Amritayana Buddhism

Bardo Clear Light Tenabah c2012

2012-02-09T09:27:00.005-08:00

Parallel posted on Facebook and replicated here:

When a sentient being ejects his or her consciousness from the body, whether the ejection is through skilled clear intention (phowa) or through passive allowance, he or she meets a radiant clear light. This radiant energy permeates the universe of form, everything arises from this energy, abides in this energy, returns to this energy, and is an expression of this energy. It appears for three days after ejection. If a sentient being recognizes this radiant energy as his or her home, her true identity, and abides there, then such a being can rest there and integrate this state. If the being tries to grasp and hold on to the bliss, then he or she spirals downward vibrationally, entering the realm of the peaceful guides, who try to help the being return back home. Failing this, the sentient being spirals downward to the wrathful guides who confront the being with his or her issues, reflecting them back so that he or she can return back home. Failing this, the sentient being enters the realm of the "fifty two peaceful and forty eight wrathful guides" (the realm of the psychotherapists who navigate the complexities of the ego to unravel the knots of confusion) in order to help this being back home. Failing this, the sentient being enters the "subbardo of seeking rebirth", sees a landscape appear with spinning vortexes of light where lovers are in deep communion with each other and are creating a place of entry into a world. The being is propelled by a vibrational karma that is essentially "like attracts like", pulling him or her into a rebirth situation. Intermediate beings are admonished to "turn toward the light" to halt the karmaic momentum that is propelling him or her to rebirth. Failing this, the being is admonished to seek rebirth in a family where the dharma is strong, then failing this to seek rebirth in a family that is healthy and prosperous, and then failing this to seek a birth in the human realm...

"So each of us in this human form failed all the way to the human realm?"

Most humans are not really trying to go for the highest rebirth possible in the bardo and just go where ever their karma leads them. It usually does lead back to the human realm in a rebirth much like the last one that they had. Karma is mainly repetition. If a person improves a little each lifetime, it gets better and better with each rebirth. A person can also "work hard" to get an inferior rebirth by not listening to the voice of conscience. Usually a person does not get a worse rebirth unless they ignore their conscience when it is screaming at them. But sometimes people do dull this voice and it cannot warn them. Unfortunately, a lot of addictions function in this manner.

In the Bardo Thodol, whose title translates as "Liberation through Hearing", there is the intention of supporting a "conscious crossing" to use the bardo to reach the highest state possible by the opportunity that presents itself at the time of death (ejection). From this viewpoint, a person can "fail" to reach and sustain those highest levels. But according to the teaching, every effort that one makes has a positive effect. Even if you reach and touch those states for some moments it creates some good karma that helps the human rebirth be better, happier, more loving, clearer, more creative, and wiser. Those moments become resources stored in the subconscious mind (the alaya vijnana) that can still pull a person upwards through the choices and challenges of "the bardo of ordinary life".

According to one of the Ksitigarba Sutras, there is more than one power that determines rebirth, there is "majestic power" and "karmaic power". The latter feels like an undertow that pulls one into and through experiences. The former feels like a conscious choice, motivated by compassion, viewed by the wisdom of knowing the consequences the choice will make, and with the support of skillful means (creativity) manifesting as "dharma power". It is a power that grows through practice and effort. It feels like free choice, a concentration on a pure loving thought which has the faith and confidence to naturally manifest itself, because no opposing thought rises from the subconscious mind to block it or bend it. Many higher beings choose to incarnate out of compassion for this world, to help elevate humankind and the animal worlds, to feed hungry ghosts, and give peace to the tormented souls of demons. These beings do not fail to be reborn in the human realm, but succeed in coming here.

In practice, even if one is choosing to return to the human realm, it is better to still aim for the highest rebirth possible in the bardo. It burns away the most karma, and once one is reborn in those higher realms to then choose to be reborn in the human realm on Earth. This way one will know that one is not here by the force of karma alone.

There is a third path besides aiming, willing, and practicing to attain the highest rebirth possible, or consciously choosing rebirth on Earth to perform loving service. This is to let the blessing power of a gracious Buddha or Dakini simply carry you into the Clear Light and allow you to make your home there. It involves a loving, trustful surrender into their care, especially as the grace fire burns away all the karma that blocks this from manifesting. You "chant through" this process in the faith that these beings will bring you there. It usually involves resolving some trust and control issues to be able to do, hence multiple chants are needed to establish this sincerity. The "sign of accomplishment" is seeing Suhkavati in some lucid dreams, with its beautiful pools of water, the meditators floating in the sky on lotuses, the buildings with no roofs on them because the weather is pleasant there, and where even the birds sing songs about the dharma ("all is transitory, let go, let go"). There are parts of Earth that are like this also, every world of sorrow as some islands of higher consciousness in them. Native Americans often go to these places during vision quests (going to those places is like taking a bardo voyage if approached with the right consciousness).

I am posting this partly as a kind of prep for the Chod Rite, to name the basic environment of practice, since the bardo is not merely something that exists after death, but operates in the background of daily human life, shaping events by synchronicity. During death, one veil is removed, and what is possible to see now is easier to see.

Chod Rite Doha

2012-02-04T00:26:00.000-08:00

Chod Rite Doha
through Tenabah c2012

buddham saranam gacchami
dharmam saranam gacchami
sangham saranam gacchami

bowing and taking refuge
in the Buddha
the living energy of the path
the enlightened mind in all of us
a sentient being like us
who became enlightened
and thereby proved
that we too can realize
the unborn, the unchanging, the undying,
the peace of supreme nirvana

bowing and taking refuge
in the Dharma
the order of the universe
and the teachings that reveal
this order
the living understanding
of the this order
within us when
we hear and see the truth
of the teachings

bowing and taking refuge
in the Sangha
the living community
of those who seek enlightenment
who keep alive the understanding
of the teaching
who practice the precepts
who work through what arises
within them until no obstacle remains

mastering samatha
producing calm mind

mastering vipassana
watching without tampering with experience
no resistance and no clinging
to what arises
watching without analysis and interpretation
alert, open, curious, just watching
until insight dawns

studying the abhidharma
seeing the chain reaction of sorrow
knowing where to stop the reaction
and cut sorrow at the root

studying the madhyamika
understanding emptiness
and how everything is fundamentally
ungraspable, nonsubstantial, and not knowable
dissolving the mental imposition of duality
collapsing the subject object duality
entering the peace of samadhi

storehouse opens
ancient thought impressions
surface from the past
of many many lifetimes
imprints of craving, negativity, and delusion
anger, fear, and sadness arising
choosing to move through and empty
this storehouse
swimming across
the great ocean of sorrow
purifying the mind

actively inviting the fears
to be fulfilled
serious determined intention
to cut through each one
and reach the other side

going to the dark haunted places
the domain of pain and death
beating the drums
sounding the bone trumpet
shouting and hearing voice echo
in the dark canyon
offering this transitory body
as food for the demons
surrendering to all the fears
no resistance to anything left

ego self clinging
revealed, exposed, and naked
in the dharma light
rising above the thought of "I"
no self to lose
no self to gain
releasing here
and offering this illusory self
to the illusory demons
resistance collapses
and fear ends

body chopped into pieces
to make a life force soup
to feed the demons
giving them what they need
behind each craving

limb by limb chopped
into pieces
chopped into fine bits
no self found anywhere
not in the arms,
not in the legs,
intestines,
torso, heart, liver,
or brain

not in thought, emotions,
sensation, cognitions
or body
not in the past, present,
or future

demon fed
satisfied and disappears
next one arises
until the storehouse is empty

vibration of fear
transmuted into radiant liberating wisdom
ripples of fear waving through the void
mere sensation dissolving a phantom "I"

vibration of anger
imploding into the karma mirror seeing
imploding deeper into no self reflection
silent mind only having wakefulness and clarity

vibration of sadness
mourning the loss
of something never possessed
hand clinging to water
and not succeeding
even for a single moment
letting go of shadows
to enter radiant heart
demons become loyal allies

love
judge not
love your enemies
resist not evil
pray for those who persecute you
bless those who curse you
turn the other cheek
forgive those who crucify you
thank those who utterly kill you
and then
let the holy breath
resurrect you
in order that you may be
sons and daughters
of a vast living universe

Paravritti 2

2012-01-21T04:32:00.001-08:00

Paravritti
by Tenabah c2012

I wanted to share a little more about the word "paravritti". The word appears in the Lankavatara Sutra in Buddhism. This sutra was the one that Bodhidharma, the sixth lineage holder of Zen Buddhism, studied and felt was the only sutra that a person needed to study in order to gain enlightenment. The word "paravritti" is a word used as a synonym for enlightenment. But like each synonym for enlightenment, it has its own unique gift and unique meaning. The Buddhist scholar Edward Conze translates this word as "a deep turning within the innermost consciousness".

I found this interesting because Jesus, when he starts his own Dharma teaching, says, "Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand." In ancient world of Jesus and Buddha, a teacher would usually sound a summary theme early in their teaching life. It would be like the four notes of Beethoven's fifth symphony upon which all kinds of more complex musical themes would develop off of or spin off of. The word for "repent" in the New Testament Greek of this summary theme is "metanoia" which literally means "go above (meta) your usual consciousness (noia)" and which also has the implied meaning of a deep turning within consciousness. In Jewish mystical writings, the idea of repentance is usually associated with changing direction, of moving in one direction with our lives and then turning completely around to go another direction. It is sometimes framed as living an "unrighteous" life to moving "towards God" who is seen as the source of love, compassion, and mercy (and who automatically forgives all sins when we do so).

The phrase "Kingdom of God" is a curious one in this passage, because it is in the present tense and is described as something within reach. Later passages describe this place as "within us and among us" (Luke 17). It is never used as identical to the word "heaven". In the Aramaic, the word translates as "kingdom" is "malkutha" and connects with the first of the ten spheres of life in the Qabalah. It is used to describe the Earth. In the prayer of Jesus has "te te malkutha" (part of "Thy will be done on Earth as it is in heaven"). It has the meaning of stepping into a kind of new Earth, living trust of the Divine, letting it organize synchronicities to support how your life unfolds, and taking all events from this point onwards as meaningful and purposeful, within the hands of one higher power that rules over all lesser powers and which does not struggle with evil or need to struggle with evil. In short, Earth is part of heaven in this vision, just as Earth is part of the solar system. It is about stepping in faith and with free choice into a new heaven and a new Earth instantly, in the here and now, by entering into "metanoia", a transformed consciousness. In this new world, there are only two commandments that are "like unto" each other, "love God with all your heart (aka your everything)" and "love your neighbor (aka everyone) as your self". There is an implication that these two commandments are really the same commandment, that we are meant to love our neighbor and ourselves "as God" and to love God through loving our neighbor. It fits John 17 where Jesus prays that all his disciples be one "just as" he and God are one. In this passage, too, he talks of "gnosis", a special kind of knowledge that can only come from direct living experience, and which cannot come through conceptual analysis or dogmatic belief in some assertion being true. Both are experientially blind (the word "revelation" in the Greek of the NT having the meaning of "removal of scales from the eyes"). He uses a form of the word "gnosis" in this chapter in a sentence that talks about "eternal life" (which in the Gospel of John seems to be a synonym for "kingdom of God") IS knowing God. This word for knowing is also used to describe how two lovers know each other in intimate loving sexual union. It is obviously more than intellectually believing your lover exists or dogmatically believing that your lover exists, and must necessarily be experiential.

Buddhism usually avoids theistic God language. It sometimes avoids it so much that many religious scholars in Christianity have categorized Buddha as an atheist or an agnostic. Others have assumed that Buddhism has some kind of idea of ultimate Divinity since in the experience of "nirvana", the third noble truth of the Buddha ("Nirvana is peace"), one experiences something the Buddha called "the unborn, the unchanging, and undying" (aka the Eternal). The Buddha used a lot of negation language, because he wanted to cut through every concept to reach a nonconceptual truth that the Zen Buddhists called "the Great Affirmation". In the Prajnaparmita set of sutras, there is a theme where even "Buddhist concepts" are also negated to reach this nonconceptual truth ("If even the Buddha's thoughts are meant to be transcended, how much more so even worldly thoughts"). This is a theme that I find a lot of people do not always "grok" about Buddhism, that it is more of a anti-philosophy than a philosophy and a non-belief system rather than a belief system, and even a kind of minimalist religion in that it is a way of life that is stripped down to something very essential. It does not mean either "atheism" (not believing in the existence of God) or theism (believing in the existence of God), because it is not about settling for any kind of belief at all. It is an insight into all conceptual beliefs and how they are not enlightenment. To use a metaphor to describe the view, if you liken the mind to a room full of furniture (with the mind being the space, and the concepts being the furniture), then a theist is one who has a beautiful giant statue in the middle of the room and an atheist has the same statue upside down. A Buddhist is one who notices what is in the room when all the furniture is removed.

What I got is that "paravritti" could be described if we assume we have two minds (we actually have about 12 different kinds of minds with 48 active factors and 52 peaceful factors). These two minds could be labelled "thinking mind" and "aware mind". The first mind focuses on interpreting, analyzing, testing, believing, and disbelieving. This mind eventually forms a belief system and out of this belief system comes a certain kind of "feeling of self", of who we are. This feeling of self is a mental construct which can react to other mental constructs. This mind "identifies" itself with the concept it has of itself and attaches to things that reinforces its sense of self, resists what negates this sense of self, is confused about what it has not figured out one way or the other, or ignores what does neither. Aware mind does not "think" at all. It is a silent mind that looks at everything and allows everything to be experienced. It is not merely a sensory mind that channels itself through the five senses. It is what "notices" all the sensations of the sensory mind. Without the aware mind, we would not experience anything at all, not even nothingness (which would be like "noticing" a blank).

In a person who is not enlightened, the thinking mind dominates and the aware mind is functioning unconsciously, behind the thinking mind, and is not noticed. I have always thought it a kind of curious paradox that the aware mind that notices literally everything and without which nothing at all could be noticed is the most not noticed thing. Objects of attention are constantly dwelled upon, but the act of attention itself is hardly ever focused upon. If you want to get a very immediate feeling of what could be a very deep form of meditation, place your attention on attention and do not think or analyze attention. Just hold steady on attention watching attention in silence. If you can keep the thinking mind out of it for five minutes, you can go very deep very fast (and then imagine what it would be like if you did a whole hour or even 40 straight days of this, the Buddha said if you could watch every breath without bringing in thought for one whole hour, then you would be enlightened).

If one even tries to meditate then one notices that "the thinking mind rules" and that the thinking mind, even though it creates our feeling of self, is "not us". If I decide to move my right hand upwards and then my right hand goes upwards, then my right hand "obeys me" and therefore in some sense expresses who I am. But if my right hand does not obey me and never does what I want it to, then I would not consider it a part of me. It would feel like something alien took my hand over. Yet our thinking minds are like this and we do not notice. Although I can control and direct my thinking to a certain extent, it usually is running thoughts without me. This shows up very strongly when I decide to "not think" and feel a massive traffic of thoughts running through my mind. My thinking mind can only be considered "mastered" or "an extension of myself" when I can do four things with my thoughts, (1) starting a thought, (2) modifying my thinking, (3) sustaining my thinking, and (4) stopping my thinking. Many people have not ever experienced the fourth aspect of mastery. It would be more true to say that thoughts are thinking them, that they identify with all the conditioned thoughts poured into them from teachers, peers, family, and religions. What replaces real thinking are just reactions of one thought to another. It is one of the more interesting and not so pleasant experiences one has in meditation to notice how much thinking runs oneself, rather than the other way around. What is curious is that this is the earliest experience one has when one first tries to do some serious meditation and tries to sit for one whole hour just watching the breath. The intention to just watch the breath and not think any thought other than holding the intention to watch the breath for one hour is never fulfilled (often for even years). What happens instead is that the mind wanders back to "thinking, thinking, thinking" and forgets to watch the breath, so much so that an honest appraisal of how long a person can sustain "no thought attention" is about five minutes out of the whole hour. Even this level of accomplishment can do miracles in consciousness.

There is a kind of reference point or "anchor" that feeds our thinking mind and defines how we feel ourselves and what we feel ourselves to be. This point is our "identification" with our thinking mind and our building up of a personality around what we think and what we feel about what we think. We are usually thinking a massive number of thoughts every day and even running them through to form all our dreams and our reactions in waking life and dreaming life. This reference point is our most subtle ego self and it is a complete delusion. This reference point is constantly anchoring itself in certain thoughts, then other thoughts, then the body, then a sensation, then an emotion, and so on. In some it is more fixated than others. But if we try to look for this "anchor" point, we do not find anything there that we can call a "real self". Most of the time we are not looking for this reference point, but just assuming it and living from it without question. We live from our thinking mind and its massive antique shop of collected beliefs and disbeliefs. We constantly clash beliefs with each other, both inside us and with others. We think our beliefs are nifty things and judge others with our beliefs, and our judgments are also beliefs.

Paravritti is about "a deep turning of our innermost consciousness". It is about flipping the two minds around so that the deeper silent one rules and the thinking chattering mind submits, rather than the aware mind being merely a passive onlooker and the thinking mind ruling. When these two minds reverse the relationship, then we have paravritti, enlightenment. Then we live from "aware mind", identify with aware mind, and, finally, use the thinking mind, rather than get used by it. This is the deep turning within us that brings us into the realm of enlightenment. To me, it is the only revolution that really matters. Everything else is really rearranging the furniture in the room, throwing out some furniture, and getting new furniture, but never really noticing the room itself and what the room itself really means.

In the Mahaparinirvana Sutra, the final discourse of the Buddha before he releases his physical body in the consciousness action called "phowa", shared that we get at least four gifts from enlightenment. They are "love bliss, eternity, self, and freedom". This simple sharing is important in so many ways, because a lot of people assume that Buddha did not believe that any self at all existed. But he did not teach that. He taught that the "belief in self" that we had was a complete fiction and that what we assumed was our self did not exist and that if we looked for this self we would never find it because it did not exist. We would not find it inside the "skandhas" (our cognitions, thoughts, emotions, sensations, and our body), in any combination of the skandhas, or outside the skandhas. The key word in the teaching of no self is "looking" and "not finding" (emphasis on "looking" aka "awareness" aka "directed attention") because what we are looking for does not exist. There is no self that is like what we "think we are" (emphasis on "think"). What I find curious is that when this teaching of no self is presented, people think, think, think about it, usually negating or disbelieving what Buddha said, and never wondering how such an advanced teacher could propose such a weird idea. But if one actually "followed" the path of looking that Buddha actually taught, went within, and noticed that every thought has "no self" attached to it, every emotion has no self attached to it, every sensation has no self attached to it, all our impulses to do have no self attached to it, and our bodies have no self attached to it. There is nothing that even looks like a self anywhere to be found (I always wondered what such a self would even be imagined to be looked like, but no one even goes this far). Thoughts, emotions, and sensations are too fleeting to be related any kind of permanent abiding self. To use the room metaphor, they zip in and out of the room so fast that they are not in any way permanent to the room itself. Their very transitoriness clearly shows them to not be part of the room. What we normally think our self to be is something intrinsic to who and what we actually are, something that is always in the room and never leaves the room.

After Buddha shows that thoughts, emotions, and sensations are too fleeting to be a permanent self or even a basis for a permanent self, then he goes on to analyze the body in a similar manner and does not find any self there either. We already have a sense of some difference between an alive body and corpse and assume the latter has no self in it. We associate the self with something that is only there when the body is "alive". If a person is "brain dead" then the self has gone from the body. This shows that what we feel is our self is not related to the mere existence of the body. Yet when we try to find some kind of body characteristic that is the self, we find none. If we look for an electric pattern in the brain or chemical pattern in the brain, or a combination of both, there does not seem to be one. It seems that our "waking self" disappears when we sleep, our "dreaming self" disappears when we wake up, and both disappear when we are in nondreaming sleep, and both are different from when the body is a corpse and there is no dynamic electro-chemical activity in the brain at all. What we call our personality is a pattern of mental and emotional reactions that people usually identify with us, and some continuity of this pattern as it often changes dramatically over time. Yet if some evil vile demonic personality was to "take over" our body, we would assume that something alien kicked us out of our body or at least the command center of our bodies, and started to live "in our body". Sometimes mental illnesses look like this or sometimes certain powerful drugs can do this, even against the will of the person, and even sometimes electrodes stimulating different parts of the brain can do weird things inside, like activate very vivid memories "against our will". The cognitions of various events, our noticing them, seems to be pulled around by sensations drawing us into them. Where is any self in this?

If we follow by "looking" and negating anything that is not a self, then we enter into "emptiness". Something releases its grip on consciousness, we are freed from a curious illusion about something, the thinking mind and its constructs are broken through, and we awaken to a deeper mind which feels like an "aware wakefulness". This deeper mind does not need to reference itself through any thought (including the thought of self), any concept (including the concept of self), any belief, any sensation, any emotion, or even any body. All these things are "content" (furniture in the room) which whether there or not there does not change the nature of the room or container. It is as if we have always been looking out a window to see a mountain, see the sunrise and sunset, see rain clouds and rain, trees turn green in the spring and brown in the fall, and yet did not ever notice the window we were looking through, or even the eye that looked through the window, or even the looking itself. If we notice the looking, rather than what is looked, and enter into the looking, we can enter this "awake awareness" and abide there. We can still use the thinking mind. In fact, unless we abide in aware mind, we are really used by the thinking mind rather than actually thinking. In order to maintain aware mind, learning how to engage thought without getting lost in thought becomes important and necessary. Zen usually focuses on mastery of thought by learning how to "not think", while Tibetan Buddhism focuses on mastery of thought by extensive visualizations and then erasing those visualizations. Thoughts are very powerful. They are even more powerful when we learn how to focus thought from our silent aware mind and "intend". A kind of telepathy becomes stronger over time. There is a feeling of self, of a kind of ground identity, as luminous presence. There is a feeling of this being "eternal". There is a kind of peace and happiness within this presence that is not a pleasurable sensation sustained indefinitely, but something deeper, calmer, and which is consistent below the pleasant and unpleasant sensations, all the craving and resistance games that come from those sensations when the mental construct self rules us. There is also a freedom that arises. When the previous self before the shift is looked at, it feels like we were a basketball dribbled all over the court and getting passed around all the time by our thoughts, emotions, sensations, and impulses to do, bouncing off of all kinds of boards, and never stopping to rest. When I looked back at my previous mind, it felt like all my thinking was just reactions of reactions to reactions with nothing really intentionally starting, focusing, following, and stopping any contemplation. It was like thought had a will of its own or was running on autopilot, and no one was really there. It felt like a fever had ended, and all the feverish thoughts had calmed down to zero, and something simple, wonderful, and obvious appeared.

The Emptiness of Money by Tenabah c2012

2012-01-06T10:59:00.000-08:00

The Emptiness of Money
through Tenabah, c2012

I wanted to apply one of the deeper teachings of the Dharma to the current political events. In the Heart Sutra, the Bodhisattva of Compassion sees "the emptiness of all the five skandhas and cuts through the very root cause that keeps us in sorrow". In later Mahayana teachings, the theme of emptiness is applied not only to all the five skandhas (consciousness, thought, emotion, sensation, and body), but also to the entire material universe and all the mental, emotional, sensory, and material objects within this universe. The key word in this passage is "seeing the emptiness". It is not an intellectual conclusion but something that is done through awareness, direct experience, and intuitive wisdom. However, later Buddhist philosophers, mainly the Madhyamikans, found that through a kind of intellectual contemplation of mental, emotional, and material objects that one could deduce their emptiness and open the path to realizing emptiness. This contemplation is considered valuable to do, because the solidity and existence of material objects has been an illusion reinforced by mental interpretation and has never been validated in actual direct experience. It is like an optical illusion which can be seen through, but also analyzed mentally first to prepare for this "aha" experience. If the illusion is mentally challenged, the delusion is "loosened" enough for direct perception to happen more easily.

The principle of emptiness is a middle path between "eternalism" and "nihilism". The eternalist fallacy is that things are substantially real and existent from their own side. The nihilist fallacy is that nothing exists at all and that nonmaterial things like a soul are completely nonexistent, are merely epiphenomena of brain activity or something like this, so that when the brain is annihilated that the soul is annihilated too. The seeing of emptiness is to see that all things have a kind of dependent existence, arise within an interdependent field of energy, are subject to cause and effect, are the result of convergent lines of cause and effect, and are defined as existent in relation to other phenomena. If all the causes for arising are eliminated, then the phenomena also ceases. Yet the "life continuum" of any object is always changing, within a kind of historical flow, and this continuity flows almost eternally. If we take the human personality, it is never the same for any two moments, thoughts, emotions, sensations, reactions, impulses to do, and behaviors are always changing. Even the body itself, arising from the formation of the zygote and ending up being a decaying corpse that is compost for trees (and even a wider array of possible patterns than this), is a continuum of snapshots that are very different from each other, and how this convergences and joins that personality is another interdependent set of causes and effects. Inside this field of interdependent causes and effects that are constantly converging and diverging is "no thing" that exists independently of those things and no combination of phenomena that adds up to a "thing". There is only the flux of phenomena always woven together, within this field, and the field itself is nothing but this vast series of interdependent processes and is itself not independent from all these processes, and therefore does not "exist from its own side" as well. In short, there is nothing that exists separately from this field, but only existences that are dependent on this field contantly recreating them in a moment by moment process. This all can be verified by looking at how everything is in constant change on every level of perception (visible level, organ level, chemical level, subatomic level, quantum level, and the spinning vortexes arising from empty space level). In short, nothing is "absolutely existent", but everything is "dependently existent". The realizing of this truth is ccompanied by a feeling of oneness with everything and a relaxation into the creative process that is birthing us moment to moment, and an entrustment of ourselves to this process that has always sustained us. If we contemplate "money" in this light, we can easily see how it is not substantially real for its own side, how it is dependent on a vast array of multiple causes converging in each moment for its meaning, purpose, and existence, and how it is not "real for its own side" and how it is even different in its meaning depending on how each of us individually relates to it, and how this individual meaning is not arbitrary or absolute. None of us is right or wrong about how we relate to money and how it feels to us and for us, each of us has a different feeling about money, and money does not exist independent of what we feel about money and how we use it. Money is different from the material form of paper dollars and yet not separate from the paper dollars. It has a historical continuum of transformations where it becomes "electrons" stored in a bank main frame within an internet server system and then gets converted "back to dollars" when we make a withdrawal, either through a an ATM or a bank teller or through vast array of other means. The "value" of money has more than one side. One is the "mental imputation" of a value by our consensus consciousness of certain papers being "one dollar" and other papers being "20 dollars", etc. This mental imputation is then translated into electron form when making a deposit and is "separated from the paper" during this time, yet it also continues to be the same amount on this level, even though the "20 dollars" is "added" to the electron totals in our server file (which is protected by all kinds of magical barriers and enchantation passwords and designated key keepers and guardians), and yet continues to be used by others once it is released from our "ownership". This ownership is also not an absolute thing and can be transfered from us to someone else by all kinds of magical acts from "losing pocket change by having it fall through a hole in our pockets", to "donation", to "theft", to "investment", etc. All these operations have a strange kind of dependent existence that is not separate from our mental imputations of what they mean and how they are anchored upon some material process whether it is ink printed pieces of hemp or electrons pumping through the internet server system or even transfered via handshakes and trades.

To further deepen the feeling of how empty money is, even if we "do nothing" with the money, but "leave it in the bank" (where is it actually?), it is constantly changing its value by all kinds of events, from the Federal Reserve printing 7.7 Trillion paper dollars, from how these dollars are being manipulated in the stock market, from how "world events" shape our lives, from how gold and silver dance in relationship to money by various exchanges, including how "paper silver" and "paper gold" (which is only paper with the word "silver" or "gold" written on them and being exchanged "as if" it were "real" silver or "real" gold, and which drive up or down the "real" price of silver and gold in relation to the phantom dollar that is going through all these changes too. There is something very magical about how money works and how many emotions we have about money and how it relates to so many things, including how happy, sad, afraid, or angry it makes us. Money is floating around many deep fears that people have, it is tied up in how "successful" people feel they are, it is tied up in how much people have feel they have "failed", how "secure" people feel, and whether or not people are in "survival mode". It "pays the bills" and if you do not have "enough" then people believe that they are kicked out on the street and become the "homeless" (the outer bardo ring for people in capitalist society). Money has replaced older forms of punishment of previous eras of society, where physical torture was once used. You now get "fines" instead. Judges arbitrarily assign the "fine" or "punishment" for crimes according to what "legislatures" determine is appropriate, with the judge using "judicial discretion" to determine what is "the appropriate application of law". These processes are also vastly interdependent upon all kinds of phenomena and causations, lines of cause and effect rippling through our world since the big bang and earlier. With "Occupy Wall Street" people are protesting unfairness, because these paper and electron dollars are being "controlled" by and "pumped" to a small number of people called "the one percent", and who want more accountability and justice in how these processes have formed. What is called "corruption", too, is "emptiness", with nothing substantially real from its own side or truly existent about it, but yet it not nonexistent either, but arises in interdependence with a vast array of processes that form our society and our global community.

When we delusionally feel that money is substantially real or existent from its own side, then we feel it was the same thing it was in times past, that there is something of "essence of money" that is eternal going through all those changes and that "money should always be this". We want to impose this feeling on the money and insist on being something that no longer exists. Or we believe that money is a complete illusion (the nihilist fallacy) and that it is totally arbitrary or that it "no longer exists" when the money essence never did exist or never did not exist. What happens is that we are not flowing with the endless changes that money is making every moment. We could be attaching to money for security and then experiencing anxiety when it changes, and are resisting our death and fearing our death when the "money is gone" or "runs out" (aging).

This kind of perception of money fits in with the more usual Buddhist understanding that the world is transitory, not secure, and nonsubstantial, and that if we attach to anything in the world for security then we will suffer as a result and already have a subtle anxiety in the moment. The subtle anxiety is really a confused wisdom energy that sees the truth of how insecure and insubstantial money already is. The alternative is to rest in the flow itself and live within the guidance of intuitive wisdom. When money is seen as emptiness, then sharing it and being generous with it makes more sense. It can serve compassion while it always frustrates greed. It is a paradox that it can function in the moment to address immediate needs as part of the interdependent flow of what is happening.

Curiosity: Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind by Shunryu Suzuki

2012-01-03T15:42:00.000-08:00

I thought it would be good to post something about my favorite book. Out of what seems like a thousands of books, it is my favorite. When I was in college I took a free speed reading course that promised to double my reading speed. It actually quadrupled it, going from about 250 wpm to 1000 wpm. It was mainly done by eliminating a lot of bad reading habits and creating two simple new ones (taking in words in natural groups, rather than one word at a time and picking up the groups both left to right and right to left, eliminating pausing between each word, eliminating the need to subvocalize every word, and eliminating the need to move the eye to the very beginning and the very end of each line). After taking this course, I plowed through about 30 books in less than one month, until I hit this book, where I would get so blown away by what it was saying that I was reading sometimes one sentence a day, because I wanted to just keep rolling the deep thought over in my mind and/or let the thought lead me to deep nonthought.

Part of what I learned from this book is to always keep the attitude of the beginner, the curious child, to shed all the presumed learning from the past and look at everything fresh again, without all our thought analysis. If you look at how an infant looks at a flower, you can see Zen Mind in action. Or when I saw my youngest brother in his crib looking at his hand and in wonderment about how it moved to his very new thoughts about how to move it, endlessly making it open and close, finger by finger (which works well for him when he plays Racquetball and instructs others). One of the signs that we have lost this mind is that we move from curiosity to impatience or pushing for results. When we are really curious, we are deep in the moment and have the fertile ground for insights to flash across our minds. It was this kind of mind that allowed the Buddha to realize the nature of sorrow and how to end it.

This beginner's mind is also related to "dana parmita" the first of the "crossing over attitudes" that leads to supreme perfect enlightenment. The word "parmita" is usually translated as something like "virture" but we really have no equivalent in our language to this. The very attitude itself, which we can take on and live from in any moment, leads us immediately across into our enlightened mind and enlightened heart. It translates as "open hearted generous giving". The one gift we can give to everyone always all the time is curiosity. It always opens our heart to others and is always compassionate and playful with the circumstances of our lives and the lives of others, always wishing that things be good for everyone, always willing to tweak things so that they are better, and always feeling how good things always are.

This attitude is behind the teachings of Krishnamurti, though he hides it well sometimes. But one simple meditation that he led people into was to be curious about their own sorrow and then to see what it would be like to just remain curious about everything in general ("curiosity without an object"), and then I would add what would it be like if we were curious about curiosity ("curiosity squared" as in E=MCsquared). It seems that the comet Lovejoy has this curiosity and playfulness (as in "What would be like to dive into the Sun?...and then come out playfully spinning...I realize I might be personalizing an impersonal phenomena, but in the realm of metaphor, at least, it seems valid).

Shunryu Suzuki discoursed about how we lose this mind when we become "experts" and how we lose all kinds of possibilities when we do this. We lose the ability to think outside the box and even paint ourselves into a corner. If we notice we do this, then we can become curious about seriousness and notice what it does to us. We can become curious about "expert mind" and how it locks itself into one reality tunnel and does not see the light of day after a while.

I read the book in college and when I would need to go into a problem of any kind I found this book guiding me through it. The first thing that I would do is to go into "I do not know" and look at the problem fresh. Very often the problem was created by the interpretation of life itself, by the thoughts and expectations I was putting on everything. When they were identified and removed, then there would be, again, the "Great Affirmation", that life is good, very good, and everything is unfolding perfectly. Sometimes I would be stripped down to the very essence of a "sensation of hurt", some tension would be felt in the body, and I would simply look at the tension, just embrace it and feel it. The first thing I would find is that the "looker" would disappear and with it a kind of duality. Then I would discover a kind of innocent mind that could look at it new, just as the Buddha did when he was in his 40 days of meditating into enlightenment, when he stripped his own mind down to this also, and just watched with no agenda, curious about the movement of sorrow itself, and found that it "spontaneously self liberated" (went away by itself with the dawning of an insight). The rigorous analysis of the Abhidharma is really a left over, words and notes, of 40 days of deep curiosity about the movement of sorrow.

The Three Poisons of the Mind: Addictive Craving

2011-12-31T09:37:00.000-08:00

I wanted to add a few notes about the second noble truth of the Buddha. When the Buddha, in the first noble truth, taught that suffering, dukkha, exists. He was naming the disease that humanity and all sentient beings endure. The word he used, "dukkha", does not have a good translation into English. It is usually translated as "suffering" or "sorrow". The word "dukkha" has the meaning of "split action" or "two actions" (du=two, kha=doing). The word implies a tension or a contradiction, an activity that is struggling with itself and causing some pain or tension. I feel that "sorrow" is a good word for "dukkha", but the second word is more encompassing of more states of suffering than the English words. This is why the Buddha gives empirical instances of all kinds of sorrow, like the pain of birth, the pain of dying, the pain of losing loved ones (either to death or to divorce), the pain of getting hurt by stones or harsh words, pain of feeling anger, feeling fear, and feeling grief. The Buddha then goes on to describe two large categories of sorrow. One is not having what we want and the other is having what we do not want. These two categories match up with the word "dukkha" in that they describe the tension or contradiction at the heart of dukkha. There is a desire energy and there is our experience not matching it, not fulfilling it.

Many translations of the Buddha dharma mistakenly translate "tanha" or "asava" as "desire". It should be translated as "craving" or, even more precisely as "addictive craving". Not all desires lead to dukkha. If I desire orange juice in the morning and find I have run out of orange juice, this does not produce any deep sorrow. There might be a moment of mild frustration. But ordinary desires have many qualities that really keep them out of the category of dukkha. One is that they are flexible. As I see that there is no orange juice, then I might drink some water instead or I might drink some apple juice or have some tea and be satisfied with this. I might be able to let go of the desire or, if I am more advanced in meditation, visualize the experience of drinking orange juice and enjoy the visualization, or even touch a glass of water and energize it with the experience of drinking orange juice and enjoy drinking this. The point behind this is the craving has a more driving compulsive fixated energy than ordinary desire.

The Buddha later on teaches that there is a web of interdependent causes that interact with each other to sustain the experience of sorrow. He names them as the 3 poisons of the mind, the 12 nidanas later on, and even goes into 100 mental factors that interlock into different patterns of sorrow, 52 of them being peaceful factors and 48 being intense factors. He gave these various teachings as markers to look within and verify the patterns that sorrow moves through us. He also gave exact points where we could release the chain reaction of sorrow so that we could be free, the main point is "remaining with the sensation", staying with our experience without reaction, being awake and aware, and, if possible without trying to fix it and without mental thoughts about our experience (often called "our story" that we build around our sorrow). In other words, just staying with our unpleasant painful sensation, being aware, and breathing until the reaction subsides. If we replay a story in our minds, we can sustain the experience of pain almost indefinitely.

The second noble truth is about the causes and conditions that sustain the experience of sorrow in our lives, while the third noble truth affirms that sorrow can come completely to an end through uprooting the deepest causes of sorrow and entering into the peace of nirvana (letting go, nir=out, vana=wind). Behind the three poisons of the mind is a subtle internal psychological movement which could be called "selfing" or "self clinging". We create through thought and identification with thought a "feeling of self" and assume that this feeling of self has something real within it and behind it. But this feeling of self is very transitory and unreal. It changes its content moment to moment, attaches itself to many internal changes sometimes so fast that it is hard to keep updating to its present report. In 15 minutes, it can attach and identify with anger as in "I am angry", then go to "I am afraid", "I am upset", "I am confused", "I am sad", etc. Yet when we look within, we will notice the anger, the fear, the upset, the confusion, and the sadness, but never encounter this fictitious self that somehow "owns" all these experiences. In other words, there is an energy pattern called an emotion flowing through a field of awareness, with no self attached to the emotion, no self found anywhere in the emotion, no self found in any combination of patterns of emotion, there is just the emotion itself whirling along and constantly changing as new causal forces shape our experience. The emotion itself is not a solid thing that exists from its own side, but has "dependent existence" on transitory causal factors, mainly the other four of the five skandhas which it is a part of. These are thoughts, sensations, body, and attention (cognition). The last factor is, again, another one that is hard to translate, since the Buddha named 12 basic levels or kinds of consciousness and even named 366 different kinds of consciousness in a later discourse. English is slowly evolving more precise words for "consciousness" and "mind" through the growth of psychology, but even here there is some difficulty. The scientific materialist orientation likes to name kinds of consciousness as brain events which are primarily described in terms of EEG patterns and chemical reactions, while Buddhist teachings decribe them more phenomenologically, in terms of how they are actually and directly experienced when you go within and look. Awareness and attention are instruments that are fine tuned to observe and understand internal contents and how they are put together to form our experience. The two approaches are not contradictory. I love to study what regular science has to say about consciousness and brain states, but from the standpoint of Buddhist psychology what regular science is looking at is the reflection of the causal factors in consciousness appearing in the body (which is interdependent upon consciousness, thought, emotion, and sensation) or visa versa.

The Buddha taught that unless the "teaching of no self" is understood, there is no end to sorrow. Unless the fiction of a self that is sprayed on to all our experience, attaching to objects in our experience, resisting other objects in our experience, and being confused about other aspects of our experience is seen to be an illusion, something completely nonexistent, merely constructed by thought, identification, and imagination, then we unwittingly sustain our sorrow, form samskaric patterns of reactions of sorrow, and feel those samskaras activate by our sensory experience or even internally trigger ourselves by "thinking about thinking". In terms of meditation, it takes a fairly sensitive and subtle mind to notice the patterns of identification (attachment) and alienation (resistance) that form our illusory and transitory ever changing experience of self moment to moment and to notice how it generates and sustains states of sorrow. The implication behind the teaching of no self is that when "no self" is realized, then the deepest root of sorrow is uprooted and ended. The teaching forms the basis of permanent freedom from sorrow. I say "basis" because when the illusion of self is seen through, you will have an experience of enlightenment and directly understand the nature of the mind and reality in a deep way. But it does not mean that all sorrow finishes in that instant. It is like the understanding starts to operate within and dissolve all sorrow and the complexes of sorrow in present time. All the patterns of samskaras within the subconscious mind need to be brought to the understanding and awareness in order to be dissolved. They will arise and spontaneously dissolve within awareness. We need to do nothing but simply ride this process (fugen kensho).

The reason why Buddha chose to start talking about sorrow through talking about "addictive craving" is that this is the "active element" in the formation of sorrow. From addictive craving we seek fulfillment, drive ourselves into action in life, get wrapped up in events, attract and repell certain elements of our experience, often get into power struggles with others, and set up habits that continue below the surface of our lives which are supported or frustrated by the unfoldment of our experiences. Curiously, when a person struggles with an addiction, they can easily verify nearly every teaching that the Buddha taught about sorrow, except maybe the teaching of "no self" (though people are usually dimly aware that their ego is causing a lot of problems for them and have a hard time seeing this, the Buddha taught something even deeper than "ego" or "non-ego", it is about a whole experience of self being an illusion and having this drop away, what is called "the ego" is the illusion becoming very intense and painful for us to carry, but when the illusion is milder we do not notice it as easily and even take pleasure in this illusion to keep it going).

We keep setting up the karmaic patterns of our life through addictive craving. It is a hard pattern to change in some sense, because we do need an active element to shape our lives. What replaces addictive craving is compassion, kindness, empathy, peace, joyfulness, wisdom, and creativity. We replace reactive patterns with a moment to moment wakefulness and its intuitive wisdom compassionate responding (or not responding) to the moment. In the process of learning how to live this way, we learn how unconscious and robotic our reaction patterns are. We learn that there is a way that we have never really lived that we have been a pattern of mental conditioning which very predictably gives a certain reaction to a certain stimulus, like a button being pushed to turn a light on or off. We learn what a lot of our friends know, that we have buttons that can be pushed and we will react, sometimes with such exact replicas of past behaviors that they can mouth our exact words, tones, inflections, hand gestures, and facial expressions back to us. This reaction pattern is the "self" and when it ends the illusory self ends with the pattern. One Sufi group called this pattern the "chronic". If we can notice our chronic and release it as just a reaction pattern and "not self", if we can even just say, "Oh, there is my chronic getting activated again" (and even laugh about it), then we have cut into a deep root of our sorrow and have weakened its grip on us (BTW the Sufis do not recommend that you try to immediately get rid of your chronic, but to just notice it without judgment, even if your chronic is about judgment...there are deep psychological reasons why, mainly because you will just create another chronic in its place, and it is better to have a chronic that you are aware of than one you are not, until a certain kind of awareness and understanding is strong inside, one will build up a chronic and live from it...if one notices without judgment, then the chronic will slowly fade away by itself and will be replaced by a sensitive aware presence).

Five Elements Breathing

2011-12-28T14:50:00.000-08:00

five elements breathing
tenabah c2011

earth breath

inhale again expanding belly
inhale again expanding chest forwards
inhale again expanding chest upwards
inhale again raising shoulders lightly
holding a deep pause
slowly exhaling
relaxing shoulders
relaxing rib cage
relaxing belly
keeping spine
loose and erect
feeling each vertebra
gently support
the one above
with relaxed strength
like a peaceful mountain
holding a deep pause
sinking deeper into
hatha yoga asanas
cycling again and again

water breath

inhaling
intentionally receiving
the prana that surrounds us
gently expanding the belly
gently filling the lungs
inhaling pouring into exhaling
relaxing out the apana
softening the belly
softening the lungs
exhaling pouring into inhaling
spine pulsing and waving
responding to the breath
moving gently
with the breath
tensions and stiffness dissolve
tai chi movements
flow from here
cycling again and again

fire breath

belly moving in
quickly pushes the air out
natural expansion of belly
quickly brings air in
panting like dogs
pumping like a bellows
fanning the inner fire
fast movement
concentrated attention
focused intention
sacrum rocking
tumo heat generated
from red bindu
in sacrum
electric fire
rising up the spine
vertebra by vertebra
cycling again and again

air breath

gentle deep full inhale
receiving shanti peace
cool and calm
white light liquid
drips down from 3rd eye point
relaxing and renewing the brain
flowing down spine
healing and nourishing
the body
slowly expanding belly
gentle turning
of inhale into exhale
in the center of the belly
whispering "ha" sound
riding and guiding the exhale
sound of relaxation
slowly flowing outwards
sharing peace with the world
sound mixing with prana
alchemy of the wind
chin slightly lowering
back of neck expanding
cycling again and again

space breath

allowing inhale
allowing exhale
allowing pauses
no control
pure passive watching
feeling the center
of the breathing
when not touching
the breathing tube anywhere
red fire and liquid light
mixing in the silvery blue energy
of serene luminous space
vibrating ancient "ah" choir
sound of one hand clapping
pure cosmic energy
easily received everywhere
filled with awareness
filled with knowing
this is what we are
samadhi gentle immersion
concentrated thoughtless abiding
pure wakefulness
inside hollow body
spine floating
flute of krishna
singing our lives
no duality
one life living itself
infinity intersecting itself
looping in each cycle
of breathing
at the point called
"i am"
the empty gate
between inhale and exhale

earth, fire, air,
and water forming
the vast display
of visible life

all those elements
controlled
their corresponding breath
each breath controlled
by a subtle thought intention
taking the outer shape
of body mudras
invoking formative energies
shaping events and karmas
five buddhas
five wisdoms
five dakinis
four elements dancing
one dakini holding space
selfless primordial presence
prajna parmita
birthing everything everywhere
from her spacious womb
sending forth
sentient beings, stars, planets,
moons, and comets
with a relaxed "ah"
even she is breathing

all elements regulated
by luminous space
infused with the mood
of surrender and allowing
gently nourishing
good seeds into manifestation
outgrown energies
dissolving within
the fires of creation
recycled back
through the radiance
of a thousand suns
mahamudra alive
as everything and ourselves

heart breath

breathing in as grey clouds
all the sorrow of the world
feeling the natural compassion
of our beating heart
transmute this energy
into gratitude, appreciation,
and kind wishes,
sending out this love
as light and warmth to all,
raising the vibration
of this planet,
sowing the seeds
of its becoming
a pure land

communal breathing

joining together
breathing together
you and i
here and now
through these words,
through your listening,
feeling intention,
and breathing,
and my feeling intention,
sharing, and breathing,
breathing with
all the buddhas
and dakinis
of the three times,
forming the mahasangha,
the great community,
which will heal this world,
and all worlds,
of every sorrow,
bringing indeed
a new day, and new year,
as a deep enlightenment rises
like the sun,
upon the landscape
of this world

breathing in
the warm breath
of the mahadakinis
and breathing out
healing compassion
as joyful prana

breath by breath
we transform this world
joining the sigh
of prajna parmita
as a new world
emerges from her womb

om namo amida buddha hreeh
om namo mahadakini prajna parmita ah
om namo mahadakini sohra saganah itaho hreeh
om namo dharmakaya anapanasati yoga om
svaha svaha svaha

The Seed Syllable Hreeh

2011-11-09T00:31:00.001-08:00

This is the seed syllable "hreeh" for the Padma family and is the seed syllable within my favorite mantra:

Om Namo Amida Buddha Hreeh

I worked on the hues to give the symbol the fiery radiance it is meant to have when visualizing it at the root chakra (pulsing with each exhale and rising as a flame up the spine, transmuting sorrow/sadness into compassion, appreciation, and gratitude). It is related to the Sanskrit word for "conscience" or "organic shame" and is therefore the empathic element within mahakaruna, great compassion, which purifies us of all negative states. Conscience generates the feeling that the only loss in life is time wasted not loving, since only love gives meaning and purpose to life, only love generates the deepest and profoundest celebration of what is.

Amida Buddha, the artchetypal Buddha of love and light, radiates love as light and grace to heal us of everything, carry us to supreme perfect enlightenment, touch our true nature and activate it into a living energy, and pour through us to heal all worlds. Each chant is an affirmation and trust in the living moment that this is happening and that this is true, and moves the process endlessly forward until complete. After chanting the mantra several thousand times to over a million times, eventually one just uses the seed syllable to activate the whole living sense of all the Amida sutras and the core mantra itself. The seed syllable can be visualized on every chakra to purify each one, it can ride the breath, and activate every latent ability within our Buddha nature. Drawn on the roof of the mouth with the tongue, it can connect the two channels of the microcosmic orbit (the frontal and spinal energy channels). Or it can be held at the 3rd eye in deep concentration until we enter a samadhi unity with the symbol and feel its core essence as part of ourselves.

Physical Immortality 11/5/2011

2011-11-05T11:21:00.000-07:00

I wanted to add some immortalist thoughts in a more journal fashion today. I have not posted on this blog in a while. This is partly because the foundations have been really laid down in the series of entries that have been given. I have been filling in some details, though, with further research, mainly on the herbal front. I have been studying Aryurveda, both in the traditional Hindu and Tibetan forms, as well as a kind of emerging synthesis form. There is a book called PLANETARY HERBOLOGY by Michael Tierra. One point of his writing is that we have an emerging global culture and we can evolve a planetary herbal system for the first time. While much of modern medicine seems to be more and more focused on chemical or pharmacological treatment of almost every illness, there is another line of research that is very promising and that is to create a global herbal database, hopefully compiling data on how the herbs are being used, what illnesses have been successfully treated, and with what protocols the herbs have been used. I do feel, in this regard, the "anecdotal evidence," usually discounted by clinical scientists, is useful to record and compile, though I would prefer better note taking of the details of use. Even regular clinical studies have been a little deficient by my standards. For instance, I do feel that diet is a more critical component that regular medicine gives credit to. Most studies on the use of herbs do not factor in the kind of diet a person has and do not factor how the herbs may have a different action within a multiple stage protocol than when taken in isolation from a protocol.

For instance, when a person has had a lot of animal flesh food, dairy products, processed foods, excitotoxins like MSG and Aspartame, and white sugar, they are going to react to cleansing herbs differently than someone who has a sattvic diet, eats on a less chaotic schedule, and does good food combining. For someone who has had a poor diet, it seems important to cleanse the intestinal track of mucoid strands, anaerobic pathogens, and other toxic debri. This allows the colon to act more like an eliminative organ so that the whole body can be cleansed more efficiently. If certain cleansing herbs are used first, before the colon is cleared, then the bloodstream may get loaded with cellular toxic debri and not be able to efficiently eliminate them. The toxins may, in this case, get pushed out through the skin via some kind of skin rash or pimples. This, in turn, may aggravate other illness conditions.

For similar reasons, once the colon is cleared, a liver and gall bladder flush may be necessary. The idea of this protocol phase would be getting all the detox organs up to speed so that they can efficiently help regenerate the body. From a Naturopathic perspective, most illness conditions can be reduced to a deficiencies and toxicities that can be healed by creating a foundation in a good diet, clearing the digestive and eliminative pathways, and doing an herbal detox program. Once this is established, then herbs will work more efficiently and with less side effects. Many side effects are really just cleansing reactions which may not be necessary if the body is able to purge the toxins efficiently. Sometimes just getting the elimination system cleared and drinking lots of pure water is enough for the body to heal itself.

I have found that nearly everyone has a certain lack of order in their diets. It seems that corporate marketing creates a subliminal factor in getting people to consume and that this factor makes it harder to establish a kind of healthy and consistent discipline to the dietary world. This is coupled by a massive spin around several contradictory and competing versions of what a good diet is, with a vegan diet being the one most left out of most of the discussions. I feel that the vegan diet is the healthiest. It is possible that a raw food vegan diet may be superior to a cooked food vegan diet, but at present, after having experimented consistently with a raw food vegan diet for a year and a quarter, I concluded that there might be two weaknesses to the raw food vegan diet. One is that, without cooking vegetables, you are more likely to consume live parasites which may adversely and intensely affect health. This is especially true with the popular "grocery store raw foodism" where people rely on food trucked sometimes over 1,000 miles and fumigated with carbon monoxide from the exhaust, subject to extremes of heat and cold, and subject to handling at various junctures along the way. A lot of organic growing relies on composting where animal fecal matter is mixed in with plant wastes. If compost is not done properly and the compost pile is not heated by bacterial activity up to a certain temperature, the parasite eggs may not be cooked sufficiently to become sterilized and have a chance to invade a human host further down the time line. It is very easy for composting to be done improperly, since many people are relatively new to organic farming and are still in a learning process. But with our economic world linking very distant places together it is hard to double check on all the critical factors, almost impossible really, and cooking is simple insurance to cover a number of these factors. It may be possible for a raw food person to overcome these factors, but they should at least be looked at. The second problem is legume digestion. It seems that legumes are more digestible when cooked. While cooking cuts down the number of useful enzymes in food and the raw food diet has the most enzymes (an important positive factor in this diet), legumes still seem more digestible cooked and very cooked at that (like in a crock pot soup). When I was into raw food, I tried several ways of making legumes more digestible and found none of them were as digestible as a thorough cooking within a soup. Even sprouting legumes did not significantly change this for me.

If legumes are soaked overnight, drained of their soak water, rinsed, soaked again, slightly sprouted, rinsed, and then thoroughly cooked in a soup it seems that legumes shed a layer of natural toxins that are used by nature to protect the legumes-as-seed when sprouting (against molds, insect pests, etc.) and are literally easier for our body to handle. Legumes are the main viable protein in a vegan diet and should therefore be made as usable as possible by our body. The usual carnivore strategy is to load a lot of high protein animal muscle tissue into the body, bombard it with intense HCl acid in the stomach, and purge out the uric acid and nitrogen waste products from the system, along with hopefully dead maggot eggs laid by flies at the stockyards, and the urine that gets stuck in the system between organ death and cell death of the animal (animals die twice biologically, whereas death in the plant world is very different, some plants are so alive before being cooked that you can replant them and still have them grow; animals first die on the organ level when the heart and brain do not function, then the cells choke in the toxins secrete into the bloodstream when the organs no longer pump the blood, these toxins are consumed when animal flesh is eaten). One fallacy in the animal flesh eating strategy is that we do not use any "protein". Animal flesh eating diets are considered superior because they are high in protein. But humans do not really use protein at all. All the proteins of animal flesh must first be broken down into amino acids before they can be used. It takes massive acidic activity to break down animal muscle tissue to unlock its amino acids. Carnivores in nature have twice the HCl level of human beings for this purpose. Animal muscle tissue is very tough. Plants, on the other hand, do not have "complete proteins" (as if that is a disadvantage) and are already partly broken down, and therefore are easier to assimilate. Through cooking a soup, some of the processes of good digestion can be carried out outside our body so that the digestive process can be easier in our bodies. Preparation of legumes seems very key to this and probably works better in a cooked vegan diet. A quick stir fry, for the other vegetables, or a sauté under a lower heat (animal muscle tissue needs a higher cooking temperature to sterilize the maggot eggs and other pathogens that could be there, especially since the organ similarity of animals to humans may be enough of a match for humans to get cross species diseases), can preserve the enzymes that are sometimes lost during cooking. It is also possible to prepare high enzyme foods like papaya and pineapples to also compensate for enzyme loss.

In writing these notes, I am pointing to how much of a medicinal art really good cooking is and how little focus there is on this way of cooking. Very few people in modern society even cook from farm fresh ingredients, but open all kinds of boxes of processed powders and mix them together instead. Many people who are trained in gourmet cooking are really focusing on making food that taste good and only secondarily on its medicinal qualities. This is sometimes seen when, for instance, one TV chef who will remain nameless, got high cholesterol from his own cooking, almost got a lethal heart attack as a result, and had to switch to using less oil in his sauces. When you factor in keeping the nutritional and medicinal properties fully alive, factor in how food can synergistically combine with each other, and how to keep the properties at full potency, then everything matters, including how long each item needs to be cooked. What I learned from eating raw for over a year was that I was overcooking all my food and weakening all kinds of nutritional and medicinal potencies. I gained a sensitivity to a vital element that is easier to experience in raw foods and a wish to keep this vital element alive.

For instance, Omega 3's in oils have a lot of good healing properties, but also get destroyed easily by high heat. The best way to protect the Omega 3 factor is to put Flax Oil in last, after the stove is turned off, and to only gently stir it in. The same with adding this to a nutritional smoothie (only stir in after blending as the last ingredient). In terms of stir frying, I use olive oil and make sure it does not smoke. I add onions first and let them turn a little transparent, then add garlic, and then immediately add some pure water, then cardamom, then turmeric, and then some ginger. This creates the base for the fresh veggies to get added. They are added in terms of hardness, with the most hard veggies that need the most cooking coming first. If there is a hard veggie that is added later than this, I chop it finer so that it can cook more easily. Chopping finer is a good strategy for tough root veggies. Sometimes the cooking requirements of various veggies is so different that it is better to prepare these separately and then mix them together later on.

I find that herbal teas are even more sensitive to this and rarely use tea bags anymore. If I use tea bags, it is for when I go to restaurants, where I order a pot of hot water with my meal and make my own brew and use stevia as a sweetener. Regular green tea goes a little acidic when left to simmer after boiling for over a minute or two. Pu Erh tea, at least some varieties, seem to benefit from more boiling for a longer time, but still do best to remove them from simmering shortly after the boil (more tannins are leached out then). Every herb has its best way of being brewed and needs to be lumped in with herbs that have a similar or compatible brewing need (and then, if needed, combined together). I am still learning what is optimal for many medicinal herbs.

I am going to stop my notes here and post them, and maybe pick up later on.

A Meditation Beyond Conditioned Thoughts

2011-10-15T08:43:00.000-07:00

The instructions shared here are a little compressed and accelerated in that Buddhist masters in the past would have taken at least a week to go through them and the significance of each step. I have shared other versions of this before and go into more detail on my blogsite (amritayana.blogspot.com, see "four steps to freedom").

Place your attention on your breathing, gently expanding your belly on the inhale, gently expanding your chest and rib cage on the inhale (but with no strain, even a few milli-meters of expansion is helpful, see if you can have the feeling of expansion be present in the front and back, and even the sides of the chest), and then gently relaxing the belly on the exhale, having a smooth and soft exhale. Notice if any anxiety or fear is making you push the air out on the exhale a little too fast or too forcefully, and gently allow this push to soften and slow down, again no force is necessary. You do not want to impose softness, but simply allow it to slowly appear as you ease into surrender into life. Allow the place where the inhale becomes the exhale and the exhale becomes the inhale, what Shiva called "the turnings of the breath" to be smooth with no harsh pauses, so that your whole breathing feels like a continuous circle. When you exhale, follow the air out and feel like you are touching the world at the outer turning, notice the freedom and relief from the internal world and any thoughts, emotions, and sensations that may be whirling around in some angst. When you inhale, follow the breath deep into your body and belly, even the point two to three inches below the belly button, the chi point or center of gravity point. Notice the depth of being that can be accessed there, deep below any angst that is felt Feel like you are moving through your dukkha, your sorrows, tensions, and contradictions with both the inward and outward movement of the breathing. As you move through the dukkha, intend not to avoid or fixate on this sorrow. Place about 70 percent attention on the breathing and 30 percent attention on the angst.

There is a kind of harsh analytical awareness of dukkha that is subtly resisting our sorrow and trying to get rid of it, yet the harshness is actually part of the sorrow and actually reinforces it. There is also a kind of sad resigned attention which has given up on eliminating sorrow that also subtly reinforces it. There is also a fearful attention that is trying to avoid or block out sorrow, but ends up making it more and more obvious. Notice how you are noticing sorrow and relax the effort within the attention, letting the sorrow simply be while feeling the breathing flow in and out within a nourishing circle of pranic energy generation.

As this kind of breathing becomes more natural, you may notice the dukkha dissolving of its own accord. When this happens, watch for the part of ourselves that wishes to coopt this discovery and try to again lock into sorrow and try to get rid of it. This harsher attention only reinforces the existence of sorrow by subtly trying to make it more solid in order to eliminate it, rather than seeing its "emptiness" and letting it dissolve back into the field from whence it came.

Gently see if you can rest in awareness as awareness while the breathing is flowing. There is a quality of space in the breathing within the feeling that the breathing is breathing itself and needs no effort at all. Feel into a kind presence and identity that is not formed by thought or belief, not put together by thought, not maintained by clinging to ideas and resisting ideas. Let the older thought based and even emotion based identity dissolve. Rest in awareness, resume your deeper and truer identity as pure consciousness, pure awareness, pure understanding, pure compassion, pure unmanifest creative potential, pure intentionality before intending anything. Notice the thoughts that float around and see if you can not get caught in them, not caught in resisting them, reacting to them, or clinging to them. Normally, we are run by our thoughts. They dribble us around like a basketball player, running us around the court, and shooting us through all kind of hoops (goals). One of the most important experiences one can have in meditation is to notice how much our thoughts control us rather than the other way around. If we intend to sit in silence and experience a storm of intense thoughts, then thought is not following our intention. This means our real wishes and our thoughts are not together. Thoughts run by their own causation and their own laws. There is "no self" in them. We are usually a slave to them and do their bidding without question, and are hypnotized into believing the sense of self that they produce in us. See if you can, at least for a short while, awaken from this trance, and maybe later on you can resurrect from the death that they represent when we are living always in their trance.

If you can master this some, there is yet a deeper level that is possible. One can notice that there is less of a difference between "your thoughts" and "my thoughts". When we shift our relationship to any thought, no matter who the thought seems to belong to, then we generate a wakefulness and ease that can ripple through the human and animal community in this world. We can "pray" without words and vibrate an energy of awakening into this world that can heal it and bless it, invite others to do the same. It is a kind of osmosis or transfer of awakening because we are ultimately part of one organism, waves in the same ocean. It can be easily felt when calm abiding in awareness as awareness is relaxed into. There are no boundaries between self and self on this level, no lines drawn between imaginary mental countries, no duality. Because of this we can and will heal each other. This way of meditating and praying is really very much without words or beliefs, since all mental formations are abandoned along the way, whether mundane or spiritual, Buddhist or Christian or whatever. Without the divisions of religion, there is a greater peace, beyond the conflicts of all the "isms" that plague this world, all formed by thought.

The Door by Tenabah c2011

2011-09-01T01:43:00.000-07:00

there was a door
that no one crossed
that lead to a place
that no one went
and to a time
that never was

courageous voyagers
shrank away from this door
subtly attached to the known
and fearing that the door
was a gate to annilation

they roamed everywhere else
to endless places
that they had been before
until
one by one
they had played every card
until they knew every move
of every game
and every outcome
until nothing was a surprise
and nothing was a risk
and they had nothing
anymore to lose

every war had then been fought
every possession had then been bought
every goal had then been sought
and found
save one

and there the door remained
offering no promises
giving no guarantees
presenting no clues
unwilling to compromise
sharing no hints

no one returned
from the other side
no message
was ever sent back
no prophet spoke
for the other side
no seer reported
the truth of what was there
no holy book
even mentioned
the existence of this door
no scientific probe
ever crossed its threshold
the words of every poet
never touched
its perfect silence
no philosophy
ever deduced anything
about what was behind
this door
or even tried

the humblest philosophers
simply admitted
they did not know
and bowed to this door

ordinary people
rushed by the door
too busy living
their day to day struggles
until the door gathered cobwebs
on the side
of a busy city street

one crazy homeless person
spray painted
some words on this door
"this way to heaven"
and was heard of no more

religious people
read these words
frowned at the sacrilege
and hurried on

very occasionally
a child would be lost
on this street

bereaved parents
would hunt for them
looking everywhere
but at this door

it seemed that
few could even see the door
after a while
and it seemed
to fade away
like an old billboard ad
for a product
that no one ever bought
from a company
that had long gone bankrupt

i was curious
about all these stories
that whirled around this door
of children, of homeless ones,
of insane ones, and downtrodden ones
who opened the door
crossed over
and disappeared
never to be heard of again

and for a while
i rented a room
overlooking the street
where the door was
and for some reason
i could still see it
though i could not tell you why

i would sip tea
go to work
and wonder
what became of them
and look at the fire
in my fireplace
seeing the flames dance
and almost tell me
what happened to them
knowing one day
i would follow them
when i felt ready

one day
i did see a child
open the door
and walk in
and disappear
like the rest

but i caught a glimpse
of the little child's
wide eyes
filled with wonder
and an innocent smile
rise in response
to seeing something
far down some corridor
in another land
that the child could see
but i could not

the child's eyes
glistened like stars
and the body of the child
cast a long shadow
on the dusty street
and the child disappeared
like the rest
never to be seen again

in the dream world
i would wander toward the door
and reach out an aged hand
to grab its door handle
but would never quite reach it
something would make me hesitate
to take the last step
perhaps because of fear
perhaps because it felt so final
and something still held me back
the world would call me back
until whatever it was seemed hollow
and i would return to the door
and reach again for the handle
and something else
would call me back
as if i was looking
for some excuse
and found it
knowing whatever it was
would only distract me
for a short while
and i would be here again

in this dream
or was it reality
i ran out of distractions
and i would be reaching
for the handle
for the very last time
but would be paralyzed
only a few inches away
suspended there
not knowing how
to go further
no longer wanting
to run away

frozen and helpless
suspended between
running away and completion
not caring anymore
and caring too much

paralyzed until
time itself had no meaning
and feeling like
i had been here
for a thousand years
and long ago
stopped counting the years
and only dimly remembering
that i had any experience
at all
save being in front
of this door

a bird made of fire
comes to my rescue
and shows me the way
gently pushing me aside
and taking my place

the bird concentrates
on itself
and generates
an all consuming fire
burning so brightly
that even the door
is burned to nothing
and only a pile
of ashes remains

and a child
emerges from the ashes
and walks
through the open door
or what is now
just a hole
an open vortex
spinning wildly

i find that
there is no need
anymore for effort
i am already
falling in

the vortex pulls me in
and i merely trust
what is happening

my old form lights on fire
turns to ashes
and falls completely away

new eyes rise
from the ashes
and see
something
obvious and wonderful

i want to come back
and tell others
shout from the roof tops
and tell everyone
that there is nothing to fear
nothing to lose
and everything to gain
but i realize
that I cannot do any better
than the insane homeless one

i realize that
i have already spent
too much time
in the known and familiar
too far away
from my real home
having traded it
for a shadow world

with a quiet smile
and with gratitude
i leave the shadow world
knowing that all others
will come when they are ready

i want to soar
across this shadow world
just one more time
and notice
i have become a bird
and my wings
are on fire

Beyond Dieties

2011-08-26T09:12:00.000-07:00

There is a teaching in Buddhism that the gods and goddesses are "mind made". This does not mean that they exist and does not mean that they do not exist. When we go within, we touch upon the eye consciousness, ear consciousness, tongue consciousness, nose consciousness, and tactile consciousness. We go deeper into the summarizer that unites the five senses into one experience and reach the 7th consciousness which conceptually interprets our experience. The interpreting consciousness is the home of the ego, the sense of a personal self that binds us to the wheel of sorrow. It is also the home of the gods and goddesses. We construct them with our interpretive mind. They become archetypes within the 8th consciousness and take on a life of their own. We can invoke them in our experience, chant mantras to them, and even create results within our empirical experience.

What is interesting is that Buddhist praxis that the deities are visualized, sometimes in great detail, then we "become them", and then we "dissolve them". When we dissolve them, we learn something about their seeming reality that is hard to put into words. We notice how we have faith in our own creations, how our mind can invest energy into a form and bring it to life. We do this with our ego personality. When we dissolve the whole structure, then there is a kind of "energy essence" that remains and that is felt. A certain kind of "psychic flexibility" is attained. I can concentrate this energy essence into a point of radiant light and feel myself as this form, move it across the universe, and influence events through intention. There is a sense that even this "energy essence" is a subtle thought construction. It can also be dissolved and recreated from an energy field. This energy field can be called "emptiness", "the ground of being", or "the space beyond being and nonbeing". Whatever it is, when we are touching this in meditation, we are beyond the conventional deities of all the religions. We see that the deities themselves are "mental constructs". There is a certain kind of feeling of Yahweh, for instance, that you get by reading the Bible. It talks to other characters, like prophets, smotes cities, floods worlds, makes promises, etc. The idea of Yahweh, too, is not static. It evolves within the collective contemplation of a people. Upgrades from a tribal god to a monotheistic supreme ruler of gods, to the only god, and to a personal god that has a relationship with individual humans. People can feel this construct loving them or judging them, forgiving them or punishing them, believe this being in some way speaks through the Bible to them, and even fantasize this god throwing nonbelievers into a burning lake of fire to be tortured for an eternity. To show how much of a mental construction this Yahweh is, there are variations in how this deity functions. There are different categories of believers and nonbelievers depending on what the "right beliefs" are and who believes them, and then there are those who "really believe those beliefs" and those "who do not really believe those beliefs". So different factions form with each believing that they have the right Yahweh and the others do not. But whatever the variations which are believed, it is clear that each set of believers has constructed a Yahweh for themselves, visualizes it, worships it, and follows what this Yahweh has commanded them to do. What these commandments are is a mental construction generated by the thinking of the tribe as they "study the Bible". Even the Bible itself is a mental construct, written down by humans, compiled by humans, the individual texts selected by humans over other texts, the humans who selected the texts were in some sense also selected by a kind of psychological consensus as being "authoritative". It was not quite a democratic voting process, but some kind of selection took place within a certain kind of society. The whole process is not as formal, scientific, and precise as Buddhist meditation practice, but it still happened and a deity was created on the level of thought, given life, and then surrendered to. Again, whether or not this deity is "real" is not something that Buddhism goes into. The construct has a life of its own. In some sense it is real and in some sense it is not. Through the combined mental power of the tribe, this deity can exert a tangible force in human life. This deity can also be weakened by doubt, like when contradictions are found in the Bible, in the theological views of a specific mental tribe, when the historical views that support the story of the deity are called into question, or when the philosophical views supporting the construct cease to make sense to the believer. It is interesting here to notice something. We have philosophical and empirical arguments to support or refute a specific belief. If we are convinced of these arguments, then we "believe them". If we are not convinced, then we "disbelieve them". A certain process of thought constructs beliefs and deconstructs beliefs. In meditation, we look at this level, notice how the 7th consciousness operates. This is a hard one for humans to really look at and transcend, because there is a belief that every belief has something "real" behind it. When, for instance, "god" is shown to be a mental construction, then there is a leap to believing that there is something corresponding to this idea that is real and is beyond our thoughts, that exists separately from our thoughts, and that our thoughts can at least label. When a believer asserts this, then the belief gets projected again and reconstructs itself on a another level. There is still a mental process going on and it is still creating the deity. The mental process is still reiterating itself and does not stop functioning.

When Buddha negated the idea of self, he was seeing that this was a construct that we form and attach to, experience our identity through, and which has a certain amount of illusion within itself. When we do not understand who and what we are from direct experience, then the concept of self that we generate about ourselves is largely fictional. But this fiction still has a curious life of its own. It can have low self esteem or arrogance when it compares itself with other selves, which are also visualizations and constructs as well. We take in raw sensory data, react to this data and form opinions about who others are. There are very complex and multiple thought streams that pour into this process, with all of them constantly changing moment to moment, sometimes moving so rapidly and compulsively that people do not see them or notice how they invoke a certain feeling of self one day and another feeling of self another day, and how each sense of self is different from each other. There is an assumption that there is something "real" behind all those different feelings of self that unifies all of them, yet when a person looks within one never finds anything like a self. No one even bothers to ask what a self would even look like. But when thoughts, emotions, and sensations arise, both separately and in any combination, there is no self that is attached to these experiences, no self glued to them in any way. There is nothing we can point to and say, "Look, here is the self, notice how it connects to this emotion, but not that emotion." When a person looks within and notices this, then something starts shifting inside. The person moves out of the 7th consciousness and into the 9th consciousness. It is like one has been living within a haze of thought and is lifted above and beyond all thoughts, whether theistic, atheistic, or agnostic. From the vantage point all philosophical systems, they look like different dreams. Naturally, some are better constructed than others. If we glue our thoughts together very logically, connect them within a flow of thought that has no contradictions, it feels better inside. But compared to "radiant awareness", there is a kind of dull and old energy to all these thought constructions. They feel like an obscuration. They are like well worn grooves in the brain, tied to the past, repeating a kind of past, and constantly reiterating themselves. It seems, too, that these grooves eventually do wear out the brain and cause it to age and die. When we shift into radiant awareness, then brain starts to renew itself and may not need to age and die.

The 8th consciousness has several levels in and of itself. It seems that there is an individual level, a kind of personal unconscious, and there is a deeper and more collective level. The different levels of consciousness interpenetrate each other and influence each other. Our thoughts are shaped by the thoughts of others and visa versa. There is a reflection of the deity, too, on this level. When groups of people put enough energy into a construct, then an archetype is formed. It can appear in the dreams of individuals from other cultures. We can feel this energy even within the thought or word of the deity, by its name, as if the name is a microcosm and focus of a vast story or series of thoughts that gives the flavor and definition of this deity. Because this level of consciousness is transpersonal, beyond each individual consciousness, it feels "real". When multiple witnesses see something and have matching reports, it becomes part of a social reality. When people talk about a deity, pray to a deity, and gather together to worship a deity, then the thought form gathers a kind of energy and becomes alive. The deity seems greater any one individual opinion. It is hard to see it as a mental construction. Yet a game like Tennis is easier to see this way. The rules are mentally constructed and the meanings associated with the empirical moves are mentally constructed, and even the emotions surrounding "winning" and "losing" are generated from those interpretations. A certain number of events are called "winning" and a certain number of events are called "losing". There are very high emotions with crowds cheering or hissing regarding those events. The rules of the game teach the group what to cheer and what to hiss. There are even righteous feelings when someone is "cheating" or breaks the rules, moves outside the social consensus. Once again, Tennis takes on a life of its own. Does Tennis exist? In a sense it does and in a sense it does not.

If you are following my contemplation of "mental construction", see if you notice something shifting inside your consciousness. I am merely describing a mental process that we do not always look at. I am not assigning a verdict of "true" or "false", because these are, in some sense, the ultimate labels of the interpreting 7th consciousness. It feels it has done something very significant with those labels. It sometimes spends a lot of time agonizing over what is real and what is not real, and how to find out. Whole wars have been fought over which belief is true and which is false. Yet this total activity is rarely looked at. People in general do not step out of this process to look at. People do not, as in Buddhist praxis, see what happens when you deliberately visualize and create a deity, identify and become the deity, and then dissolve the deity. It is interesting when you make this process conscious and do it deliberately, systematically, logically, and completely. Most people let this process happen inside them through a social conditioning process, through education and teachers, who are unconsciously visualizing and conjuring with their words, no really knowing what they are doing. In Buddhist meditation, you "take over" the process. There is something learned when we do this that is hard to put into words. It is not about proving or disproving something as "real" or "imaginary". When we build a house, we learn something through the experience of going through the whole process. We will know the house in a different way than someone who just moves in and lives in the house. In one way, the house will feel more real because we made it. In another way, there will be less mystique around the house. We might even have better ideas about how to build it from having made the first one. The second one will most likely be better than the first and the third better than the second, and so on.

In a similar way, we see that the deities are mental constructions, then something happens there. We can construct better and better deities, make them more loving, wise, and creative than some macro-thug that smotes cities and who is so arrogant that it needs worship. We will also get a feeling for all the believers and atheists who we meet, and we will notice how superficial merely believing and disbelieving those constructs are. We will notice how whether or not we believe or disbelieve in the "macro-thug" is really a small thing. All this is very different from moving past the entire 7th consciousness into something deeper and vaster, moving past the entire 8th consciousness into something deeper and vaster, etc. We will, too, wonder whether putting one of the deity labels to this vaster energy is really doing much. If we call this thing "god" what are we doing? What do we mean? Do we merely fall back into the 7th consciousness and just be content with our mental antique shop? Do we really want to step into the vastness and stay there, or do we want to make a little toy in our shop called "vastness" and just sit and admire it?

Transition Time Checklist

2011-08-19T14:17:00.000-07:00

Transition Time Checklist

I wanted to share some things that might be of help during this present transitional time.

1. The bottom line is trusting life to take of us and resting in that more than money. To paraphrase Jesus in this regard, you either trust life or trust money, but you cannot really trust both.

I have always thought insurance was an odd thing. It only kicks in when you are already damaged and insurance does not help you to not get damaged in the first place. If you are too damaged, insurance also does not help. If you get damaged below your deductible, then it does not help. If you get damaged within a certain exact range, then they paid a certain amount, but maybe not enough to cover the costs of the damage. Once damaged, then your policy may get rejected as too high a risk. If you are likely to get damaged, as in a forest fire in a dry valley, then you will most like not get covered at all.

My insurance is to chant to Amida Buddha and continue to burn accident causing karma away. To visualize "hreeh" in the sacrum and have this purifying fire raise up the spine as a tingling energy and then mix it in the heart chakra with white "om" drips coming from the third eye, turning the energy into a silvery blue elixir that radiates out from an "ah".

2. Focus on community and serving in love. Real economics will be about this, about being true neighbors to each other, brothers and sisters in one consciousness, and generating a life worth living with each other, trading products and services that will fulfill the four purposes of life: survival, healing, growth, and celebration.

3. Get out of debt and stay out of debt. Some people are not going to be able to do this one. A person can be "locked into debt". In this case, do not add debt to debt and see if you can at least finance to systematically reduce the debt or at least pay off the principal. The current economic system thrives on debt.

4. Drop out. The old word for dropping out is "renunciation". You renounce the world. You give up ambition and success in this world. You are then "in the world but not of it". If you do not drop out, you tie your star to a sinking ship.

5. Drop TV. Switch to the internet for your news and even your fun shows. It is all there and free for the most part. The regular news is apparently owned by 4 corporations and they do avoid publishing certain news items at all.

6. Drop higher education. Unless you feel called into a profession, just decide to take a path of self learning and avoid one of the most popular methods of getting into debt. We have tons of books, youtube videos, and tutors who are a lot more reasonable than a university education. Plus if you go university, you will have a lot of mandatory classes that route you into official views which are one sided. History, for instance, is about money and war dates for the most part, not the emergence of powerful ideas, like Sahraj's discovery the the tantric principle ("you only transcend the things you first accept") and the Zen principle of "immediate enlightenment". If you do like a certain university teacher, it might be possible to audit the class and simply not get "credit" for it, and still get exposed to the same learning information. The same goes for setting aside money for the education of children. It is better to give them learning experiences all their life and help them to create their own wealth through their own creativity.

7. Shift some savings out of the dollar and into silver. This, again, may not be possible for everyone. One analyst I trust says that silver will eventually be worth $500 per an ounce, once its real value is not affected by economic manipulation. This means that only a few ounces of silver can be a protection against dollar devaluation. This is happening every time the government prints money without any backing by precious metals. This is called fiat currency and it is going terminal. It is not about hoarding silver or even investing in silver. It is about shifting your savings into a reliable currency that will not collapse. Pull out of all the paper fiat currency "investments" and put it into real silver (not certificates, which is more paper). Keep enough paper money to pay bills and cover expenses. This might be most of the money. But if you can, see if you can put about 10 percent in.

8. Grow a garden. One economic principle that saves money is to eliminate the middle person and deal direct. When you grow a garden, you eliminate the need for food to get shipped to you via ships, planes, trucks, sprayed with chemicals which also need to get shipped and trucked, grown in fertilizers that need to get shipped and trucked, bought in grocery stores where the stuff is shipping and trucked to reach, and brought home in a car whose gas is shipped and trucked to the local gas station. While we cannot eliminate interdependence, we can simplify the web a little by focusing on getting needs locally met.

9. Wildcraft for edibles and medicines. I am amazed at how much food is around even in this wounded valley. Get some books, get a guide to show you what is out there, and start to explore. Also, when you have found some plants that are highly nutritious, take their seeds and help to spread them around. Help nature to become the lush grocery store that it once was.

10. Go organic, gluten free, alkaline, non-GMO, and vegan. Most people will not be able to do this, especially in one leap. But take it in stages, eliminate sugar and flour products first, get away from anything with MSG (autolyzed yeast, autolyzed corn protein, hydrolyzed vegetable protein, and natural flavor are all synonyms for it, natural flavor may or may be it, but the only safe way to know is if the label says "no MSG", soups are notorious for having MSG as "natural flavor") or Aspartame (both MSG and this tend to fry the brain and have addictive qualities), then eliminate cheese (has casein aka Elmer's glue), then do some cleansing routines, starting with an intestinal cleanse and then a liver flush. Many people brag about being healthy without a good diet, but I want my diet to actually help me be healthy. A diet is not something that we should be surviving, it should be helping us.

11. Master pranic breathing and practice it to the point where you feel pranic waves going through your body. Enlist an energy healer or trade energy healing sessions with someone to help unblock the energy flows and keep them unblocked. Master energy chants too. Master meditation.

12. Follow your heart. If you do not live in fear, you will be able to hear deep guidance and follow it. You might be guided to special places of safety in during this time, when and if they are needed. Sometimes the safest place, though, is right in the thick of what is happening, helping others in compassion. Follow your vision and start building the next world now.

13. Go alternative energy. Get off the electric grid. Get solar panels. Research zero point energy. Use wind, tides, rivers, and geothermal for energy. Move away from petro-dollars.

14. Get a musical instrument and learn to play it. Learn the principles of sound healing and play music with this awareness.

Testimony

2011-08-02T16:09:00.000-07:00

When I was in college, I read a book called THE LIGHT OF A THOUSAND SUNS. In just two pages somewhere in the middle of the book, there was mention of Amida Buddha who radiated blessing energy and healing grace to anyone who called upon upon his name, who promised to liberate anyone who called to him, and who visualized and manifested a world called Sukhavati from the deep purity of his compassionate meditation, a place where people could be reborn into after they died and continue to meditate in peace into supreme perfect enlightenment. I did not know much about chanting. But I was transitioning away from Christianity, which had a similar idea of divine grace, but also threw anyone into eternal daily agony if they rejected this grace. Amida Buddha represented a divine grace without any trace of punishment for rejecting it. During that time in my life, it was something that I needed.

After many long days at college, where I was taking 18 hours a week of class and working 25 hours a week of work at the cafeteria, had tons of homework and labs, I would end my day walking in the cool night air and chanting "Namo Amida Buddha" with a kind of plain song Gregorian style that I made up as improvised the chant. I found that when I came back to my dormitory that I always felt well. I would move through many emotions as I chanted and somehow Amida Buddha would uplift my energy into peace.

When I was in Florida, I got inspired to make my own mala and chant 1,000 repetitions of the mantra per a day. I found that the beads got so charged with blissful energy that people who touched them would feel peaceful. I would often give the malas to people who were going through sadness and kept making a new one in its place. I ran out of them eventually and chanted using the joints of my fingers as a bone mala to do the count. I would feel uplifted to a space where I was beyond the world of ordinary events and yet I could feel all the people I cared about. I could send them energy from this space.

I was doing some Sufi lucid dreaming practice at this time and Amida Buddha appeared to me and told me to add the word "Om" in front of "Namo Amida Buddha". He said that he wanted the mantra to be universal, associated with no religion in such a way that someone had to join the religion to receive his blessing, that he would support any path that anyone was on and help them to go further into healing, love, and bliss, that he wanted the pure land to be a place of refuge to anyone who needed it, not just Buddhists.

When I was in Washington, I was sad when I was feeling stuck in my life. I was working delivering pizzas. I started to chant the mantra and found that I received three times more tips than usual. I did not need the money, but somehow grace reaching deep into the Earth plane and physical plane meant something to me. Amida Buddha later shared in dreamtime that he wanted the Earth to be transformed into a pure land, a place of peace, where everyone loved each other, took care of each other, and were sensitive to the needs of each other.

In Oregon, on the coast, two friends were getting married, and Amida Buddha wanted to bless them. I asked them if it was okay to channel this blessing to them. They said yes to this. During the wedding ceremony, I placed my hands on both their heads and started chanting. It was a typical cloudy day on the coast. The clouds parted in that very moment and sunlight shined directly to the gathering, gliding across the favorite tree of the male of the couple.

During another dreamtime encounter, Amida Buddha shared that he wanted me to add "Hreeh" to the end of the mantra, so it ended up being, "Om Namo Amida Buddha Hreeh". It has not changed since then, but more instructions have been added that relate to visualizing "Hreeh" in neon fiery red in the sacred, "Om" in luminous white at the 3rd eye, and the energies mixing at the heart to form a silvery blue life force elixir that vibrates with "Ah".

During my time on the coast of Oregon, I was 10 miles away from a town of only 3,000 people (1,000 in the actual town and 2,000 nearby). I lived more in nature than in human civilization. I loved feeling the thunder rumble in the clouds. Lightning energized me. I would often leave my physical body and soar through this natural world and sometimes beyond. During this time, I saw thousands of worlds. I saw worlds filled with so much sorrow that Earth as it is now would feel like heaven to those beings in those worlds. I have seen worlds so beautiful, loving, and tender that I would just fall to the ground and cry. I saw worlds where everyone was dedicated to the spiritual path, honored the spiritually wise over the money wise, and had no wars, no poverty, and no violence. I saw teachers in those worlds teach and words leave their mouths as radiant liquid light that would flow directly into the ears of the students. Whenever anyone understood a deeper truth, had a realization, or opened their heart into deeper love, flowers would spontaneously bloom to honor this event, and flowers were blooming all the time.

I learned from my travel to all the worlds and saw how they were made mainly by thought. Just as Amida Buddha visualized a wonderful world from a deep and loving meditation, uncaused by any past thoughts, every angry thought creates worlds of fighting and hatred, every jealous thought creates worlds of wandering hungry ghosts, every dull thought creates worlds of compulsive habits and numbing addictions, every fearful thought creates a nightmare, and every greedy thought creates worlds of competition and struggle. I saw that this world, this beloved Earth, was formed by thought, arisen by thought, sustained by thought, and will be transformed by every loving thought, every loving chant.

I remember sharing the mantra with people who were even a little receptive and even just a little sincere, and found that even one repetition was bringing light into their aura, but they did not stay with the process, that just million chants is needed to go the whole distance to supreme liberation, to flash into Sukhavati and to see this beautiful world that Amida Buddha created through his own mind. But the very first chant is enough for the light to shine into our sorrow and start to lighten our karmaic load. I found that Shinran said, "The first chant is all that is needed, such is the grace of Amida Buddha, and remaining chants are only chants of gratitude."

I found that some sutras exist that describe Sukhavati. I saw the world before having read about them. They are a little different and mostly the same. The trees glow with small orbs of light. Some describe white light orbs and some describe rainbow lights. Both are right. There are many orchards with different shining lights, different luminous healing herbs for many illnesses. Every one is meditating. You have to like to meditate to be in this world. Some meditate in a Lotus posture on the ground. Some are on Lotus blossoms in the many lakes. Some are floating in bubbles of light in the sky. There is a natural progression in the lessons of meditation that are in this world. Those with many negative thoughts are placed in Lotus blossoms that envelope them and contain them until their minds are pure, until all their thoughts converge into the mantra and then disappear into the pure thoughts of the luminous void. There are pools of water where you learn to calm the waters (emotions) with your mind, simply by waving your hands and saying, "Calm, calm, calm." Thought has more obvious power in this world. It has power in our world, too, but our thoughts are more confused and run at cross purposes with each other. When we converge our thoughts into the mantra, then when we focus our mind we have more power to manifest anything. It is more important then to not be negative at all, because the power of our minds to manifest this increases many-fold.

At this point in my life, I have chanted the mantra over a million times. When I started, it took 1,000 repetitions to shift my consciousness into bliss. Later on it took 100 repetitions. Now it takes only about 3 repetitions. After chanting for a few years, I remember that a fierce wolf in the dream leaped for my throat and the first words from my dreambody mouth were, "Namo Amida Buddha", and the wolf dissolved. I found in a Buddhist text that it is auspicious when your dreambody picks up the mantra and spontaneously uses it. This means the meaning and intent of the mantra has penetrated into your consciousness and become part of it.

Lately, the visualization of "Hreeh" in Tibetan magical script, in luminous red fire, has the convergence of this mantra. It is like a one syllable focusing of all the energy of all of those repetitions. I find it vibrates at the core of my dream body and moves energy through my physical body and can extend to others.

The "Hreeh" is the sacred sound of the Lotus family, the family of Dharmakara who merged with the primal genderless energy of Amida Buddha and carried with him his promise to liberate anyone who calls upon his name. The Lotus family includes White Tara, Mandarava, and all the beings of all the religions who become one with the energy of unconditional love. When the mantra is chanted long enough, you become a part of this energy also, one of the thousand arms of Avalochiteshvara, reaching out and helping sorrow to end everywhere.

Eighth Chapter of the Lankavatara Sutra

2011-07-09T09:24:00.000-07:00

The 8th Chapter of the Lankavatara Sutra

A Retranslation of the Eighth Chapter of the Lankavatara Sutra and Commentary

Preface

The following retranslation of the 8th Chapter of the Lankavatara Sutra owes a great debt to the original translation done by the late D T Suzuki. It seems that the two most popular branches of Buddhism in America, Tibetan and Zen Buddhism, do not emphasize the need to become vegetarian. The Lankavatara Sutra and the Mahaparinirvana Sutra, both of which are considered authoritative Buddhist texts, are very clear that it is one of the foundational teachings of the Buddha. The Lankavatara Sutra very clearly says that if Buddha was an animal flesh eater, then he would have been seriously criticized by the Hindus of his time. I believe that Buddhism did not intend to start out as a distinctive religion, but was a reform movement in Hinduism. Also contrary to popular opinion, the Buddha was interested in social change and was a severe critic of the caste system, slavery, and how women were unfairly treated in Indian society. He was partly successful in effecting positive changes in these directions. The belief that women could become enlightened as easily as men could seems to be an effect of his teaching work. Unfortunately, saying any of this in the 21st century is somewhat controversial. Buddhism was an oral tradition for 500 years before anything got written down. When Buddhist teachings were written down, several Buddhist sects had virtually ceased to exist or had become very minor movements. 500 years is a long enough time for all kinds of changes and distortions to appear. There are enough differences in what the sects teach to show some difficulty in making a strong case that any one view is the "definitive Buddhism". Even the Lankavatara and Mahaparinirvana Sutras mention other Buddhist beliefs and are debating with them. Both are trying to correct any belief against vegetarianism that Buddhists might have. Both of them teach that there are no exceptions to being vegetarian. Both of them address nearly all the current Buddhist rationalizations of animal flesh eating that are around in America and in other places. The Lankavatara Sutra actually predicts that false teachers would arise and teach an alternative Buddhist dharma that invalidates the need to become vegetarian and admonishes people not to listen to those teachers. Paradoxically, this would negate a very large portion of the present Buddhist world.

Each person will need to make their own evaluation about these matters. I personally believe that being vegetarian is an integral part of cultivating compassion and therefore an integral part of Buddhism. I believe that Guatama Buddha was a vegetarian who even went vegan later on in his life when he contemplated how dairy products were really stolen from a relationship between mother cow and child calf. It is very clear that cows create milk to feed their own young and taking that milk for our own purposes is at the expense of this relationship. Perhaps one can make a case that some milk can be given with the permission of the cow for medicinal purposes, but it would be a stretch to use that rationalization to justify force feeding cows and making them become milk producing machines for the rest of their life, and even killing the young for their animal flesh once they get their mothers lactating so that there is more milk to sell.

D T Suzuki noticed that several versions of the Lankavatara Sutra omitted the 8th chapter. It seems that the uncompromising vegetarian stand of this Sutra was awkward for later Buddhism as it spread to other countries and became the dominant religion in some places. Many cultures have had some difficulty with vegetarianism and it seems that such chapters were simply deleted from various texts. I also believe that Buddha had a belief in gender equality. Early Buddhism seemed very clear that "even slaves and women could become enlightened" and took enough of a stand on this issue to reform the prevailing Hindu beliefs of their time. The Buddha also said, "I will not leave the Earth until I have left an established order of monks and nuns, laymen and laywomen." This saying seems to go against the story where Buddha was portrayed as being reluctant to initiate women into his order. In Buddhism, promises and vows carry the force of enlightened mind and are very powerful. It is clear that the Buddha had a vision of his religion having the equal involvement of both genders. Yet as vegetarianism seemed to wane in Buddhism, so did the ethical clarity on male and female equality.

One time the Buddha said, "I am a Buddha. I have realized what needed to be realized. I have cultivated what needed to be cultivated. I have eliminated what needed to be eliminated." The emphasis of much of Buddhism these days has been on realizing what needs to be realized or, in other words, on becoming enlightened and realizing the truth of self and no self. Cultivation has been emphasized some in Mahayana Buddhism with the teaching about the six transcendental virtues or parmitas. The third branch has to do with eradicating the three poisons of the mind of craving, aggression, and delusion and ending the karma that results from them. The fourth parmita called "Sila Parmita" has to do with ethical idealism and discipline. This is the transcendental virtue that eradicates karma and cuts through the three poisons of the mind. The Buddha emphasizes a strategy of "wisely contemplating and wisely abandoning the nonvirtues of jealousy, arrogance, fear, anger, and sadness. When we explore the nonvirtues, see how they cause sorrow for us and others, and then we can let them go. The law of karma seems to be the basis for the "universal precept" which states, "Treat others the way that you wish to be treated." It is a precept that is found in nearly every religion. What makes Buddhism and Hinduism different from many is that the domain of ethical consideration extends beyond humanity to include all sentient beings. They include animals, demons, and hungry ghosts in their extension of compassion. Some people have narrowed their domain of ethical consideration to only their own race, own gender, own social caste, own family, own religion, or even just themselves. Mahayana Buddhism is about widening the domain of ethical consideration beyond the species.

The Lankavatara Sutra also clearly affirms that there are karmaic consequences to killing animals, eating them, or selling them. I have noticed that this idea bothers many people that I have dialogued with. Yet they have less trouble believing that there are karmaic consequences for political corruption, military aggression, and ethical violations in the human world. The curious thing is that humans are animals and animals do want the same thing as most humans. They want to live and generally fear death. They want happiness and avoid pain. They want to take care of their family and mourn the loss of loved ones. They get killed in the same way that humans get killed. Stabbing a human or an animal in the brain, heart, or gut usually kills both humans and animals. Humans have often rationalized that it is different to kill a human than it is an animal. Humans have also rationalized that it is okay to make another race into slaves, while resisting being slaves themselves. Humans have also rationalized invasions of other countries through some abstract righteous cause and justified much bloodshed. What I am wishing to share is that this question of how we respect animals is no small thing. The Buddha advocates our extending compassion to animals by inviting people into the universal ethical idealism of Mahayana Buddhism and, falling short of this motivation, to at least have enlightened self interest in keeping your own karma clean by at least not harming others. The Buddha names a lot of side effects of eating animal flesh on many levels to show why it is wise for humans to not eat animals.

I think that this theme of ethical idealism is an important aspect of the Buddhist path and one which has been neglected much in modern Buddhist practice. This kind of idealism generates the social reform side of Buddhism and gives Buddhism the power to slowly change the cultures that it touches. The Buddha was not merely nonattached and apathetic to the condition of the world. Even after he was enlightened, he was saddened by a war happening in a place where he personally knew many of the people. He also successfully mediated between two kings and prevented a war from happening. Empathetic compassion, the ability to be sensitive to the sorrows of others and to know how they feel, is one of the four unlimited states. This kind of compassion cannot reach its full maturity while being insensitive to the sorrow inflicted upon animals when they are hunted down, killed, and eaten. The enlightened mind is not merely about realizing some abstract truth about the nature of the self. It is about having a direct experience of our true nature and our true nature is this compassion. Therefore it is impossible for our realization of enlightened mind to be fully developed without being vegetarian. It is not that vegetarianism as a diet automatically makes you enlightened, but that the compassion of an enlightened mind will want to at least be vegetarian as part of its compassion for animals.

When the Buddha taught the truth of no self, he caused fear in many listeners. This is because he was challenging their attachment to a belief in a self that had no direct realization behind it. He taught that some kind of disturbance like this meant that they were starting to understand what he was teaching. In a similar manner, it is disturbing for people to feel the truth of vegetarianism, karma, and compassion for animals. It is similar to a white slave owner in the South suddenly realizing how prejudiced he or she has been towards an entire race of human beings. This kind of disturbance is an awakening of conscience and remorse. This kind of energy can purify the mind and make it more compassionate. Conscience, remorse, and repentance of old attitudes can soften and eradicate the roots of karma inside the mind and liberate us from the necessity to incarnate as animals. Karma teaches us compassion by feeling what we have been doing to animals by becoming them and feeling what it is like to be them. And just as an entire society in the South could be racist, have no conscience about making blacks into slaves, and feel okay about what they were doing, a vast portion of the world has a similar lack of conscience towards animals. In a real sense, too, realizing that blacks do not deserve to be slaves and animals deserve to not be hunted down, killed, skinned, sold and eaten is very simple when the mind is not deluded by rationalizations.

Some people will argue that killing a carrot is the same thing as killing an animal. Some people will argue that if we did not hunt and kill animals that they would overpopulate and create more problems. People can point to all kinds of exceptions and special situations where killing animals might be justified. I do not think that the Buddha was against situational ethics. There are times when it might be okay to lie to save someone or to kill animal to save a child from being eaten. The existence of exceptions and special situations does not invalidate the general principle. The precept about not killing humans, to me, still allows for a defensive war. The precept about not killing animals, to me, still allows for killing cows with mad cow disease in order to save the herd. Yet in day to day life these exceptions do not justify every kind of killing, lying, and stealing. As our conscience matures, we can be sensitive to more nuances about how to treat humans and animals in all kinds of situations. Sensitive people can also disagree on some of these subtle points and situations, and yet still agree on the general principle.

Transitioning to a Vegan Diet

I specifically interviewed a number of people in regard to the challenges of becoming vegan. I specifically wanted to know if females had some unique physiological challenges to being totally vegan, because I heard a number of women go back to eating animal flesh, either temporarily or permanently, when certain issues came up for them. What I did find out is that there was no problem in transitioning into a vegan diet for males or females, if two factors were present. One was intellectual clarity and the other was a genuine empathetic response to animal suffering. Many who had both these factors from the beginning did not even have any temptation to go back to eating animal flesh. If some intellectual doubt or confusion was present, then a person would most likely either give up being vegetarian at some point or have some temptations to overcome. The doubts can be due to two sources. One is issues that are unresolved inside oneself and two is hidden agendas from others behind their intellectual arguments that interfere with the attainment of intellectual clarity. Food is a very emotional subject and people can feel threatened by another person becoming vegetarian. Our modelling of a different ethically based diet can force people to queston their own diet and make them feel uneasy about what we are doing. They may be very committed to convincing someone that they are right so that they can feel better about what they are doing. They can argue all kinds of strange things about how there is no difference between killing a plant and killing an animal, and therefore it is okay to kill animals. They can bring up all kinds of spiritual or mystical arguments about how humans are divinely designed to be predators. They can even argue that it is good for the animal to be eaten by humans so that they will have a better rebirth or form some karmaic bond with the human that can serve them in another lifetime. All of these stances overlook the simplicity of extending compassion beyond racism, genderism, and speciesism to other beings who also have a brain, heart, and belly, who want to live, who feel for their own children, and who mourn the death of loved ones.

There is a different energy when a person argues from genuine inquiry and when a person argues from an agenda. When a person argues from intellectual integrity, they bring up their own doubts and concerns, they ask questions to help form their own view, and try to look at the issue from as many sides as possible. When a person argues from an agenda, many of the arguments that they present are ones that they do not even believe in. They have no emotional investment in what they are arguing about. They will grab on to any argument that serves their hidden agenda and be more aggressive about undermining the beliefs that the other person has. If a person listens carefully, then he or she can feel the difference. When there is an agenda, the arguments will seem to go around in circles and get nowhere. The person who is arguing for a certain agenda will not seem to concede certain simple points. They will concede a point one day and then take it back the next day. When a person hears that kind of argument, he or she might get confused, even though no new information to consider has been given. This is because the other person is just mentally jamming clear thought, rather than really having an organized inquiry about an issue.

When I became vegetarian, it came from an inner guidance that emerged from a state of nonverbal illumination and bliss. After a month, the illumination matured into becoming vegetarian. I did not, at that time, have any thoughts to explain why I felt it was important nor did I have any intention of wishing others to change. It was a strictly personal journey. I did find that many people felt motivated to argue with me about what I was doing and pronounce judgment. I kept quiet about my transition and it took many people much time to even find out what I was doing. Most of the dishes I created at the time were simulations of animal flesh meals. I used texturized vegetable protein and made a convincing sloppy joe, a ground beef pizza, and lots of quiches. I still had eggs and dairy in my diet. I had not yet attained clarity about these things, though this was going to come a few years later on through a kind of natural progression.

I did see that I was uncomfortable taking any ethical stand that put me at odds with the people around me, especially friends and family. I did find that food is very emotional and that many people had strong resistance to me just being vegetarian. I did not have any missionary agenda. I was in a kind of mystical experiment. I found that the approval issues that being vegetarian brought up were both difficult for me and very good for me. I learned how to take a stand, accept being the target of prejudice and resistance, and to have compassion for those who are challenging me. I could feel myself becoming centered in my own understanding and experience. I found I did not need external approval when I was internally clear. The first phase of this journey ended when I was driving across America and was out in farm land. I saw a cow smiling and rubbing its neck against a wire fence. I felt a radiant energy burst out of my heart chakra and embracing all of nature and all animals. I saw that this was why I was being guided to become vegetarian. At that point in time, I did not remember my past lifetime with the Buddha, but looking back I was dissolving my spiritual amnesia to remembering the spiritual attainments of past lifetimes. I was being internally guided to where I had left off my journey in my past lifetimes. And the animals were responding to this energetic and biological change. Animals became friends in a different way. They can definitely tell when a human eats their species or not. In the Lankavatara Sutra, the Buddha points to the keen sense of smell that most animals have that is greater than what most humans have cultivated. There is definitely a different smell coming from a human body when they are a graveyard for animals. I did feel that the smiling cow heart chakra experience, which was two years after I had stabilized a vegetarian diet, was related to my body having purged the last remnants of animal flesh chemistry. I went through a similar shift three months into becoming vegan.

I have found that a person does need some knowledge about how to prepare vegetarian meals in order to have good health. Some transition time is needed. It is made easier by many products that simulate the foods that a person is used to and by many recipe books. A person does need to fine tune what they eat to their own personal nutritional needs. The body may need to make some adjustments in order to make a vegetarian diet work. A person may feel slightly weak when his or her biological factory is shifting over to the new diet, but this will pass. Some people take this period of weakness as a sign that the diet is not working. But if a person persists a little longer it does pass away. Because the vegetarian diet is more natural than eating animal flesh, the body will run cleaner and have more energy. I found that, inspite of the propaganda, a vegetarian can actually have too much protein. If a person learns to listen to his or her body, it will tell him or her how much he or she needs.

Here is a sample of some possible meals:

(1) Rice protein powder, two apples sliced into cubes, leafy greens, a teaspoon of lemon juice, one drop of stevia, and good water blended together into a morning smoothie. Add enough water so that the consistency is not too thick.

(2) Salad greens, sliced tomatos, sliced avocados, unhulled sunflower seeds, grated carrots, and braised tofu cubes tossed together to make a salad. Cover with olive oil, lemon juice, and soy sauce.

(3) Make a hot cereal with Quinoa, Oat, and Rye flakes, add raisins, dried cherries, dried cranberries, fresh blueberries, dried goji berries, walnuts, unhulled sunflower seeds, 3 tablespoons of hemp oil, a tablespoon of spirulina powder, and a drop of stevia.

(4) Make a soup of soy beans, carrots, green peas, corn, barley, onions, garlic, ginger, chopped spinach, and kidney beans. Start by lightly sauteing onions, garlic, and ginger in safflower oil. Add water and bring to boil. Add the rest of the ingrediants with spinach, olive oil, and salt added last (after the heat is turned off).

(5) Get some soy yogurt, add hemp oil, walnuts, sunflower seeds, spirulina powder, and raisins.

(6) Do a quick stir fry with garden fresh vegetables, and some braised tofu, careful not to overcook, and serve over some rice. Have some green tea with the meal.

The above menu has a little protein with every meal. The proportions are not given so that they can be discovered. When in doubt, eat a lot of fresh salads or have a smoothie with a comprehensive nutritional powder. Number 3 is designed to be eaten in the morning to give sustained energy throughout the day. Many substitutions are possible, like using Mock Duck instead of Tofu, or Flax Oil or Olive Oil instead of Hemp Oil. In season vegies can always be added to the dishes for extra nutrition and taste. Sometimes lightly sauteing a vegie and eating it is all that is needed. Try to avoid sugar, cooked fruit juices, anything with high fructose corn syrup, flour products, breads, pasta, alcoholic beverages, sodas, coffee, and fried potatoes as these will throw your blood sugar out of balance. If you need a caffeine boost at the beginning of the day, try Mate instead of Coffee. Some caffeine is okay and helps thermogenesis, but Green Tea and Mate have synergistic and balancing ingrediants that Coffee does not seem to have. It is also good to give your body a break from caffeine now and then.

I also believe in skillful supplementation with vitamins, protein powders, chlorophyll, herbs, omega oils, antioxidants, anti-inflamatories, and minerals. Whether or not a person chooses to become vegan, I feel this is a wise approach. The farming methods of American culture have allowed enough abundance so that no one has to starve anymore. But there is some question whether we are getting full nutritional value from our foods. Even when they are grown organically, the food is often trucked over long distances and may sit on the grocery shelves from a long time. The freshness of the food is often compromised. Supporting the local growing of organic food, either by buying at a farmers market or by contracting directly with a local grower is helpful to oneself, the local community, and good for the environment. In the absense of local fresh food, dehydrated foods and frozen foods can supplement. Vitamins form a kind of insurance that you can get important nutrients that might be missing from the sometimes eroded top soils of this planet, that might be lost as vegetables are affected by transport conditions, that might be affected by processing the food, like enzymes lost due to overcooking, that might be needed in order to compensate for environmental polluntants, and that might be needed to compensate for unbalanced eating habits.

Starting a diet transition with a two day herbal tea fast is helpful, but it may be wise to read some books about this process before trying it. My favorite is STAYING HEALTHY WITH THE SEASONS by Edwin Haas. I think that some herbal tea fasting with some good detox teas is a good general policy. The fasting does not have to be rigorous, but may need to be only two days in a row at the change of each season, followed by a colon cleanse, and perhaps the ingestion of a cleansing clay mixed in water.

I feel it is important, too, to listen to the body and to distinguish between addictive cravings coming out of old habits and instinctive cravings which the body is giving as a signal for real needs. If a person finds himself or herself craving animal flesh, it could be trying to meet a genuine need. It could be satisfied by some supplements, perhaps for some good quality protein, omega 3 flax seed oil, chlorophyll, and/or for some iron. Some of these cravings may fade away as one person learns to eat balanced meals. Doing a short fast may help to make the transition between diets. This signals to the body that one is changing dietary gears. This gives the body some adjustment time. Eating lots of fresh salads seems very helpful before and after the fast.

Embracing a wholesome diet is implied in the fifth ethical precept of the Hinayana path about not to get intoxicated. It implies that what we consume can affect our mental clarity. Buddhism, in history, has not really cultivated this focus. But the present chapter of the Lankavatara Sutra does imply that there is a pure way of eating for both ethical and health reasons and outlines it. The information implies that the Buddha recommended something similar to or identical with a vegetarian Aryurvedic diet. The Buddha respects the Hindu Rishis. This shows that the Buddha blessed the level of understanding that they had attained and the diets that they practiced. It suggests that the Buddha reformed and added to Hinduism, but did not invalidate its basic spirit. This suggests that Buddhists can learn from the Hindu religious tradition and still be true to Buddhism. Part of the reason why this point is not fully developed is that it takes a lot of care, farming skill, cooking skill, and mindfulness to learn how to eat a balanced and wholesome diet. Since monks and nuns were often wandering beggars who were meant to take whatever was given them, the development of such a dietary awareness needed to wait until Buddhism formed supportive institutions. Milarepa is mentioned to have discovered that there were foods that helped move energy powerfully through his body and was fond of a diet high in nettles. The Medicine Buddha Sutras also show that Buddhism has, in certain groups, developed an understandifg of diet, herbs, and healing, though some of t`ese texts have compromised with animal flesh eating and have sections on the use of certain animal tissues for healing. It is possible that soee of this information was drawn from the Taoist tradition which also has not been completely clear about vegetarianism. It seems, however, that animal flesh eating may sometimes be abandoned by a Taoist practitioner at higher levels of practice.

I transitioned in six months by first not buying anieal flesh, then fot eating animal flesh at restaurants, and then not eating animal flesh anywhere. By the time I reached the last phase, the last animal flesh meal I had I could feel the meat crawling throug` my intestine and my body not liking the feeling. Ideally, it seems humans should quit at once and therefore save more animals, but six months is an effective transition and gives the body a chance to get used to a new diet. A few vegetarian dishes at restaurants or at the homes of vegetarian friends can fire up the imagination and give faith that you can eat vegetarian in a headthy way.

ALIGNMENT WITH NATURE

Assuming that veganism is a more natural diet than animal flesh eating, it puts you into alignment with nature in a way that eating animal flesh does not. It is not merely about eating vegan, but about feeling gneness with nature and eating as if Gaia is a living intelligence that is caring for you and feeling loving gratitude for its connection to your life. The Buddha focused on relating to the divine as the impersonal Dharmakaya in his teachifgs. But he alsg showed his spirituality was larger than what he taught. He taught what people needed to hear at that time in history, laid the foundations for a spiritual psychology, showed the cause and end of sorrow, and communicated social reforms regarding the need to be consistent with vegetarianism and regarding ending the inequalities of the caste system. In the earliest stories of the life of the Buddha, he showed he trusted the Earth to support him. During his enlightenment process, when Mara, the Buddhist equivalent to Satan, makes his last and biggest attempt to stop him, he unleashes what I like to call, "The Demon of Low Self Esteem". All the legions of demons appear and argue that Buddha is being arrogant to think he can succeed in becomifg enlightened w`ile others fail, they ask him why he feels he is so special and why it is taking only seven years of effort whide others have been with their effort for a whole lifetime. I have found that many have felt this voice inside them and made the mistake that Buddha did not do. They tried to argue with the voice and you always lose if you do. If you do not believe you can become enlig`tened, then you lose because you disconnect froe your purpose. If you believe you can become enlightened, then you are suspected of being arrogant and feel a need to justify yourself to your opposers. The very preoccupation with justifyifg yourself only proves to them how wrapped up in your self you are. The Buddha, however, was quiet before all these voices and simply "touched the Earth" and they all vanished. It was a mudra or gesture of enlightenment. No matter what I am, how worthy or unworthy I am, the Earth will always support me. Touching the Earth is contact with the Earth as a Mother who cares for us. The love of the Earth is unconditional. It is this Earth touc`ing gesture that connects us to her and relaxes into her support. This gesture has the power to end the grip of Mara immediately. Enlightenment is not achievement in the usual sense of the word. It is a recovery of our natural state and natural mind, afd a maturing of our mind into right relationship with everything that surrounds us. It is a mind of love towards all sentient beings, to Nature, and to the universal Dharma that she is a part of. When Mara sends a wild elephant to trample the Buddha, he again asks the Earth to "bear witness". All his disciples abandon the Buddha in fear of getting stomped on by the elephant, but the Earth resounds back, "I will always bear you witness", and the elephant calms down and becomes a disciple of the Buddha. I do not think the elephant would have become a disciple as easily if Buddha were not vegetarian. Most animal flesh eaters do not think about having animals Dharma students. It is hard to see an animal as both a fellow Buddhist and as food at the same time. There is a deep communion with animals that evolves within a vegetarian consciousness that I do not think animal flesh eaters can have, at least not as easily. Imagine if the Buddha ate elephants and the elephant smelled this. The wild elephant calming down is about the alignment the Buddha had with the natural world and the elephant wanting this. It was said that often around the Buddha that flowers would bloom out of season. It is something that I remember when I walked with the Buddha long ago. When someone pointed this out, he would simply smile and say, "Yes, that is interesting". Below the surface you could feel his communion with nature supporting nature and being supported by nature. From this communion, he emitted a radiant aura of love. Three debaters from Hinduism came to argue with him and each in their turn became a disciple. They did not try to argue with the Buddha. They feel his alignment with nature and his radiant love. They felt at home in life and dropped their need to win a debate. They wanted to learn about what awakened in the Buddha and how they could awaken this also within themselves.

I mention this alignment, because it is overlooked in many modern diet approaches. Many diets are composed of lists, portion control, recipes, and digestive principles. It is not about retuning back into life and needs to be. It is possible to feel the connection and support of nature behind our vegetarian eating. This feeling of connection can shift our energies and heal us. It can guide us to eat more openly and mindfully. We eat within a sense of kinship and oneness with life, rather than from a sense of aggression and separation. Animal flesh eating is aggressive. Carnivores hunt down their prey and tear them open to eat the flesh they find inside the skin. The prey dies in the process. Plants offer food to humans and animals. They are often still alive when their fruit is harvested. Humans breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide. Plants breathe in carbon dioxide and breathe out oxygen. There is a symbiosis implied.

Introduction

A retranslation is a revision of an earlier translation. It is sometimes made by comparing several translations and doing language studies on the meaning of key words and passages. Usually some poetic license occurs, in the sense that, rather than translate or interpret something for literal accuracy, the rendering attempts to convey the inner sense of the passage in more readable language. Sometimes, too, older sutras have parts that have been lost or obscured over time. They are usually included for the sake of historical accuracy and no one knows for sure what was originally meant, though many educated guesses can be made. A retranslation, focusing more on making the translation readable, flowing, and devotional, interprets and translates those passages in a way that makes sense to those reading it and in some sense sacrifices some accuracy. Quite often in Buddhist history such retranslations must have been made, because when various versions of the sutras are compared they are different enough so that only one can be the “true original”. There is some question if there even was a true original, since some sutras were oral traditions long before they were written down and the variations deviated from each other rather early. Unlike the prophetic traditions which have their scriptures claim to be the voice of an authoritarian god, Buddhism is a religion of seers. While prophets claim to speak for a god, seers report what their intuitive awareness picks up about reality. When the god is considered infallible, the scriptures are not deeply questioned in regards to their truth. But seers have human fallibility and occasionally certain views are further refined over time. This aspect of Buddhism has allowed it to evolve over the centuries.

I have relied much on the translation of the Lankavatara Sutra by D T Suzuki (Routledge and Kegan Paul, London and Hensley 1978). I have eliminated some but not all of the language redundancies in order to make the text more readable. I have made different choices in terms of how to translate certain key words. I have mainly used American words which have become the usual translations for Buddhist technical terms. This will make it easier to link the themes discussed here with other Buddhist writings. I have streamlined much of the awkward English, breaking up many larger sentences into smaller ones. I have also occasionally eliminated some small phrases that did not add clarity to what was spoken about. I have also kept a few outdated passages because they give a clue to when the Sutra was written. I have also, as much as possible, translated the passages in a gender balanced way.

The commentary illuminates some passages that show that the Lankavatara Sutra was a later Sutra. It mentions several other Sutras and therefore must have come historically after those were created. It also mentions Sutras and issues mentioned in other Sutras, and therefore comes from a time period when oral traditions were put down in writing. Many of issues Buddha responds to seem relevant to wandering yogis. There are some criticisms of other Sutras and a disclaimer asserting that the Buddha did not write them. This also dates the Sutra. This particular chapter seems to be about setting the record straight about the issue of vegetarianism. Mahamati must have communicated to the Buddha in a visionary state or must have gone to meet Buddha at Mount of the Holy Vulture to get information from the Buddha to make this issue clear.

Text and Commentary

Then the Bodhisattva-Mahasattva Mahamati asked the Blessed One in verse and made a request:
“Please tell me, Blessed One, Tathagata, Arhat, Completely Enlightened One regarding the merit or demerit of animal flesh eating so that I and other Bodhisattva-Mahasattvas of the present and the future may teach the Dharma to those under the influence of habit energy coming from previous existences as carnivores, who strongly crave to eat animal flesh, and thereby help them to abandon their craving to eat animal flesh.
“These animal flesh eaters may then be able abandon their desire to experience the taste sensation of animal flesh and be able to have the Dharma become their food and enjoyment, and also learn to regard all sentient beings as if they were their only child and thereby cherish all sentient beings with great compassion.
“Through cherishing them with great compassion, they will discipline themselves to move through all the Bodhisattva stages and quickly awaken to supreme perfect enlightenment.
“By learning to cherish animals with great compassion, learning not to kill them and eat them, may even those presently on the path stages of Sravakas and Pretyakabuddhas can eventually become the most advanced Tathagatas.

The verses of Mahamati are really a summary of all themes that the Buddha will speak about. There are some interesting subtleties of understanding expressed in these apparently simple and devotional words. One is that Mahamati does acknowledge previous existences of human beings as carnivores and gives this as the reason why humans crave animal flesh. Although he is referring to previous incarnations of individuals, there is also a sense that the evolutionary ancestors of humankind in general had a history of animal flesh eating and therefore still crave to eat animal flesh. It is considered “habit energy” to want to crave animal flesh. Whatever the reasons why this habit appeared, it is considered something worth abandoning in order to progress towards enlightenment.

In Mahayana Buddhism, the driving force of the enlightenment process is “mahakaruna” or “great compassion”. It is meant to be toward all sentient beings and animals are included within range of this compassion. Compassion cannot be limited to only the human species, or only to one human racial subgroup, or only to friends and family. In Buddhism, compassion even extends to hungry ghosts, demons, gods, and asuras.

Even though the path of the Sravakas and Pretyakabuddhas does not emphasize mahakaruna as much as the Mahayana Buddhist path, Mahamati is still concerned for them and has compassion for them. He does not want people on these paths to be karmaically hindered in their progress through animal flesh eating. By his concern, he implies that compassion for animals, not killing them, and not eating them, is an essential part of the motivating force that allows one to become completely enlightened.

Sravakas are pathwalkers who learn mainly through hearing the Dharma teachings and reach a degree of enlightenment through understanding the truth that has been realized by a teacher. A person reaches Sravaka enlightenment by listening to a Dharma teacher until something clicks inside, restlessness drops away, and you feel inner peace. This enlightenment tends to not be completely stable, because it is still dependent on words and therefore can get challenged by alternate views which can create confusion. Through exploring such doubts, asking questions to Dharma teachers, and pondering the answers in his or her experience, this enlightenment can deepen.

Pretyakabuddhas are pathwalkers who learn mainly through solitary meditation practice. Their realization tends to be deeper than Sravakas, because the mental fluctuations are calmed more directly and the realization of the truth comes from the depths of their meditative experience. Yet Pretyakabuddhas are often shaken in their realization when they leave their solitary retreat to connect with people in the world. The harshness of the faults of others can still disturb them and require them to recenter within themselves through more meditation.

The Mahayana Buddhist path emphasizes great compassion and therefore can stay within the world and not be disturbed by the negativity, greed, and delusions of the world. Through loving service to the evolution of humankind into complete enlightenment, great compassion can overlook the faults and violence of sentient beings and even use those woundings and irritations as a source of spiritual growth. Because the weaknesses and negativity of sentient beings challenges the inner peace of a world server, the Bodhisattva develops a deeper nonattachment and a more unshakable peace.

Mahamati calls the paths of Sravakas and Pretyakabuddhas to be “stages” meaning that he believes that they will eventually become Bodhisattvas who are pathwalkers on the Mahayana Buddhist path. Even Bodhisattvas can be seen as a stage prior to Vajrayana Buddhist path which uses special skillful means and advanced methods to accelerate the enlightenment process so that it might be completed in one lifetime.

By calling the main motivation for animal flesh eating to be “habit energy” (vashana), Mahamati points to animal flesh eating as being unnecessary for the further survival and evolution of the human species. As certain passages unfold, Buddha implies that one can have a body which may even be predisposed to eating animal flesh and that this kind of body can mutate through intention motivated by great compassion. This may be an important point to consider, since many diet teachers point to features like animal flesh eating enzymes and blood types related to carnivorous ancestors as an attempt to prove that we should be animal flesh eaters. But just as the intention to eat animal flesh can create enzymes to break down animal flesh and the action of eating animal flesh can create a historical pattern within a certain blood type, we can also depart from our past patterns, both individually and as a species, and not be bound to our previous patterns.

“Blessed One, even worldly philosophers and teachers from other spiritual traditions who are attached to the dualism of being and nonbeing, to nihilism, or to eternalism, will still prohibit animal flesh eating and will themselves refrain from eating animal flesh.
“How much more should the World Teacher, who cultivates the one taste of mercy and who is fully enlightened, prohibit the eating of animal flesh both for himself and for others?
“O Blessed One who has great compassion for the entire world, who regards all sentient beings as his only child, and who is sensitive to the sufferings of all sentient beings, please teach us about the merit and demerit of animal flesh eating so that I and other Bodhisattva-Mahasattvas may teach the Dharma to others.”

Mahamati goes on to point out that even many world philosophers and teachers from other spiritual traditions who are still attached to limited views still realize the ethical ideal of refraining from killing and eating animals and therefore he expects that the Buddha, who is a world teacher and one who turns the wheel of the Dharma, should not teach anything less than what others have realized.

Mahamati uses an interesting phrase when he says, “the one taste of mercy”. It echoes a teaching of the Buddha where he says, “My entire Dharma is permeated by one taste and this taste is freedom”. Mahamati shares that the entire Dharma is also permeated by the one taste of great compassion. The “one taste” points to the metaphor of an ocean. No matter where you taste the ocean it is always salty. All the Buddhist ethical ideals are based on great compassion and are really applications of this enlightened sentiment to situations we find in the world. Because this sentiment is part of enlightenment, it suggests an integral connection between the highest enlightenment and the not eating of animal flesh.

Said the Blessed One, “I will share with you, Mahamati, listen well and reflect within yourself.”
“Certainly, Blessed One,” said Mahamati, the Bodhisattva-Mahasattva, and he gave ear to the Blessed One.

Although these passages seem like an introduction, it is not merely a literary lead in to the discourse of the Buddha. Many titles are given to the Buddha in the first ten verses. The term “Blessed One” is the most used and refers to a simple calm happiness which life seems to support with synchronicities and needs being met. He also has the role of a World Teacher and needs to set into motion the teachings and ideals that humans will find worth emulating so that spiritual evolution can continue. He is also called an Arhat or worthy one. This means that he worked to earn his blessed state and therefore can teach others how to do the same. He does not teach mere theory, but what has worked for him and what has been proven in his life. He is also called Completely Enlightened which suggests that there are degrees of enlightenment and that his has matured to completion and is therefore without defect. He is also called a Tathagata. This term is less clear in what it means, but points to a “suchness” beyond what the intellect can grasp. It implies, too, that he is simply what he is, beyond all mental interpretations and judgments. Whatever the Buddha is, it is an actual mutation and not merely a person who behaves better or who has a different set of thoughts about life. Whatever Buddha is, it is sensed by such advanced souls as Mahamati and therefore they are inspired to learn from him. They feel a respect and devotion to the Buddha because of what he is. This devotion is a factor in their own enlightenment process.

The Buddha invites Mahamati to enter into deep listening and reflection. Mahamati agrees and intentionally directs his listening to the Buddha in this mode. This kind of deep listening comes from meditation practice and a mental silence that can feel what is said with a silent awareness. No analytical thought activity or mental commentary is reacting to what is said. The ordinary chattering mind which usually reacts to what is said with attachment, indifference, or resistance becomes silent. A deep desire to know, a willingness to be changed through listening, an innate curiosity which wants to know the truth, and an innocence which does not presume in advance what the truth is comes forward when there is deep listening. Part of this is intending to listen, conjuring this state, and focusing on being attentive to the Buddha. The other part is “reflection” and means that the listener is following what is said inside his or her own present experience, verifying what is said with intuitive feeling and direct seeing. This is different from merely memorizing the words and merely decoding what the words mean. The words are used as a mirror to feel what is true directly, immediately, and intuitively.

The Blessed One shared this with him, “For innumerable reasons, Mahamati, the Bodhisattva, whose nature is compassion, is not to eat any animal flesh.
“I will explain the reasons: Mahamati, in the long course of transmigration, all sentient beings have been our brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters, and we have felt many different kinds and degrees of kinship with each and every one of them.
“These sentient beings have been beasts, domestic animals, birds, and humans in different lifetimes and have often been related to us in someway.
“This being the case, how can the Bodhisattva-Mahasattva who desires to respect all sentient beings as he or she would respect himself or herself and who is committed to devotedly practicing the Dharma eat the flesh of any sentient being whose nature is the same as himself or herself?

Here Buddha goes further than Mahamati. Whereas Mahamati sees that the karmaic demerit of animal flesh eating hinders the enlightenment process and that animal flesh eating does not develop the compassion of a Bodhisattva to the degree that we treat all sentient beings as if they were our only child, the Buddha points out that all sentient beings have actually been, in many lifetimes, closely related to us, and that we are literally eating friends and relatives that we have had in our past lifetimes. The Buddha also imbeds the “golden rule” to treat others as we want to be treated. Unlike Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, and many other religions, the golden rule is applied to all sentient beings, rather than only to human beings.

“Even, Mahamati, the Rakashasa, when they listened to a discourse on the highest essence of the Dharma by the Tathagata, were inspired to protect Buddhism. Through this they had awakened to the feeling of compassion, became sensitive to the sorrows of sentient beings, and therefore chose to refrain from eating animal flesh. How much more should human beings who love the Dharma do the same!
“Thus, Mahamati, whenever and wherever there is evolution among sentient beings, let people cherish the thought of kinship with them, and holding the thought intention of treating them as if they were our only child, and therefore refrain from eating their flesh.
“So much for more should Bodhisattvas, who are committed to being compassionate towards all sentient beings, and whose inner nature is compassion itself, choose to refrain from eating animal flesh.
“For a Bodhisattva to keep good integrity with the Dharma, he or she should not make any exceptions to the eating of animal flesh. He or she is not to eat the flesh of dogs, donkeys, buffaloes, horses, bulls, humans, or any other sentient being whether or not such flesh in generally eaten by some humans in some culture or society.
“Nor should a Bodhisattva eat flesh sold by others for monetary profit.

The Buddha starts to develop the theme of great compassion and points out that even the Rakashasa, a race of flesh eating demons, when they heard the Dharma, were inspired to give up their habitual diet. Although this historical argument may sound strange to American ears, it shows how large the worldview of Mahayana Buddhism is. The Buddha is indirectly pointing out how attached some humans are to their animal flesh eating. He points to the irony that even flesh eating demons have realized the necessity to stop eating human and animal flesh before many humans have. And even the irony that they also see the connection of refraining from eating animal and human flesh with the Buddha Dharma. He also brings in the Rakashasa to bring in some relativity. We would not want our flesh to be eaten by these demons. Therefore in some sense we stand in the same relationship to these demons as animals stand in relationship to us.

Up to this point in the discourse, the Buddha and Mahamati have bundled killing and eating of animals as one kind of karma. The Buddha is now emphasizing that there are no exceptions as to which animals should or should not be eaten, they are all meant to not be eaten. This is different, again, from many other religions which prohibit the eating of some animals but not others. The foundation for this nondistinction is the one taste of mercy which radiates compassion on all sentient beings. The Buddha goes further so say that if someone kills animals, cooks them, and sells their flesh as food for us, that we are still not meant to eat animal flesh. Even though we do not have the karma of killing an animal, we are rewarding someone for killing an animal so that he or she is encouraged to kill more animals for profit. This shows that the Buddha was sensitive to social injustice and did not want to encourage social institutions which supported the killing and eating of animals.

“For the sake of the love of purity, Mahamati, the Bodhisattva should refrain from eating flesh which is born of semen and blood. For fear of causing terror to sentient beings, let the Bodhisattva discipline himself or herself to attain compassion and refrain from eating animal flesh.
“To illustrate, Mahamati: When a dog sees, even from a distance, a hunter, a sociopath, or a fisherperson, who desires to eat animal flesh, he or she is terrified with fear, thinking, “They are death dealers and will kill even me.” In the same way, even small animals who live in the air, on earth, or in the water, seeing animal flesh eaters at a distance, will notice them, by their keen sense of smell, the odor of the Rakashasa and will run away from such people as quickly as possible, because they carry the threat of death.
“For this reason, let the Bodhisattva abide in great compassion, and because of the odor that exudes from the skin of animal flesh eaters and because such an odor causes terror, a form of suffering, among sentient beings, he or she should refrain from eating animal flesh.
“Mahamati, animal flesh which is liked by the unwise is full of bad smell and gives one a bad reputation which turns wise people away.
“The food of the wise, which is eaten by Rishis, does not consist of animal flesh or blood. Therefore let the Bodhisattva refrain from eating animal flesh.

The Buddha further develops the vegetarian theme and touches upon some Hindu lore. According to one Hindu story, hinted in the above passage, humans learned to eat animal flesh from demons. When people do eat animal flesh, their sweat smells differently and this scent can be picked up by many animals. This is why many hunters and carnivores will stalk animals by approaching them from downwind so their scent does not give notice to the animals that they are near. The Buddha affirms that animals do think and feel similar to how we think and feel. They experience terror when they smell a killer come towards them and human hunters are killers to them. Since terror is a form of suffering and a life in terror is painful to live, encouraging animals to be afraid is very much against having compassion for animals and very much against the Bodhisattva ideal of ending sorrow and the causes of sorrow for all sentient beings.

The Buddha points to the chemical changes which are produced by animal flesh eating and how it causes terror in animals and bad odor that repels spiritually oriented people. The odor signals that such a person is a killer of animals even to spiritually sensitive people. The odor weakens the reputation of such a person among those spiritually sensitive people. The Rishis were ancient Hindu sages and represent spiritually sensitive people who, although not Buddhists, were respected by Buddhists. The Lankavatara Sutra seems to have a peaceful and accepting view of Hinduism implied in its message. The Sutra seems to have a continuum of people at different stages of spiritual evolution. Vegetarian Rishis are considered wise people and respected for their attainment. In several passages of other Sutras, the Buddha indicates that some Hindus had attained enlightenment and that many were reborn in the heaven worlds.

The passages about the chemical changes which are produced by eating animal flesh is important for later themes, because the Buddha will suggest not eating animals which have been accidentally killed, parallel to the road kills that happen in modern times. This is because of these chemical changes are still produced and because of how one still terrorizes animals through smelling like a killer to them. There is also the implication that, because a person may develop the smell of a Rakashasa, he or she may become one, given enough persistence in the direction of animal flesh eating, and even going to the point where a person might even crave human flesh as well.

The theme that a Bodhisattva should refrain from eating animal flesh and therefore not produce an odor that through sweating that terrifies other animals is important because a Bodhisattva has made six vows. One is to attain enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings. Two is to eradicate all personal karma completely. Three is to master all the Dharma teachings. Four is to transcend the duality of nirvana and samsara. Five is to have compassion on all sentient beings. Six is to dedicate oneself to the liberation of all sentient beings. Because these vows apply to all sentient beings, not killing animals, not eating them, and not terrifying them is a logical extension of those vows.

“In order to guard the minds of all people, Mahamati, let the Bodhisattva whose nature is holy and who wishes to avoid unnecessary criticism of the Buddha Dharma, refrain from eating animal flesh.
“For instance, Mahamati, there are some who speak ill of the Buddha Dharma and say, “Why are those who are living the life of Sramana or Brahmin reject the diet of the ancient Rishis and choose to live like carnivores who fly in the sky, live in the water, or move on the earth? Why do they wander the Earth thoroughly terrifying sentient beings, disregarding the life of a Sramana and destroying the vows of a Brahmin? There is no Dharma and no discipline in them.” There are many adverse minded people who speak ill of the Buddha Dharma in this manner.
“For this reason, Mahamati, in order to guard the minds of all people, let the Bodhisattva, whose nature is full of compassion, who is sensitive to the sorrows of sentient beings, avoid unnecessary criticism of the Buddha Dharma and therefore refrain from animal flesh eating.

In the above passages, the Buddha develops a theme further by looking at the how the reputation of the Buddha Dharma suffers when practitioners do not live up to certain compassionate ideals. When people see people who are reputed to live holy lives not living up to certain compassionate ideals, then they will either feel critical of the Buddha Dharma and feel it is a lesser ideal than another religion or they will feel justified in following a lesser ideal and thus perpetuate the suffering of animals by killing them and eating them. Whatever reasons, for instance, the present Dalai Lama has for still eating animal flesh, even though he has demonstrated nobility, compassion, and idealism in many other areas of concern, he has also been used an example of an animal flesh eating Buddhist and has therefore allowed people to justify their own animal flesh eating habits rather than transcend them. To be fair, the Dalai Lama has taught that people should eat as little animal flesh as possible and he has, at least at one time, not eaten animal flesh on alternate days. Since he is nearing the end of his life, I have have heard some reports that he has become fully vegetarian again, but I have not been able to confirm these reports. He was vegetarian before but when he had a liver problem he let some doctors convince him to eat animal flesh. In a way, the Dalai Lama could be representing a transitional position that people may choose to pass through. That is, resolve to eat less and less animal flesh, and eventually not eat any animal flesh. It seems that in the early teachings of the Buddha there was a transitional period where practitioners were allowed to make this transition in steps and stages.

The above passages refer specifically to how Hinduism would disrespect the Buddha Dharma because it would fall short of one of its time held ideals. Out of all the religions of the world, Hinduism has been the most consistently vegetarian. The above passages are an indirect argument against many Buddhists who believe that Buddha did eat animal flesh. If he had eaten animal flesh, then he would have been disrespected in India. As a result of his own consistency in this regard, many Hindus consider the Buddha to be an enlightened being, consider him to have been a vegetarian, and have been able to learn from the Buddha Dharma and to incorporate much of what he said into their teachings.

“Mahamati, there is a generally offensive odor to a corpse which feels unnatural, therefore let the Bodhisattva refrain from animal flesh eating. When flesh is burned, whether of a dead human, animal, or any sentient being, the odor is the same. When any flesh is burned, the odor smells foul. Therefore, the Bodhisattva who wishes to keep his or her discipline pure should refrain from eating animal flesh.

This passage again takes the previous themes and goes deeper. When people eat animal flesh, it does not merely cause them to have a smell that makes animals run away in terror and does not merely give Buddhism a bad reputation among the Hindus and the people of other religions. It also causes them to carry corpses inside their own bodies. People then carry the smell of death inside them. Here the word “pure” has the implication of pure in terms of consistency of discipline and also the implication that the body itself will feel purer inside if it does not carry the “smell of death” within itself. The Buddha will now go on to develop this theme even further, by illuminating the more spiritual and deep karmaic results of having eaten animal flesh.

“Mahamati, when sons and daughters of good family, wishing the exercise themselves in various disciplines such as the attainment of a compassionate heart, reciting a magical formula, perfecting magical knowledge, or journeying deeper into Mahayana Buddhist teachings, should go to a cemetery, into a wilderness retreat, or travel near a place where demons visit, or when they sit to do meditation practice, they are hindered because of their eating of animal flesh, and are less able to gain magical powers, be healed of illnesses, or even attain liberation itself. The Bodhisattva, seeing how animal flesh eating weakens the ability to gain magical powers, the ability to heal oneself and others, and even the ability to become liberated, and also remembering his or her wish to help save sentient beings and heal himself or herself, should therefore refrain from eating animal flesh.

The Buddha indirectly talks about the spiritual vibration of an animal flesh eater. It is implied in how one is carrying corpse energy within oneself. There is then a subtle weakening of the ability to perform magical rites and to attain magical powers. The vibration attracts demons to oneself on the principle of “like attracts like” and allows them to affect one more. Although this is a subtle point and harder to prove, one can experiment with diet and feel this vibrational change. Plants are considered to have physical and etheric bodies, while animals have a physical, etheric, and astral body. Because the third body is composed of emotional matter, the vibration of animal flesh carries the baser emotions of the animal world which are more survival oriented, territorial, and primitive. It also carries the vibration of the death of the animal which can have a lot of anger, rage, confusion, sorrow, and terror floating in its emotional energy and hormonal blood chemistry. It can pull the vibrations of humans downward when they are aspiring to rise to nobler sentiments, to have less fear, and to have greater compassion. Eating only plants is lighter food and nourishes the basic lifeforce without having denser emotional energies permeating them. It is considered possible to spiritually evolve as an animal flesh eater, but it takes a little more work, since the animal flesh energy needs to be transmuted. When we are struggling with similar emotions from our own animal nature, such food tends to reinforce our weaknesses and slow us down. The Buddha will develop this theme of “corpse energy” even further in this Sutra.

“When even looking at outer forms stimulates a craving for tasting the delicious flavor of animal flesh, let the Bodhisattva, whose nature is sympathetic compassion and who regards all sentient beings as if they were his or her only child, totally refrain from eating animal flesh.

The Lankavatara Sutra seems to repeat many themes but each repetition is somewhat different in sometimes subtle ways. Here “outer forms” means sense objects which combine with our sense organs to stimulate sense consciousness and thereby creates our sensory experience. This stimulation in turn activates our samskaras, our latent habitual tendencies, and brings up a craving to eat animal flesh. The above passage is about the sixth precept of the Noble Eightfold Path, which is “Right Application” or “Gentle Correction”, and the seventh precept of the Noble Eightfold Path, which is “Right Mindfulness”. There is also an application of analyzing the Twelve Nidanas, the twelve critical and mutually influencing factors in the chain reaction of sorrow which is at root of our habit energy and our karma. The key word is “totally”. What this means is that we need to cut the craving for animal flesh right at the root. When we notice that a craving has arisen within us, we need to look at the entire pattern of activation with mindfulness, and not even mentally feed our attachments. The repetition and reminder that the Bodhisattva is compassionate and wishes to treat all sentient beings as if they were his or her only child is part of this “analytical contemplation”. We are meant to remember why we are choosing to let go of craving animal flesh.

This passage brings up an important Buddhist theme which is the interdependence of the five skandhas of consciousness, thought, emotion, sensation, and body. Our emotional experience of compassion can deepen through right mindfulness, right intention, and right thinking. Since even our bodies are involved in this kind of interdependence, we can eventually mutate our bodies to the point where the cravings completely end and also to the point where our digestive and energy systems can completely operate on plant food alone without feeling deprived in any way.

“Recognizing the mouth will produce a foul odor, even while living this life, let the Bodhisattva, whose nature is compassion, totally refrain from animal flesh eating. Those who eat animal flesh sleep uneasily and when they awaken in the morning are distressed. They dream of disturbing events that make their hair stand on end. They are left alone in empty huts. They live a solitary life. Their spirits are seized by demons. Frequently they are struck with terror. They tremble without knowing why. There is no order to their eating. They are never satisfied. Their diet is not attuned to what is appropriate in taste, digestion, and nourishment. Their intestines are filled with worms and other impure creatures. They harbor the causes of leprosy. They cease to believe that they can become free from all diseases and do not have a clear aversion towards all the causes of diseases.

This passage talks about how it is compassionate towards oneself to not eat animal flesh. The passage goes into the many ill effects of animal flesh eating. The “foul odor” refers back to the smell of corpses. Because animals have an astral or emotional body, while plants only have physical and energy bodies, we actually eat the emotionality of the animals. Since animals, especially hunted ones, live in fear, we will sleep more uneasily and have more frightening dreams. We may not even know why we dream those dreams, because we took them in from the outside. Being “seized by demons” comes from our attunement and alignment with the hell realms where animal and human flesh is eaten. Unlike the Christian idea of hell, which is related to being sent somewhere because of the judgment of a personal authoritarian god, the Buddhist hell is related to karma, or causes and conditions which produce effects. According to Buddhist and Hindu legend, demons were the first to eat both human and animal flesh, and it was they that taught humans how to do the same. When we copy characteristics of a realm, then we attune and align with its energy. We open ourselves up to be influenced by such realms. The hell realm is a place of perpetual warfare and conflict. It is a place where anger issues are processed. The intense burning up of adrenal hormones creates a stronger craving for proteins and therefore the temptation to eat animal flesh is increased. Because of such intense cravings, there is no sense of balance and appropriateness in the diet and cravings are never satisfied.

The passage goes into rather gory detail about what happens in the intestinal track. Although the passage may seem extreme, the observations are true and can be verified. If you place some uncooked animal flesh on a kitchen counter, in about twenty four hours it will be squirming with maggots. The creatures called “flies” are meant to lay eggs on corpses and use them for food, and animal flesh is corpse flesh. Plants have a different cellular structure and do not live and die like animals. They are not yet individual sentient beings and therefore they are not part of the transmigration of sentient beings through the six worlds. With many plants, the leaves are harvested and the plant can remain alive after harvesting. The action of artfully harvesting some plants can actually improve the health of a plant, particularly when the lower leaves are pruned first. A plant can also be cut into two and both sections can become full plants in their own right with proper care. With animals, they must be killed to be eaten and chopping off a limb does not help them.

Cooking animal flesh does at least partly sterilize the food and some of these concerns may be partly obsolete. But there is still the development of an acidic internal environment and the attraction of bacteria that thrives in this kind of environment and which is not beneficial to our health. Inspite of cooking doing some sterilization, some bacteria are very immune to attempts to kill them off and survive anyway. Since animals and humans are very similar physiologically, many illnesses are transmitted from animals to humans and visa versa. Since conventional medicine assumes that animal flesh eating is normal and okay to do, there has not been extensive mapping of the cause and effect chains which link many diseases to animal flesh eating. Yet there are many individual reports which seem to add up to an extensive connection. Many animal flesh eating religious cultures have had prohibitions against the eating of certain animals. They may have linked these animals to specific diseases being transmitted to humans. Many healers within those religious traditions have defended the prohibitions against eating certain animals with this kind of reasoning.

Because we are eating corpses when we eat animal flesh, we will lose our clarity about what is healthy and what is not healthy. We will tend to eat many things, like too much sugar, that we know is not healthy for us. Energetically, there is a big difference between eating fresh plants, as in a salad, and eating cooked animal corpses. When we honor our own health more deeply, then we start getting attuned to what is healthy and what is unhealthy. We regain our healthy aversion towards all diseases and the causes of all diseases. When we eat animal flesh, we may have accepted illness and death more than we may realize. We have actually based our survival on the death of sentient beings.

“When I teach to regard animal flesh eating as if it were the eating of an only child or as an intoxicant, how can I allow my disciples to eat food consisting of flesh and blood, which is gratifying to the unwise and which is shunned by the wise, which brings about much harm and keeps away many benefits? Animal flesh eating was not part of the wisdom of the ancient Rishis and was not meant to be appropriate food for any human being.

The phrase “intoxicant” refers to the fifth subprecept of fourth precept of the Noble Eightfold Path. In this passage, the Buddha links the Mahayana motivation of compassion (treating animals as if they were our only child) with the basics of the Hinayana path. The Buddha is showing that we are meant to keep to the basic precepts as we advance to higher and higher realizations. The exact precept in question reads thus, “Not to intoxicate the body, but to keep the mind calm and clear”. The passage is also clear that animal flesh eating is an addiction, since the fifth precept is traditionally about ending addictions to such things as drinking alcohol or taking any substance that hurts our mental clarity. Therefore animal flesh is being considered as addiction that is meant to be overcome. Like an addiction, we can get some level of good feeling from temporarily satisfying our craving, but the long term effects are unwholesome. The Buddha one time shared that all obstacles are overcome by “wisely contemplating them and wisely abandoning them”. This means that there is always a free choice element in each step along the path. We are meant to wisely contemplate what we are doing and wisely abandon what is unwholesome.

The basic points made so far can be summarized as follows:

Animals are sentient beings like humans, hungry ghosts, demons, asuras, and devas are therefore meant to be included in our “moral universe”.
The basic ethical precept within our compassion is to “treat others the way we wish to be treated” and therefore we do not eat animals.
Even for selfish reasons, there are ill effects of animal flesh eating.
Even for the animals that are not eaten, our odor changes so that we induce terror in them.
Animal flesh eating is an addiction or intoxicant that hurts our mental calm and clarity.

The Buddha adds another reason which is less general than the above. He wants those who take refuge in his teachings, his disciples, to refrain from animal flesh eating. The way he talks in the above passages makes artful links to various aspects of his general teachings. It is clear that he believes not eating animal flesh is part of following these teachings.

“Now, Mahamati, the diet I have allowed for my disciples to take is satisfying to all wise people but is avoided by the unwise. This diet produces many merits, keeps away many harmful effects, and was prescribed by the ancient Rishis. It comprises rice, barley, wheat, kidney beans, beans, lentils, clarified butter, oil, honey, molasses, treacle, sugar cane, coarse sugar, and similar foods. Food prepared with these ingredients is proper food.
“Mahamati, there maybe irrational people, who under the influence of the habit energy of carnivorous races, who will strongly crave the taste of animal flesh. The above mentioned diet is not prescribed for these people.
“Mahamati, above mentioned diet is prescribed for those Bodhisattvas-Mahasattvas, who have made offerings to the previous Buddhas, who have planted the roots of goodness, who are possessed of faith, who are devoid of prejudices, who are all males and females belonging to the Sakya family, who are sons and daughters of good families, who have no attachment to body, life, and property, who do not crave sweets, who choose to live a life without greed, who have the compassionate desire to cherish all sentient beings as much as themselves, and who loves all sentient beings as if they were his or her only child.

The exact details of the diet recommended by the Buddha are not given and may be meant to be refined through mindfulness. When we stop eating animal flesh and food cravings in general, then our bodies regain the sense of what is wholesome and appropriate for us, especially when we cut off the craving at its mental roots within us. There is a general recommendation of an Aryurvedic diet, a dietary system common to both Hinduism and Buddhism. The term “Ancient Rishis,” in this context, seems to refer to those who originally taught Aryurveda. What is part of this system is a sense of balance and proportion in what we eat. There are vegans in present time who have gone further to question the use of clarified butter and milk yogurt, which are still animal products and may sometimes be a subtle form of stealing. Some have even questioned the use of honey, the harvesting of which may cause sorrow for the bees and may also be stealing from them. In my own experience, I find that some clarified butter, honey, yogurt and maybe even a few fresh unfertilized eggs from free range chickens (as opposed to those chickens who are kept in cages in factory farms and who are suffering nearly all the time) may be good as part of a transition away from animal flesh eating, later to be abandoned when our inner sensitivity guides us further. During this transition, however, a sense of balance and proportion is very important, since overconsumption of these foods can cause mucus congestion and result in ill heath.

What is interesting in the above passages is that the Buddha does not prescribe the diet to anyone who is not part of the “Sakya family” and talks about “carnivorous races” whose addiction to eating animal flesh is so strong as to make them irrational. This teaching is wise in that those who understand the simplicity of what Buddha is sharing will make the shift to a vegetarian or vegan diet. But when people are under the influence of animal flesh craving, the teachings may not find a receptive place in them to hear what is said. The Buddha suggests that we are not meant to try to teach people who are too attached to animal flesh eating. This is wise advice in that our lives will be simpler and we will engage in fewer arguments with people. When there is a strong attachment affecting the mind, then such arguments are generally very unproductive. People may need to undergo a healing crisis or a change of heart before they are ready to take vegetarianism seriously. There are times when the influence is weaker on people, like when they realize that a pet is very sensitive to what is going on and cares for beings in ways similar to humans, or sometimes even better (as when a pet dog sacrifices its life to save its human caretaker). In times like these, sometimes a kind of fog lifts from the human conscience and there is a simple knowing that animals deserve to live and not suffer. These are moments when the compassion of Buddha nature shines through the veils of obscuration, even beyond reasonings for and against eating animals. When a person is present in those moments, they can understand what the Buddha is saying to them, because they own inner illumination is confirming this to them in their own feeling nature.

There is also the suggestion that we become sensitive to how our previous membership in the “carnivorous races” may make animal flesh eating feel more acceptable than it really is. When our bodies are used to a certain diet and we have inherited a long term karmaic and biological tendency from our ancestors, we are more able to be complacent about what we are doing. It is a kind of unconsciousness that dulls us from feeling what we are doing when we are eating animal flesh and dulls us even from feeling what is happening inside us.

Another point implied in the theme about our previous membership in “carnivorous races” is that we do have a past history and tendency to crave for and eat animal flesh within our generational karma. There are some diet proponents in modern times who advocate that we should align with our past traditional diets or past evolutionary diets, to eat a certain way because of our blood type or gland type requires us to eat animal flesh. These diets are based on the logical fallacy that “what was should be” and assume that we cannot change our dietary orientation through compassion, skill, intention, sensitivity, and mindfulness.

The Buddha taught that our life is composed of five interdependent, mutually influencing, and mutually modifying “skandhas” (consciousness, thought, emotion, sensation, and body). From the long historical vantage point of the Buddha, the body changed into an animal flesh eating one and therefore can also change into vegetarian one. The mechanism involved was how our skandhas help each other to change. When we have a craving inside us, then our bodies mutate to help us fulfill our cravings. Our bodies, to support animal flesh eating, will produce animal flesh specific enzymes to break down those tissues, increase the amount of acid produced in the stomach, and put more effort into eliminating the toxins produced by digesting animal flesh. Sometimes these changes are too much for the body to handle at any given time. Imbalances and illnesses can then happen. Sometimes a person may feel somewhat weaker when becoming a vegetarian, even though many good changes are happening to them, because the body is in shock and is not used to processing the new diet. This is why it may be wise to have some eggs and some dairy during the transition to a full vegan diet. These are ways of getting some animal protein without killing any animals. At some point the human body gains a “second wind” and finds it has transitioned to being fully able to utilize vegan food as its sole source of food.

Besides the body adapting itself directly to new foods, the body also makes subtle changes when our emotional life radiates compassion and our mental life cultivates contemplative wisdom. Our glands function differently when we are driven by our cravings and when we are motivated by altruistic compassion. When we contemplate being compassionate towards animals, understand its logic, uproot any obscuring thoughts to our clarity about the issue, and intentionally commit to being vegan, then this new thought energy also changes how our bodies function. Our skandhas are constantly influencing each other in this manner.

This way of looking at our bodies is more dynamic than assuming that the body is a substantial thing with immutable characteristics. The body is seen as an ever changing aspect of our total life which is influenced by other skandhas which are also changing. The skandhas are always influencing each other moment to moment, influencing its material environment and being influenced by its material environment, and unfolding within universal law depending upon what we think, say, and do. The body is more like a stream of sensory and motor states connected to a historical flow. Moment to moment the body can be seen to undergo many changes. It has been a zygote, a baby, a child, a teenager, a young adult, an aging adult, and a dying adult. It has been energetic, tired, healthy, sick, alert, dull, clear, dull, heavy, light, small, big, youthful, and decaying. Every mental and emotional state affects it and in turn it affects our mental and emotional states.

The understanding of “dependant origination”, how causes and conditions create us and how we create causes and conditions is deeply foundational to what Buddha taught. In some of the Theravadin sutras, the Buddha even implies that if anyone understood dependant origination from direct living experience, then they would understand his entire dharma. Feeling the web of interdependence we always live within is considered the basis for having compassion for all sentient beings. It allows us to feel our oneness and kinship with all of life. Because this compassion emerges naturally when we feel the truth of interdependence and since compassion for all sentient beings is the basis for being vegetarian, then not eating animal flesh is in some sense more natural to our bodies. Even though it has mutated into an animal flesh eating body, it has the capacity to return to being vegetarian again. It has a cell memory of its earlier and healthier state within its long evolutionary history.

Dependant origination allows us to understand how we can change into an eater of animal flesh and how we can change into a vegetarian. We do not have to be limited by our past social and biological conditioning. The second precept of Eightfold path is about “right intention” or “right commitment”. We can, through thought intention supported by the other seven precepts, take responsibility for our lives, honor our conscience, change our karma, and become enlightened. We are not doomed to repeat the past. We always have enough free choice on the level of thought to introduce new influences into our karmaic pattern and change our lives for the better. We do not have to assume that our blood type or our gland type determines how we must eat. It only shows how our ancestors ate in the past and what they were used to eating. In a similar manner, how we eat now will influence the kind of blood and glands that we pass on to our children. The long earlobes that the Buddha is seen to have had are a sign of many generations of vegetarian eating, just as very short earlobes are a sign of many generations of animal flesh eating.

The Long Life Empowerment in Tibetan Buddhism, involving invoking Amitayus Buddha, doing specific visualizations, chanting certain mantras, and doing certain rituals has been known to lengthen the life line in the palms. Some people have felt their palms tingle with a specific sensation as their life lines extend. In a similar manner, mental and emotional changes created through contemplation of compassion for animals and a commitment to not eat them can also shift how our bodies relate to our diets. We can accelerate our mutation into a fully functional and effective vegetarian diet through this kind of intentional inner focus.

There is a further point implied in these passages. The decision to stop eating animal flesh is not meant to be taken in isolation from “taking refuge in the Dharma” and even undergoing initiation into Mahayana Buddhist practice. The phrases “making offerings to the previous Buddhas” and “planting the roots of goodness” are a short hand for certain initiation processes. When compassion is generated through specific initiations and cultivation practices, then due to the interdependence of thought, emotion, and body, our bodies will more rapidly change so that animal flesh cravings will no longer exist and so that we can more effectively digest plant foods.

When we become members of the “Sakya family”, we are actually mutating our minds and bodies into a new race. We no longer belong to the “carnivorous races”. When the Lankavatara Sutra was written the theory of evolution and the science of biology did not exist. The Buddha could not explain the spiritual life in terms of biological and evolutionary mutation, even though many teachings seem to imply that the Buddha underwent a radical shift in his biology. He is said to have gained mastery over life span, had a completely balanced hormone system (as evidenced by the “32 marks” which are considered biological signs of his enlightenment and which show a balance of male testosterone and female estrogen and as well as possibly all hormonal and neurotransmitter chemical polarities), and had long earlobes (traditionally a sign of being a part of a family lineage of many generations of vegetarianism).

The “Dharma matrix” is meant to support the renouncing of eating animal flesh and the cultivation of a vegetarian diet. In many passages, there are applications of the basic teachings of the Buddha to this intention. From the passage being presently considered, it is clear that the Buddha considered his overall teachings to be a support for being vegetarian and the ideal of being vegetarian as part of his teaching. He further emphasizes that the practice of being vegetarian, although wise and possible in and of itself, is meant to be practiced within the framework of the Noble Eightfold Path and the Mahayana Buddhist vows. Part of this is very practical, because Buddha seemed to know that going beyond the craving for animal flesh has its challenges. He points out that the habit energy for craving animal flesh is within “the carnivorous races” (nearly all the races that form the human species) and therefore represents a biological karma that we inherit from our ancestors. Since it is an addiction that we are literally born into when we incarnate into most human families and since all addictions are irrationally defended in countless ways, we will need to contemplate the habit energy at its depths within our subconscious mind and will need the support of the total Dharma to replace this motivation with a more altruistic compassion. This explains why many people who try vegetarianism often do not continue beyond a certain point.

“Long ago in the past, Mahamati, there lived a king whose number was Simhasaudasa. His excessive fondness for animal flesh, his greed to be served with it, stimulated his taste to its highest degree and then he even began to eat human flesh. In consequence, he was alienated from the company of friends, counselors, kinsmen, relatives, and even townspeople and country folk. In consequence, he had to renounce his throne and rulership, and to suffer many painful events, all because of his craving for animal flesh.

Buddhist literature often presupposes a wider history and chooses examples from this history to illustrate points. Some of these events may be considered mythical and were probably part of popular folklore, while others may have come from inner sight looking back at the psychic traces of the past. While this passage may seem like a simple morality play to illustrate the basic philosophical points already made, there is really more here than that. Because both animals and humans are biologically very much the same, both being sentient beings and both having bodies of flesh, and both having eyes, hears, tongues, noses, muscles, hearts, brains, and intestines, the craving for animal flesh can reach such an intensity that cannibalism can happen. While most animal flesh eaters usually draw the line at eating only specified animals, under extreme situations or under extreme inner craving, the motivation to eat animal flesh can cross yet another line of sensibility and become cannibalism.

This passage underlines the lack of fundamental difference between animal flesh eating and cannibalism, and how the craving for one can become a craving for the other. In nature, lions and tigers usually do not eat human beings, but when, out of some seeming necessity, they kill a human and eat a human, they then acquire the taste for human flesh and sometimes start to attack human villages for food. This shows that animal flesh eating can extend to human flesh eating by acquiring a taste. The difference here, in the story, is that the animal flesh craving has reached its “highest degree” and has become cannibalism or the eating of members of your own species. This means that there is only a difference in degree, rather than quality, in what is being done when one goes cannibalistic. The main difference between animal flesh eating and cannibalism, outwardly, is that you lose the company of friends and human society in general. When animals are eaten, a similar kinship may be lost with the animal society. It may take more work to gain the trust of an animal. The smell of death coming from the sweat glands and breath becomes a barrier.

Another case of cannibalism which has happened in modern times are those stories where a plane will crash land in a remote area where food is scarce and the survivors will start eating the human flesh of their fellow passengers. While such a survival strategy may be ethically justified if the bodies died during the crash and were not killed for food, it would be interesting to explore what emotional changes happened to the people who ate human flesh and how they looked at their fellow humans after having crossed this line. In a previous passage, where Buddha suggests not even eating road kills, it may be that in this extreme survival situation that one might be better off just accepting the karmaic fate of peacefully dying or trying another survival strategy, rather than eat human flesh. In one actual case, the ones that did not eat human flesh but immediately risked journeying the unknown landscape in hopes of finding help were the ones that did the best. What I have also learned from my diet studies is that, when you have been initiated into a raw food diet, you become more sensitized to what plant foods grow nearly everywhere and therefore may not see a need to choose between human flesh eating and survival.

“Mahamati, even Indra, who attained rulership over gods and goddesses, had once was karmaically compelled assume the form of a hawk because of the habit energy of hungering for animal flesh coming from an unresolved past lifetime. He chased Vishvakarma who had magically disguised himself as a pigeon in order rescue his friend. Vishvakarma let himself be captured and therefore sacrificed himself in this magically created form in order to save his friend. Vishvakarma offered himself through this sacrifice to King Shiva. The great king felt compassion for this pigeon for its sacrifice and its suffering for the sake of its friend, and therefore he used his siddhis to save them.
“If even a sentient being who became the great god Indra, could be karmaically compelled into lesser rebirths because of the habit energy of wishing to eat animal flesh, and therefore cause sorrow both for himself, his friend, and others, then how much more should those who are not Indra avoid craving for animal flesh and seek to uproot the craving from their subconscious minds.

This story is interesting because it shows how much the Buddha drew from Hindu folklore in order to illustrate his teaching points. In this story he shows the one of the mechanisms of karma. When we have addictive habit energy, then we will be karmaically compelled to assume a form which allows us to fulfill our cravings. Even though gods and goddesses do not eat animal flesh or even generally crave animal flesh, the karmaic trace or samskara for such a tendency can still exist within their subconscious mind and still cause them to have a lesser rebirth, or even a series of rebirths, into worlds with greater sorrow. Indra was fortunate that he had a friend who had altruistic compassion, skillful means, and magical powers to help save his friend. Even the powers and compassion of his friend were not enough. Vishvakarma had to invoke Shiva and arouse his compassion through his altruistic sacrifice in order to complete the rescue operation. In this story, Vishvakarma is a model for a Bodhisattva and King Shiva is a model for the power of the Buddha to rescue people from their karma. The difficulty Vishvakarma had in rescuing his friend hints at the challenges one may have in helping friends who still have animal flesh craving tendencies to free themselves from the karmaic patterns. Such tendencies can remain dormant in the subconscious mind, until stimulated by sense experience in ordinary life or in the bardo, and therefore may need to play out in another lifetime. We can avoid this if meditate deeply enough to uproot these tendencies from within ourselves at their very source without our subconscious minds. The warning is that even very capable advanced beings need to be mindful of what is inside them and what they bringing with them from lifetime to lifetime. It is clear from this story and the previous story that the Buddha feels that craving for animal flesh tends to pull one down to a state of greater sorrow and therefore should be avoided. The story illustrates that a single karmaic tendency can held in the subconscious mind. Such a single karmaic tendency can still be present even in very advanced beings and cause them to fall to a lesser state when the conditions are ripe. This point relates to the Bodhisattva vow to eradicate all karmaic traces from within him or her. It is an admonishment to not be complacent about this goal.

“Mahamati, another king was carried by his horse into a forest. After wandering in this forest, he committed evil deeds with a lioness out of fear for his life, and children were born from her. Because the children descended from a union between human and lion, the royal children were called Spotted Feet and other names representing their mixed heritage. On account of their unwholesome habit energy from their past in the forest, when their food had been animal flesh, they continued to eat animal flesh even after becoming royalty.
“In this life they lived in a Kutiraka village, meaning “seven huts”, and because they were excessively attached and devoted to animal flesh eating, they gave birth to Dakas and Dakinis who were terrifying eaters of human flesh.
“In the living journey through many transmigrations, Mahamati, those who are overly attached to animal flesh eating will experience a lesser rebirth in wombs of excessive flesh devouring creatures such as lions, tigers, panthers, wolves, hyenas, wild cats, jackals, owls, and other such carnivorous forms.
“They may even fall into the wombs of still more greedy flesh devouring and terrifying Rakashasas. Falling into such body forms, they may find extreme difficulty ever regaining birth in a human womb and even more difficulty attaining enlightenment!

The Buddha gives yet another story to deepen and expand on the points already made. The story has to do with karma and transmigration. Birth in human form is considered a positive karmaic event and gives us the possibility of realizing enlightenment. While in theory any sentient being in any of the six realms of sorrow can strive for enlightenment, the lower realms do not have enough supportive conditions to make realization very easy. There is more sorrow in those realms and the beings are more preoccupied with their cravings, negativities, and delusions. The story is interesting because it shows how there is a conjunction of biologically inherited karma and individual past lifetime karma. It shows how the next generation carried the tendency even further and crossed over into human flesh eating and may eventually become Rakashasas. Because of free choice, we can turn our direction around at any time and follow the Dharma. We may have to struggle with our inherited tendencies. We can invoke the help of the Buddhas. But when an addiction to something is formed, we may experience some challenges trying to overcome it.

The story shows the logic of transmigration, reincarnation, habit energy, and karma. We will incarnate into a form and circumstance appropriate to our unsatisfied cravings. If a person is addicted to alcohol, he or she will tend to incarnate into a world where bars exist. But because addictions do not remain stationary, the craving can get stronger until we “cross threshold” and lose our ability to incarnate into human form. When this happens, the precious gift of a human birth and its support for becoming enlightened is lost. An unchecked and unremorseful tendency to eat animal flesh can lead to this. Perhaps this is why in Native American spirituality, after killing an animal, people did feel some remorse and did a ritual to appease the killed animal, and dedicated their own body to die and be eaten in the great circle of life. While this kind of ritual alone does not stop the karma from playing out, it does soften the habitual force of the karma and may stop the addiction from expanding further, and could even prevent rebirth into a more painful existence. Developing a conscience toward animals, feeling some remorse, stopping any killing of animals by oneself, and systematically reducing the amount of animal flesh that one eats, these can soften and eventually eradicate the craving for animal flesh and its attendant karmaic consequences.

“Mahamati, if no one chose to eat animal flesh, then there would be no reason to kill animals. The slaughtering of animals is mostly done out of arrogance and only rarely for other causes. Few respond emotionally and sympathetically to animals when they hear about how pigs, cows, turkeys, chickens, fishes, horses, dogs, and ducks are eaten at regular meals. Yet many would get upset, revolted, or shocked if someone became addicted to human flesh and hunted humans for regular meals.
“Those who crave the taste of cooked animal flesh in their mouths will devise all kinds of nets, weapons, and tools to hunt down animals and capture them for food. Many innocent sentient beings are thereby destroyed for the sake of others who also crave the taste of cooked animal flesh and who are willing to buy from those who kill the animals for them. They even to buy from those who prepare animal flesh within very imaginative culinary dishes. Pigs, cows, turkeys, chickens, fishes, horses, dogs, and ducks are bought for a price, slaughtered, and eaten. Animals are hunted down and killed on land, in the air, and in the water. Greed for the profit that comes from killing and preparing animals for food becomes another unwholesome motivation behind the killing and torture of innocent sentient beings.
“Mahamati, many become as hard hearted as the Rakashasas. They become so used to practicing such cruelties towards animals that when they look upon animals that are being prepared for slaughter, often struggling for their life in terror and screaming for mercy, no feeling of compassion is aroused in them.

The Buddha moves from looking at the behaviors and consequences of killing animals and eating animal flesh to looking at the emotional nature of those who kill and eat animals. He points to the motivation of arrogance where we feel we are so much superior to animals that we are not upset when they are hunted and killed, but are very upset if someone hunted and killed humans, especially those humans that we care about. Here the Buddha makes a link between arrogance and prejudice. He applies this psychological theme to the double standard that is placed on human life versus animal life. But this insight could also be applied to racism, sexism, and any other form of bias where some nonessential trait is used to deprive a sentient being of the right to live, to not be harmed, and to be free.

The Buddha then looks at the socially sanctioned slaughter of animals and points to the collective karma and the collective arrogance behind it. He shows how people have hardened their hearts to the plight of animals in much the same way as slave owners in the South were desensitized to the humanity and rights of black slaves. He points out that arrogance is then fueled by greed so that people who crave to make a profit can find support from these unjust social institutions. Here Buddha may seem very modern in his insights and very much like a social activist. Even though there is a stereotype that the Eastern religions are passive and introspective, while the Western religions are into social change, the Buddha was both introspective and outwardly very much a social reformer. He severely criticized the caste system in India, was an active proponent of belief that women and slaves could become enlightened and have a right to pursue enlightenment, and very much promoted nonviolent ways of ending conflicts and wars. There were religions which believed that women were inferior to men, could not become enlightened, and even taught women how to become men in the next lifetime so that they could become enlightened in the next lifetime. While some small pockets of this kind of belief still exist in India to this day, the constant preaching against this social prejudice by the Buddha for over 40 years helped to shift the patriarchal attitudes of India immensely.

The Buddha has a social activist awareness integrated into his understanding of the spiritual path. It is somewhat different from modern social activism in that Buddha founded his activism on the law of karma and also advocated peaceful methods of social reform. He mainly encouraged a greater compassion and deeper understanding through teaching the Dharma. One advantage of the law of karma is that he can point to even self interested reasons for not killing and eating animals. The less karma we create, the less we suffer. While this is not the altruistic compassion of a Bodhisattva, it is nevertheless possible motivation to encourage people to change. It can encourage a kind of “altruistic selfishness”. This can be further transcended in the level of enlightenment that transcends “self cherishing” and which completely abandons the fiction of a substantial personal self. This in turn prepares the ground for realizing the unity of our essential individuality with Buddha nature itself.

Having explored arrogance and greed in relation to killing and eating animals on a social level, he points to yet a third emotional characteristic of animal flesh eaters. When an injustice is constantly present, pervades society deeply, and is sanctioned by social traditions, then people become complacent in their attitudes and hardened in their hearts. The natural compassion that humans are meant to have towards sentient beings is dulled to the point where an animal facing death in terror and screaming for mercy does not arouse any sympathetic response within us. This natural emotion is sometimes dulled by emotional repressive or emotionally numbing drugs. The Buddha points out, from his expanded worldview which includes a vaster array of sentient beings than most humans are aware of, that such humans are becoming like the Rakashasas. If the karmaic accumulation continues beyond a certain point, it is possible to be reborn as one of these creatures and feel the fiery pains of their world. It is a harsher and crueler world that they live in and hence filled with more sorrow. Such beings even eat their own kind and hence there is less safety and more fear in their world. While such extreme karmaic consequences I feel are rare, it is possible for this to happen. Even if such extreme karmaic consequences do not happen, the less extreme karmaic consequences are worth avoiding. How we treat other sentient beings tends to come back to us in some form. We may switch roles with them in some other lifetime so that we may experience what it is like from their own side, our aging process may get more accelerated, we may experience a wider range of illnesses, or our ability to heal ourselves through pranic breathing may then be limited.

The Buddha points to a way to burn away the depths of such karmaic patterns in the above passage. Part of the way of liberation is through compassion. We are meant to become more sensitive and compassionate towards the sorrows of all sentient beings, not less. It is natural to experience some remorse, because of compassion, when we take part in the infliction of pain on any sentient being. This remorse can purify us from any karmaic tendencies that are still within us. When we numb ourselves so fully that this remorse cannot be felt, then we are in danger of experiencing the most extreme karmaic consequences of our actions. Our compassion filled conscience is therefore a protector and a guide for us. Our own illuminated conscience can inspire us to correct our thoughts, speech, and actions so that we create less sorrow for others and therefore experience less sorrow for ourselves. Such remorse is different from socially conditioned guilt. Remorse emerges from compassion and guides us to manifest the natural love that a Buddha has for all sentient beings. This kind of love is within all of us, because the seed of Buddha nature is within all of us. This is how vegetarianism links with enlightenment.

“Mahamati, it is not true that eating animal flesh is permitted and appropriate for a Sravaka when (1) the sentient being was not killed by him or her, (2) when he did not order others to kill it, and/or (3) when it was not specially prepared for him or her.
“I strongly emphasize this point, Mahamati, because there may be naïve people in the future, who are inspired to live the homeless life of a monk or nun, who become members of the Sakya family, and who wear the Kashaya robe as a emblem of their commitment, but who have not purified themselves of such unwholesome thoughts because they have heard and believed in erroneous teachings.
“They may talk about such exceptions to their ethical discipline and may even hold a hidden attachment to the belief in a personal soul. Under the influence of their addiction to animal flesh, they may create many rationalizations and sophistic arguments to defend their addiction to animal flesh.
“When seeming facts are used in such a manner and many arguments are made to contradict what I have clearly said, then my teaching has been slandered and misinterpreted by them.
“Imagining that this seeming exception to not eating animal flesh supports the interpretations in favor of their addiction , they wrongly conclude that animal flesh eating is either completely permissible or permissible under certain conditions, that the Blessed One permits animal flesh as appropriate food for humans, that animal flesh is listed among the foods permitted for those who follow the Dharma, and even go to such an extreme to even say that the Buddha himself had eaten animal flesh.
“However, Mahamati, nowhere in the Sutras is animal flesh eating permitted as something to be enjoyed and nowhere is it listed as appropriate food for followers of the Dharma.

Here Buddha focuses on the future of rationalizations of a small exception that he may have once made to a follower of his. There was a devoted monk who was wandering in a town that did not know about the Buddhadharma. It was late at night and the monk had knocked on the door of someone who gave him some food to eat. He was delighted to get some food and went out of town to be alone to meditate. Because it was dark, he did not realize until later on that he was accidentally given some cooked animal flesh to eat. Since he was famished, since he was now far from the town, since he would now have to wake up and disturb people in the town to beg for food, since they would need to understand vegetarianism in a very late night conversation, and since the animal had already been unwittingly killed and prepared for food and placed in his bowl, he decided to eat the animal flesh. Because he was a dutiful monk, he went to the Buddha and asked if he did what was appropriate. He came with a willingness to examine his attitude, to repent of any wrong doing he may have engaged in, and to uproot any karmaic tendency he may have unwittingly planted in himself. The Buddha, who was very ethically precise and very compassionate, told the monk that he did not have to worry. The animal was not knowingly killed for his sake and he did not know enough of what he had been given to refuse it, since it was dark. He was starving and the animal was already dead, and the food would have been wasted if he would have thrown it away.

The Buddha clearly saw that the monk had the clear intention of being true to the vegetarian teachings of the Buddha but was in an unusual and extreme situation. Earlier on this in chapter, the Buddha even eliminates this kind of exception, because the craving for animal flesh could be strongly activated by the taste of animal flesh and would still create an odor through sweat that would still terrify sentient beings. But he allowed for such an exception for two reasons. One is that, it was after the fact, and the monk could, from this point on, be more careful to check what he is being given and more careful to not let himself be put in a situation where he would be starving so much. In short, it was a unusual situation which would be unlikely to happen again and the monk had the sincerity to not make it into an unwholesome habit. There was no need for the Buddha to belabor this point with a monk who had at least kept the spirit if not the letter of the precept. Two is that the Buddha was not into rigid views and was an exacting taskmaster. The event was innocent enough and could easily be forgiven.

Yet the Buddha was already seeing into the future and saw that such a provisional or situational teaching would cause people to rationalize their animal flesh eating. He decided that his final teaching must have no exceptions. The Eighth chapter of the Lankavatara Sutra is about setting the record straight.

There is some question whether or not this story about the monk who ate some animal flesh even happened. But even if it did happen, the story clearly affirms that the Buddha and the monk had already agreed on the general principle that animal flesh eating was not appropriate. They both wisely agreed to not let this unusual situation be a source of needless guilt, since it is clear that the monk had the strong intention to be consistent with the Dharma and even offered his situation to be examined by the Buddha to double check. Given what the Buddha has said in this Sutra, it is most likely that the Buddha told him both to not worry about it and to not do it again.

The Buddha uses this story as an example of how addiction to eating animal flesh can latch on to a seeming fact, distort it, and expand it to include less exceptional and less extreme situations such as having a habitual and daily diet that includes a large amount of animal flesh eating. There is clearly no support from the story to expand this very small exception into the very large exception that many Buddhist sects have done over the centuries. The Buddha, seeing into the future and prophesying how the craving for animal flesh would lead to such rationalizations and distortions of his teachings, has been very accurate about how much an addiction can warp our thinking processes and even turn things around into their opposite.

There are apparently even some lamas who assert that they are helping the animals they eat by eating them, because they form a “karmaic connection” with the animal that can be used to save them in another lifetime. Yet these lamas do not seem to eat humans to form a karmaic connection with them so that they can save them in another lifetime nor did the Buddha himself seem to use this method. The usual way of forming a positive karmaic connection to help someone is through kindness and generosity, through a giving and receiving, where energy is exchanged voluntarily between to two beings. This is sometimes done ritualistically through common practice, mantra chanting, or a common vow. Even if it were true that eating animal flesh created a useful karmaic connection, it seems that, given the many lifetimes where animals have already been killed, bought, sold, or eaten, there are enough connections with everyone already established. It seems, at best, that such negative karmaic connection is being transmuted into a positive one through compassion. But then why not directly manifest compassion towards animals in immediate present interactions with them? In this case, the act of not killing, not eating, not selling, and not buying animal flesh from those who kill and sell animals, would also create a positive karmaic connection with animals. This would be especially so when one has consciously and intentionally decided to do this out of compassion for animals and dedicated the merit of this action towards the liberation of all sentient beings. The Buddha, in this sutra, is emphasizing a positive karmaic connection that we already have with all sentient beings. He is emphasizing that we have already been mother, father, sister, brother, son, daughter, nephew, niece, aunt, uncle, grandfather, and grandmother, in a very literal reincarnational sense, with all sentient beings.

There are other lamas that teach that you need animal flesh food so that your nerves are strong enough to sustain Tantric energy practices. Once again Guatama, many Buddhist Tantric saints, and Hindu Kriya Yoga practitioners have moved very powerful energies through themselves without the “support” of eating animal flesh. A healthy Aryurvedic vegetarian diet seems very good support for the body and nerves, whereas “corpse eating” seems to weaken energy movement. This is also why some “Kundalini crisis centers” in modern times will even stop kundalini energy movement by having a person eat an animal flesh burger and fried potatoes when someone is freaking out over a spontaneous kundalini awakening (this is, once again, why the entire Dharma matrix is an important support for spiritual energy practice, including getting your diet aligned with your practice). This is why, out of the three poisons of the mind (craving, negativity, and delusion) which must be conquered in order to become enlightened, addictive craving is considered the most central. It leads to negativity when verbally and angrily defended before others and it leads to delusional rationalizations when mentally defended.

The Buddha is right about animal flesh eating being eventually added to lists of food appropriate for Dharma practitioners. There are Tibetan medical texts that even prescribe animal flesh for various ailments, Zen masters who have blessed whaling ships and even doctors who convinced the Dalai Lama to give up being vegetarian in order to get cured of an illness. There are some Theravadin Buddhists who believe that Buddha was not a vegetarian and even died of eating poisoned pork flesh. Such is the power of addiction and rationalization which many psychotherapists know from working with all kinds of addicts.

Concerning the story of his death, it seems that those who were addicted to eating animal flesh mistranslated the story of where Buddha ate some poisoned mushrooms called “Delight of Boar” and had assumed that the name of the mushroom was actually the name of an animal flesh dish. Yet I even question this story. The Buddha had the sensitivity to feel the vibrations of the mushrooms. He was eating his last meal with a friend who offered them. He was choosing to release his physical body which had already conquered aging and death within itself. Even if he ate poison, it would not have killed him. He was beyond this kind of karma. This is shown in the story where Devadatta tries to kill the Buddha by rolling a boulder towards him which magically splits into two so that both halves miss him. Buddhas, however, sometimes take on the karma of others in a process called “transfer of merit”. According to Avagosha, Buddha did this before he died in order to give strength to his followers. He took on the karmas that would have killed them so that they would have more time, good situations, and energy to practice. He then did phowa, consciousness transference, in order to eject his consciousness beyond his body as an example of his higher teachings. He had such mastery that when a late disciple came to him to ask some questions, he stops the process of phowa midstream, answers patiently answers the questions, and then returns back to his concentration to finish what he started.

The Buddha in these passages categorically denies the truth of many assertions made by many Buddhist teachers and Buddhist sects over the centuries. He asserts that these teachers are not yet free from addictive craving and are letting their addictions be rationalized and justified in their own minds, rather than working to overcome them. What is interesting is that he connects such addictions and rationalizations to attachment to a belief in a personal soul. This is a subtle point that the Buddha is making about addictive craving to animal flesh which links his vegetarian teachings with his teachings about the nonexistence of a personal self. The Buddha one time said that if the illusion of a personal self was not seen through, then there would be no freedom from sorrow. Quite logically, then, animal flesh eating and the uncompassionate insensitivity to animal sorrow that it implies, must have some trace of a belief in a personal self. The craving for animal flesh must be coming from some kind of cherishing of a false sense of self and must be reinforcing it in some way. This implies, too, that becoming vegetarian and not eating animal flesh must help to weaken the false sense of self and thereby assist liberation. This links to previous passages as to why the Buddha did not want any exceptions to eating animal flesh, because even when it is a relatively clean choice on purely ethical grounds, like accidentally eating animal flesh without realizing it has slipped into your food or eating an animal that was accidentally run over by a car, there is still the vibration of eating animal flesh and the taste of animal flesh which can still activate and feed the addictive craving. If this process is watched carefully, one can feel a kind of strengthening of a certain kind of feeling of self.

Although this subject is perhaps too big for a commentary mainly focused on why Buddha felt vegetarianism is ieportant, the abgve passages show how deeply interdependent the teachings of the Buddha were and still are. When our conscious presence is more established within us and we are able to watch thoughts, emotions, and sensation arise, abide, change, and pass away, we begin to see that what we thought was our self is really nonexistent. It is like realizing that the movie you are watch is really flashes of still pictures on a screen. When looked at deeply, we find not find a self within us. We see transitory thoughts, emotions, and sensations. We are meant to let them flow without clinging, resistance, or unconsciously acting them out.

If we are very sensitive to this flow, we will see that a feeling and belief in a self arises from these transitory patterns. It is mainly centered in the thought of “I, me, and mine” which is present in actual sentences that we are thinking as well as a subtle level of felt thought that clings to inner states, external relationships, and outer situations in order to build itself up and which feels hurt when its supports are diminished. Identifying with a craving and fulfilling a craving reinforces this illusion of self. It strengthens one set of inner conditions against another set of inner conditions. Craving strongly avoids some states which contradict the self and attaches to what affirms the self. This eventually becomes the arrogance that Buddha mentioned in some earlier passages. Arrogance is when we are so centered in this addiction based feeling of self that we do not consider others as even equal to ourselves, but instead consider them as things to build us up and as food to be eaten. This is how vegetarianism links to the very deepest teachings of the Buddha which relate to the realization of “no self” and the discovery of Buddha nature.

If we look into any craving we can uncover this feeling of self. If we sit in meditation long enough, we can see this phantom self arise, abide, and pass away. It is a transitory and everchanging complex of thoughts, emotions, and sensations, which is at least temporarily totally gone when we have moments of “bliss, clarity, and nonthought”. Yet we often fall under the trance of feeling this self to be both substantial, real, and truly who we are, even though the thoughts it expresses to affirm itself are contradictory and therefore without true unity. The thoughts which whirl around in our heads and think “I” are very fleeting and do not add up to any kind of self. The thoughts are rarely grounded in presence. They come out of a ground a conditioning within the subconscious mind. Looking within, we see thoughts reacting to thoughts. We follow this conditioning and act out all our karmas. The precepts restrain this process, while meditation uproots the deeper causes. With any addiction, we can look into the depths and uproot the deepest traces of karma. At the most subtle level, there is an illusory feeling of self which energizes the cravings, negativities, and confusions that we have. Releasing this feeling of self, by hearing these words deeply, by introspective meditation, by living in accord with the precepts, by initiations, by taking vows, by chanting mantras, and by living from compassion, we can cut through all our addictions and become thoroughly liberated.

The Buddha implies that if we accept the precept to not eat animal flesh and if we look at our craving for animal flesh very deeply, in the moment that we feel it, then even the most subtle levels of our addiction can be exposed with the light of the highest teachings that the Buddha gave. Through this, we can liberate ourselves.

“Mahamati, if I had the intention to permit animal flesh eating for followers of the Dharma, I would not have forbidden the eating of animal flesh for yogis, by sons and daughters of good family, all who wish to cherish the idea of that all sentient beings are worthy to be loved like their only child, all who already directly feel this compassion withan them in fullness, and those who practice contemplation, renunciation, and who will eventually mature into Mahayana Buddhists ideals.
“Mahamati, the precept to not eat animal flesh of any kind is given by me to all sons and daughters of good family, whether they are ascetics who wander cemeteries and forests, yogis who practice many kinds of spiritual exercises, and followers of any of the vehicles of the Dharma, especially those who feel great compassion within them, cherish the idea of loving all sentient beings as if they were their only child, and who have the intention of achieving the final enlightenment that is the end result of their life of discipline.

Here the Buddha first illuminates a contradiction behind the Buddhists who rationalize eating animal flesh. He points out that if he did allow animal flesh eating for his followers that he would be teaching the same for those who were not his followers! He advocates that vegetarianism is generally good for everyone. Therefore those who follow him should be more, not less, committed to vegetarianism, since they would naturally believe in at least the basic teachings he left behind. In all his forty years of teaching in India, there is no record of him praising Hindus for eating animal flesh or condemning those who were vegetarian. Instead he lived a vegetarian life. He was social activist enough to make vegetarianism an issue if he were against it. But in every way, it was clear that he thought it was part of basic compassion to not kill and eat animals, and therefore even more important for Bodhisattvas who are learning to release the compassion of their Buddha nature and cherish all sentient beings as their only child or even as their very self. In fact, the Bodhisattvas, the followers of the Buddha, have vowed to do so. This theme was explored in another context earlier, but here it is brought up again within the context of how delusional our thinking becomes when we are influenced by an addiction.

In the next verse, Buddha, in his role as a world teacher, affirms that the precept about not eating animal flesh is a general and universal one that is meant to all sentient beings and not just his followers. This is because, having shown how karmaically unwholesome animal flesh eating is, everyone would benefit from this precept, even if they were not committed to a life of meditation, compassion, and nonattachment. The Buddha, however, further suggests that those who are more sensitive and more compassionate, those who are feeling the altruistic compassion of Mahayana Buddhism within themselves, or who at least mentally cherish such an ideal and feel its truth, need to keep this precept even more consistently than worldly humans or members of other religions. This is because the killing and eating of animals hurts the development of their compassionate nature and without this compassion they cannot become fully enlightened.

The Buddha introduces a new theme here as well. He teaches that his path is largely a path of discipline. There is a natural discipline within compassion and wisdom which grows on the path that the Buddha laid out. Enlightenment is attained through this kind of discipline. By introducing this theme in this chapter, he is linking discipline with altruistic compassion, with purification, with enlightenment, and even with peaceful social reform. Discipline, as purification, and as ethical idealism in practice, is part of Sila Parmita, the fourth parmita of the six parmitas at the heart of the Mahayana Buddhist path. It is the power that organizes our life. Once more Buddha links vegetarianism with his core teachings and shows how much it is interconnected with all the teachings which form the “dharma matrix”.

“In canonical texts in some Buddhist sects, the disciplines involved in the path are considered to evolve step by step like climbing up a ladder. In these same texts, there is the assertion saying that at certain stages on the path that animal flesh eating is permitted, while on certain stages it is not. In some texts, there is a tenfold prohibition concerning the eating of animals that are found in nature already dead.
“But in this present Sutra, all animal flesh eating in any form, in any manner, and in any place, in unconditionally and for all time, prohibited for all.
“Thus, Mahamati, animal flesh eating I have not permitted to anyone. I do not permit animal flesh eating. I will not permit animal flesh eating.
“Animal flesh eating, I tell you, is not appropriate for homeless monks and nuns.
“There may be some who would say that animal flesh was eaten by the Tathagata, thinking that this would slander him and undermine the words shared in this Sutra.
“Such unconscious people will follow their own karmaic tendencies and may fall into places where long nights are passed without benefits and without happiness.
“Mahamati, noble Sravakas do not eat what worldly people normally eat, much less the flesh and blood of animals, which is altogether inappropriate to their path.
“The food for my Sravakas, Pretyakabuddhas, and Bodhisattvas is the Dharma and not flesh food, how much more so is such true for the Tathagata!
“The Tathagata is the Dharmakaya, Mahamati. He abides in the Dharma as his food. He is not a flesh body feeding on flesh. He does not abide in any flesh food. He had rejected the habitual cravings which drive all of existence. He keeps away the habit energy of the afflicted passions. He is completely free from obscuring thoughts and clear in his knowledge. He is omniscient and all seeing. He treats all being impartially and compassionately as if they were his only child. How can I permit Sravakas to eat the flesh of their only child? How much more must I set an example for them by being consistent with what I teach and by not eating animal flesh!
That I have permitted Sravakas or myself to eat animal flesh, Mahamati, has not foundation whatsoever.

It seems that the Buddha is belaboring points already made, but he is actually reviewing them some in order to go even deeper with his teachings. The first verse mentioned above talks about “canonical texts” which shows that this Sutra is from a period of time when the Buddhist teachings were finally committed to writing. It suggests that whoever Mahamati is must have had a vision of the Buddha giving him these teachings. Part of the reason for these revealed teachings is to set the record clear about what the Buddha had taught about vegetarianism. It deals with issues and distortions regarding the ideal of vegetarianism which have already happened and which will happen more in the future. He is mainly concerned with dealing with these issues among his past, present, and future followers, but also in a more general way affirming that the idea of vegetarianism is worthy for all people to emulate and serves their happiness.

He further negates several versions of Buddhist teaching that are still present in many sects. Some affirm that animal flesh is prohibited in the early stages but not in the advanced stages of discipline. Some affirm that animal flesh is prohibited in the later stages, but is okay in the early stages. Others affirm that it is okay at any stage, but is not okay under certain conditions. The Buddha lumps all these complex teachings together and affirms that he did not teach any of those distinctions. He affirms that his disciples are not meant to eat any animal flesh at any stage and under any condition. He also affirms that even people who are not his followers are meant to embrace this simple and general ethical sentiment towards animals. This is clear from how the Buddha has developed his themes over this entire chapter. He is applying the logical conclusions from his themes to specific distortions of his teachings within many Buddhist sects.

He further emphasizes the importance of doing this, because without at least illuminating how strong an influence craving animal flesh is and prohibiting the eating of animal flesh, these karmaic tendencies will become activated, operate without the discipline of wise restraint weakening them, then grow stronger over time, and cause sorrow for sentient beings who eat sentient beings and cause sorrow for those sentient beings who are eaten by sentient beings. By teaching as he does here, he can set in motion a dharma influence which can eventually weaken and eradicate animal flesh eating and thereby serve the evolution and liberation of human beings and sentient beings in general.

He affirms that even the Sravaka disciples are meant to have dietary disciplines different than worldly people who indulge in food only because it tastes pleasant and do not generally care about the ethical consequences of eating animal flesh. All the disciples of the Buddha and followers of any wholesome path are meant to eat in such a manner to truly nourish themselves, heal themselves of illnesses, and give themselves the strength they need to meditate for long periods of time.

He further teaches that an enlightened being does not really live on food anymore, but gets nourishment from the Dharmakaya. By abiding in the Dharmakaya, the living body of truth that pervades the universe, we are freed from all compulsive desires and needs. We no longer abide in a karma created flesh body, but instead have a Dharma created light body. To crave to eat flesh in order to survive as a flesh body is a lesser state. It is more advanced to nourish oneself only on plant food and even more advanced to not need any food at all. He talks about the distinction between “abiding in flesh food” and “abiding in the Dharmakaya”. He talks about abandoning one for the sake of the other. In this sense, the idea of the Dharmakaya being food is meant to be literal and not a metaphor, just as eating animal flesh is also literal and not a metaphor. Although the stage where no food is needed except “abiding in the Dharmakaya” is a very advanced stage on the path, we can at least eat only vegetarian food until we reach this stage. We can also abide in meditation practice until it matures into abiding in the Dharmakaya in the fullest sense of the phrase and eventually find our need for food has lessened or dropped away. The Buddha further points out that, having attained this deep abiding in the Dharmakaya to the point where he does not need to eat any food (he may still eat vegetarian food out of freedom, as an example for his students, and just to blend into humanity), there is no temptation to eat animal flesh left and it would cause unnecessary pain for animals to do so. There is a clear suggestion that at his level of attainment that it would serve no purpose to eat animal flesh and not even be tempting in the least. This is why this set of passages closes with the idea that the Buddha taught or permitted animal flesh eating “has no foundation whatsoever”.

And so it has been said:

Here the Buddha signals he has completed what he has chosen to share about animal flesh eating. What follows is a summary of the main points. The style is like a review a good counselor gives after an interview is over. It is done to show what has been worked through and what has been accomplished.

Alcohol, animal flesh, and onions are meant to be avoided by Bodhisattvas, Mahasattvas, and Vajrasattvas.

This inclusion of onions, and, by reference to the passages it summarizes earlier, the allium family of vegetables, has puzzled some of my friends. They have wondered if it is an old obsolete tradition. The consensus has been to avoid using onions, garlic, and other members of the allium family except for medicinal reasons. However, when I was studying some of the Hindu Tantras, there was another reason mentioned. There are certain devas, a class of advanced spiritual beings, who are very sensitive to smells and who actually feed on perfumes or essential oil fragrances. These beneficial beings are repelled by the odor of carnivores, the odors of the allium family, and similar odors. Tastes and smells of food, in Aryurvedic medicine, need to be balanced and form a complete nutritional set. I have found that it is easier to not eat animal flesh if you also do not eat alliums and do not consume alcohol. I have observed that many of my near vegetarian friends will occasionally crave animal flesh near the time when they have consumed some alcohol. The Buddha, probably having been schooled in Hindu Aryurvedic thought, is sensitive to these kinds of connections.

Animal flesh eating is not favored by wise people of many religions and philosophical schools. The odor is unpleasant. It causes one to be respected less by those spiritual beings who do have compassion for animals.
Animal flesh eating causes unwholesome karmaic consequences, whereas abstaining from eating animal flesh causes wholesome karmaic consequences.
Those involved in devoted spiritual practice should refrain from animal flesh eating, because we also have flesh bodies and do not want to be eaten as others have been eaten. Our flesh and the flesh of all animals are equally produced from semen and blood. The sweat gland odor of an animal flesh eater terrifies animals whose sense of smell is keener than most humans.

In Buddhist understanding, human and animal births are womb births, where male white blood (semen) combines with female red blood (ovum). This is not quite modern science, but came from the observation that the sexual fluids of males is white and the fluids of women during their period is red. Even though science has advanced even in the East to see that zygote formation as the union of sperm and ovum, the belief that two liquid essences combine to produce an animal or human birth is still talked about, because of energetic and spiritual alchemical reasons. These sensitivities are part of the Tumo energy yogas of Tibet. The metaphors of white and red essences link with many visualization practices which have produced objectively measurable increases in external heat. It has been raised at times by 30 degrees or more. It may be the case of two valid perspectives related to two different contexts. There is some slightly new information in this passage that is not in the longer part of the teaching.

Let devoted spiritual practitioners refrain from consuming animal flesh, alcoholic beverages, allium, and garlic.
Do not anoint the body with sesame oil. Do not sleep on a bed with spikes. Be sensitive to wear you sleep so that you do not terrify small beings that dwell in nearby holes or in a more open vulnerable space.

In this passage, the Buddha is giving advice to wandering ascetics about where and how to sleep. It seems that sesame oil may attract certain small animals that might be crushed if you roll around in your sleep. He also admonishes ascetics to not be extreme in their austerities by sleeping on beds designed to mortify the flesh. He cautions ascetics to be sensitive to when and where you set up your sleeping space so that they do not harm, kill, or terrify the small animals that may be dwelling nearby. Since modern culture has very few ascetics, this advice seems strange to us. Yet there are parallel practices that we can do. We can keep our sleeping space clear of small animals. We can make sure we get a comfortable regenerative sleep, rather than doing something less in service of our sleep needs. We can also design our dwellings so that animals are less likely to invade our space and cause us to be in conflict with them. This passage gives an idea who Mahamati may have been and the kind of lifestyle he may have had when he got his vision. If he was a wandering yogi, familiar with both Hindu and Buddhist systems of development, many of the passages and the issues raised therein would be relevant.

Animal flesh eating stimulates the emergence of arrogance which then stimulates delusional imaginations, which then stimulates greed for profit at the expense of compassion consideration of sentient beings. Given the unwholesomeness of such interlocking motivations, it is wise to refrain from eating animal flesh.
From imagination, greed is developed, and through greed the mind becomes dull, complacent, and insensitive. When there is an attachment to such state, then it is difficult arouse and sustain the impulse to liberate oneself from the wheel compulsive death and rebirth.

These two passages are summarizations of something within the longer discourse that the Buddha previously gave, but there is much which is also new here. The chains of cause and effect are mapped out in a more visible way. The Buddhist teaching of dependant origination implies that there is no single line of causation. In these passages, the Buddha shows how animal flesh eating causes arrogance and greed to appear, while in the previous passages, the Buddha shows how arrogance and greed lead to animal flesh eating. These passages are not contradictory, but show these factors arise in mutual dependence upon each other and strengthen the existence of each other. Weaken one and you weaken the other. Strengthen one and it is more difficult to free oneself from the others. This is why the Buddha recommended the eightfold path which undermines the basis of sorrow from several angles all at the same time. In these passages, the Buddha emphasizes how animal flesh eating is one of the factors which if attached to makes all the factors more difficult to transcend and how if animal flesh is not eaten, it helps all the factors be transcended more easily. Once again, the Buddha links the not eating of animal flesh with helping us liberate ourselves from the wheel of karmaic death and rebirth.

Animals are killed and sold for profit. Animal flesh is bought to satisfy the craving for flesh food. Both the killer who sells and the eater who buys create unwholesome karma. Such deeds ripen into possible rebirth in the screaming hells and other places of intense sorrow.
A person who eats animal flesh does not heed the words of the Muni. He or she cultivates an unwholesome and impure mind. Such a person is described in the teachings of the Sakya as one who destroys blessings in this world and the next world.
The person who transgresses the precept about not killing and eating animals is destined to go to the most terrifying hells. Animal flesh eaters go into terrible hells such as the Raurava hell.

The Buddha revisits the theme of karmaic consequences. He talks about how those who buy animal flesh participate in the karma of killing the animal. He talks about how not heeding the precepts of Buddhist teaching is ignoring something that can stop karma from ripening and how the consequences are both in this life and the next life. The Buddha does affirm that there are hell worlds that one can fall into. Hell worlds are usually related to very heavy karmas like murdering someone and because, animals are sentient beings, killing an animal is ethically equivalent to murder. The screaming hells are really echoes of the screaming animals do when they struggle for their life. The law of karma is like the golden rule. The core ethical principle is to treat all sentient beings the way that we wish to be treated. The karmaic principle is that how we treat other sentient beings returns to us as something we experience. This is partly why one lama has said, “The happiness of other sentient beings is my happiness”.

Usually when karma is described in a Sutra, only a single line of causation is analyzed. Such karmaic destinies can be softened by many factors. Every kind thought, good deed, and loving emotional expression softens unwholesome karma. Our meditation practice, doing guru yoga, chanting for the blessings of higher beings, our study and teaching of Sutras, and any ritual empowerments that we receive also helps. There are other factors that also mitigate karma, like feeling remorse, seeing how we were in unconscious ignorance of what we were doing, and repenting so deeply about what we did that we completely burn away the karmaic traces within us. Our karmaic destiny is like a river formed by many influences and which creates our life moment to moment. Even if we enter a literal hell realm because of karma, our time in this realm is also determined by many factors. There was a story where a person fell into a hell realm and was tormented with the full awareness that it was how he treated others coming back to him. Then suddenly the movement of this karma ended and he was taken to heaven world. He was so surprised that he asked why. It was said to him that when Buddha walked through his village that he offered a single flower to the Buddha from the depths of his heart. This single act opened him up to receive enough blessing energy from the Buddha to have his karma softened and finally ended. The grisly details of the hell worlds may have been painted to emotionally impress and inspire people to do good deeds. But in modern times, what is important is to feel that the law of karma is precise, dependant on multiple converging causes mixing with each other, entirely fair, and supremely merciful when we change our heart about something we did.

There is no animal flesh to be regarded as pure by any exception. It does not matter if the giving of animal flesh for us to eat is (a) premeditated or not, (b) asked for or not, or (c) whether extreme hunger is present or not. Therefore it is wise to not eat animal flesh in any circumstance which naturally arises within our life.
Let yogis not eat any animal flesh. All Buddhas teach all people to not eat animal flesh and especially wish those under their guidance to not eat animal flesh. Sentient beings who feed on each other will be reborn as carnivores in the animal realm.
The animal flesh eater will sweat an unpleasant odor which terrifies many animals, will be argumentative, and will dull their natural sensitivity and intelligence. He or she will be reborn into the families of the Candala, the Pukkasa, and the Domba.
From the womb of a flesh eating Dakini, he or she will be reborn into an animal flesh eating family, into a womb of a Rakashasa, and then into a cat, and if fortunate into a lower vibration human family.

In this summary, the Buddha continues the theme of karmaic consequences and the kinds of rebirth which are possible. The information is somewhat contradictory. In that sometimes the rebirth is into a hell world, sometimes into an animal world, and sometimes into a lower vibrational human life. This supports what was shared in the previous commentary passages that the factors that determine rebirth blend into each other and can have different outcomes. The details of how karma unfolds can be rather complex, but the general principles are simple enough to discern.

Animal flesh eating is rejected in such Sutras as the Hastikashya, the Mahamegha, the Nirvana, the Anglimalika, and the Lankavatara.
Animal flesh eating is rejected by Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and Sravakas. If a person eats animal flesh out of shamelessness, he or she will not be able to cultivate a wholesome sense of what is appropriate.
A person, who abstains from animal flesh eating, heeds the admonishments of the Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and Sravakas, will be reborn into a family of Brahmins or Yogis and be blessed with knowledge and wealth.
Let a person not give power to the many rationalizations given to justify animal flesh eating. What theorizers say under the influence of addictive craving for animal flesh can be very sophistic, delusional, and argumentative. What they imagine that they witnessed, heard, or suspected that the Sutras said or a Buddha said or did can be very distorted.
As greed is a hindrance to liberation, so are the objects of greed a hindrance to liberation. Objects of greed like animal flesh eating and consuming alcohol are hindrances to the liberation.
A time may come when deluded people may say that, “Animal flesh is appropriate food to eat, has no karmaic consequences, and is permitted by the Buddha”.
Some will even say that eating animal flesh can even be a medicine. It is more like eating the flesh of your only child. Let a yogi be attuned to what is balanced and nourishing to eat, be adverse to eating animal flesh and alcohol, and with this clarity go about peacefully begging for food, trusting the universe will supply what is wanted and needed to sustain a healthy life.
Animal flesh eating is forbidden by me everywhere and all the time for those who are abiding in compassion. A person who eats animal flesh will be reborn as a lion, tiger, wolf or another kind of carnivore.
Therefore, do not eat animal flesh. It will cause terror among people. It will hinder one from learning how to liberate oneself. When a person learns to not eat animal flesh, he or she will have one of the marks of being wise.

Here Buddha rejects the many seemingly Buddhist teachings that have rationalized and distorted the simple truth about vegetarianism. He affirms that the teaching about being vegetarian is found in many Sutras that he has expounded and not just one or two of them. He asserts that many rationalizations have been made by spiritually oriented people who are still under the influence of their addictions and admonishes people not to listen to them. He makes a prophecy that even later Buddhist sects will rationalize his teaching and even imagine that he ate animal flesh. What I find interesting is that the text uses the word “may” when predicting the future. Many Buddhas have had the power of prophecy and clearly what the Buddha predicts in this Sutra has come to pass. But the word “may” seems to acknowledge free choice and some chance to change the outcome of a prophecy. Our present actions can change the predicted outcomes of Buddhas even when they are accurate, since the future is also transitory, based on dependant origination, and subject to modification.

The sense of shame described above is about feeling our conscience. There is “toxic shame” which reinforces social conditioning and “organic shame” which inspires us to change our lives for the better. Heeding the Buddhas, feeling ashamed when we lose our inner sense of direction, allows us to self correct and to mature on the path. When we ignore the teachings of the Buddhas, do not contemplate them to see what their teachings could mean for us, or ignore the sensitivities that they wish to illuminate within us that we already have from our own compassion, then we disconnect from something within that can guide us away from unwholesome karmaic conditions in this lifetime and inferigr rebirths in the next lifetime. This compassionate conscience is a form of intelligence which must necessarily be dulled when people ignore how they feel and continue to eat animal flesh.

Here ends the Eighth Chapter, “On Eating Animal Flesh”, from the Lankavatara Sutra, the Essence of the Teaching of All the Buddhas.

Here the Buddha ends his Sutra recitation. He adds one final theme which is that what he is sharing is not unique, but is something taught by all Buddhas in all worlds. All sentient beings are meant to live their own life, not be subject to harm from being killed and eaten, and are destined to eventually become enlightened. All sentient beings includes animals as well as humans, hungry ghosts, demons, asuras, and devas. We have probably been all these life forms at one time or another and those who are friends and family now were probably all these life forms as well. When we have eaten animal flesh we may have literally eaten our past or future family or friends. When we accord all sentient beings equal value, and therefore not kill and eat them, then what Buddha is sharing is that we merely follow the golden rule of treating others in the way we want to be treated. The karmaic consequences for not doing so are then merely us experiencing what we have done to others. The main difference, then, of how the Buddha sees the universe is that his compassion is wide enough to include all sentient beings, including animals, in his moral universe. Animal flesh eating humans usually only include other humans. Some even just include their own race or family. Still others include just themselves. Some may dimly acknowledge that their animal pets or certain animals that they have affection for deserve to be treated compassionately and therefore have an inner sentiment that can be logically extended to all other animals.

May this retranslation of the Sutra communicate the meaning of what the Buddha wished to share regarding the eating of animal flesh. I dedicate the merit of retranslating this chapter to the liberation of all sentient beings. Om Namo Amida Buddha Hreeh. Namaste.

A Retranslation and Commentary on the Vegetarian Section of the Mahaparinirvana Sutra

Introduction

The Mahaparinirvana Sutra represents the last dharma teachings of the Buddha before he does phowa and releases his physical body. Because it is the very last discourse that he gives, it is considered his final and definitive teachings. He does away with all provisional or temporary teachings. Like the Lankavatara Sutra, he tries to set the record clear on the subject of vegetarianism. He emphasizes how vegetarianism is an expression of compassion. The metaphor of treating animals as if they were your only son is used. Since you would not eat the flesh of your only son, you also would not eat the flesh of animals.

The Lankavatara Sutra and the Mahaparinirvana Sutra are somewhat contradictory on a few minor points. In the Lankavatara Sutra, the Buddha claims to have never said that certain kinds of animal flesh eating were permitted. In the Mahaparinirvana Sutra, the Buddha says that certain kinds of animal flesh eating were permitted only provisionally, in the early phases of training, until the complete dharma could be taught and clarified. The contradiction could be explained, in part, by a different audience. In the Lankavatara Sutra, Mahamati has deep affinity with the Hindu Rishis who were already vegetarian and would not need to have any provisional teachings to adjust them to the higher and more complete dharma of being vegetarian. In the Mahaparinirvana Sutra, the Buddha seems to be clarifying teachings for people whose background is more in the Jain faith. In this group, there is a teaching about certain kinds of animal flesh being allowed and certain kinds of animal flesh not being allowed to be eaten. It seems that he gave the Jains some transition time in order to adapt a completely vegetarian diet. But now that he is releasing his body, the transition time is now over and he expects those who are his disciples to rise to the level of compassion that does not wish to kill and eat animals. Even with this minor contradiction, both the Lankavatara Sutra and the Mahaparinirvana Sutra are consistent about what the final definitive teaching of the Buddha is regarding the killing and eating of animals. Both of them advocate making no exceptions to the killing and eating of animals. Both of them also seem to agree that one should not buy animal flesh for others or oneself to eat, that one should not buy leather products, and that one should not transport animal flesh for others to use. I say, “seem to agree”, because the Lankavatara Sutra is more extensive in regards to its teachings on vegetarianism, whereas the Mahaparinirvana Sutra is more condensed and in a more summary form. Because of this, some of the things that the Lankavatara Sutra spells out in detail are only implied in the Mahaparinirvana Sutra.

The other minor contradiction is the dietary list of wholesome foods is somewhat different. I suspect that the Buddha may be addressing what is appropriate to a specific region and to people with a Jain background. The lack of consistency of what constitutes wholesome foods implies that we are meant to work this out for ourselves. My personal view is that having a vegan diet is more consistent with compassion for animals. I think this is especially true in our time period where eggs and dairy are factory farmed and the treatment of chickens and cows used can be very cruel. Our health sciences have advanced to deeply evaluate many dietary practices. The use of cane sugar and flour products has been seriously questioned because of their effect on our blood sugar levels. The overall intention of what Buddha is trying to teach is clear. It seems that he is less concerned with the exact details. What is interesting is that he praises Mahakasyapaika for getting his intention right from the very beginning of his dialogue with him.

This retranslation has the excellent work of Tony Page and Kosho Yamamoto behind it. They are responsible for making an English translation of the complete Mahaparinirvana Sutra available. I am retranslating some of the passages from their work in a manner consistent to what I have done with the Lankavatara Sutra.

The Text

Then Mahakasyapaikagotra asked, “In order to respect the inappropriateness of animal flesh eating, it seems that it would be wrong to give animal flesh food to those who do not want to eat it.”

The Buddha replied, “Excellent, noble son, you have understood my intention. A person who protects the Dharma should not offer animal flesh to those who do not want it. From this time on, I do not allow Sravakas to eat animal flesh. I have taught that the alms food that is from animal flesh should be treated as if it was the flesh of your son and therefore how could I allow the eating of animal flesh? What I have taught is that the eating of animal flesh obscures, dampens, and restricts the expression of great loving kindness.”

Mahakasyapaikagotra is asking if people who are giving alms to wandering monks and nuns should offer them cooked animal flesh. The Buddha praises him for getting the intent of what he is wishing to teach regarding the eating of animal flesh. The specific kind of alms giver in question is not just anyone, but those who have taken the triple refuge and become Buddhists. Because you make the Dharma your refuge, you are meant to protect the Dharma through your actions so that it can also be a refuge for others. Although monks and nuns are meant to refuse cooked animal flesh when offered to them, lay Buddhists who are giving alms to them are not meant to tempt them into violating the precepts by offering them cooked animal flesh.

The Buddha goes further by communicating that he does not want any Sravakas, lay disciples, to eat animal flesh. As will be developed later on, it seems he is addressing issues for Buddhist converts from Jain communities where Jain monks and nuns are allowed to eat some cooked animal flesh and where the habit of the community is to prepare this kind of food for them. It seems that Buddha in wanting his disciples to be more consistent in adhering to the precept about not killing and its extension to not killing and eating any animals.

The Buddha affirms that the motivation for not killing and eating animals is mahamaitri or great compassion. The Buddha affirms that the killing and eating of animals dampens, obscures, and restricts the expression of this great compassion. In one of the meditations practices of Buddhism, you visualize a radiant sun of compassion in your heart. You visualize the light radiating to family and friends, then to fellow humans, then to those who you have resentment towards, and then even to animals, hungry ghosts, and demons. When animals are killed and eaten, it dulls the rays of compassion we radiate towards them. This is something that can be verified by a subtle awareness that grows and deepens when we meditate. It is necessary to feel our heart chakra and its energies, moment by moment, in our daily life and in our periods of concentrated meditation. We need to be sensitive to when we close down our heart chakra, when we open our heart chakra, when we radiate its energy with reservations, when we radiate it without reservations (unconditionally), when its energy is vibrant and clear, and when it is dull and confused. When we are deeply tuned into the energies of the heart chakra, then we can verify whether or not the eating of animal flesh, dampens, obscures, or restricts the radiance of compassion. Some translations use the phrase “extinguishes compassion”. While this may be accurate in terms of translation, philosophically it feels less clear to me. Buddha nature is always compassionate and abides in all sentient beings. Therefore it is not possible to extinguish this compassion, except in the sense that we can obscure it from our conscious experience. I also feel that people who eat animal flesh still have the capacity to be compassionate in a restricted, more confused, and duller way. It is present in a smaller circle of relationships and has not really radiated outwards beyond the human species and possibly is really only alive within their family life and friendship life, and occasionally to strangers. I would say it is also “confused” in the sense that compassion is not always free flowing in most people. It is constantly turning itself on and off according to inconsistent circumstances for different kinds of reasons. It is also “dull” in the sense that it is mostly an unconscious and automatic reaction, rather than clearly, consciously, and spontaneously flowing out into the world.

What is interesting is that the term that the Lankavatara Sutra uses is karuna, while the term that the Mahaparinirvana Sutra uses is maitri. These terms reference the teaching of the Buddha on the Four Inexhaustible States, (1) loving kindness (maitri), (2) sympathetic compassion (karuna), (3) sympathetic joy (mudita), and (4) equanimity (upekkha). These states are considered inexhaustible, because they are meant to be motivational energies in all situations and are natural expressions of enlightened mind. Meditating on them and activating them is a positive way of relaxing into our true nature. Karuna emphasizes our ability to feel the sorrow of other sentient beings, not harming them, helping when possible, and therefore not contributing to their sorrow. Maitri or metta emphasizes being kind, treating someone well, caring for him or her, and being supportive. Karuna is compassionate sensitivity and maitri is compassionate kindness. Mudita is the ability to be happy when others are happy, something that humans often have when they see their pets happily playing. Upekkha is the ability to be at peace with what is arising, abiding, and passing away. It is the unconditionally loving side of compassion which can accept conditions as they are. It is founded on the wisdom that sees that everything is unfolding perfectly within universal law.

It is possible to feel how our treatment of animals and humans dulls the rays of compassion that are meant to radiate from our heart. If you are mindful, you can feel the fluctuations that happen as we feel different motivational impulses arise inside of us and as we identify with certain motivational impulses over others. When we act on certain impulses, we give greater power to the motivational energies behind them. If it is from unconscious conditioning and insensitive habits, then our energies are dulled. If it is from active hostility, then our energies become agitated. If it is from addictive craving, then our energies feel more helpless and compulsive. If we act from motivations arising from the four inexhaustible states, then our energies become more radiant, loving, and peaceful.

“Blessed One, why did you permit the eating of animal flesh that was blameless in three respects?”

“I allowed animal flesh eating that met with three conditions as a temporary measure in the early stages of training. This measure is now obsolete.”

The three conditions refer to an exception that the Buddha had made that many Buddhists still cling to. The conditions were that if a monk or nun was starving, if the person accidentally gives animal flesh not knowing that a monk or nun is vegetarian, and if the monk or nun did not discern until later than animal flesh was present and therefore could not have refused when it was offered. It is clear that this exception is a small one and was related to a monk who was begging late in the day. He did not notice that the patron had placed cooked animal flesh in his begging bowl, as it was already dark. When he sat down to eat later on in the evening, he noticed that the food had cooked animal flesh. He had a choice to throw away the food and therefore waste it, since the animal was already killed, or to eat the food and be more alert later on. He ate the food, but was disturbed enough to check in with what the Buddha thought. The Buddha had said it was okay under the conditions mentioned above.

It seems that this exception created an unnecessary level of complication. As people become more consistently vegetarian and deepen their meditation, they are more disturbed by ingesting animal flesh and feeling the emotional vibrations inside the animal flesh. Even when a person is able to transmute those vibrations, their sweat glands secrete odors that terrify animals. The Buddha therefore decided that this exception to the not eating of animal flesh was obsolete.

“Blessed One, you talked of the ninefold great benefit and the abandoning of the ten types of animal flesh, what was your intention in doing this?”

“I taught those things in order to restrict the eating of animal flesh. These teachings are now also obsolete.”

I am not familiar with this teaching, even though it is similar to some of the teachings in the Medicine Buddha Sutras where certain kinds of animal flesh are prohibited while others are even used as remedies. I suspect that these teaching were more relevant to converts from the Jain faith and represented a transitional step towards complete vegetarianism. In a similar manner, many people pass through a vegetarian diet that still has eggs and dairy on their way to a vegan diet that uses no animal products. The implication of these passages is that Buddha was willing to wean and tame the habits of people in stages, rather than require people to totally align with his precepts all at once. This is psychologically realistic. He is also declaring that the time has come to fully embrace the vegetarian ideal.

“Blessed One, what was your intention in teaching that animal flesh and fish are wholesome foods?”

“I did not say that animal flesh and fish are wholesome foods. I have said that cane sugar, winter rice, ordinary rice, wheat, barley, green lentils, black lentils, molasses, honey, ghee, milk, and sesame oil are wholesome foods. I have taught that various clothes for the body should be dyed colors that do not draw attention. Even more so, I have taught that attachment to the taste of eating animal flesh, which is undesirable and unattractive, and therefore even unworthy of attention, should be abandoned.”

Here the Buddha uses one of rules for monks as a metaphor to illuminate how unattractive the attachment to eating animal flesh should seem. He denies that he ever taught cooked animal flesh is wholesome food. Both the Bodhisattva who is asking the questions and the Buddha single out fish from the spectrum of different kinds of animal flesh and question whether or not this is an exception to the precept against eating cooked animal flesh. The Buddha affirms that it is not an exception. There are many who do make this exception and the term “pescavegetarian” has been coined to describe them. These are people who do not eat land animals, but make an exception for sea creatures. This diet is sometimes common in island cultures where food of any kind is sometimes more scarce.

What is interesting about this passage is that the Buddha asserts that cooked animal flesh is not wholesome food. This is different from merely saying it is uncompassionate to kill and eat animals. The Buddha questions the dietary value of eating cooked animal flesh as well. There are scientific dietary studies that have questioned the value of cooked animal flesh. The break down of animal flesh requires more work from the body to convert into energy and the process of breaking down animal flesh tends to produce more toxins and to acidify the bloodstream. This is partly why the urine of carnivores has strong odor. It seems more natural to eat plants, rather than animals. The Buddha is affirming that vegetarianism is both more wholesome and more ethical than eating cooked animal flesh.

“If this is so, does consuming the five milk products, sesame, sesame oil, sugar cane syrup, conch shell, silk, and other foods also violate the precepts?”

“Do not cling to the views of the Nirgranthas! The precepts that I teach are part of a specific training, path, and foundation, and therefore have a different intention behind them. Animal flesh eating should be abandoned even if it was considered blameless in three respects, even if it was not one of the ten prohibited kinds of animal flesh, and even if it is the animal flesh of a corpse.”

This passage clearly illuminates that the questions being raised do relate to Jain (the Nirgranthas) converts to Buddhism. The Buddha emphasizes that becoming a Buddhist involves commitment to a specific path, training, and foundation. On the Buddhist path, all killing and eating of animals is meant to be abandoned for the sake of great compassion. It seems that the Jains and the Hindus have different opinions about what is wholesome and what is unwholesome in regard to foods. The Buddha sidesteps those considerations by emphasizing compassion for animals over and above whether or not something is wholesome to eat for oneself. Although he previously declared that animal flesh eating is unwholesome, he puts this consideration into perspective. By sidestepping the issue of what is wholesome and unwholesome in regards to foods that are not from animals, the Buddha leaves the question of what is wholesome and unwholesome in the plant world open for further growth. The Buddha does not want to pronounce judgment on what is wholesome and what is unwholesome in the plant world. He does not want to make it an issue within his teachings. The implication is that people need to work this out for themselves.

The Buddha continues, saying, “Animals have a keen sense of smell and are terrorized by the odor of animal flesh eaters. Whether a carnivore is moving or resting, its sweat glands emanate a distinctive odor that animals can detect. Even if a person eats garlic or asafoetida, people around him or her will feel uncomfortable and less willing to socialize. Whether such a person in the company of fellow humans or among animals, his or her odor will let sentient beings know that he or she has eaten those herbs. In a similar manner, animals know if a person has eaten animal flesh by his or her distinctive smell and will then be afraid of dying at his or her hands. Where ever this person travels, animals of the waters, of the sky, or of the earth will all be frightened. They will believe that this person will kill them next. They may even faint and die from the terror of smelling the odor of the dead animal exuding from his or her skin. Because of these kinds of reasons, Bodhisattvas and Mahasattvas will not eat animal flesh.”

The “smell of dead animals exuding from the skin of carnivores” is a common theme of the Lankavatara Sutra and the Mahaparinirvana Sutra. Humans have generally lost the keen sense of smell that animals have. Dogs are sometimes used by the police to track down the scent of a criminal. They can sniff some article of clothing and use the odor to track such a person down. If their smell is this keen, then they will be able to smell the sweat of a carnivore and know that a killer is nearby. Millions of years of evolution have made the sense of smell valuable. Humans have lost this keen sensitivity because our survival is now less dependent on our sense of smell. The odor is not merely repugnant. It is related to how animal flesh is broken down into toxins and acids in the body. It is literally the smell of death. The Buddha is only touching the surface of something much larger than the words can convey. The Lankavatara tries to go deeper and to develop this theme more, but words may have a limit. It is possible through empathetic compassion to feel into the consciousness of an animal and feel their experience, to feel how strongly the sense of smell shapes their experience, and to see how intimately the sense of smell brings some experience to them. Some humans have a parallel sensitivity to their romantic partners, smells arouse deep passions and signal a depth of intimacy, and when combined with taste can open up a deep biological connection with another being. Smells enter into us and become part of us. Some of the vestiges of our once powerful sense of smell are when a person vomits and the odor makes others want to vomit. The odor gets inside us in a way that merely seeing and hearing to do not. We instinctively want to move away or at least get the odor out of our bodies. We do not want to wash our bodies after seeing something unpleasant, but we do want to wash away an unpleasant odor.

In giving this kind of argument, the Buddha is inviting us into the world of the animals, to experience life through their own senses, to feel their emotions, to develop enough empathy to know that they wish for life as much as we do, and then to cultivate enough interspecies compassion to not want to kill and eat them.

The Buddha continues, “Bodhisattvas and Mahasattvas may appear to be animal flesh eaters in order to interact comfortably with animal flesh eaters and eventually lead them to the Dharma. Such beings do not even eat ordinary wholesome food, how much more unlikely that they would eat cooked animal flesh!”

Here the Buddha gently cautions people to look beyond appearances. It may sometimes seem that Bodhisattvas may be eating animal flesh, but they are just blending in with people and forming a level of rapport with them in order to gently lead them to the Dharma. If you look carefully, they are not eating animal flesh. While Bodhisattvas may sometimes speak out against animal flesh eating when social reform is possible, they do not have an egoic need to call attention to themselves or to convince others. When I was visiting a bar where a friend was playing jazz, I would get a Cranberry Juice and club soda to sip all night. It would look like a wine spritzer. I did not stand out as someone who did not drink. It allowed me to blend in and be present with people. It did eventually lead to conversations about meditation, karma, and nonattachment. Some people may have assumed that I did drink alcohol because I did not call attention to myself in this way. Perhaps people had done this with the Buddha and may have assumed that he ate animal flesh merely because he knew how to peacefully blend in with others who were. It is likely that he is responding to the belief that some people apparently had that he had said that animal flesh and fish were wholesome foods, when he did not. They may have misinterpreted his silence or assumed he was an animal flesh eater by his association with animal flesh eaters.

The Buddha also mentions that Bodhisattvas and Mahasattvas “do not even eat ordinary food”. There is a parallel passage in the Lankavatara Sutra about the Dharma being food for higher beings. There is some hint of higher levels of diet than merely eating from the list of wholesome foods that Buddha had mentioned earlier. It is possible that being vegan is implied, but I feel that this passage refers to the skillful use of herbs, alchemical substances, pranic breathing, pure energized water, chanting mantras to gather and concentrate energy, and directly feeding from emanations of pure dharmaic energy. This passage suggests that becoming vegetarian is at least one step closer to these higher modes of eating than eating cooked animal flesh.

The Buddha continues and says, “Noble son, many hundreds of years after I have released this body, no stream enterers, once returners, nonreturners, or arhats will be present. In the Dharma declining period, monks and nuns will still preserve the vinaya and Abhidharma, and perform many rituals. But they will be attached to their physical comfort, value eating various kinds of animal flesh, experience hormone imbalances, be afflicted with much hunger and thirst, wear strange clothing, have robes with color patches like those who take care of cows and birds, behave like cats, claim to be arhats, have many pains in their bodies, have bodies stained by feces and urine, who wear the clothes of sages, who wear the clothes of ascetic wanderers, who claim lesser writings to be the authentic Dharma, but who are not truly in accord with the complete and authentic Dharma.

“These people will corrupt what I have taught, established, and cultivated. They will modify the vinaya rules, the rituals, the behavioral precepts, and the authentic sayings that liberate one from improper attachments. They will select and recite passages according to their inclinations.

“There will appear false ascetics, claiming to be spiritual sons of Shakyamuni, and say, “According to our Vinaya rules, the Blessed One has said that eating alms of cooked animal flesh is acceptable”. They will create their own scriptures and contradict each other.

“There will also appear those who accept raw cereals, animal flesh, fish, do their own cooking and stock pile pots of sesame oil; who visit leather makers, parasol makers, and rulers. Those that I call true monks and nuns are those that abandon such tendancies.

The Buddha goes on to predict a period of time when the true Dharma gets corrupted. He gives a lot of general signs, but also the specific sign that those groups will all allow animal flesh eating within the rules for monks and nuns and will also consider as acceptable donations from lay followers of cooked foods containing animal flesh. Parallel to the Lankavatara Sutra, the Mahaparinirvana Sutra asserts that those who eat animal flesh will experience hormonal imbalances, have less peaceful sleep, and have less care concerning their appearance. While the list of effects of animal flesh eating is more extensive in the Lankavatara Sutra, the list presented in the Mahaparinirvana Sutra agrees with its general spirit. Some of the metaphors are dated and may be difficult to translate into metaphors relevant to our time period.

What the Buddha is asserting is that monks and nuns will not even go around begging as they used to, but stock pile food and cook it for themselves. They will use animal products like leather, have luxuries like parasols, and be patronized by rulers so that their moral stances may get compromised by local politics. Monks and nuns who abandon such practices are meant to remain a spiritual elite and who are not meant to have worldly attachments that affect their purity of focus. By renouncing those kinds of karmaic habits, they are meant to transform the world by preaching and example.

The Buddha asserts that the not killing and eating of animals is an integral part of his Dharma. It is this specific sign that “great compassion”, the driving force of Mahayana Buddhism, is lost when people violate this precept. The essence of this prophecy is that when people compromise on this precept, the other aspects of the Dharma are also weakened or corrupted to the point where the teachings cease to truly liberate.

Mahakasyapaika then asks, “Blessed One, what should monks and nuns, laymen and laywomen, who depend on begging, when they travel to places where it has not been confirmed that the food is pure, when they discover that some animal flesh is found in their food?”

The Buddha answers, “Noble son, there is no violation of the Dharma if the vegetarian food is washed with water and then eaten. But if there is a large quantity of cooked animal flesh, then the food must be rejected. It is okay to eat vegetarian food from a bowl that touches a bowl containing animal flesh as long as the food is not mixed together. Eating animal flesh left over by others still violates the precept of not eating cooked animal flesh. Whether it is beef, fish, dried hooves, or scraps does not change this. I previously allowed exceptions according to the needs of various situations during the earlier phases of training. But now is the time to end these exceptions and to be consistent with complete abstaining from eating cooked animal flesh. I am giving a comprehensive teaching concerning the harmfulness of eating animal flesh. This is my final declaration before passing into Parinirvana.”

The last section concerns the practicality of keeping the diet pure when traveling to regions where animal flesh eating is practiced and where one is likely to eat in mixed company. Unlike some modern Buddhist teachings that say that it is okay to eat animal flesh when it is offered when you are a guest, you are still meant to refuse cooked animal flesh. There is sometimes social pressure to eat animal flesh in those circumstances. A person is meant to be firm in his or her resolve. It is done with the same clarity and resolve that one would have if someone tried to force you to eat the cooked flesh of a human relative. There is some concern when the vegetarian food is contaminated by cooked animal flesh. The Buddha makes some allowances for wandering monks and nuns so that they can eat with people who still eat cooked animal flesh. It is clear that the vibration of animal flesh and contamination of vegetarian food with dead animal substance is meant to be avoided and not eaten. This would imply, in the understanding of the Buddha, that cooked animal flesh is unwholesome for humans to eat.

Having explored the issues with Mahakasyapaika, the Buddha closes his discourse on the eating of cooked animal flesh. He asserts that the abstaining from eating cooked animal flesh is important, has no exceptions, helps cultivate great compassion, avoids unwholesome effects to the body, heart, and mind, and is an integral part of the genuine Dharma. The Buddha shares that he made some allowances in earlier stages of the training that were temporary and declares that all those allowances are now obsolete. The Buddha completes this discourse by declaring that it is his dying wish that the precept against eating animal flesh be honored. He says this to emphasize how important this precept is to him.

Namaste.

THE FIVE YAMAS AND FIVE NIYAMAS OF SPIRITUAL DIET

Introduction

The word “yama” in Sanskrit can be translated as “control”, “regulate”, or “observe”. As a root, it is found in the word “pranayama” which refers to methods of consciously breathing to generate, regulate, and circulate prana, life force energy, within the body. In another context, the yamas refer to precepts that one follows as part of the path of yoga and the niyamas refer to precepts that restrain one from doing things that are harmful. Patanjali has five observances and five restraints as part of the ethical foundation for his understanding of yoga.

I came to an understanding that a spiritual or regenerative vegan diet could be defined by five observances and five restraints. I came to the clarity that some of the difficulty some people had adopting a vegan diet had to do with animal flesh cravings partly balancing the effects of a sugar addiction.

When a body needs to find balance through food, it will crave something familiar that will bring itself closer into balance. Even if this balance is not perfect, it will crave in the direction of balance. It is possible to substitute what the body craves for with more wholesome vegan alternatives. This will eventually become the new “familiar” that the body guidance system will build around. The body needs to evolve into a vegan diet even though I feel it is a more natural and more ethically attuned diet. It needs to learn how to produce the necessary enzymes, hormones, and chemicals to make this diet work for itself.

THE FIVE NIYAMAS

Not to consume sucrose, cooked juices, and flour products (sugar issues).

Not to eat dairy, soy, tomatoes, corn, or wheat (allergy issues).

Not to eat eggs (ethical issues).

Not to eat animal flesh (ethical issues).

Not to consume alcohol, too much caffeine, marijuana, psychoactive substances, or too much chocolate (mood altering or emotional issues).

THE FIVE YAMAS

Have a high nutrition smoothie each day with rice protein powder, blueberries, fresh or frozen pineapple, applies, kale, ginger, and parsley.

Eat lots of salads and raw food soups.

Eat a small amount of rice and lentils.

Drink cleansing herbal teas and lots of fresh spring water.

Use Olive Oil, lemon juice, garlic, tumeric, mineral balanced salt, and Flax Seed Oil for flavoring.

NOTES

The Yamas and Niyamas are stricter than necessary to err on the side of caution and to help pinpoint addictions. You may wish to add or subtract from this list as your experience teaches you what works for you. I came to the conclusion that garlic has too many benefits to not include. This is unlike the older dietary traditions. It seems garlic in large enough amounts causes a displeasing odor to many Asians and therefore it was considered something to be eliminated from the diet. Modern scientific research has shown garlic to give many healing benefits. Garlic is also an aphrodisiac and therefore may have been eliminated so that sexual passions are not unnecessarily stimulated. However, we are in the era of Tantra where passions are mindfully embraced and transmuted into creativity, compassion, and wisdom. In Taoist understanding, sexual passion is a sign of general good health. Even if one chooses to live a celibate life, it seems important to honor this energy, not repress it to the point where health is impaired, and to do kundalini yoga to redirect it towards our higher evolution. In terms of the odor, this is not an issue when garlic is properly blended in with other foods. There are also varieties of odor free garlic and also ways of aging and extracting garlic juice so that the odor is removed and the medicinal potency is concentrated (Kyolic). Garlic, along with Taheebo, is very good against internal yeast infections which are behind sugar issues.

What is recommended is to fast for two days on spring water with a few drops of lemon or lime juice, and a drop of stevia. If you are feeling too weak, then add some fresh green juice or fresh fruit juice in small amounts. Taking two days off the flow of your diet will signal to your body that you are changing your dietary habits. Then do two weeks on the Yamas and Niyamas mentioned above. From there, you may wish to add and subtract mindfully in order to get a feeling for what diet is wholesome, pleasant, and tolerable for you. Some people may have some addictions to work through and the advice mentioned above may be too much to integrate immediately. In this case, start on the sugar addiction before struggling with the others. If you must have some animal protein, get it from the eggs of free range chickens and from Salmon. Unlike other animals, Salmon is usually obtained from fish late in their life cycle, often when they are very old and near death. Eggs are relatively karma free, especially if some energetic agreement is made between the chickens and compassionate farmers. If the energy feels exploitive, then the eggs carry the karma of stealing, but even here it is a softer karma than killing. Most other animal meat is obtained from killing animals in their prime and thus killing them when half their natural lifespan is in front of them. There Salmon and eggs have milder karmas associated with them. If you overall intention is to eventually become vegan, your conscience towards animals has been awakened, and you inwardly agree that animals have a right to live, then this transitional karma will quickly burn away. You will naturally only use these products as your body feels you need them and quickly reach a point where you do not need them.

CAUTION AND DISCLAIMER

I have only given the barest of outlines here. Changing your diet for health and ethical reasons is a large undertaking. It is going beyond what I feel is a severe ethical numbness, insensitivity, and blindness that our culture has historically also had about the rights of other races, women, and children. You might meet people who will try to convince you using a thousand arguments that you are wrong in what you do or that you are self righteously judging them for their own usually unconscious and habitual dietary choices. Some will appeal to a seemingly higher spiritual teaching concerning transcending good and evil to a level of love, illumination, and freedom in order to justify their animal flesh eating diets. I actually do believe that we are meant to transcend good and evil to live in a higher mode of love and that when we do so we will spontaneously not wish to cause animals to suffer by hunting them down, killing them, and eating them. I also trust that all humans will eventually embrace the idea of being vegan as part of this evolution into a higher mode of love. When people arrive at this level of clarity within themselves is related to their overall commitment to grow, work through their inherited karmas, and attain enlightenment. With almost everyone, it does not happen all at once from one conversation. Therefore I would suggest having compassion for the carnivores, letting them live out their own karmaic journey, and trusting universal law to regulate their lives. They may need to incarnate as the animals they once hunted in order to feel both sides of their karmaic activity. We are here to learn what compassion is.

Because changing diet is a large undertaking, I recommend that people find guidance in how to transition to a vegan diet from skilled healers, workshops, and books on the subject. Take time to learn about diet, experiment with care, and become sensitive to your own challenges. You may have addictions to certain unwholesome foods. You may be disturbing the habit patterns of your primary relationships. You may have a health condition that requires some special attention and which may get shocked by the change. You may have many toxins already inside your system and moving into a vegan diet may cause some strong cleansing reactions.

I do not suggest merely will powering yourself through such changes, but to get some good knowledge and guidance about how to proceed. I would like to share that the process does not have to be painful or unpleasant. I would suggest taking the changes one at a time so that your body can integrate those changes easily. I took six months to transition to being vegetarian. I first stopped buying animal flesh at the grocery store, then I stopped buying it restaurants, then stopped eating it when people offered it to me, then I stopped eating it with my parents. I then repeated the cycle with fish. Later on I dropped all dairy except for soy cheese (which has casein, an animal product) and yogurt. Later on I dropped eggs. At this point my body regained its natural vegan wisdom and actually just threw up the eggs I was trying eat and clearly signaled its own readiness to let it go. I had accidentally not eaten eggs for a while. In a similar manner, I noticed that I had not eaten any soy cheese and yogurt for three months and simply decided to continue without them. At that point I was completely vegan. I do feel that chanting and invoking the blessing energy of Amida Buddha (Om Namo Amida Buddha Hreeh) helps to purify our dietary karmas. If our intention is clear, then we automatically enter into a working out phase where our karmaic habits will become limited, slow down, and eventually end. During this time, we will attract the knowledge and help that we need.

I would also recommend not trying to teach others, argue with others, or preach to others about vegetarianism until you have made a full transition. Engaging with others in this way will cause you to “lose force” in your own evolving practice. Simply state to others, when they ask, that you are choosing to be vegetarian. Answer them with answers that are short and to the point. If they argue with those answers, merely say nothing. If they say what you are doing is stupid, then merely say that they are entitled to their opinion. If they tell you to quit, then merely say you have just as much right to your diet as they have to theirs. If they ask you for your reasons, merely say it is because of compassion for animals. Only engage in a deeper conversation if you feel that they are open, humble, and respectful. If people are arguing, it could be their own conscience and knowing is surfacing from their own Buddha nature, and they are resisting what their own heart is sharing with them. Trust this deeper process inside them, rather than argue with their surface mind. You might lock into this place with them and help them to avoid what is surfacing from their own depths.

Food ties into many emotional processes, like the way approval is given and received, you will need to look at and move beyond your own approval issues. You may need to reframe the ways you give and receive approval from people you love who are not transitioning with you. Trust their own process and give them room to make their own discoveries. Please remember that when you are in your own transition that you are too new at being vegetarian to be completely convincing to others. Your own body is still learning what it means and only a body truth can completely convince others to change. Make a commitment to learn what you are learning for the sake of yourself and those you love. Do not teach anyone until you have integrated the teachings into your body. I did not teach anyone vegetarianism or even wished to teach it until I was vegan eight years after I started this journey. I did not teach veganism until much later, too, for the same reason.

FALL BACK POSITIONS

If you have clarity that animals deserve to have their lives cherished by not killing them and eating them (and, positively, allowing them to live the lives that they naturally wish to), then you are essentially vegetarian. For some people, this ethical and compassionate clarity is enough to shift their mind, heart, and body into being consistent vegetarians or vegans. For some people, they will not have any trouble shifting their diet over to being vegetarians or vegans. The mental clarity, spiritual compassion, and intentional commitment are enough to shift the way the body processes food so that it can align with this new ideal.

I have found, though, that many are not able to shift so easily. This is due to several factors. One is that, while the conscious mind may be clear about the ethical and spiritual ideal of vegetarianism, the subconscious mind still has doubts. These resistant thoughts take the form of samskaras within the subconscious mind. We may have had a strongly held attachment to eating animal flesh coming from early childhood, our family genetic lineages, or from previous lifetimes. As a result of these samskaras, our body may not shift over to eating vegetarian or vegan so easily. We may have to meditate deeply enough to get in touch with these samskaras, understand why and how they held in our consciousness, and learn to release them. Because these samskaras may represent genuine parts of ourselves that may not believe in vegetarianism or veganism, it may be necessary to review the compassionate reasons why we have chosen to be vegetarian or vegan and to see if these reasons still make sense to the new subself that is appearing within our meditation.

Two is that every diet has its own kind of balance. Merely removing the habit of eating animal flesh from our total approach to diet may cause some nutritional imbalances. Our bodies may not know how to fully digest vegetarian food to get total nutrition. We may not know how to cook this new kind of food or relate it to our needs. We may not know how to interpret our nutritional cravings within the context of being consistently vegetarian or vegan. Our metabolism and enzymes may need to change in stages to accommodate this new diet. Further, as we adopt this new and superior diet, we may experience cleansing reactions as our bodies purge the toxic build up from having eaten animal flesh for part of our lives. In Genesis, the original diet of Adam was vegan and humans had lifespans of 600 to 1000 years. When Noah becomes addicted to alcohol and adopts an animal flesh eating diet, the human lifespan is reduced to 40 to 80 years, with some rare individuals living near 200 years of age. Alcohol and animal flesh eating seem to be a balancing pair in terms of maintaining the acid to alkaline balance in the body. When we let go of eating animal flesh, it may require other changes in our diet.

In order to break down animal protein, the body must work much harder to get nutrition. The stomach HCL of carnivores in nature is about twice the HCL level of human beings. Their intestinal length is about half of what humans have. The reason why is because carnivores are designed to use strong acids to extract the food from animal flesh and to quickly expel the remaining animal matter before it becomes too toxic. Humans keep animal matter in their intestines for twice the time that most carnivores do and therefore experience more toxic side effects from eating animal flesh. It seems that humans were not designed to eat animal flesh, but could from time to time use animal flesh eating as a supplemental source of food when the primary source of food was hard to find in the environment. Humans have what evolutionary biologists call “vestigial carnivore teeth”. What this means is that our genetic past indicates carnivorous ancestors, but our present carnivore teeth are relatively useless in terms of the tearing of animal flesh required to really eat animals. This means that humans still have some capacity to digest animal flesh, but as a long term diet we would get too much toxins. Eventually these toxins cannot be expelled efficiently and get stored in various parts of the body. This is why Native Americans would do many things to balance their animal flesh eating. They would do sweat lodges, fasting, use cleansing herbs, and do rituals to appease the spirit of the animals that they hunted and killed. These approaches show that they had the beginnings of a vegetarian compassion towards animals and knew that they had to balance the effects of animal flesh eating. The Lakota Indians have a story that show remembrance of a time, before the Ice Age, where humans were vegetarian and how animal flesh eating was allowed during the Ice Age in order to keep the human species alive. When humans would each too animal flesh, the Deer Spirit would give humans rheumatism. The story may suggest that when humans started getting certain illnesses related to animal flesh eating and when there was again an abundance of vegetarian food on Earth again, it would be time to become vegetarian again. It seems that during the Ice Age a craving and attachment to animal flesh eating happened and humans did not heed the signal to change back.

When you become vegetarian, the body does start to cleanse itself of accumulated of toxic by products of animal flesh digestion, particularly more uric acid from trying to convert protein to usable energy. This can be a quiet or dramatic process depending on what kind of dietary history a person is evolving from. My advice is to take this transition in stages. If you feel that you cannot shift into total consistency with vegetarianism, take small steps. First, eat lower down the food chain. Cut down all animal flesh eating except chicken and fish. Then eliminate chicken. Then eliminate fish. Then eliminate eggs. Then eliminate dairy. If you crave some animal flesh, see if some salmon will satisfy it. Unlike many species, Salmon are usually killed late in their lifespan, as opposed to most animals which are killed in their prime. If you are going to eat some animal flesh, at least eat “free range” animals which are at least allowed to have a relatively happy life before getting killed as opposed to animals that must live under the stressful conditions of a factory farm. If you assume that your dollars are economic votes supporting certain practices, there is less sorrow created in the world if you do not support factory farms. While eating free range animals or salmon is not as karmaically pure as being vegan, it reduces the karma significantly and can be a transitional stage. If you have a wish to be aligned with vegetarian animal compassion and are sensitive to whether the cravings come from some biochemical need or from old habit, you will find that your nonvegetarian cravings will slowly disappear.

I would also recommend not shifting immediately from a vegetarian diet which still includes eggs and dairy to a vegan diet which does not. Again, some people can handle this immediate shift and do very well. For me, the transition from carnivore to vegetarian took six months and the transition from vegetarian to vegan took me eight years. At one point, I felt my body clearly not wanting eggs anymore. At another point, I had eliminated all dairy with the exception of some soy cheese with casein (a milk derivative) and some yogurt. I kept these two products for about half of the transitional four years. They were used in relatively small amounts and I stopped completely after I noticed that my body did not ask for them for about three months. In a sense, I became a vegan three months before I noticed I was a vegan.

There are, I feel, “adjustment cravings” where the body is between two ways of eating. It may need to revisit the older way of eating temporarily in order to manage its health the way it had been used to. A new diet requires a kind of biochemical relearning which is sometimes slow and sometimes fast. This is sometimes seen when people go to a foreign country and get sick on the food when they first experience it and then get used to it later. Just because one has cravings and gives into them does not mean that one has “failed”. I would simply recommend that people trust the larger process and trust that they will need less of the previous diet over time.

I found that my body has shifted very deeply in the near 33 years that I have been vegetarian and the near 25 years that I have been vegan. My diet is still evolving too. Early on, the smell of barbecued animal flesh would still feel tempting to me and cause me to experience a desire for the flavor of some animal flesh dish. At one point, I noticed that the smell of burnt animal flesh smelled like the burnt human flesh I one time smelled when passing by a burn patient at a hospital. It lost all its allure. There is a mystique around animal flesh eating, with all kinds of sauces, spices, garnishes, and, oddly enough, flavorful vegetables like onions, carrots, parsley, oregano, and garlic. Many of the spices are antioxidants which neutralize some of the toxins that come from animal flesh decaying or preservatives that slow down this decay. I sincerely feel that if each human had to hunt and kill their own animal flesh food that there would be a lot more vegetarians. It is no coincidence that in the millions of commercials I have seen advertising some burger or chicken nuggets that they never show any animal being killed.

There is one further factor which can make shifting to vegetarianism or veganism difficult. This is the social pressure from family and peers. This is something that alcoholics also often face when they are trying to quit their addiction. Many times friends will push you to go back to the very things you are trying to eliminate from your life. If you change your diet in order to have compassion for animals, then you may cause people to consider what they are doing to animals through their own diet. Even if you do say a single word to judge your friends, they will make the connection and feel judged anyway. Their own conscience may bother them as you expand your compassion to include animals and wants to express this compassion by not eating them. If you do express your views, the views may sound judgmental to your friends even if you share it in the kindest way possible and even if you do not require them to change. They may want to argue with you in order to feel better about what they are doing. In short, your view will challenge their way of life no matter how quiet you are about what you are doing.

In my early vegetarian days, I would only mention being vegetarian when it was absolutely necessary. I would gently turn down eating animal flesh without saying why unless a person asked why. Then the Buddhist precept about not lying would require me to say why. Even then I would say only the minimum required to answer their question, often just saying “yes” to whether or not I was vegetarian and leaving it at that. During this time, I had many people ridicule the diet, argue that it wrong, that I was putting myself in a strange kind of bondage, try to ram a burger in my face, try to slip animal flesh into my food knowing that it would violate my commitment, and even saying that my diet would make me sick, that I would not get enough vitamin B12, that I would not get enough protein, and that being vegetarian was not natural because our ancestors were carnivorous apes (though some feel that we descended from fruitarian guerillas).

I learned from this time period that I had to learn to gently stand my ground and affirm what I believed. I saw that I had to overcome a part of me that wished to conform to what people expected in order to get approval. I was surprised at how strong this karmaic habit was in me. I could feel the impulse to align with the wishes of those around me, to not stand out, to hide in conformity, and to not make waves. Looking back, it seemed related to having stern parents who expected conformity and who withdrew emotional affection whenever they were disobeyed. But during my transition, I knew that my love for animals was a stronger motivation than my need to conform to peer pressure.

I think that American culture needs to see its own racist roots and look at how it not only did not extend compassion beyond the human species, but also shrank compassion further by only fully giving individual rights to adult white heterosexual males. Women had to fight for their rights, blacks had to fight first to not be made into slaves and then to be acknowledged as having equal rights to whites, children were often not given much rights either and spanking with belts and sticks was often used by many parents. About three hundred to five hundred years ago, this culture also tried to wipe out the Native Americans, sometimes shooting them on site, killing women and children, trading blankets that were infected with small pox, and having them undergo forced relocations. Homosexuals were shot at on sight as late as the 1950s, still are not allowed to have legal marriages, and still are fired from jobs when they are found to be homosexuals. The civil rights movement and the feminist movement are still less than 100 years old, at least in the forms that we know them now. There are still many pockets of the resistance to the many reforms these movements represent. Movements honoring the rights of children and the rights of animals are still even younger than these.

The time scale of Buddhist thought is sometimes measured in long periods of kalpas and yugas. Buddhism as a religion is about 2,500 years old. From this perspective, a few hundred years is not that much time for social change to get integrated. We can learn from studying how the previous reform movements were resisted by the mainstream culture, what kinds of arguments they used to put down those who held reformist views, and what change eventually required. Early feminists were called “bitches”. People who were against blacks being slaves were often accused of being against the Bible, since Ham, one of the sons of Noah, was black and was cursed with slavery by god and the early Hebrews were allowed to have slaves (though if someone curses someone with something it usually means that such a condition is obviously not a good thing to give someone and should therefore not define normal treatment). Some states in America still legally required a wife to “perform her duty” (aka have sex with her husband) as late as even 50 years ago. Then there were semantic games played with the reforms, once the general idea was accepted. Many Christian churches say that they believe in male and female equality, but do not want to formalize it as a legal amendment, still want the male to be the “head of the household” and still do not have any women ministers.

When a person becomes vegetarian, he or she might encounter the social resistance and counterattack to the change such a view represents. The society will get offended if you make parallels with how animals are treated and how this treatment has been justified with how Blacks, Women, Native Americans, other races in general, and children have been treated and how this treatment has been justified. The Buddhist response to this kind of resistance is to gently speak the dharma, let people make up their own minds about the subject, be nonattached to the counter attack, and still have compassion towards those who hold opposing views. It may even take many lifetimes before people understand a single dharma precept and align with its intention. Buddhists are meant to have patience, endurance, and humility when meeting such resistance.

Inspite of the view that the Buddha was not interested in social change, he was an advocate of the ability and right of women to seek enlightenment, he was opposed to slavery, he was opposed to the caste system, he was opposed to warfare, he was opposed to economic exploitation, and he was opposed to the killing and eating of animals. He advocated a nonviolent revolution where people gradually shifted their consciousness about these things, inspired from the insights, moral sentiments, and compassion which arose in their meditation practice, from living the basic precepts, and in their hearing of dharma talks. He also taught people to be compassionate with themselves about their own process of change. He taught people to not be too strict with themselves and to not be too complacent with themselves either. His path was called the “middle way”, not too little discipline and not too much. Clear intention, simple human effort without strain, trusting the process, mindful presence, and gentle compassion would eventually burn away all unwholesome karma and create both inner and outer peace.

Namaste.

The Empty Koan

2011-06-27T16:35:00.001-07:00

Commentary on the First Koan of the Blue Cliff Record:

1. Emperor Wu of Liang asked the great master Bodhidharma, "What is the highest meaning of the holy truth?"

2. Bodhidharma said, "Empty, without holiness."

3. The Emperor said, "Who is facing me?"

4. Bodhidharma replied, "I don't know."

5. The Emperor did not understand.

6. After this Bodhidharma crossed the Yangtse River and came to the Kingdom of Wei.

7. Later the Emperor brought this up to Master Chih and asked him about it.

8. Master Chih asked, "Does your majesty know who this man is?"

9. The Emperor said, "I don't know."

10. Master Chih said, "He is the Mahasattva Avalokitesvara, transmitting the Buddha Mind Seal.

11. The Emperor felt regretful, so he wanted to send an emissary to go invite Bodhidharma to return.

12. Master Chih told him, "Your majesty, don't say that you will send someone to fetch him back. Even if everyone in the whole country were to go after him, he still wouldn't return."

[1] Wu asks the most important question that he could. He was a dedicated Buddhist. He built many monastaries and supported the flourishing of the Dharma in China. But why were the discourses on the Buddha on how to watch the breathing, how to notice annata, letting go of grasping, negativity, and confusion, and the five precepts not enough for him?

[2] Bodhidharma cuts through every obscuring concept in a single phrase, speaks to the very heart of the matter, and opens the door to sudden enlightenment. Will Wu walk through?

[3] Wu is bewildered, rather than let Bodhidharma slay his attachments, he gets defensive instead.

[4] In order to know who is in front of who, Wu needs to know himself. Nothing that the mind can know is present anywhere. Bodhidharma stays in this not knowing and stays free. He opens the gate one more time for Wu.

[5] Wu actually got a glimpse, in the moment of shock, when he heard, "Empty, without holiness," before his thinking spun around these words. Why did he not stay there?

[6] Wu sits with his confusion, the short phrase that Bodhidharma said, that could have pierced through every obscuration, is now lost in a sea of confused thoughts. Life must move on, the moment is lost, Bodhidharma moves on with his life.

[7] Master Chih has had his glimspes too, but Wu did not see Master Chih before Bodhidharma shook his tree.

[8] Master Chih saw what happened, how Wu was too attached to holiness to let it go and instead questioned the holiness of Bodhidharma, his right to say anything to him. Wu did not see the holiness of Master Chih either.

[9] At last, Wu speaks from his experience, but his "I don't know" is not like Bodhidharma's.

[10] Master Chih affirms the gift of liberation in the short phrase, tuned to Wu, by affirming the role that Bodhidharma played before Wu. How did Master Chih know?

[11] Wu is still used to being in control. Why not leave to find Bodhidharma? Or better, enter the regret and be washed clean. Master Chih also opened the door, but it was not even noticed.

[12] Master Chih gently strikes at Wu's attachment to being in control and opens the door one more time, everything Wu needs is already here. Why does he make Bodhidharma the issue, rather than his own mind? I do not know either, but he seems to have forgotten what he asked for. Bodhidharma simply spoke straightforwardly and honestly, and opened the door to enlightenment wide. Like a deer caught in headlights, Wu froze up and did not walk through. The door is still open. Wu would rather send an army to find Bodhidharma, rather than walk through. If Bodhidharma were to be captured and brought to him, would he say anything different? Why does he not see that Master Chih is also holding the door open? When Wu will walk through? How much thinking about seeing does it take to open the eyes and look?

Sending Tariki

2011-06-20T09:24:00.000-07:00

This is a sequence of photos (edited on the Gimp Linux Photo editor). The pictures are from bottom to top. The first picture is related to chanting the mantra "Om Namo Amida Buddha Hreeh" and invoking the blessing energy of Amida Buddha. The second picture is my receiving the energy and breathing in to take it in deeply (and breathing out to surrender and allow the energy to transform). The third picture is the energy spreading throughout the chakras, opening them up, and recharging the aura. The fourth is sending the energy of Amida Buddha to others. The aura is shown developing layers of protection.

Subtle Continuity of Memory in the Multiple Lifetime Continuum of the Individual Consciousness

2011-06-17T07:08:00.000-07:00

One difference between Buddhism and what may be called the "prophetic religions" is that Buddhism is not based on an authoritarian personal god who speaks through a prophet, whose words are usually written down in a book, and must be believed on faith. Although the teachings of the Buddha are a kind of revelation from a higher mind, they are not framed as commands from a supreme authority that must be obeyed. They are the report of someone who saw into the nature of reality, saw its enlightened core, and showed a way to see the same thing. Because of this, there is nothing essential in the Buddhist teachings that cannot be verified in our own experience. Because of this, minor corrections in the Buddhist teaching can be done over time. The collective Buddhist experience occasionally finds superior formulations of its teachings, develops parts of its theory further in new directions, and has mechanisms to correct errors that occasionally are found. It does not need to claim that every word of the Buddha is absolutely true and try to convince a person to believe every word that the Buddha said. Buddha is more of a guide to a deeper reality, rather than an authority to be believed. In fact, merely believing the teachings is not the goal. Just as believing 2+2=4 does not mean that you know how to add, believing the teachings on how to end sorrow does not mean that one has ended sorrow in one's life. A person still needs to practice meditation and reach nirvana. Christianity has presented itself as a revealed teaching that must be believed and obeyed. Buddhist presents itself as a series of teachings, based on observed reality, where you verify step by step, in your personal experience, the principles which govern reality and then use those principles to end sorrow in your life, the life of humankind, and in the lives of your friends and family.

Therefore, in Buddhism, there is nothing you have to believe to become a Buddhist and follow the Buddhist path. You do not have to believe that Buddha is some kind of god or son of god to follow the Buddhist path. You do not have to seen him as a savior or even a guide. You can be completely agnostic about everything and just agree to have "tentative faith" in the teachings. You take them as a hypothesis that you are going to work with and see where the teachings lead. You do not have to actually and fully believe in the teachings until the teachings prove their truth in your own personal experience.

The advantage of Buddhism is that it is a kind of roadmap to a psychological world. Even though you do not need the map to this territory, it is useful. After a while of using the map, you can match the streets on the map with the streets you are actually traveling on, and once the correspondence has been made, you can find the city of Nirvana more quickly than just wandering around the inner world without the map. Occasionally, some parts of the map may be obsolete, like one street may have been erased that needs to be filled in or a new street has been built. But these updates do not affect travel down the main highway.

In the climate of India at the time when Buddha taught, reincarnation, the law of karma, and continuity of the individual through many lifetimes was a given. Everyone believed it. The Buddha did not question this belief, but just accepted this premise. Because he questioned some deep tenets of Santana Dharma, like how people understood the nature of the soul or self (atman) and proposed that our sense of self was an illusion (anatta), one can conclude that he would have questioned reincarnation and the law of karma if he thought it was a false teaching. Instead, it is part of Buddhist teaching that when Buddha was fully enlightened that he had perfect and complete memory of all his previous incarnations. He did not talk too much of these past lifetimes, because he wanted to share a teaching that could liberate others and not focus too much attention to himself. But a few times he shared experiences that did go into his own past lifetimes. In one village, for instance, a woman kept being critical of the Buddha and saying unkind things about him. The Buddha simply let her do this, blessed her, and moved on. When his disciples asked him why she behaved the way that she did, the Buddha said that in a previous lifetime he was a sannyasin and treated her unkindly, and that she was still feeling anger about this.

I like this small story about the Buddha, because it shows many things. One is that even a Buddha is not beyond the law of karma. Although the seeds of karma within the subconscious mind have been burned away and cannot create more karmaic effects, the causes already set into motion are still producing effects. When we get enlightened, people do not automatically change our opinion of us to match the new state that we attained. Enlightenment lets everyone be as they are and this loving acceptance gradually transforms them over time.

I also like that the Buddha was humble enough to admit his faults in a simple, honest, and straightforward way. He did not try to maintain an image of saintly perfection, but just told the truth of his life in a straight forward manner. He let the event with this woman just be about old karma coming to an end, let her have her words, and moved on. It may be that the karma does not end right way. The resentment within her, which continued into this lifetime, may not dissipate in just one conversation. She might need to share more harsh words. What I find in my own process and the process of others, though, is that when we meet people we had met before that those meetings are always "auspicious". They are how the law of karma, through synchronicity, brings people to us to complete itself. Even though the meeting may not instantly resolve the karma, sometimes it sets in motion the completion. The woman may dwell on her resentment and let it go later on. By blessing her instead of arguing with her, the Buddha does not re-ignite the karma, does not add fuel to its fire, but lets it burn away and complete itself. So Buddha, by his humble admission of his past fault, allows us to see how to end the chain reaction of karma. In this way, he serves as a model for the teaching that he shares to others.

There is a lot of confusion about what Buddha taught about the ultimate nature of the individual self. There is a reason for this confusion. People in this world, partly due to the intense emphasis on right and wrong beliefs, want to translate Buddhism into a set of beliefs. The Buddha was more interested in why people believe what they do, rather than what they believe. He did not think believing something on the basis of some kind of authority, whether it was the authority of a god, a book from that god, or of a priest or priestess group left behind by that god. He did not want people to believe things on heresay, or because of peer pressure, or because everyone thinks it is true. He wanted people to shed all beliefs and find out for themselves what is true. The position about beliefs that the Buddha had was essentially agnostic. He did not believe or disbelieve anything until his experience proved something real. In the Lankavatara Sutra, the Buddha talked about how the Vedic priests of India were handing down beliefs from generation to generation, but none of them were awakened directly to the truth. It becomes the blind leading the blind. These blind people may have beliefs about the nature of light and color, and maybe even the right beliefs about light and color, handed down faithfully from generation to generation, but it does not mean that they have opened their eyes and seen light and color for themselves. The Buddha did not want to add another word for the nature of the self, like the word "atman", that people would believe or disbelieve. This is why he was silent as to the ultimate nature of the self. He did not want to replace one belief with another belief. Words are just labels. He wanted people to directly realize that nature of the self.

In the Mahaparinirvana Sutra, the Buddha admits that when one is enlightened one gains four things, (1) bliss, (2) eternity, (3) self, and (4) freedom. One also gains kindness, compassion, joy, and peace, those these usually appear in the journey to enlightenment and keep on growing until they fully flourish. The kind of freedom you gain does enter suddenly. Something within breaks free of the chain of causation, breaks free from the endless robotic reactions of human condition reacting to human conditioning. When this happens, we can do or not do from a place of stillness inside, but we do not react, at least not as automatically. The word "self" is added to the list, because he wanted to balance his teaching with his previous teaching of "no self". There is a sense of self which is illusory and there is a sense of self that is real. Noticing the illusory nature of what we usually call self lets us eventually see the true nature of the individual self. Its true nature cannot be grasped conceptually, though any idea, including the idea of self. To realize its nature, one must go beyond the grip of all thoughts and directly see. It is parallel to thinking a thousand thoughts about a tree versus actually looking at a tree. What cannot be done with even millions of thoughts about a tree can be done with a single act of looking. Thought does have its place and thought can even understand its place, but it cannot replace one moment of thoughtless direct seeing.

Buddhism has evolved a fairly deep psychology of how we actually function. I do find that it holds up well to modern psychology. In many ways, the definitions are more precise and more easy to verify than some of the key concepts of modern psychology. Buddhist psychology focuses on how our sense organs join a sense object to produce a sensation, how the sensation is pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral, how the mind interprets the sensation and attaches to the pleasant, resists the unpleasant, and ignores the neutral and thus begins to form the three poisons of the mind (addictive craving, judgmental negativity, and obscuring delusion), and how these poisons produce all our sorrow. These chain reactions, even though they happen very fast, can be verified in our present experience. Key to this psychology is that there are "activations of samskaras". These are packets of mental and emotional conditioning that get activated by sensory experience. A person says something and I react to these words. I smell alcohol and suddenly I get a craving to drink. I look at a beautiful person of the opposite gender and a romantic craving arises. All these are examples of some latent samskara getting activated and causing an inner experience that may even motivate external actions. There are many steps to this process. There are 12 basic ones that Buddha maps out. In more advanced studies, the samskaras are seen to be not merely latent. They are seen to be subtle vortexes of energy vibrating at a certain frequency and emanating something like a radio frequency out from itself. These vortexes are merely passively waiting to be triggered, like a land mine, but are actively trying to hook into similars and drawn them into experience. They impell us to fulfill themselves and attract objects to them. If a person is an alcoholic, then he or she will unconsciously pick a road that goes to a tavern or pick a friend who will drink with him or her. It follows a like attracts like pattern. This like attracting like can have a polarity energy, like the positive and negative poles of a magnet latching on to each other. This explains, too, why victims of abuse may later become abusers and visa versa. In different situations, victims and abusers will switch roles. Like the woman was was treated harshly by the Buddha in a previous lifetime unleashing her anger toward him in the another lifetime. The internal causes and the external causes synchronize to cause a "ripening of karma".

On this level of reality, where the samskaras are seen to be karmaic seeds that are trying to fulfill themselves, we can eventually learn how to perform miracles. What seems to be an impersonal and exacting law can be transformed into a mechanism of conscious reality creation. It explains why many Buddhist meditators, even though they did not try to consciously cultivate paranormal abilities, eventually do so, or at least have a few miraculous or paranormal things happen to them. When we work with the mechanisms of creation, the ones that normally cause karma to happen, we can eventually use those mechanisms to do things. When operates unconsciously in most people, operates more consciously in intermediate meditators. It is parallel to how gravity works. There is no gravity demon pulling people down from buildings and causing them to break their leg. There is simply a law at work which we can be conscious of or unconscious of. If I respect the law of gravity, then I simply can choose to not walk off buildings and not fall down and not break my leg. My life can be easier, less painful, and happier as a result. Respecting gravity does not mean that I will never suffer again. There are sometimes convergences of cause and effect that once they fully ripen nothing can really stop a bad thing from happening. But even in this case, respecting the law of karma can mean that I can just accept my fate and be at peace inside.

I wanted to share a kind of summary of the Buddhist worldview as a background for understanding the individual self. This is a different focus to the usual Buddhist texts, but is very consistent with them. The Buddha himself did not want anything to distract people from the practice of meditation and the attainment of enlightenment. But I feel that the mental body of most humans has undergone many shifts inside and that people want more information about certain things as part of their evaluation of a teaching. It is also clear to me that the Buddhist theory of self needs more elaboration. In the words of the Madyamika Buddhist philosophers, people need to be clear on what is being affirmed and what is being negated.

There are many people who wrongly assume what I call the "tapioca pudding" theory of the self, that at some point the individual self dissolves into like a drop of pudding getting stirred into a bowl of pudding or like a drop of water dissolving into an ocean. I think this metaphor was once used by a British poet who lumped both Hindu and Buddhist ideas of self and enlightenment together in his mind. The metaphor as a metaphor is okay, because there is a feeling experience when the sense of separateness dissolves that matches this metaphor. But the individual self remains intact. You can have a feeling of oneness with life and still be a distinct individual. Buddhism has always affirmed this. This is also true in the qualified monism of Ramanuja in Hinduism as well. It is good to separate metaphors that accurately describe how an experience in meditation feels to what actually happens on a more ontological level. Your experience of an isolated ego self shifts to a feeling of self that is blissful, free, eternal, and still an individual being. The shift is massive and is liberating. Having said this, the root self clinging of the ego may want to attach to this kind of enlightenment, trying to grasp for enlightenment, and thus avoid its own annihilation through believing and attaching to the teaching in an unwholesome way. I suspect that behind a lot of normal theistic belief in a personal god is an attachment to getting into heaven and avoiding hell, that the root of self clinging is behind the beliefs and therefore the beliefs do not banish the isolated ego, but may even strengthen it. I do find it interesting that Jesus says, "A person who seeks to keep his or her life shall lose it, while a person who seeks to lose his or her life for my sake, shall find it." It seems that Jesus was aware of something the cunning and intricacies of the root self-clinging of the ego self.

One of the interesting studies in hypnosis is the use of hypnosis to recover memories. It seems that there is a memory track that has an impartial record of all our experience. We have many kinds of memory. We have long term, short term, and working memory. My feeling is that sleep is necessary, in part, to digest our daily memories, sort them out in terms of importance, and decide which ones stay in our long term memory. But none of these memory system is perfect and all of them have a fading point. Even our working memory, which is the best memory we use most of the time, tends to forget things we have not used in a long while. Phone numbers that we had memorized because we used them often do get forgotten when we do not use them for a point of time. Less people even remember phone numbers because we all use speed dial systems now. But the memories that were once part of our long term, short term, and working memories do seem to get archived in a manner that we can often retrieve. There seems to be a level of memory we can access where everything is remembered. This is the assumption behind a certain kind of hypnotic procedure. The access to the memories is sometimes uncertain and the information can get distorted by wishes, by ego defenses, and by imagination. It seems it takes some training to learn how to access them better. But it only takes a small amount of work to verify that this memory level is there. My brother and I try to track actors when they are seen in different TV series and in different movies, try to remember their actual names. What I find is that holding this intention makes me "deliberately remember" better. When I hear the actual name of the actor or actress, then I "intend to remember", and find that this intention makes it more accessible. It is not perfect, but since I have tried to intentionally remember, I find my access to the memories has improved a lot. I also find that when I try to access the name of an actress or actor, and what they have played in before, several things happen. If I strain in a certain way to remember, it does not help much. But if I relax and trust in my subconscious mind to bring it up that it gently pops up later on. It is like it needs a free flowing space to surface it. In this regard, it is no surprise that the Buddha had access to his whole many lifetime memory continuum, since he dwelt always in peaceful relaxation within himself, completely trusting life. This is the ideal environment for memories to be accessible.

Studying how memory actually works in our lives, getting our memories trained, trying to memorize the Buddhist teachings (or something else of big importance), helps to develop something inside us. We can notice what we need to know in order to understand how to access past lifetime memories. But first we need to start where we are with ordinary memories and understand how they function. For instance, I find that there is something like trusting subconscious mind and relaxing to allow memory access. If one has a negative belief against past lifetimes and the paranormal, this could block us from trusting the subconscious mind from easily and gently bringing up past lifetime memories. There is a kind of skepticism that asks for proof and blocks verification from happening. When I have questioned people who have this kind of doubt, I am not clear what would actually prove something to them. The agnostic is honest about not knowing and does not believe or disbelieve something unless experience teaches it. There is another kind of stance that has a subtle active prejudice against certain things being true. It can block things from surfacing that do not fit our belief system. There is a kind of mass consciousness belief system that society has and it resists verification of what does not fit its world. This mass consciousness has variation, but what is curious is how much there is agreement about what is real and how. For instance, both atheists and theists seem to agree that you cannot really know what happens to you after you die. The theists just believe what they imagine the Bible says about it and the atheists do not believe what the Bible says as being authoritative. There is an agreement that no one can know and that people only live once and die. The near death experience (NDEs) are slowly giving some validity to what I call "experiential religion" (which Buddhism also is). Past life regression hypnosis gives some interesting material for people to contemplate as well. When we work with psychology, though, the variable creating our experience are often large and complex. This shows up in dreams and how to decode them, how to sort out wish fulfillment dreams from dreams that reveal some kind of reality. People can have false past lifetime memories if they do not sort all this out. This is why the Abhidharma looks at so many factors of consciousness, isolates them from each other, and then describes many of their interactions with each other. It is easy for one phenomena to get confused with another. Memory, desire, and imagination often affect each other and get confused with each other. Many people will hear what they want to hear, even when it was not said. The memory is false in the moment of creating it. Sometimes people remember things different than they happened. Every story of an accident may have a different spin to it and even have contradictory facts. But even though memory is faulty, it is enough to prove that some accident did happen. There is a legal precedent that there are more reliable and less reliable witnesses. There is a profile for those who are likely to distort the facts, knowingly or unknowingly. Just because memories can be unreliable does not mean that they are totally false. When a certain kind of memory access is done through hypnosis, you can feel the reliability of the memories, just as when we access our usual memory. We can tell whether it is "fuzzy" or "hazy", or whether it is clear. There are ways to filter out the distortions and make it more reliable. In Buddhism, they would call this "mind training".

The main training is to review the "memory thread" at the end of the day. You remind the memory tape backwards, like rewinding a video, in fast mode, and get a feeling for the day, what was relevant, and what is worth noting. We kind of do this naturally already. This exercise is usually part of training in "nonreactive consciousness" where you learn to watch your memories without having a reaction to them. When you find yourself reacting to something, this is the samskaric memory, the seed of karma, that gets replanted and which can cause future events of sorrow to happen. If you learn to not react to this, then you can "discharge the seed", and prevent new karmaic events from happening in the future. Once you do it for a day, then you do it for a week, and then for a one month block of time. Then you can rewind the tape backwards as far as you want. You follow the thread of memory and you can go back to when you were born in this lifetime, then what it was like when you were in the bardo after death, and even back to when you died in the last lifetime. There might be gaps in the memory flow. In the hypnosis version, you learn to pick up on a memory fragment and expanding the thread from this point, moving forwards and backwards in time from the fragment. In both cases, you start from a reliable feeling of memory and flow in time within its continuity.

In the beginning, it is good to be agnostic about what is arising. There is a part of the ego that wants to immediately judge all experience as "real" or "unreal", "good" or "bad", and "true" or "false". When you learn to be in agnostic mode, you learn to just do the exercises and be "po" about everything. "Po" is a term coined by Edward DoBono that means "neither yes nor no" about what is arising. The fact that we do not have a word in our vocabulary already for it is revealing about our culture, which wants to judge everything automatically and instantly. Part of becoming the silent watcher in Buddhism is to relax this judgmental reflex and let experience simply reveal itself. When past lifetime memories actually do surface, in the beginning they might be dim. They are like the sparks from flint that can create a fire or could as easily just disappear into the cold night air. They need to be gently cradled and gently blown upon until the fire grows. Staying "po" about what arising, not trying to figure anything out, not trying to believe anything, not trying to disbelieve anything, not feeling a need to make a conclusion, but simply being with the experience until it gets revealed in its own time and in its own way.

This methodology shows both the experiential commitment of Buddhism and also a problem. The methodology is scientifically very pure and would work well to verify the truth of past lifetime memories. But it takes about 3 months to undergo the process. There is a question about whether or not it is worth doing so. I am hoping to devise a process, with the help of some hypnotic protocols, to make this discipline a little easier to master. But the thing is that when you do the method right, even though it is a little hard, you do train your mind in a good way and you automatically learn to filter the memory distortion stuff. This is because you follow the memory thread and get a direct feeling for the thread itself. In this thread is the feeling of what is a memory versus what is imagination. When you jump into a past lifetime memory, the feeling for the memory thread may not be as strongly grounded in the experience. You may need to learn how to filter those things in another way. The hypnotic guide can help this. But when a guide is doing the filtering, then it is less reliable scientifically. The subconscious bias of the operator needs to be factored in. But still, it may be a useful process in that it may make the experiences easier to reach. I think it is good to have a guide, because the many filters that need to be used to keep the memory thread pure are intermediate level meditation skills. When I talk with people or interview them during a session, I notice the need to filter out many things. There is a hidden mind training which is present in the interaction. Some people may need to work on certain things more than others. For instance, there is a kind of desire that does not want to see reality, but rather see what it wants and pretend it is there. This happens a lot in relationships. There is a lot to process to clear this kind of desire, like a fear that one might not love anyone when all his or her faults are seen. Some faults are deal breakers and some faults are not, and it takes a while to sort out which is which. There is a point when the pure desire to see what is does arise and puts no conditions on what reality should be. When this happens, then even memories are more reliable.

There was one psychotherapist who was successful in helping people to access past lifetime memories through a light trance and using simple free association. He taught people to be sensitive to how past lifetime memories are always floating around in our consciousness, but have not been validated as such. An example is the feeling of having met the person before. When we are locked into the social belief system about only one lifetime, we automatically assume that we could not have met this person in another lifetime. The part of the subconscious mind that brings up memories then works within this assumption and its limit and only brings up memories that fit the conscious belief system. It may have tried to send up some pictures from other lifetimes but was discounted. This part often sends up some tests to see how a person does with them and to see what the actual beliefs are. If they are validated, then more comes up. Part of hypnosis is to trust the deeper parts of consciousness and let them function in harmony with the conscious part again. Free association is where the ego filter is turned off and the person reports more of the free floating contents of the mind. In later stages, you can gently direct this free flowing state to pick up past lifetime memories or to tune into and validate ones that are already arising. When you are present and aware to your mind throughout the day, as the result of Buddhist mind training, then these past lifetime bleed throughs are more easily noticed and validated. They eventually weave a new kind of feeling for being a sentient beings who has lived in many times, many places, and in many bodies. The present lifetime takes up a new context, which is not merely a blank. You begin to see others in the same light. When you see a youtube video of a gifted singer who is only 8 years old, you can more easily see and feel that this sentient being is bringing through training from another lifetime or even several. You can look for other parts of the pattern, like she may have sung in the churches during the European middle ages, and may have art from that period in her room, perhaps even some possession from that lifetime that synchronicistically came back to her. The free associations that naturally arise around a memory core usually lead to other places in memory and previous experience. They gradually build up into another world view where past lifetime memory is natural.

It is usually not about the many thousands of women who believe they were Cleopatra or Mary Magdalene in a previous lifetime. It is fairly rare that people are famous people. It could be that there is simple wish fulfillment imagining those memories and that Cleopatra and Mary Magdalene are archetypal energies that people can identify with and be inspired by. It may serve some psychic function to lock into those energies and one may even make a psychic link to the actual sentient being who lived those lives. But this would still be different from the continuity of memory of a sentient being. There are many who have thought they were Jesus Christ. These people are definitely identifying with an archetype. They sometimes are people who suffer in a war and who see too much sorrow. The mind is complex and sometimes identifies with someone who represents being beyond this sorrow and yet compassionate to this sorrow.

Most of the people when they go into past lifetimes end up experiencing lifetimes where they are not famous. Yet "fame" itself is very relative. Sometimes in a past lifetime one bumps into famous people or one is famous in a "small pond" or small group of people. Sometimes history tracks a semi-famous lifetime or part of a lifetime. Sometimes some confirmation is found for the memories that surface in ordinary history. Sometimes the ordinary history is not accurate, incomplete, or there are multiple versions of external history. Ordinary history is not completely reliable either and one must filter out and decode things too. There are paranoias and myopias of whole time periods of beings, more than just everyone believing the Earth was flat. Unlike the movies when they are doing time travel, you pick up on some things that are overlooked, deliberately or accidentally, by writers and directors, like how the above ground sewage in Europe not only lead to diseases, but made everything smell a certain way. Like odors, once you are in them for a while you tend to not notice them, but when you "come into the room" from another lifetime, you notice the smell in all its glory and/or foulness. Sometime not, too, because memory tends to be selective. We remember, both in this lifetime and others, what feels relevant to us. We remember what we want to remember. We might learn to access the perfect memory level, but past lifetime memory is like "super long term memory". Just as sleep helps to organize our long term memory, the bardo state, between death and rebirth, helps to organize our super long term memory. We sort out what was and was not important at this juncture. If we are trained, we learn to not react and to remember more, so that when we reincarnate we carry a more active relationship to our past lifetimes.

It takes time to get used to a new body and a new brain. There is some amnesia in the process of carrying past lifetime memory over to a new lifetime. It is not so ironclad that people either have perfect past lifetime memory or no memory at all. It is more like more important process of brain formation, language formation, sensory motor development all combine together and take precedence over remembering past lifetimes. The multiple lifetime memories may only start appearing when we are past 25 years, when the brain takes on its adult form. It may bleed through little bits early on in life, but these may surface and fall back into amnesia until the person is ready to just keep the memories and work with them again. Some things may trigger the memories. In this lifetime, it took me some time to understand that I was not learning from the Zen Koans studied, I was merely remembering the answers that I had learned before. The Zen Koans were a trigger to what I already had learned and a very useful one. Because you put profound attention into contemplating a koan, it is something that can easily be activated in another lifetime. There is some learning that the new body and mind must do to integrate the memories, but it is not the same as completely learning from scratch.

There is reason why amnesia is part of the process, too, if you look at many adults, they are locked into their minds and have really stopped learning. There beliefs have hardened into dogmas and are blocking a learning process from being kept alive. The Buddhist system has a safeguard against beliefs hardening into dogmas and that is the teaching of emptiness, that no concept, even Buddhist concepts, can grasp reality, only direct experience, only direct experience, only direct experience, and that merely labeling an experience by a belief does not mean we know something. Life wants to keep on growing and both memory and forget-ory help this. Some traumatic memories can paralyze a person until they learn how to handle them. They surface when we are ready to remember them. Some people may not really need them to function. They might feel they have met the person before. They might feel this about their best friends, but they may not validate the feeling as related to a past lifetime memory and might not need to validate it that way. Sometimes we remember more than we notice. Like I have a friend who has been a warrior in many lifetimes (not this one though), and has a warrior awareness that would be hard to make up unless you had the lifetimes. Again, it is not about what the movies show, which is usually a fantasy a writer has about what a warrior is like. Most warriors, for instance, to do "glory" in war. After your first best friend gets his head blow off, one sees that there is no glory in war. At best, you get to keep your country and have the women of your country not get raped, and have to rebuild. You only fight because it is necessary and for self defense. Everything else is a delusion or a wrong war to be in. In certain kinds of war times, you learn to go to an eating place and have your back to a safe wall, rather than exposed to the public which might harbor spies and hidden enemies. You watch how people move and notice by their movement whether they are civilians or military. You access tactical strength and only engage in battles that you have a chance of winning and only risk dying when the goal requires it. You do not blindly charge into battle and get shot by superior fire power like in all those movies. You shoot from behind trees and do surprise raids on key targets. You avoid open confrontation when the enemy has better weapons. You trust the you know your land better than they do and try to organize a counter attack where you might have the advantage, etc. I mention all this, not because it is necessary to learn all this or not all warriors learn the same lessons (though they are surprisingly similar at times), but just to give a sense of what kind of information carries from lifetime to lifetime even when you do not always need it. Knowledge of any kind has some transfer to new situations and expresses itself there. It is not a matter, too, of the knowledge being right or wrong, it is just a pattern of adaptation to the challenges of living that shape us and get carried forward. They are there if we know how to look for them.