One-year Internship at Blue Cliff Monastery

Blue Cliff has recently opened a one year Internship Program for practitioners in Thich Nhat Hanh’s tradition. Participants will have a chance to live and serve at the Blue Cliff Monastery, to practice and train in mindfulness right within the community. Also, interns will receive guidance and support from a monastic mentor. The program emphasizes the mindfulness trainings and community living. This is an extraordinary opportunity to practice and to grow together alongside brothers and sisters (both monastic and lay) and will provide an excellent foundation for anyone interested in Sangha building and community living.

Click here for more information.

Discourse on Love

“He or she who wants to attain peace should practice being upright, humble, and capable of using loving speech.

He or she will know how to live simply and happily, with senses calmed, without being covetous and carried away by the emotions of the majority. Let him or her not do anything that will be disapproved of by the wise ones.

“(And this is what he or she contemplates:)

“May everyone be happy and safe, and may all hearts be filled with joy.

“May all beings live in security and in peace — beings who are frail or strong, tall or short, big or small, invisible or visible, near or faraway, already born, or yet to be born. May all of them dwell in perfect tranquility.

“Let no one do harm to anyone. Let no one put the life of anyone in danger. Let no one, out of anger or ill will, wish anyone any harm.

“Just as a mother loves and protects her only child at the risk of her own life, cultivate boundless love to offer to all living beings in the entire cosmos. Let our boundless love pervade the whole universe, above, below, and across. Our love will know no obstacles. Our heart will be absolutely free from hatred and enmity. Whether standing or walking, sitting or lying, as long as we are awake, we should maintain this mindfulness of love in our own heart. This is the noblest way of living.

“Free from wrong views, greed, and sensual desires, living in beauty and realizing Perfect Understanding, those who practice boundless love will certainly transcend birth and death.”

Etena sacca vajjena sotthi te hotu sabbada. (By the firm determination of this truth, may you ever be well.) [3x]

Metta Sutta, Sutta Nipata 1.8*

 

Understanding Interbeing

interbeing1In Buddhism there is no such thing as an individual. Just as a piece of paper is the fruit, the combination of many elements that can be called non-paper elements, the individual is made of non-individual elements.  If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating in this sheet of paper.  Without a cloud there will be no water; without water, the trees can not grow; and without trees you cannot make paper. So the cloud is in here. The existance of this page is dependent on the existence of a cloud. Paper and cloud are so close.

Let us think of other things, like sunshine. Sunshine is very important becasue the forest cannot grow without sunshine, and we humans cannot grow without sunshine.  So the logger needs sunshine in order to cut the tree, and the tree needs sunshine in order to be a tree. Therefore you can see the sunshine in this sheet of paper. And if you look more deeply, with the eyes of a bodhisattva, with the eyes of those who are awake, you see not only the coulds and the sunshine in it, but that everything is here:  the wheat that became the bread for the logger to eat, the logger’s father – everything is in this sheet of paper.

The Avatamsaka Sulra tells us that you cannot point to one thing that does not have a relationship with this sheet of paper. So we say, “A sheet of paper is made of non-paper elements.”  A cloud is a non-paper element. A forest is a non-paper element. Sunshine is a non-paper element. The paper is make of non-paper elements to the extent that if we return the non-paper elements to their sources, the cloud to the sky, the sunshine to the sun, the logger to his father, the paper is empty.  Empty of what?  Empty of a separate self.  It has been made by all the non-self elements, non-paper elements are taken out, it is truely empty, empty of an independent self.  Empty, in this sense, means that the paper is full of everthing, the entire cosmos. The presence of the whole cosmos.

Two Monks and a Woman

Two monks were making a pilgrimage to venerate the relics of a great Saint. During the course of their journey, they came to a river where they met a beautiful young woman — an apparently worldly creature, dressed in expensive finery and with her hair done up in the latest fashion. She was afraid of the current and afraid of ruining her lovely clothing, so asked the brothers if they might carry her across the river.

The younger and more exacting of the brothers was offended at the very idea and turned away with an attitude of disgust. The older brother didn’t hesitate, and quickly picked the woman up on his shoulders, carried her across the river, and set her down on the other side. She thanked him and went on her way, and the brother waded back through the waters.

The monks resumed their walk, the older one in perfect equanimity and enjoying the beautiful countryside, while the younger one grew more and more brooding and distracted, so much so that he could keep his silence no longer and suddenly burst out, “Brother, we are taught to avoid contact with women, and there you were, not just touching a woman, but carrying her on your shoulders!”

The older monk looked at the younger with a loving, pitiful smile and said, “Brother, I set her down on the other side of the river; you are still carrying her.”