“Understanding and love are values that transcend all dogma.”
Posts Tagged ‘Hanh’
Living Buddha, Living Christ
January 10, 2009“Some people say that Buddhist practice is to dissolve the self. They do not understand that there is no self to be dissolved. There is only the notion of self to be transcended.“
Living Buddha, Living Christ
January 10, 2009“I believe that if anyone, Buddhist or Christian, embraces suffering with his or her own mindfulness or allows the Holy Spirit to work within himself, he will come to really understand the nature of that suffering and will no longer impose on himself or others dogmas that constitute obstacles for working toward the cessation of that suffering.
“When we are caught in notions, rituals, and the outer forms of the practice, not only can we not receive and embody the spirit of our tradition, we become an obstacle for the true values of the tradition to be transmitted. We lose sight of the true needs and actual suffering of people, and the teaching and practice, which were intended to relieve suffering, now cause suffering. Narrow, fundamentalist, and dogmatic practices always alienate people, especially those who are suffering. We have to remind ourselves again and again of our original purpose, and the original teachings and intention of Buddha, Jesus, and other great sages and saints.”
Living Buddha, Living Christ
January 10, 2009“The original mind, according to Buddhism, is always shining. Afflictions such as craving, anger, doubt, fear, and forgetfulness are what block the light, so the practice is to remove these five hindrances. When the energy of mindfulness is present, transformation takes place.”
Living Buddha, Living Christ
January 10, 2009“Christians and Buddhists both realize that without concentration, without abandoning distracting thoughts, prayer and meditation will not bear fruit. Concentration and devotion bring calm, peace, stability, and comfort to both Buddhists and Christians. If farmers use farming tools to cultivate their land, practitioners use prayer and meditation to cultivate their consciousness.”
Living Buddha, Living Christ
January 10, 2009“In the Gospel according to Matthew, the Kingdom of Heaven is also described as yeast: ‘The Kingdom of Heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.’ A little yeast has the power to leaven a lot of flour. The flour is our consciousness. Inside that consciousness are negative seeds: seeds of fear, hatred and confusion. But if you have the seed of the Kingdom of God inside and know how to touch it, it will have the power to leaven, to transform everything.”
Living Buddha, Living Christ
January 10, 2009“The Buddha was not against God. He was only against notions of God that are mere mental constructions that do not correspond to reality, notions that prevent us from developing ourselves and touching ultimate reality.”
Living Buddha, Living Christ
January 10, 2009“Our faith must be alive. It cannot be just a set of rigid beliefs and notions. Our faith must evolve every day and bring us joy, peace, freedom and love. Faith implies practice, living our daily life in mindfulness.”
Living Buddha, Living Christ
January 10, 2009“When you shine the light, darkness disappears. We may understand this as a kind of fight between light and darkness, but in reality, it is an embrace. Mindfulness, if practiced continuously, will be strong enough to embrace your fear or anger and transform it. We need not chase away evil. We can embrace and transform it in a nonviolent, nondualistic way.”
Living Buddha, Living Christ
January 10, 2009“In the Greek Orthodox church, the idea of deification, that a person is a microcosm of God, is very inspiring. It is close to the Asian tradition that sates that the body of a human being is a minicosmos. God made humans so that humans can become God. A human being is a mini-God, a mini-theos who has been created in order to participate in the divinity of God. Deification is made not only of the spirit but of the body of a human also.”
