The Mantra Om Mani Padme Hum, by The Dalai Lama

Posted on 21 January 2017 by Buddhism Now

It is beneficial to recite the mantra om mani padme hum, but while you are doing it, you should be thinking of its meaning, for the meaning of the six syllables is great and vast. The first, om, is composed of three letters, a, u, and m. These symbolise the practitioner’s impure body, speech, and mind; they also symbolise the pure exalted body, speech, and mind of a Buddha.

Can impure body, speech, and mind be transformed into the pure, or are they entirely separate? All Buddhas are cases of beings who were like ourselves and then in dependence on the path became enlightened; Buddhism does not assert that there is anyone who from the beginning is free from faults and possesses all good qualities. The development of pure body, speech, and mind comes from gradually leaving impure states and their being transformed into the pure.

"Conditions For Prosperity (sampatti) And Misfortune (vipatti)"

There are four conditions of sufficiency (sampatti), as well as four conditions of deficiency (vipatti), for all beings in samsara (their cycles of existences). In sampatti conditions kusala kamma has the opportunity to produce good results whereas in vipatti conditions akusala kamma plays a leading role in produce bad effects.

The Four Sampatti Conditions:

1) Gati sampatti (being reborn in a good plane of existence)
2) Upadhi sampatti (having pleasant physical features)
3) Kala sampatti (being reborn at a suitable time)
4) Payoga sampatti (having means or instruments knowledge, diligence)

The Four Vipatti Conditions:

1) Gati vipatti (being reborn in a woeful plane of existence)
2) Upadhi vipatti (having unpleasant physical features)
3) Kala vipatti (being reborn at unsuitable time)
4) Payoga vipatti (having no means of instruments knowledge, diligence)

It is a continuation

According to the Buddha, the birth of a human being is not a beginning but a continuation, and when we’re born, all the different kinds of seeds—seeds of goodness, of cruelty, of awakening—are already inside us. Whether the goodness or cruelty in us is revealed depends on what seeds we cultivate, our actions, and our way of life.

- Thich Nhat Hanh
(Photo: Béatrice Lechtanski)

Are nimittas essentials for Awakening?

“Most nimittas are bad for your development of meditation because they can be a distraction, misleading you out of the middle path.”

Question: Are nimittas essentials for Awakening?

Than Ajahn: Most nimittas are bad for your development of meditation because they can be a distraction, misleading you out of the middle path. The middle-path when you meditate is to enter into emptiness, into calm and peace. But when you start to sit and see all sorts of nimittas, and you start to go after them, then you will forget to meditate. And you will never be able to enter into full concentration, into the peace and happiness that arises from being fully concentrated. So when you meditate, should you have any nimitta, you should disregard them. Just concentrate on your meditation object. And if you do this, eventually this nimitta will disappear and your mind will then enter into full concentration. When it does that, you will have nothing left except emptiness, peace and upekkhā. And you can see the mind in its pure form, the one who knows, the knower. Then you will know the mind and the body are two separate things. During that time the body will disappear from the mind’s awareness. Then it will give you the capital or the strength, when you come out of the meditation, to let go of everything, because you know that the mind can be by itself and be happy. It doesn’t need to have anything.  - Ajahn Suchart Abhijāto

Are You Spiritual But Not Religious? 10 Reasons Why Buddhism Will Enrich Your Path

The number one reason is: “No God.” Number ten is: “It Works.” Melvin McLeod on what Buddhism can offer your spiritual path.

BY MELVIN MCLEOD| JANUARY 25, 2017 Lion's Roar

Painting by Michael Newhall

It wasn’t so long ago that most Americans took their religion for granted. You were born into a religion, you lived in it, and you died in it.

Except for a few daring freethinkers, that’s the way it was as recently as the 1950s, and that’s still the way it is in most of the world today. It’s the way we’ve related to religion for thousands of years. Until now. Today, a significant and growing number of Americans do not identify themselves as members of any religion.

In the light of interbeing

We should live our daily lives seeing everything in the light of interbeing. Then we will not be caught in our small selves. We will see our joy and our suffering everywhere.

- Thich Nhat Hanh
(Image: Catherine Nelson)

Life in Red – the Long Journey to really being Daughters of the Buddha

Posted on July 12, 2016 by ayyayeshe

I ordained as a nun in the Tibetan tradition with a heart filled with inspiration. I wanted to become a Buddha and benefit all beings. Tibetan monastics were the happiest people I had seen, or at least it looked that way to me when I traveled through the Himalayas aged 17. Liberating oneself from mental confusion, egotism, and negative emotions, and trying to be a clear mirror for other confused beings too, seemed the best use of my life.

Everything must be simple

China plans to destroy an ancient Buddhist city to get the copper buried there

Mariam Amini | @mariamamini   CNBC Wednesday, 1 Feb 2017 

Two Chinese state-owned mining companies plan to destroy an ancient Buddhist city in Afghanistan in order to get the copper underneath it, according to a new documentary

According to the film "Saving Mes Aynak," Metallurgical Group Corp. (MCC) and Jiangxi Copper are in the initial stages of building an open-pit copper mine 25 miles southeast of Kabul. The location is home to a walled Buddhist city that dates back 5,000 years.

According to the Afghan Ministry of Mines and Petroleum, the site is also home to the world's second-largest copper deposit. China is an importer of copper and a major global refiner of the industrial metal.

Monk-centric culture may be reason for Buddhist decline in S. Korea: expert

By Chang Dong-woo, Yonhap News, Jan 25, 2017

SEOUL, South Korea -- Korean Buddhism's monk-centric culture may be a major reason behind a steep drop in the country's Buddhist population in the last decade or so, a religious expert argued Wednesday.

"Many people consider Korean Buddhism a religion for monks. In Buddhist jargon, it's called monk-centric religion," said Park Soo-ho, a researcher at the Joong-Ang Sangha University's Institute of Buddhist Social Science at a pan-religion forum held in central Seoul. "On the outside, (the religion) claims to be a public communion, but in reality the orders are operated heavily around monks."

Who is our good friend ?

Sun sets on Bagan temple climbers

Tourists waiting to see the sunset from the top of Shwesandaw Pagoda in Bagan. Sunset viewing atop Bagan pagodas, which is a popular tourist drawcard, will soon be banned as part of Myanmar’s conservation drive. Photo: REUTERS

PUBLISHED:  FEBRUARY 4, 2017

BAGAN (Myanmar) — Sunrise and sunset viewings atop Bagan pagodas will soon be a thing of the past.

Cause and effect

Peaceful Uplifting Monasteries

The Blessed One said, "Monks, there are some brahmans & contemplatives who teach in this way, who have this view: 'Whatever a person experiences — pleasure, pain, or neither pleasure nor pain — all is caused by what was done in the past.

R E S P E C T

R E S P E C T
ภาพยนตร์สั้น “Respect” เป็นภาคต่อเนื่องจากเรื่องแรก “ทำกันขนาดนี้เลยหรือ” ในเรื่องนี้เราได้อาสาหนุ่มลูกครึ่งไทย-สเปน ผู้มีความศรัทธาในพระพุทธศาสนามาเป็นผู้ดำเนินเรื่องราว

“ชายหนุ่มนักท่องเที่ยวชาวต่างชาติที่เดินทางมาท่องเที่ยววัดที่เมืองไทยกับการได้พบการกราบเคารพอย่างสุดจิตสุดใจของหญิงชราที่มีต่อพระพุทธรูปซึ่งเปรียบเสมือนพระสัญลักษณ์แห่งพระพุทธเจ้า ซึ่งได้เปลี่ยนจิตวิญญาณของชายหนุ่มผู้นี้อย่างสิ้นเชิง..

ทางมูลนิธิโนอิ้ง บุดด้า ขอขอบคุณผู้มีส่วนเกี่ยวข้องที่ทำให้เกิดภาพยนตร์สั้นที่ถ่ายทอดเรื่องราวได้อย่างงดงามที่สุด ในการปลุกจิตสำนึกของคนในสังคมถึงการเคารพในสิ่งที่พึงเคารพ

Respect is Common sense
ขอขอบคุณ :
โครงเรื่อง/กำกับ : คุณอมร หะริณนิติสุข
ประสานงานหลัก : คุณอัครเดช จันทรเดชา, คุณมลธิรา โยธี
ดูแลการแสดง : คุณอัฐมา ชีวนิชพันธ์
นักแสดงหลัก : คุณสันติ ตีรณกุล
คุณยาย : คุณปราณี แซ่ฮ้อ
ช่างร้านสัก : คุณไพโรจน์ เจี่ยวงศ์
ทีมงาน KBO : คุณพัทธดนย์ แสงเดือน, คุณพิมพ์ชนก ฐานิตสรณ์ ,คุณพรนภา ฮ้อแสงชัย
เอื้อเฟื้อสถานที่ : วัดสุวรรณาราม ราชวรวิหาร

#ทำกันขนาดนี้เลยหรือ #respect
ลิ้งค์ภาพยนตร์สั้นชุดแรก "ทำกันขนาดนี้เลยหรือ "https://goo.gl/fAfZ4t

R E S P E C T

Short film, "Respect" is a part of the ongoing series of "Let's do this". 

" a foreign tourist during his travel trip visited a temple in Thailand. While observing an old lady bowing with devotion to the Lord Buddha.....changes his outlook and respect........


Respect is Common sense …

Location - courtesy of: Wat suwan. Ram Royal Temple.
#ทำกันขนาดนี้เลยหรือ #respect

https://www.facebook.com/5000sMagazine/videos/1081948445282910/

A Buddhist Tradition to Save Animals Has Taken an Ugly Turn

By Jani Actman, National Geographic News, January 23, 2017

What began as a quest to protect wildlife is now killing animals and harming ecosystems.

Hong Kong, China -- Claudia He Yun recently witnessed an incident outside a Buddhist temple in the Tiantai Mountains, in eastern China, that disturbed her: a group of people about to place a laptop-size turtle in a shallow moat surrounding the property. A monk stood with them reciting something, possibly a blessing for the turtle.

A Buddhist monk in Beijing, China, prepares to release turtles into the sea. Conservationists say that too often "mercy releases" end up harming animals.
Photograph by EyePress, AP

“It was probably a sea turtle and it will probably die,” says He Yun, who leads the China program for the Alliance of Religions and Conservation, an organization that works to engage religious communities in environmental issues. “Presumably this thing happens all the time - we were just there for a few hours.”

South Korea Can Keep Buddhist Statue Stolen From Japan, Court Says

By CHOE SANG-HUN, New York Times, Jan 26, 2017

SEOUL, South Korea -- A court ruled Thursday that a South Korean temple can have a Buddhist statue that was stolen from a Japanese temple in 2012, on the grounds that it had been taken from Korea centuries earlier by Japanese pirates.

Sekko Tanaka, a Buddhist monk on the Japanese island of Tsushima, in 2013, holding a photograph of a Buddhist statue that was stolen the year before. Credit Ko Sasaki for The New York Times 

Japan called the ruling “regrettable” and urged the statue’s return. The dispute is being closely watched by both governments, whose relations are often roiled by historical disputes.

Why I became a Buddhist nun

By Ven. Thubten Chokyi, Presented by Kimberly Gillan, SBS, Jan 31, 2017

After 49 colourful years working in theatre and academia, Venerable Thubten Chokyi became a Buddhist nun so she could devote the rest of her life to the service of others. This is her story.

New South Wales, Australia -- I grew up a Catholic and considered becoming a Catholic nun but ended up pursuing theatre instead, because I always loved singing and dancing.

"I am a feminist and recognise that in Buddhism, we still have a bit of a way to go [on gender equality]."

Over the years, I moved away from Catholicism in adulthood and started looking into contemplative traditions, including Hinduism and Sufism, but it was Buddhism that I was really taken with. I became a Buddhist when I was in my 30s and continued with my singing and dancing, plus teaching Aboriginal Studies at the University of NSW.

But as time went on, it became more evident to me that I wanted to take an oath and become ordained as a Buddhist nun.

One instruction at a time

Just start with mindfulness first

“You must start your mindfulness first. You should ask your mind: ‘where am I? Am I with the body? Or am I with the mantra? Or am I thinking about this or that?’”

A small bronze Buddha

Posted on 27 January 2017 by Buddhism Now

This small bronze Buddha (16.8 cm) is probably one of the earliest (1st to mid-2nd century) iconic representations of Shakyamuni from Gandhara. He sits in a yogic posture holding his right hand in abhaya mudra (a gesture of approachability); his unusual halo has serrations that indicate radiating light. His hairstyle, the form of his robes, and the treatment of the figure reflect stylistic contacts with the classical traditions of the West. This Buddha shows closer affinities to Roman sculpture than any other surviving Gandharan bronze.

Plans unveiled for Buddhist meditation centre in Highland woodland

by Calum Ross, Aberdeen Journals, January 13, 2017

Plans have been unveiled for a new Buddhist meditation retreat centre in a Highland woodland.

Aberdeen, Scotland -- 'The charity Gomde Trust Scotland has applied for permission to build 17 huts in a forest a mile east of Auldearn.

The proposal has been developed over the last nine years, since the group purchased 48 acres of woodland in the area.

Councillors have been urged to approve the scheme when they discuss the development at a meeting next week.

Speaking to the Press and Journal yesterday from Nepal where volunteers are helping local residents recover from a devastating earthquake, group trustee Helen Cawley said she hoped the retreat would prove popular with local and international guests.