to pass, may I not reach enlightenment.
5] May those born in my Eastern Lapis Lazuli Pure Land pay utmost attention to the purity of their conduct. May the results of negative karma due to previous actions be deferred to the time of most benefit to spiritual growth. If this does not come to pass, may I not reach enlightenment.

6] May they all emanate health and growth in body and mind. May they be relieved of any discomfort or disorder that hinders spiritual growth. If this does not come to pass, may I not reach enlightenment.

7] May my name become a mantra that heals all ailments. May the sound of my name and the image of my nirmanakaya be a balm that eases all pain. May the sound of my name or visualization of my image cure physical troubles and sickness. If this does not come to pass, may I not reach enlightenment.

8] May those women who are undergoing sufferings and tortures and seeking and wish for transformation of their gentle into men have their wishes be fulfilled in the next next rebirth. May that choice lead directly to enlightenment. If this does not come to pass, may I not reach enlightenment.

9] May those who hold wrong views or beliefs regarding Dharma immediately develop right view when they hear my name. As a result, may they engage in Bodhisattva activities. If this does not come to pass, may I not reach enlightenment.
10] May those who live in fear and are easily controlled, who feel threatened with incarceration and punishment, leave behind their fears of catastrophe. If this does not come to pass, may I not reach enlightenment.

11] May those whose subsistence has depended on predation and the killing of other beings have all their material needs met upon hearing my name. May their freedom result in the recognition of their innate Bodhisattva nature. If this does not come to pass, may I not reach enlightenment.

12] Upon hearing my name, may those who suffer from any kind of hunger, thirst, or cold have all their needs provided for. May their food, drink, and clothing free them from mundane concerns so that they may begin to benefit others. If this does not come to pass, may I not reach enlightenment. 

The Twelve Spiritual General Yaksha Protectors with having its owned seven thousands of Yakshas in their retinue swear to Buddha Shakyamuni’s that they shall have recourse to Buddhist Trinity to bear the responsibility to let all beings be benefited by the path of truth and let one who peaches and recite the Medicine Buddha mantra or Sadhara to have abundance with happiness.

Wherever it maybe, be it in the villages, cities, capitals or in isolated place or forests, when one who peaches the Sutra or Sadhara , mantra and cherishes the name of the Medicine Buddha, reverence and makes offering to Medicine Buddha, the twelve spiritual general Yakshas and their retinues shall safeguard and protect the disciples, deliver them completely from all distress and fulfill all wishes.
The Twelve  Dharma Protectors of Medicine Buddha

1.   General Kumbhira.
2.   General Vajra.
3.   General Mihira.
4.   General Andira.
5.   General Majira.
6.   General Shandira.
7.   General Indra.
8.   General Pajra.
9.   General Makura.
10. General Sindura.
11. General Catura.
12. General Vikarala.  

After the great Medicine Buddha made these Bodhisattva vows, he kept these promises throughout all his lifetimes as a Bodhisattva. When we practice the Medicine Buddha, we should remember these commitments and aspire to do the same, for the sake of all living beings. If we do this with love, compassion, and bodhichitta, it will benefit us and all other living beings.
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Thank you for reading, may you find peace and great bliss. With your support it helps to spread the Buddha’s precious teachings and turning the Dharma wheels in the world.


Aspiration For Bodhichitta
For those in whom the precious bodhichitta has not arisen
May it arise and not decrease
But increase further and further.

Nagarjuna's Dedication of Merit
By this merit may we obtain omniscience then.
Having defeated the enemies wrong-doings.
May we liberate migrators from the ocean of existence.
With its stormy waves of birth, old age, sickness and death.

*Note
I do not own or infringe any copyright of the picture(s).
Picture(s) courtesy and credit to the rightful distributors and or studios.
Picture(s) is/are intended for editorial use only.

Sunday, February 14, 2016

Parnasavari- The Supreme Healing of Contagious and Incurable Diseases


The Living Journal – The Goddess of Supreme Healing Power.
[For general introductions only]

In Tibetan Buddhism, female deities play a significant role and female deities are of many types and, and the best known of the female Tibetan Buddhist deities are Arya Green Tara and White Tara.

There are Buddhas in female form and goddesses who are Bodhisattvas.  There are also historical figures such as lineage founders, and they all can function as deities. There are also yidams and dharma protectors in peaceful, semi-wrathful or wrathful form of the dakini, a special type of deity.

The Goddess of Parnasavarī, in Vajrayana Buddhism, a goddess distinguished by the strap of leaves she wears. She is known as Lo-ma-gyon-ma in Tibetan and as Hiyoi in Japan.

Parnashavari is originated from an aboriginal deity, and one of her titles is Sarvashavaranam Bhagavati, or “goddess of all the Shavaras” which is associated with the mysterious Shavari tribe in ancient eastern India

This goddess has adsorbed into Vajrayana Buddhism and the development and success of the late esoteric schools of India and the whose doctrines were taught in Tibet both by Tibetan teachers who had studied them in India and by Indian masters that were invited to the mysterious snows land of Tibet.

The goddess Parnashavari is the manifestation of the compassion-embodiment of all the buddhas; with golden colored body, three headed and six armed with three eyes on each face and three topknots of hair, wearing crown of five Buddhas and ornaments of various jewels. 

Parnashavari is an enlightened being that in the Tantric practice together with four other great goddesses, with whom she forms a pentad of deities called ‘Wisdoms’ is reflected in the growing importance that female deities acquired within the Buddhist structure.

The healing Goddess Parnashavari, with three faces and six hands, wears a skirt and a garland of thatched green leaves. She is particularly curing contagious diseases and fight disease and epidemics; she is represented with a smiling but irritated expression, stamping on personified figures of fever and smallpox. 

Parnashavari the goddess with her supreme healing power mainly in treating all diseases: contagious, poisonous,cancerous and other incurable ones.In the Himalayas and Tibet when a large group of people gather together to receive extended religious teachings, it is common to first receive the teaching and guidance and initiations or empowerments and blessing by the lineage Guru or qualified Lama                                                                    


In Vajrayana that enlightened activity is spoken of in terms of four modes of activity:- 

  • · Pacifying.
  • · Enriching.
  • · Magnetizing. 
  • · Destroying. 
Parnashavari she is represents the Pacifying, that is her special field, and it is to deploy that particular quality of enlightenment that a practitioner would undertake her practice. Her appearance is in a naked form, is to show that she is unconditioned by discursive thoughts.

During the degenerate age, due to ignorance sentient beings will commit great negative karmas causing endless strange diseases. many diseases are caused by 5 poisons of our minds.

Therefore, with the blessings of the Buddha dharma, if we are able to remove the 5 poisons out of our minds, clean our minds, the physical diseases will be naturally decreased and can even be eliminated.

My personal encounter
I have an unexplained experienced when I was traveled to Germany in December 2013. I checked in and settled down in the Hotel late night and later I had a cold and chilly sensation and I felt my body temperature rise up and with a sudden high fever. I always have my medicine ready in case of an emergency and while traveling aboard alone, but the medicine does not work effectively well and I began to start sweating profusely and intense heat in my body.

I automatically recite the Parnashavari mantra that my Guru had taught me before and to invoke the goddess blessing to pucify this strange encountered. After I have chanted with 2 rounds of mala bread of this mantra, strangely, my sudden fever and intense body fever or heat have vanished and I felt it was nothing had happened before.

Well, believe it or not?  You decide.
[I am unable to unveil of the sacred healing mantra due to * Tantric teaching. Should you ever have an opportunity to receive this healing mantra from the Lama, please don't ever miss it and you should treat this as you are receiving one of the most precious Vajrayana teaching and blessing from a Guru].

* Footnote *
Please consult your Guru or a qualified lineage master for Vajrayana practice! Should a devotee even want to start studying and contemplating the Vajrayana practice, then it is truly necessary to first have completed the preliminaries and to be certain and sure that bodhicitta has arisen and developed in one’s mind.

Vajrayana features countless skillful and powerful methods which, if they are practiced in the proper way, can make the process of accumulation and purification incredibly swift and direct. It is absolutely necessary to have the pure motivation and to know that Vajrayana practice is not carried out to increase one’s own power, ego and benefit.

Aspiration For Bodhichitta
For those in whom the precious bodhichitta has not arisen
May it arise and not decrease
But increase further and further.

Nagarjuna's Dedication of Merit
By this merit may we obtain omniscience then.
Having defeated the enemies wrong-doings.
May we liberate migrators from the ocean of existence.
With its stormy waves of birth, old age, sickness and death.

*Note
I do not own or infringe any copyright of these pictures.
Pictures courtesy and credit to the rightful owners.




Sunday, January 31, 2016

The Living Journal – Planting The Seeds of Om Mani Peme Hung

The Living Journal – Planting The Seeds of Om Mani Peme Hung
We may have spent decades of our lives searching for happiness, peace, and contentment—without sowing the causes for that goal. Why did we not plant the seeds of the fulfillment we wish for? 

The caused and effect or the Law of Karma says that if you plant an apple seed and prays for a Banana fruit, understandably it won’t work. But this is what we do, we wish for happiness without planting the seeds of happiness.

It is fine to call Buddhism a religion. In the beginning Buddhism can be taught as a religion. Fundamentally, however, Buddhism must always be seen as a skillful means for realizing the most basic aspect of human life. 
Why do we stay away from our fundamental nature? It is because of ignorance. Because doubts and uncertainty keep getting in our way, many teachings and methods have arisen as remedies.

In fact, we do the exact opposite. We plant the causes of recklessness, unkindness, foolishness, and a lack of understanding, conscientiousness, and thoughtfulness for others and their well being and most of the time hoping for happiness and cessation of suffering. Call it karmic patterns, habitual tendencies, or whatever it is critical to understand this human behavior.                                                                          
Planting the seeds of Buddha hood. One of the three benefits described in Buddha’s teachings, the benefits of planting, maturing, and harvesting the seeds of Buddha hood. The process of attaining Buddha hood is compared to that of cultivating plants. In this regard, The Om Mani Peme Hung is the seed, the Buddha like the farmer, and the people like the field.
The phase of planting is divided into two stages: -
[1] The Buddha causes the people to hear his teaching.
[2] The Buddha leads them to take faith in it. These are termed as "planting the seeds” by letting one hear the teachings by leading one to arouse faith in the teachings.

There are cases in which a person takes faith immediately upon hearing the teachings. There are also cases in which someone hears the teaching and develops faith later. In either case, the Buddha's teaching has the power to influence one's life, whether or not one takes faith in it immediately. It means that simply by hearing the Law one forms the cause, or seed, for attaining Buddha hood eventually.
In its most basic sense, the Law of Karma in the moral sphere teaches that similar actions will lead to similar results. Let us take an example. If we plant an apple seed, the plant that springs up will be an apple tree, and eventually it will harvest apple fruit. Similarly, in the Law of Karma, if we do a wholesome action, eventually we will get a wholesome fruit, and if we do a negative action eventually we will get a negative and agonizing result. 

One may ask how one knows whether an action that is positive or negative will produce happiness or unhappiness. The answer is time will tell. The Buddha Himself answered the question and Buddha has explained that so long as a negative action does not bear its fruit of suffering, for so long a foolish person will consider that action good. But when that negative action bears its fruit of suffering then he will realize that the action is unwholesome.  
Let us all begin our living journey by planting the Six Syllables seeds of the compassion mantra of Om Mani Peme Hung into our daily practice, by planting it[reciting the mantra with faiths and devotions], by maturing it [Growing our loving kindness and Bodhichitta heart], by reaping it [attaining the ultimate blissful stage of realization]

Thank you for reading and may you find peace and great bliss. With your support it helps spread the Buddha’s precious teachings and turning the Dharma wheels in the world.

Aspiration For Bodhichitta
May the precious Bodhichitta arise
Where it has not arisen
And where it has arisen may it not decrease
But increase further and further.

Nagarjuna's Dedication of Merit
By this merit may we obtain omniscience then.
Having defeated the enemies wrong-doings.
May we liberate migrators from the ocean of existence.
With its stormy waves of birth, old age, sickness and death.

*Note*
I do not own or infringe any copyright of these pictures.Pictures courtesy and credit to the rightful owners.