Month: July 2004 Page 3 of 6

Buddhist Pure Lands and God Realms

On 23/07/2004

In response to:

an email describing how their daughter is Christian, and reflecting on how to relate to her.

Many thanks for your kind words, and for sharing so much of your personal experience and situation. I’m afraid I can’t really do justice to your email at this time, but wished to send a response that at least touched on some of the points you raise.

The Pure Land notion in Buddha Dharma is quite a complex one in terms of origins and development, having developed in a number of ways in both China and Japan, and then again in the Tibetan sphere of Dharma. My own experience of pure land traditions is largely from Chinese Pure Land, which I used to practice many years back.

Amida Buddha sits in the center of his Pure Land, the “blissful land.”

Key differences between Pure Land and Heaven

To point to what may be the key difference between a Pure Land and an abode of the gods, or a heaven – essentially, one is seen as being still in the influence of karma, and the other isn’t. When you go to a heaven realm as a god, you still are within Samsara, and act in such ways to either create good or bad karma. And necessarily you will still be reborn into another realm when the karma that took you to that rebirth runs out.

However, in a pure land it is impossible to create bad karma. It is said that you are freed from the cycle of birth and death so that you can concentrate single-mindedly on attaining Enlightenment. It is taught that there you will not have any negative experiences, nor create bad karma. So if you like, from there, the only way is up! Once in a pure land, the only ‘place’ to go to is Nirvana, so to speak.

In the Deva realm, you are largely surrounded by other Devas (gods), whereas in a pure land, you are surrounded by Buddhas and Bodhisattvas who guide you constantly in the Dharma.

Experience is not fixed

To turn to your other points, I would say that it is taught that all beings go through the stages you describe between death and birth, but it’s important to remember that how beings experience that would be dependent on their karma and merit. So they may experience that in an entirely different way. All things are empty, and the play of appearances is dependent arising so all that you experience is the result of your previous actions, and not fixed or a certain way in that sense for all beings.

A delicate path of communication

It’s wonderful you are able to communicate so well with your daughter about such things, and that she is receptive to your path too. Communicating across religious paths is something quite prominent in my personal and family life too, so I have empathy there with you. A delicate process, challenging to be sure. For myself I feel it important to not try to make everything either harmonise, or not to look necessarily for the ‘differences’ and indeed to be patient with seeming differences, but to just allow things to be as they are, to be a play of experiences and arisings, and allow things to take a course without too much forcing of them in particular directions. Everyone has their own way through these things, seeking to help others and to not create bad karma themselves, or to encourage others to do so either.

Could you tell me more about the Dzogchen book, I’m intrigued! Is it in English?

best wishes to you in the Dharma

Eden, Mind and Karma

By Chodpa

On 21/07/2004

In Vajrayana

A question asking that:

Christians will get to Eden because that is what their mind knows. So does that mean that I can visit Eden too if I meditate on it?

To address your question indirectly – when ***** says:

Because the only world we know is what the mind knows. There’s really nothing out there that is not also in here

– this alludes to the teaching that what we experience is ultimately all mind. There are many aspects and implications to this.

We only directly know experience, not an outside world

For example, it points to us never actually being able to directly experience anything ‘out there’. Our only knowledge or experience in within mind. Our experience is of arisings in mind, which may or may not accurately reflect anything which we imagine to be ‘out there’, but we have absolutely no direct knowledge whatsoever of what may be ‘out there’. This is extremely profound and far reaching.

Cutting away the idea that there is somehow an objective reality out there, and recognising that all perceptions, and our entire experience is mind made obviously cuts away the idea that there is a heaven, Eden or any other paradise (including Pure Lands!) which exist ‘out there’, which we can therefore ‘go to’ when we die, or before.

We see things in terms of our past experience

Whilst we are not enlightened, our perceptions take place in the 6 consciousnesses, and are necessarily ‘ignorant’. The sixth consciousness, (deluded) mind overlays its conceptual understanding on all the perceptions that arise from our other 5 senses. As such, we ‘see’ our experience through the ‘glasses’ of our 6th consciousness. As this consciousness makes sense of perceptions in accordance with our karma, it understands or decodes them on the basis of that karma. This means that we quite literally see things in terms of our past experience.

The example is often given of most humans most of the time seeing water as something refreshing to drink, whereas the same thing would be seen by a preta as molten lava, the devas as nectar etc.

We do not directly ‘see’ the perception, we actually ‘see’ the conceptual overlay. This is why the quality of ‘clarity’ is so important in Mahamudra. The relation between the conceptual overlay (which is determined by karma) and the perception from the 5 other consciousnesses is said to be like looking at pebbles through the running water of the stream.

Can we visit Eden?

So, coming back to your question, as to whether we can visit Eden etc – well, perhaps and no. No in the sense outlined above that there is no objective Eden existing ‘out there’. But perhaps in the sense that all that you experience is mind, is arisings in mind, then if the experience of visiting Eden arises in your mind, then you are actually there! Eden experienced in the mind, or a Pure Land, or a Buddha figure, or a chocolate bar, or pain, or a thought, or anything else are all the same in this respect – they are just arisings in the mind, which are ultimately empty, without substance, like a dream, like a rainbow, but which nevertheless do seem to appear to the mind, and which we do seem to experience.

It follows that if you meditate on Eden or anything else which you conceive to be a place, then you will likely experience ‘being there’, for what it’s worth.

Angels and Padmasambhava

On that note I would like to add in parting that one of my teachers from some years back came from a Christian background, and was someone who experienced very deep states of Shamata. He had many visions in the course of his Dhyana experiences, and the vast majority of them were of angels, even though his practice was on Padmasambhava. His karma ‘made sense’ of his experience in terms of what he had previously acted and known, as so this is how these experiences appeared to him.

Angel from a fresco decoration of a chapel in the Torre della Gabbia in Mantua

For us I’d venture to suggest it matters less what the experience is, from the point of view of ‘content’, much of the time, but rather matters more in terms of its ‘form’. In other words, don’t get caught up in the story in your mind, but see it for what it is – empty arisings, the play of mind, just appearances which cannot ultimately be grasped.

Don’t know if that in any way addresses your question, S*******?

What is really out there?

As a final note, I’d wish to respond to B****’s assertion that:

There’s really nothing out there that is not also in here

by suggesting that there is no way we can possibly know that. We can come to the recognition that all that we experience is mind and within mind, but we cannot possibly know if there is anything ‘out there’ which is also not in our minds. Practically, if it isn’t in our mind, it doesn’t exist, but that’s not quite the same thing 🙂

best wishes

A Beautiful Guru Student Relationship Metaphor – Dorje Chang Thung prayer

By Chodpa

On 14/07/2004

In Vajrayana

Today I came across a rather beautiful metaphor for roles in the guru-student relationship:

The teacher is the mirror in which you see your own face. The mirror shows you your face, and the guru therefore helps you see the nature of your mind. So you are able to see the nature of your mind because it shines in the mirror of the guru. Of course the mirror won’t come to see you, you have to go and stand in front of the mirror yourself.

Then, the part which I found especially resonant …. In order to see yourself, you also need the light. And in this metaphor, the light is devotion. When you’ve put yourself in front of the mirror, and the light is present, then it’s impossible not to see your face. At that point, you have the choice to clean the mirror or leave it dirty course.

The metaphor of the guru being a mirror is something I’d come across before, but the addition to it of devotion being like a light was quite new for me, and profoundly illuminating!

Dorje Chang Thung prayer

I was then led to reflect on the third sloka of the Dorje Chang Thung prayer with the benefit of this metaphor:

MO GU GOM GYI GO WOR SUNG PA SHIN.

As is taught, devotion is the head of meditation;

MEN NGAG TER GO JE PEI LA MA LA.

the lama opens the door to the profound oral teachings.

GYUN DU SOL WA DEB PEI GOM CHEN LA.

To the meditator who always turns to him,

CHO MIN MO GU KYE WAR JIN GYI LOB.

grant your blessing that uncontrived devotion be born within.
Dorje Chang Thung prayer

With best wishes in the Dharma