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Ten Meritorious and Ten Evil Actions...
(A fortunate or unfortunate life depends on individual merits and demerits.)
The performance of good actions gives rise to merit (punna), a quality which purifies and cleanses the mind. If the mind is unchecked, it has the tendency to be ruled by evil tendencies, leading one to perform bad deeds and getting into trouble. Merit purifies the mind of the evil tendencies of greed, hatred and delusion. The greedy mind encourages a person to desire, accumulate and hoard; the hating mind drags him to dislike and anger; and the deluded mind makes one become entangled in greed and hatred, thinking that these evil roots are right and worthy. Demeritorious deeds give rise to more suffering and reduce the opportunities for a person to know and practise the Dhamma.
Merit is important to help us along our journey through life. It is connected with what are good and beneficial to oneself and others, and can improve the quality of the mind. While the material wealth a person gathers can be lost by theft, flood, fire, confiscation, etc., the benefit of merits follows him from life to life and cannot be lost, although it can be exhausted if no attempts are made to perform more merits. A person will experience happiness here and now ass well as hereafter through the performance of merit.
Merit is a great facilitator: It opens the doors of opportunity everywhere. A meritorious person will succeed in whatever venture he puts his effort into. If he wishes to do business, he will meet with the right contacts and friends. If he wishes to be a scholar, he will be awarded with scholarships and supported by academic mentors. If he wishes to progress in meditation, he will meet with a skillful meditation teacher who guides him through his spiritual development. His dreams will be realized through the grace of his treasury of merit. It is merit which enables a person to be reborn in the heavens, and provides him with the right conditions and support for his attainment of Nibbana.
There are several rich fields of merit (recipients of the deed)which give rise to bountiful results to the performer of the good deed. Just as some soil can yield a better harvest (say black fertile soil compared to stony soil), a good deed performed to some persons can give rise to more merits than to others. The rich fields of merits include the Sangha or holy people, mother, father and needy. Good deeds performed to these persons will manifest in many ways and be the fountainhead of many wondrous results.
The Buddha taught ten meritorious deeds for us to perform in order to gain a happy and peaceful life as well as to develop knowledge and understanding. The ten meritorious deeds are:
Charity
Morality
Mental culture
Reverence or respect
Service in helping others
Sharing merits with others
Rejoicing in the merits of others
Preaching and teaching the Dhamma
Listening to the Dhamma
Straightening one's views
The performance of these ten meritorious deeds will not only benefit oneself, but others as well, besides giving benefits to the recipients. Moral conduct benefits all beings with whom one comes into contact. Mental culture brings peace to others and inspires them to practise the Dhamma. Reverence gives rise to harmony in society, while service improves the lives of others. Sharing merits with others shows that one is concerned about others' welfare, while rejoicing in others' merits encourages others to perform more merits. Teaching and listening to the Dhamma are important factors for happiness for both the teacher and listener, while encouraging both to live in line with Dhamma. Straightening one's views enables a person to show to others the beauty of Dhamma. In the Dhammapada, the Buddha taught:
"Should a person perform good, he should do it again and again; he should find pleasure therein; for blissful is the accumulation of good. Think not lightly of good, saying, 'It will not come near to me.' Even by the falling of drops a water-jar is filled. Likewise the wise man, gathering little by little, fills himself with good."
Ten Evil Deeds... There are ten demeritorious deeds from which Buddhists are advised to keep away. These deeds are rooted in greed, hatred and delusion, and will bring suffering to others but especially to oneself in this life and later lives. When a person understands the Law of Kamma and realizes that bad deeds bring bad results, he will then practise Right Understanding and avoid performing these actions.
There are three bodily actions which are kammically unwholesome. They are: (1) Killing of living beings, (2) Stealing, and (3) Unlawful sexual intercourse. These bodily deeds correspond to the first three of the Five Precepts for people to follow.
The effects of killing to the performer of the deed are brevity of life, ill-health, constant grief due to the separation from the loved, and living in constant fear. The bad consequences of stealing are poverty, misery, disappointment, and a dependent livelihood. The bad consequences of sexual misconduct are having many enemies, always being hated, and union with undesirable wives and husbands.
Four verbal actions are kammically unwholesome, and they are as follows: (1) Lying, (2) Slander and tale-bearing, (3) Harsh speech, and (4) Frivolous and meaningless talk. Except for lying, the other unwholesome deeds performed by speech may be viewed as extensions of the Fourth Precept.
The bad consequences of lying to the one who performs the deed are being subject to abusive speech and vilification, untrustworthiness, and physical unpleasantness. The bad effect of slandering is losing one's friends without any sufficient cause. The results of harsh speech are being detested by others and having a harsh voice. The inevitable effects of frivolous talk are defective bodily organs and speech which no one believes.
The three other demeritorious deeds are performed by the mind, and they are as follows: (1) Covetousness, or eagerly desirous especially of things belonging to others, (2) Ill-will, and (3) Wrong view. These three deeds correspond to the three evil roots of greed, hatred and delusion. The non-observance of the Fifth Precept of abstention from intoxicants can not only lead to the performance of these three demeritorious mental actions after the mind is intoxicated, but also the other demeritorious deeds performed by body and speech.
The undesirable result of covetousness is the non-fulfillment of one's wishes. The consequences of ill-ill are ugliness, manifold diseases, and having a detestable nature. Finally, the consequences of false view are having gross desires, lack of wisdom, being of dull wit, having chronic diseases and blameworthy ideas.
A person should always perform good actions and restrain himself from doing evil actions. If, however, a person has performed an evil action, it is necessary for him to realize where he has done wrong and make an effort not to repeat the mistake. This is the true meaning of repentance, and in this way only will a person progress along the noble path to salvation.
Praying for forgiveness is meaningless if, after the prayer is made, a person repeats the veil action again and again. Who is there to 'wash away a person's sins' except he himself? This has to begin with realization, the wonderful cleansing agent. First, he realizes the nature of his deed and the extent of the harm incurred. Next, he realizes that this deed is unwholesome, learns from it, and makes the resolution not to repeat it. Then, he performs many good deeds to the affected party as well as to others, as much as possible. In this way, he overcomes the effect of bad deed with a shower of good deeds.
No wrong he does, according to Buddhism, is beyond redemption or rehabilitation, especially with realization and Right Effort. To be seduced into believing that a person can 'wash away' his bad deeds through some other 'miraculous' way is not only a mere superstition, but worse, it is also not useful particularly to the spiritual development of the person himself. It will only cause him to continue to remain ignorant and morally complacent. This misplaced belief can, in fact, do a person much more harm than the effects of the wrong deed he feared so much.





Give Your Ego the Wisdom Eye...   We always use the word, "ego." But although we're all the time saying, "ego, ego, ego," we don't realize the ego's psychological aspects, its mental attitude. We interpret the ego as some sort of physical entity. Therefore, it is necessary to discover that the ego is mental, not physical. That's so worthwhile. We have such a short time to realize egolessness, but searching for it is what differentiates us from animals. Otherwise, what's the difference? Animals enjoy the sense world and conduct their lives to the best of their ability. Just like ourselves, they like those who feed them and dislike those who beat them, isn't that so? What's the difference? Perhaps you think, "Rubbish! I can intellectualize, I can write; I can make money to support and enjoy my life." But even rats and mice can look after themselves with ego and attachment. They can collect and store food many times their own weight. Look at the bees: even though their lives are so short, they collect enough honey to last for maybe hundreds of years. So, what difference is there between bees and so-called intelligent humans if the mental attitude is the same, where both are living only for sense pleasure? Perhaps bees are even more intelligent than us—they live such short lives but still accumulate vast amounts of what gives them pleasure. Therefore, I think it's so worthwhile and so important that while we occupy these precious human bodies, with all our intelligence and where everything has come together, we use our ability to seek our inner nature and release ourselves from all the problems of mental defilement, which come from our ego. Everything we’ve done since the time we were born until now has come from our ego, but it's all been so transitory and our pleasure has been so small. But don't think, "Oh, I'm too bad; my mind is completely dominated by my ego." Don't put yourself down. Instead, be happy to realize such things. Realizing that only your own mind and effort can bring you release from your ego is so worthwhile. For years and years, ages and ages, all you've done is build up your ego, and under the influence of its hallucinated projection of the sense world, you’ve run, run, run from one thing to another, as if you'd lost your mind. So to now have just one flash of recognition of all this is most worthwhile; it really is worth putting in the effort. Don't think that without your own effort, without your own wisdom functioning, you can stop the schizophrenic mental problems that result from the energy force of your own ego. It's impossible. Lama doesn't believe that he can solve your problems without your own effort and action. That's a dream; if that's your attitude, it's a complete misconception. "God can do everything for me; Buddha can do everything for me. I'll just wait." That's not true! "I don't have to do anything." That's not true! You did everything, now you have to experience the powerful consequences. You can see now, with your own experience, can't you? Just one meditation session is all it takes. What Lama wants is for you to become a wise human being instead of one who is dominated by the energy force of a super-sensitive ego. At the end of a meditation course, I'd like you to be thinking, "Well, that was my own meditation course, given by my own wisdom." If you feel like that, the course was worthwhile. Otherwise, if you just go, "A high Tibetan lama gave a meditation course; I went," it's just another ego trip. What's the purpose? Your old habits, your schizophrenic mental attitudes haven't changed a bit. So what meditation did you do? Lord Buddha is already enlightened; through his own effort, with his own wisdom, he freed himself from his schizophrenic mind, but here we are in a still agitated condition. So you can see, realization is so individual. It depends upon each individual's mind, effort and wisdom. Realization is so personal. From morning until night, you all have different experiences, even though you're all trying to meditate on the same thing—different experiences according to the individual level of the individual mind. If you think, "Oh, I have so much to do at home...my house, my family, my friends...it's difficult to sit and meditate," it means your mind is ensnared by the worldly life. You've been like that from the time you were born until now, and if you keep going that way, you'll end up dying with nothingness. How can you ever finish anything like that? Work in the materialistic life continues to pile up, one thing after another, then another, another, another, and you can never say, "Ah, at last I've finished everything, now I can sit and meditate." That time will never come. You can see, when your mind is occupied with ego energy, it's like constantly having needles stuck into your body. That would be pretty uncomfortable, wouldn't it! It's the same thing, exactly the same thing. So you can realize how Important it is to release attachment and ego. When you do release them, you will experience everlasting joyful realization, inner freedom, inner liberation, nirvana...it doesn't matter what you call it. But instead, all we do is try to please our ego; it's like we're praying to our ego. We dedicate all our energy to our ego, and what we get in return is mental pollution; there's such a bad smell in our minds that they can't even breathe. So from now on, instead of welcoming your ego's energy force, stand guard against it with mindfulness and wisdom, watching with penetrative attention for the first sign of its arrival. And when it comes, instead of welcoming it, "How are you, ego? Come right in! Have a cup of tea, have some chocolate," examine it with a big wisdom eye, a wisdom eye bigger than your head! Just watch it. When you give your ego the big wisdom eye, it disappears, all by itself. (by Lama Thubten Yeshe. Used with permission from Dr. Nicholas Ribush - www.lamayeshe.com)



Basic Breath Meditation Instructions...   The technique I'll be teaching is breath meditation. It's a good topic no matter what your religious background. As my teacher once said, the breath doesn't belong to Buddhism or Christianity or anyone at all. It's common property that anyone can meditate on. At the same time, of all the meditation topics there are, it's probably the most beneficial to the body, for when we're dealing with the breath, we're dealing not only with the air coming in and out of the lungs, but also with all the feelings of energy that course throughout the body with each breath. If you can learn to become sensitive to these feelings, and let them flow smoothly and unobstructed, you can help the body function more easily, and give the mind a handle for dealing with pain. So let's all meditate for a few minutes. Sit comfortably erect, in a balanced position. You don't have to be ramrod straight like a soldier. Just try not to lean forward or back, to the left or the right. Close your eyes and say to yourself, 'May I be truly happy and free from suffering.' This may sound like a strange, even selfish, way to start meditating, but there are good reasons for it. One, if you can't wish for your own happiness, there is no way that you can honestly wish for the happiness of others. Some people need to remind themselves constantly that they deserve happiness -- we all deserve it, but if we don't believe it, we will constantly find ways to punish ourselves, and we will end up punishing others in subtle or blatant ways as well. Two, it's important to reflect on what true happiness is and where it can be found. A moment's reflection will show that you can't find it in the past or the future. The past is gone and your memory of it is undependable. The future is a blank uncertainty. So the only place we can really find happiness is in the present. But even here you have to know where to look. If you try to base your happiness on things that change -- sights, sounds, sensations in general, people and things outside -- you're setting yourself up for disappointment, like building your house on a cliff where there have been repeated landslides in the past. So true happiness has to be sought within. Meditation is thus like a treasure hunt: to find what has solid and unchanging worth in the mind, something that even death cannot touch. To find this treasure we need tools. The first tool is to do what we're doing right now: to develop good will for ourselves. The second is to spread that good will to other living beings. Tell yourself: 'All living beings, no matter who they are, no matter what they have done to you in the past -- may they all find true happiness too.' If you don't cultivate this thought, and instead carry grudges into your meditation, that's all you'll be able to see when you look inside. Only when you have cleared the mind in this way, and set outside matters aside, are you ready to focus on the breath. Bring your attention to the sensation of breathing. Breathe in long and out long for a couple of times, focusing on any spot in the body where the breathing is easy to notice, and your mind feels comfortable focusing. This could be at the nose, at the chest, at the abdomen, or any spot at all. Stay with that spot, noticing how it feels as you breathe in and out. Don't force the breath, or bear down too heavily with your focus. Let the breath flow naturally, and simply keep track of how it feels. Savor it, as if it were an exquisite sensation you wanted to prolong. If your mind wanders off, simply bring it back. Don't get discouraged. If it wanders 100 times, bring it back 100 times. Show it that you mean business, and eventually it will listen to you. If you want, you can experiment with different kinds of breathing. If long breathing feels comfortable, stick with it. If it doesn't, change it to whatever rhythm feels soothing to the body. You can try short breathing, fast breathing, slow breathing, deep breathing, shallow breathing -- whatever feels most comfortable to you right now... Once you have the breath comfortable at your chosen spot, move your attention to notice how the breathing feels in other parts of the body. Start by focusing on the area just below your navel. Breathe in and out, and notice how that area feels. If you don't feel any motion there, just be aware of the fact that there's no motion. If you do feel motion, notice the quality of the motion, to see if the breathing feels uneven there, or if there's any tension or tightness. If there's tension, think of relaxing it. If the breathing feels jagged or uneven, think of smoothing it out... Now move your attention over to the right of that spot -- to the lower right-hand corner of the abdomen -- and repeat the same process... Then over to the lower left-hand corner of the abdomen... Then up to the navel... right... left... to the solar plexus... right.. left... the middle of the chest... right... left... to the base of the throat... right... left... to the middle of the head...[take several minutes for each spot] If you were meditating at home, you could continue this process through your entire body -- over the head, down the back, out the arms and legs to the tips of your finger and toes -- but since our time is limited, I'll ask you to return your focus now to any one of the spots we've already covered. Let your attention settle comfortably there, and then let your conscious awareness spread to fill the entire body, from the head down to the toes, so that you're like a spider sitting in the middle of a web: It's sitting in one spot, but it's sensitive to the entire web. Keep your awareness expanded like this -- you have to work at this, for its tendency will be to shrink to a single spot -- and think of the breath coming in and out your entire body, through every pore. Let your awareness simply stay right there for a while -- there's no where else you have to go, nothing else you have to think about... And then gently come out of meditation. (Source: Copyright © 1997 Thanissaro Bhikkhu. For free distribution. The author gives permission to re-format and redistribute his work for use on computers and computer networks, provided that you charge no fees for its distribution or use. Otherwise, all rights reserved.)





No-self or Not-self?   One of the first stumbling blocks that Westerners often encounter when they learn about Buddhism is the teaching on anatta, often translated as no-self. This teaching is a stumbling block for two reasons. First, the idea of there being no self doesn't fit well with other Buddhist teachings, such as the doctrine of kamma and rebirth: If there's no self, what experiences the results of kamma and takes rebirth? Second, it doesn't fit well with our own Judeo-Christian background, which assumes the existence of an eternal soul or self as a basic presupposition: If there's no self, what's the purpose of a spiritual life? Many books try to answer these questions, but if you look at the Pali Canon -- the earliest extant record of the Buddha's teachings -- you won't find them addressed at all. In fact, the one place where the Buddha was asked point-blank whether or not there was a self, he refused to answer. When later asked why, he said that to hold either that there is a self or that there is no self is to fall into extreme forms of wrong view that make the path of Buddhist practice impossible. Thus the question should be put aside. To understand what his silence on this question says about the meaning of anatta, we first have to look at his teachings on how questions should be asked and answered, and how to interpret his answers. The Buddha divided all questions into four classes: those that deserve a categorical (straight yes or no) answer; those that deserve an analytical answer, defining and qualifying the terms of the question; those that deserve a counter-question, putting the ball back in the questioner's court; and those that deserve to be put aside. The last class of question consists of those that don't lead to the end of suffering and stress. The first duty of a teacher, when asked a question, is to figure out which class the question belongs to, and then to respond in the appropriate way. You don't, for example, say yes or no to a question that should be put aside. If you are the person asking the question and you get an answer, you should then determine how far the answer should be interpreted. The Buddha said that there are two types of people who misrepresent him: those who draw inferences from statements that shouldn't have inferences drawn from them, and those who don't draw inferences from those that should. These are the basic ground rules for interpreting the Buddha's teachings, but if we look at the way most writers treat the anatta doctrine, we find these ground rules ignored. Some writers try to qualify the no-self interpretation by saying that the Buddha denied the existence of an eternal self or a separate self, but this is to give an analytical answer to a question that the Buddha showed should be put aside. Others try to draw inferences from the few statements in the discourse that seem to imply that there is no self, but it seems safe to assume that if one forces those statements to give an answer to a question that should be put aside, one is drawing inferences where they shouldn't be drawn. So, instead of answering "no" to the question of whether or not there is a self -- interconnected or separate, eternal or not -- the Buddha felt that the question was misguided to begin with. Why? No matter how you define the line between "self" and "other," the notion of self involves an element of self-identification and clinging, and thus suffering and stress. This holds as much for an interconnected self, which recognizes no "other," as it does for a separate self. If one identifies with all of nature, one is pained by every felled tree. It also holds for an entirely "other" universe, in which the sense of alienation and futility would become so debilitating as to make the quest for happiness -- one's own or that of others -- impossible. For these reasons, the Buddha advised paying no attention to such questions as "Do I exist?" or "Don't I exist?" for however you answer them, they lead to suffering and stress. To avoid the suffering implicit in questions of "self" and "other," he offered an alternative way of dividing up experience: the four Noble Truths of stress, its cause, its cessation, and the path to its cessation. Rather than viewing these truths as pertaining to self or other, he said, one should recognize them simply for what they are, in and of themselves, as they are directly experienced, and then perform the duty appropriate to each. Stress should be comprehended, its cause abandoned, its cessation realized, and the path to its cessation developed. These duties form the context in which the anatta doctrine is best understood. If you develop the path of virtue, concentration, and discernment to a state of calm well-being and use that calm state to look at experience in terms of the Noble Truths, the questions that occur to the mind are not "Is there a self? What is my self?" but rather "Am I suffering stress because I'm holding onto this particular phenomenon? Is it really me, myself, or mine? If it's stressful but not really me or mine, why hold on?" These last questions merit straightforward answers, as they then help you to comprehend stress and to chip away at the attachment and clinging -- the residual sense of self-identification -- that cause it, until ultimately all traces of self-identification are gone and all that's left is limitless freedom. In this sense, the anatta teaching is not a doctrine of no-self, but a not-self strategy for shedding suffering by letting go of its cause, leading to the highest, undying happiness. At that point, questions of self, no-self, and not-self fall aside. Once there's the experience of such total freedom, where would there be any concern about what's experiencing it, or whether or not it's a self? (Source: Copyright © 1997 Thanissaro Bhikkhu. The author gives permission to re-format and redistribute his work for use on computers and computer networks, provided that you charge no fees for its distribution or use. Otherwise, all rights reserved.)





Attachment: The Biggest Problem on Earth...   You are so fortunate being able to put much effort of body, speech and mind into seeking inner reality, your true nature. When you check how you have spent most of your life, you can see how fortunate you are having the chance to make this search even once. So fortunate! I'm not just making it up, "Oh, you're so good," trying to make you feel proud. It's true. However, to really discover that all human problems, physical and mental, come from attachment, is not an easy job. It takes much time. For example, if you're having difficulty at a meditation course, you might start thinking about home: your warm house, your comfortable bed, chocolate cake. You remember all these nice things. Then your ego and attachment get to work, "Oh, I don't know about this course. I'd be better off at home. At least there I know I can enjoy myself." But we all know what's going to happen when you get there. Still, attachment follows your ego's view, "My bed is so good, I'll be so comfortable back home; my family is there, I can relax and do whatever I feel like, I'll be free. Here I'm not free and I have to try to be serious. Anyway, my serious mind doesn't seem to be functioning, so I might as well leave." Your dualistic attachment kicks in, telling you so much stuff, convincing you until you say, "Yes, yes, yes" and leave. So then you get home, and you're sitting in your room, and you check up. How silly! Nothing's new. There's no place on earth where you're guaranteed to find satisfactory enjoyment. Don't think Tibet must be a fantastic place, a paradise where everything is pleasure. Never! Never! Since dissatisfaction and attachment inevitably come with this body and mind, your samsaric mandala of dissatisfaction accompanies you wherever you go. Even if you leave your own country and go to a cave in the mountains, attachment comes along. You can't leave it back home. Trying to face your problems is far more worthwhile than trying to run away from them without understanding their root. You've been that way before; it's not a new trip. It's the same old trip. You go, you change, you go, you change, on and on like that. In this life alone you've taken so many attachment stops. With effort, everything is possible. In order to attain the realization of indestructible, everlasting peace, you have to have an indestructible mind for training. Realizations don't come without your training your mind the right way. First you have to make the determination, "For such a long time I have been servant to the two mental departments of attachment and ego, trying to please them. But in fact, they are my greatest enemy, the root of all my problems, the destroyers of my peace and enjoyment." You have to understand how these two minds occupy and control your internal world. According to Lord Buddha's teachings, as long as you don't realize that your real enemy is within you, you will never recognize that the mind of attachment is the root of all the problems your body and mind experience. All your worries, your depression, everything comes from that. Until you do recognize that, even though you might occasionally have an hour's good concentration, it never lasts. If, however, you do see the psychological origin of your problems and understand the nature of attachment and how it works to cause aggression, desire and hatred, your mind becomes very powerful. When you're in a peaceful environment, you think, "Oh, I'm so peaceful, my meditation is so good, I have such good realizations." But when you're out shopping in the street or in a supermarket and people bump into you, you freak out; because you're not sitting in meditation but walking around, your mind is completely uncontrolled. If, however, if you understand the psychology of attachment and how it lies at the root of your various reactions, you will not freak out easily and will really be able to control your mind, no matter where you go or who you're with. This is not just some philosophical theory, either. It is really true, based on living experience. In fact, not only Buddhism, but all religions recognize the shortcomings of attachment. Even worldly people talk about its drawbacks. But, you know, even though we say the words, "Attachment this, attachment that," we don't really recognize it as the biggest problem on earth. Therefore, what I'm saying is, it would be wonderful if you could recognize that your own attachment is the cause of every single problem that you experience. Problems with your husband, wife, children, society, authorities, everybody; having a bad reputation; your friends not liking you; people talking badly about you; your hating your teacher, your lama or your priest; all this truly comes from your own attachment. You really check up. We Westerners always have to blame something external when things go wrong. "I'm not happy, so I'd better change this." We're always trying to change the world around us instead of recognizing that it's our own attachment that we have to change. Just take a simple example. When someone hurts you by telling you that you're greedy, although you blame the person for how you feel, the hurt actually comes from your attachment. First of all, people, perhaps even your parents or your spouse, don't like your attachment-driven behavior, so they complain, "Oh, you're so greedy," hurting your ego. And then, instead of accepting their pointing out your selfish behavior, your attachment to always being right, perfect, causes you angrily to reject what they say. The fact that your ego, your wrong-conception mind, cannot accept criticism is itself a big problem: your ego wants you to be right all the time, and your attachment creates its own philosophy of never listening to advice, no matter who gives it, closing off your mind. It is very important that you learn to deal with these problems in the best possible way. (by Lama Thubten Yeshe. Used with permission from Dr. Nicholas Ribush - www.lamayeshe.com)