Sean's Sharings

The following are the things I managed to jot down in my notebook as fast as I can. Some parts show my side of the notes. So, I will be sharing my opinions along the way. If there is any errors in what I have written. Please inform me. Thank you.

We all know how to listen to the Dharma but if we do not have the correct attitude towards the Dharma, we will not listen to the Dharma.

What is the correct attitude towards the Dharma? That is a question I would like to ask. My current answer would be that my current attitude towards the Dharma is that I use the Dharma to save myself and then save others.

When it comes to Dharma, it is not just about just remembering everything. When we learn, we should practice too.

Why can't we remember the Dharma? It is because we do not pay attention. Why don't we pay attention? Because we lack faith.

Faith is like a Christian thing. Their whole religion involves faith. Faith in God, Jesus and the holy spirit. No offense to any Christians if I might have offended any. In Christianity, the definition of lacking faith is by thinking nothing of God. In Buddhism, the definition of lacking faith is thinking that worldly pursuit is better than the Dharma.

How should be pay attention? We should pay attention like a deer.

We should be as aware of our surroundings such as a deer and we should pay attention to your surroundings by thinking that your life depends on it.

If we do not think that our life depends on the Dharma, we will not survive. We will be pushed to the lower realms. WE WILL STILL HAVE TO ENDURE SUFFERING!

When listening to the Dharma, we should not be like the 3 pots. I have written about the three pots before. Now, for more detail on the smelly pot.

The smelly pot is impossibly contaminated to a heavy extent. Whatever good advice that comes will become bad advice and thus there would be no result.

What is the remedy to this? Clean our mind. How do we clean our mind? We must first identify what problems we have. Lets begin with the three root poisons. Ignorance that will lead to attachment and desire. When you do not get what you desire, anger arises. After the anger slowly grows, it becomes hatred. When your hatred is horribly stored, revenge is something you will have on the object of hatred.

Even the three root poisons are still to general. For more detail, we have the eight worldly Dharmas. I have written about them before.

The next step to the remedy is that we need to tackle this situation by reflecting on yourself. Keep checking.

Something that H.E. Tsem Tulku Rinpoche said to Datuk May Phng, "To practice the Dharma, do what you never do."

The ugly or sometimes beautiful truth is that everything you like to do is the cause of suffering.

Now for a bit on the leaky pot. We are very good at everything. We are good in Dharma but the only problem is that whatever that goes into our mind eventually disappears.

How do we stop forgetting? The answer is simple : Study.

I really dislike getting bullied. I get bullied by someone at least once a year.

Here is the story about my bullying for today:

I got into a fight in school. Someone in class called me a ,"So Hai" I was already flaming up as I lost my bottle that had some sentimental value. I let him go the first time. Then, some kid treated me like a child by saying, "Don't cry lah!" I was really angry. I grabbed his hand and told him to back off.

Only to be attacked by the other guy. I was being strangled and I accidentally dirtied his pants when I tried to push away. I was pushed all the way to the wall. I lost. I injured my stomach and hurt my arm even further. I even injured my leg. I broke down in tears. I lost a lot of rep points in my class. I guess I have become the most hated student in my class.

I received a lot of advice from people but nothing will help. I have been told to fight back but in the end we would both lose and get injured. I have been told to tell the teachers. I did. Now, I have one nagging thought about that decision. What would happen if the boy told on me first or would lie his way to the teachers heart.

Update: the boy apologized. It turns out he was trying to protect his friend as he thought his friend might get injured. There was a lot of misunderstanding. I forgive him.

There are many very good reasons to be vegetarian. Such as it is able to reverse heart disease. It is unfair towards animals when they are processed to become meat. Eating meat is very unclean as there is still some poop left in the meat.

If you love your dog, then why would you eat meat as you would be eating something that also had been a living thing.

It is very true to not eat something living only for our taste buds. That is extremely selfish.

When we are eating something that was once living, we would be telling someone else to kill for our stomachs. It is unfair towards the animal and the human as they will be accumulating a fathomless amount of bad karma as they are slaughtering many animals. Even if it is killing for a living, I think that bad karma will be accumulated.

We are not an environmentalist if we are not vegetarian as a lot of pollution is created within the farms. The pork furnaces create a lot of CO2 and the cow farms release a lot of methane in the air.

The animals are defenseless. They cannot protect themselves from the hand of the humans who want to eat them.

We know it is wrong to eat meat. We should stop eating meat. Animals have feelings too.

The link to the video is:

http://video.tsemtulku.com/videos/15_Reasons_to_Quit_Eating_Meat_and_Be_a_Vegetarian.flv

I am going to be writing down everything I learned in Simplified Lam Rim Class yesterday. If there is anything I missed out, please tell me. Please correct me if I am wrong. If there is something you do not understand or if there any questions you would like to ask me, please do so. I will do everything I can to look for the answers.

According to the Nalanda Teachings, before we can receive teachings. We need to know the three purities. That is the purity of the Dharma, the purity of the Guru and the purity of the student. Guess which one we can relate to the most. If you thought that it was the purity of the student. You are right!

We can relate to that the most as we are currently Dharma students. Our mind must be pure when learning the Dharma. Pure meaning uncontaminated. You do not want to be like the dirty pot. I will talk about that later.

Every word of the Dharma is about reflecting yourself.

If we see someone that is going to die or past away of sickness, old age etc. What do you think? Most humans would think, "Whew! Lucky that was not me!" that is a bad way of thinking. We should be thinking, "I will be like them one day." or better, "I want to find the cure." The cure is the Dharma. You will be liberated from all suffering when you get enlightened after learning and practicing.

Why do we go and learn the Dharma? My answer would be that I can learn how to open my mind and reflect with my inner Buddhist.

Whatever things we have now will be lost at Death. All the money, all the Gems, everything you like will be gone when you are either six feet under, ashes or vulture food. Many people think that Buddhism is very pessimistic because we usually talk about death. In Buddhism, Death is one of the main subjects as it is applicable to all. We cannot challenge Death. Death comes to all.

Last week, Mr. Ngeow talked about profound and vast path. Noy just to let everyone know a bit more. The profound path comes from Manjushri and the Vast path comes from Maitreya.

Let's talk about Aitsha now.

When Atisha was born he had already had all the good qualities of a Buddha yet he still was humble. His first talk was, "I need a Guru".

Atisha got Enlightened in 12 years. Why am I telling everyone this? It is to prove that there is hope. We can get Enlightened in this lifetime.

There is no contradiction in any of Buddha's teachings. It is very consistent with our goal of Enlightenment, freedom from Suffering and permanent happiness.

Buddhadharma is all personal advice to be practiced.

Buddha's ultimate intention is for us to understand all of the stages of the path. The path is already paved out for you. It is your choice to take it. The path to Enlightenment caters for all. Even if you are black or white or yellow, you can get Enlightened.

When we study the Lam Rim, we will become wiser and when we become wiser, our motivations will change. When we are not so wise, our objectives will be very worldly but when we are wiser, we will think about others and our motivations will be more spiritual.

Why do we need a guru?

The reason is that a guru can see our mind and help us correct it. Here is a video on guru devotion by H.E. Tsem Tulku Rinpoche

Listening to the Dharma

By listening to the Dharma, you will experience the following:

- Understand the meaning of the Dharma
- Cease non virtuous actions
- Abandoning meaningless pursuit
- oversome suffering

Listening is a lamp that dispels the darkness of ignorance.

Listening is the best gift we can have.

present

It is a gift because you can learn the Dharma by listening.

We must not be like the three pots.

Here is a picture of the three pots I drew. Please forgive me for my horrible art skills. I could not find a good enough picture online.

From right to left ----- Overturned pot, smelly pot, leaky pot.

Overturned pot - Nothing goes in

Smelly pot - Contaminated with wrong view and there is no result or improvement when in the Dharma.

Leaky pot - Things come in from one side and come out from the other side.

We are at least like one of these pots. Which pot are you?

We must not be like these pots. That is why we have the Dharma. We can use the Dharma to stop us from being like the pots or if you are any of the pots, it will stop us from remaining as any of the pots forever.

Rinpoche once said that a Dharma centre is like a hospital. We must regard ourselves as the sick people. We may be physically fine but we are mentally sick. The Dharma is the cure to our disease. The guru is our supreme doctor.

Our faith will increase when we overcome doubts.

Holding precepts or vows helps us to remind ourselves to be mindful.

What to buy to learn for today?

Gurus for hire, Enlightenment for sale published by KMP

We must stop animal cruelty. But how? If we ourselves eat meat, how will we stop animal cruelty?

The answer is stop eating meat. The animals suffer a lot when they are prepared for our bellies. That is why I am vegetarian. If you do not believe, watch these videos. After watching these videos, we should already be Vegetarian.

These videos are from Rinpoche's blog. I will post the link here:

http://blog.tsemtulku.com/tsem-tulku-rinpoche/2010/06/19-videos-on-animal-cruelty.html

Rinpoche is asking sincerely to us to help promote vegetarianism. Go Vegetarian, Stop the Cruelty!

I started to read the book that was edited by Trijang Rinpoche and translated by Michael Richards that is based on a teaching by Kyabje Pabongka Rinpoche. I am going to share what I learned from the first chapter of the book today. That chapter is Day 1 of Pabongka Rinpoche's teachings.

Day 1 is an introductory discourse on the Lam Rim. Kyabje Pabongka Rinpoche gave this teaching as a motivational teaching for the teachings that would be coming in the following days.

Pabongka Rinpoche began with a lovely prayer from Lama Tsongkhapa.

This opportune physical form
Is worth more than a wish-granting gem.
You only gain its like once.
So hard to get, so easily destroyed,
It's like a lightning blot in the sky.

Contemplate this, and you will realize
All worldly actions are but a winnowed chaff,
And night and day you must
Extract some essence from your life.
I, the yogi, practiced this way;
You, wanting liberation, do the same.

I think that this prayer is telling us that our human form is something that is extremely hard to achieve. It is so hard to get. Having a human life with all the opportune conditions to practice the Dharma is really hard as it is as hard as a Blind turtle navigating in an ocean and surfaces every one millennium and it so happens to be able to surface in a golden yoke. The golden yoke is the Dharma. The ocean is the Ocean of Samsara - which is the cycle of birth and death and suffering.

It is so easily destroyed. Human life can be so easily ended. Like if someone jumps of a five-floor building, their life is lost. They get an incurable disease, another life is lost. Humans are really frail creatures.

All worldly actions are like a winnowed chaff means that all our worldly actions will all just be like the useless part of the plant when we harvest wheat grains which are thrown away. Totally worthless.

Since we have been born and reborn since beginningless time till now, there has not ever been a suffering that we have not endured. Nothing we have ever not experienced before. We would be just experiencing the same sufferings over and over again nor that there is no happiness that we have not enjoyed before. However, even with all the things we had in our past lives, we have never done anything worthwhile from them.

We now have this human form. We should do something to derive some essence from it.

If we do not examine this life, we would be more happier finding a few coins than feeling joy over this current rebirth. We will not feel sad if we wasted this life, we will be sadder when losing some money.

If you were to clean a wish granting gem by cleaning washing it three times and polishing it three times, then, offering it up to a Victory Banner, you may get all the goods things in life but they cannot be used to prevent a rebirth in the lower realms.

If you want to go into a nice rebirth in your future lives, you can create the causes to do so by using your current physical form.

We are all sure to die and we cannot ever be certain when we will die. You could not be even sure you would be alive the same time as today next year, maybe you would even already have become a shaggy, furry animal with horns. Or you might become a hungry ghost, unable to find food and water.

Your mind does not die after your death. It continues. It continues into to migrations that is the upper and lower realms. If you are born in the Hell Without Respite, you will have to endure becoming like the hellfire and be consumed. Or if you are born in the Hell of Continual Resurrection where you die and get revived and die again. That is very scary. And do our sufferings ease after a while? The answer is NO!

We might think that the lower realms are far away but the distance between you and the lower realms is only the fact that you can still draw breath.

As long as we remain uncritical, we never suspect that we are going to the lower realms. We most probably think that if we more or less keep our vows, perform most of our daily recitations, and have not committed any serious sin, such as killing a person and running off with his horse, we will not go to the three lower realms. The trouble is we have not looked into things properly. We should think it over in detail; then we would see that we are not free to choose whether or not we go to the lower realms or not. This is determined by our Karma (please see the chart below by H.E. Tsem Tulku Rinpoche, the chart summarizes the whole Lam Rim).

I feel that we might never think that we will never ever go into the lower realms if we do all our practices. That is not entirely true as we do not have the ability to control what realm we will go in during our future lifetimes as our karma decides for us. When we do not do anything wrong in our life, like hurting others or killing others, we would be more or less on the path of neutral karma. Look at where the orange line (neutral Karma) leads to. It still leads to Samsara. This is a really good chart as it really summarizes everything that we need to know. Rinpoche once said that even when we sit down and watch TV we would be accumulating neutral Karma as we would be wasting our precious human life.

We have a mixture a good and bad Karma in our mindstream. We have a mixture of these two that is triggered when we die. It is triggered by our cravings and clinging.

We might feel that our virtue is strong but in truth, it is very weak.

We must be kind to all as all sentient beings have been our parents in our past lives. The best way to repay all their kindness is to cause them to have every happiness and to be without every kind of suffering.

With these thoughts, you should come to think, "May these sentient beings have every form of happiness," which is the development of love. You also feel, "May they be without suffering." which is the development of compassion. You develop altruism when you feel,"The responsibility for carrying out these two has fallen on me. I, and I alone, shall I work for these ends."

We can achieve Buddhahood. We just have to practice having Wisdom and Compassion.

A talk on the Lam Rim by H.E. Tsem Tulku Rinpoche:

Last Sunday, Kechara House had a Simplified Lam Rim Class. It was a very interesting class and I am going to share what I learned from it. I am not going to go very systematically so please bear with me.

Our Guru can be linked in a chain of action. If one part of the chain was not there. We would not have our Guru. For example, H.E. Tsem Tulku Rinpoche came to Malaysia kind of against his own will as he preferred to stay in India. Rinpoche preferred the monastic life but his Guru, Lati Rinpoche convinced him to come to Malaysia. Imagine what if Lati Rinpoche's guru did not teach him, what if Lati Rinpoche's Guru's guru did not teach Lati Rinpoche's Guru. See how the chain did not and must not break as when one part of the chain of actions did not occur, a lot will be changed.

With this chain of actions being fully completed to bring our Guru to Malaysia, we must be very grateful. Kechara is one of the only Buddhist Centers that have a residential Lama. We must be extremely grateful.

When learning what is the Wisdom/Compassion path. We must first learn what is Wisdom.

Wisdom is profound. Profound meaning hidden, beyond all of our ordinary 5 senses. It is profound also because it goes beyond ordinary thinking. Wisdom is not something we can see with microscopes, MRIs or Cat Scans etc. It can only be found with the mind.

Finding with the mind is that we use logic, valid reasoning or we find Wisdom through observing the nature of things.

Everything on the way to Enlightenment makes you happier and happier.

Our mind is something that cannot be checked by scientific means.

If we have all the "happiness" in the world, we will still not be able to stop all the suffering we have.

Compassion comes from within the heart. Our mind must be in sync with our heart.

In Vajrayana Buddhism, we have to have Wisdom and Compassion.

Now, let's talk about about Atisha.

If we look closely at every Buddhist Saint. Their story is usually is quite similar. Atisha was a prince like Gautama Buddha.

The meaning of the name Atisha is peace. That name was given to him by a king.

Even with all the great qualities Atisha had, he still looked for a Guru and he showed no ego.

All of the Dharma gradually shrinks your ego. Buddha is even humble towards mosquitoes. He has no ego. We can be like that too.

There are three higher teachings. They are also known as the three pitakas or the three baskets. They are ethics (sila), concentration or mental stabilization (samadhi), Wisdom (prajshna/panna).

They are Higher meaning beyond the normal level.

We look for Dharma to receive stable happiness.

All of Buddhist practice is about inner reflection on problems that we think are caused externally by others or by a certain object.

We must be motivated by renunciation, bodhicitta and the correct view of emptiness.

All of our actions must be out of the Eight Worldly Dharmas or the Eight Worldly Concerns.

These are the Eight Worldly Dharmas

We want:

Gain
Pleasure
Praise
Name

We don't want:

Loss
Displeasure
blame
shame

Our mind has 3 root poisons. Those are Snakes, Roosters and Pigs. The Pig represents ignorance. The Rooster represents Desire, attachment or pride. The Snake represents anger and hatred.

Ignorance is the root of the root. It all begins with ignorance.

For more info on this subject. GO AND READ SNAKES ,ROOSTERS AND PIGS BY H.E. Tsem Tulku Rinpoche THAT WAS PUBLISHED BY KMP!!

We always hear people having the excuse of not wanting to go to Buddhism because they don't want to let go. They do not understand what letting go means. It means letting go of the causes of suffering. Letting go of Samsara.

Samsara is an endless cycle of rebirth that results in endless suffering.

If you have more worldly "happiness", you will suffer more than someone who does not as you might not suffer physically but you will suffer mentally. How can a rich man be sad and a poor farmer be happy? Think! The rich mas has to worry about getting poor after being rich or getting robbed etc.

When seeing a sick or dying person, we must not think of their death or sickness on a selfish level by thinking how fortunate we are to not be THEM!

Without Suffering, we can't be Enlightened. Practitioners take suffering positively. We must rejoice when faced with suffering as we will be purifying past Karma.

All of Buddhadharma is personal advice and should be practiced without being selective.

Our views will change when we know more and more Dharma. Everytime we reflect on Happiness or Suffering, their meaning will change.

Impermanence is not always negative. Think about it, Suffering is also impermanent.

Well, i am a monitor in my new class. I think it is a huge burden with all the duties I have but I must still do it as I chose that path and if I don't do it no one else in my class will.

One of the more simpler duties is to bring the class record sheet. The only tough thing while doing that is that if my last class is the living skills class, I have to climb up three floors to the discipline office then walk down the same three floors to go home. I also have to be aware when doing this job as my uniform must be tidy and I have to check every few seconds as I do not want to get beaten up by the Discipline Teacher.

Next, I have to do everything the teacher tells me to do even if it is not my job. I have to carry books and today, I had to carry a teacher's weapon in the classroom, the cane to the classroom as someone fell asleep in that teacher's class. So, the teacher decided to whack some sense into him. So, basically I become the teachers pet and I help her punish people.

One of the worst things for me is that I get a lot of backstabbing as some people are jealous of my position, yet they do not want to be monitor. They will even say bad things in front of my face.

When you are a Monitor, you will be known throughout the whole class. I really dislike that sometimes as everyone calls me Sean Kingston as I have Sean as my first name.

Well, I am not really good at sports. Come to think of it, I think I might be retarded at anything sports related. I have had some very bad sports incidents before. Well, I guess I have to learn from them.

When I started to try out Basketball for the first time, I think I must have done something wrong and the basketball hit me right in the face. I lost a lot of marks on that. I should have been more aware when my friend was going to use a volleyball smash style to pass the ball.

When I played soccer, I was abandoned by the whole team and was stuck as goalkeeper when everyone else was no focusing on hitting goals but playing in the middle. I should have participated more instead.

When I first played Tennis, I accidentally swung the bat at Aunty Susan's father, Uncle Tommy. Sorry about that, it was really an accident. Another one on awareness.

When I play too much badminton, I would end up having slight trouble in breathing. I just have to stop running so much when I don't have too.

When playing ping pong, I once accidentally hit my friend in the face with the ball because of a misfire. Another one on awareness.

I want to know about everyone's sports FAILS. I think it is a slightly interesting topic as we get to learn stuff by looking at our mistakes.

I have already been vegetarian for a week. I know it is not much but I still decided to blog about it.

I have been vegetarian in certain parts in my life. Sometimes for health reasons or just because Mama told me so. This time I choose to be vegetarian for as long as I live.

I have more education on the large amount of abuse that are being given to the animals that are being used. I have watched many videos of the torture that they are given. Here are some links to H.E. Tsem Tulku Rinpoche's blog that have videos and text about animal cruelty that goes to our stomachs: (Warning: Viewers discretion is advised! Don't say I did not warn you!)

http://blog.tsemtulku.com/tsem-tulku-rinpoche/2011/01/everyone-watch-this.html
http://blog.tsemtulku.com/tsem-tulku-rinpoche/2010/12/140-billion.html
http://blog.tsemtulku.com/tsem-tulku-rinpoche/2010/11/conveyor-belt-of-death.html
http://blog.tsemtulku.com/tsem-tulku-rinpoche/2010/10/very-interesting-video-must-watch.html
http://blog.tsemtulku.com/tsem-tulku-rinpoche/2010/09/please-watch-leave-your-thoughts-in-comments-for-me.html
http://blog.tsemtulku.com/tsem-tulku-rinpoche/2010/09/dog-meat-trade.html
http://blog.tsemtulku.com/tsem-tulku-rinpoche/2010/07/i-am-scared-and-dont-want-to-die.html

Well, even in the first week of being a vegetarian. I find it quite easy. The only problem is that in my school, temptation surrounds me. Even my best friends eat nuggets in front of me. I do not really care about that much as i have much more tastier and healthier food than chicken nuggets.

I get packed food this year so that I will not get tempted by such horrible things.

I tried to spread a message in my school. I discovered something horribly disturbing. In my school, nearly EVERYONE enjoys animal slaughter. They grin at the dead chicken carcass. They laugh at the disemboweled cow.

That is just so sickening.

Well, for those who are not sickening like the people i just mentioned, you can eat at vegetarian restaurants.

The best vegetarian restaurant in Malaysia for me is Kechara Oasis. Here is their website:

http://www.kechara.com/dining/

Their food is so perfect. Some of it is exotic but it still tastes good. My favourite dish is the Butter Fried Mushroom.

Here is a post from Rinpoche's blog about Kechara Oasis:

http://blog.tsemtulku.com/tsem-tulku-rinpoche/2010/11/look-at-the-food.html

If anyone has any opinions on nice Vegetarian Restaurants in Malaysia. Please tell me. I might even write a review for it!

By the way, Tsem Rinpoche and Kechara Oasia ROCKS!

Sean's Sharings

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