Finding Happiness

Many believe that happiness is only possible when they have achieved certain objectives: finding a loving partner, landing a well paid job, attaining status at work or in the community, buying a new car, having nice holiday. I believe happiness, joy and peace come from being completely present in the Here and Now. Peace and happiness arise from the simplicity of just being and avoiding the internal mental commentary we carry in our minds through out our daily lives.

Happiness can be achieved directly, in any circumstances, right now. It is not an objective that you reach after long endurance, but a process that you participate in here and now. It is under your nose. True happiness is a peaceful state which arises when the anxieties of everyday life are quietened. A happy mind is naturally a peaceful mind.

From the moment of our birth, our minds become full of habits; the habit of unhappiness arises when our mind is focused on past unhappy experiences or fears about the future. When we dwell on our habitual unhappy mind, we fail to see that suffering is often the result of wrong perceptions. By focusing on and practising positive states of mind, we encourage our own mind to make new habits, "happy habits", and we begin to transform our lives. Therefore happiness is not a matter of faith, but a matter of practice.

Springtime at Bystock Lake (The Wood Element)

Walking beside Bystock Lake in early spring with the sound of wood peckers drumming on dead wood, fighting mallard ducks trying to establish territories and Great tits and Chaffinches darting through the trees. I try to look at Bystock Lake with my knowledge of the Chinese “Five Elements”.



The Wood Element
The element associated with spring is “Wood,” an Immature Yang element, influencing the climate with Wind and Coolness. The dominant colures are bright blues in the sky and greens of buds as they begin to fill and open. Anger is found in the emotions as “sap rises” and males in their peak physical condition fight for mates or to protect their females like the mallard ducks on the lake chasing off the other males they see as threats and the chaffinches darting from tree to tree calling to attract the females and establish territories.



We look the east to welcome the early morning sun, a sign that winter is ending and warmer weather is on its way and with the warmer weather the birth of the next offspring. Deep in the water vibrant green water lily leaves push their way upwards to the surface of the lake to catch spring sunshine.

The Fu organ associated with spring and the wood element is the Gall Bladder, the “minister of justice” and within the organism, directs the impulses of all other organs. The gall bladder is paired with the Liver. If it is the ability of the liver to plan then it is the ability of the Gall Bladder to “Decide” hence the term “Minister of Justice”

The Hart Sutra

Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva
when practicing deeply the Prajna Paramita
perceives that all five skandhas are empty
and is saved from all suffering and distress.

Shariputra,form does not differ from emptiness,
emptiness does not differ from form.
That which is form is emptiness,
that which is emptiness form.

The same is true of feelings,
perceptions, impulses, consciousness.

Shariputra,
all dharmas are marked with emptiness;
they do not appear or disappear,
are not tainted or pure,
do not increase or decrease.

Therefore, in emptiness no form, no feelings,
perceptions, impulses, consciousness.
No eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind;
no color, no sound, no smell, no taste, no touch,
no object of mind;
no realm of eyes
and so forth until no realm of mind consciousness.

No ignorance and also no extinction of it,
and so forth until no old age and death
and also no extinction of them.
No suffering, no origination,
no stopping, no path, no cognition,
also no attainment with nothing to attain.

The Bodhisattva depends on Prajna Paramita
and the mind is no hindrance;
without any hindrance no fears exist.
Far apart from every perverted view one dwells in Nirvana.

In the three worldsall Buddhas depend on Prajna Paramita
and attain Anuttara Samyak Sambodhi.

Therefore know that Prajna Paramita
is the great transcendent mantra,
is the great bright mantra,
is the utmost mantra,
is the supreme mantra which is able to relieve all suffering
and is true, not false.

So proclaim the Prajna Paramita mantra,
proclaim the mantra which says:
gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha
gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha
gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha.

The Hart Sutra
The Heart Sutra is regarded as the summation of the wisdom of the Buddha. It expresses the insight attained by non-attachment and the doctrine of emptiness. The Heart Sutra is said to be the shortest and the most popular sutra in Buddhism. The Diamond Sutra in about 5000 words summarizes the six hundred volumes of the Maha Prajna Sutra, and the Heart Sutra in around 250 words summarizes the Diamond Sutra. There are many translations of the Heart Sutra and this one was for me the easiest to learn, (even though it may not be an accurate translation from the Sanskrit). There are many commentaries on the Heart Sutra, the following translation is one I found in Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_Sutra)

The Heart Sutra introduces the bodhisattva of compassion, Avalokiteśvara, who in this case is representing the faculty of prajña (wisdom). His analysis of phenomena is that there is nothing which lies outside the five aggregates of human existence (skandhas) — form (rūpa), feeling (vedanā), volitions (samskārā), perceptions (saṁjñā), and consciousness (vijñāna).
Avalokiteśvara then addresses Śariputra, who in this text — as with many other Mahāyāna texts — is a representative of the Early Buddhist schools, described in many other sutras as being the Buddha's foremost disciple in wisdom. Avalokiteśvara famously states that, "form is emptiness (Śūnyatā) and emptiness is form" and declares the other skandhas to be equally empty — that is, without an independent essence. Avalokiteśvara then goes through some of the most fundamental Buddhist teachings such as the Four Noble Truths and explains that in emptiness none of these labels apply. This is traditionally interpreted as saying that Buddhist teachings, while accurate descriptions of conventional truth, are mere statements about reality — they are not reality itself — and that they are therefore not applicable to the ultimate truth that is by definition beyond dualistic description. Thus the bodhisattva, as the archetypal Mahāyāna Buddhist, relies on the perfection of wisdom, defined in the larger Perfection of Wisdom sutras to be the wisdom that perceives reality directly without conceptual attachment. This perfection of wisdom is condensed in the mantra with which the Sutra concludes.

Amongst White Clouds

On returning from my morning walk I found a package from Canada in the mail box, the DVD "Amongst White clouds" has finally arrived. Since the time of the Yellow Emperor, some five thousand years ago, China’s remote Zhongnan Mountains have been home to recluses, enlightened Buddhist and Taoist Masters, monks and students who live in isolated hermitages dotting the peaks and valleys of the Zhongnan Mountain range. "Amongst White Clouds" shows the tradition of China's forgotten Zen Buddhist hermit’s of the Zhongnan Mountains, the hardship they endure as well as the joy, humour and compassion of the everyday lives of the Buddhist monks living in the Zhongnan Mountains.

The film was inspired by the book "Road to Heaven, encounters with Chinese Hermits" by Bill Porter. Road to Heaven is a brilliant book with lots of stories about the lives of early and present day Buddhist and Taoist hermit monks, Temples in the Zhongnan mountains. The sad part about the book is the lack of references, there are a few but I would like to follow the thread of some of the stories, eg. The meeting of the 88 year old Lao-tzi with the young Confucius (p37), and an interesting link between Taoism and Buddhism “After Lao-tzu joined the immortals, he was reborn Shakyamuni…” (p63). The recorded dialogue between Bill Porter and the Buddhist and Taoist hermit monks and their life in the Chungnan Mountains makes for interesting reading

In my view the film adds extra colour to the book, but in its own right the film is fascinating.

http://www.amongstclouds.com/

Yin and Yang and the Wu-Hsing Theory

"The terms Yin, the dark and Yang, the light, denote respectively the shadowed and light side of a mountain or a river. Yang represents the south side of the mountain, because this side receives the sunlight, but it connotes the north side of the river, because the light of the river is reflected to that side. The reverse is true as regards yin. The terms are gradually extended to include the two polar forces of the universe which we may call positive and negative."
WILHELM 1967 p297-298)

Ancient Chinese philosophers and sages are thought to have collected and first written down observations of the natural world around them during the Qin and Han dynasties (221BCE and 220CE). Their collection of writings formed the basis of the Chinese classic the “I-Ching” or Book of Changes. The sages believed that everything in the universe can be described in terms of a polar combination of entities which they called “Yin” and “Yang” and the Wu-hsing or five element theory which described a clyclic process of energy transformation of five basic types of energy, Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and Water.

Yin and Yang Theory
Yin and Yang formed the basis of a system in which all phenomena can be described in complementary groups, a natural law of opposites. According to theory, all things and phenomena in the universe contain two polar aspects, “Yin” and “Yang” that are both seen as being complementary to each other and at the same time, in opposition to each other, that is, one cannot exist without the other. It would be impossible for us to have any concept of “day” if we had no concept of “night” to compare it with, hot cannot exist without cold, and good can not exist with out evil. Yin and Yang are therefore both interdependent, and in conflict with each other.

Just as one side of a mountain faces south and is warmed by the sun, the north remains in the shade and is cooler. Yin and Yang are not mutually exclusive, within Yin there is an element of Yang and within Yang an element of Yin. Yin and yang are usually held in balance, that is, as one increase’s, the other decreases.

The interrelationships of every thing that exists can be expressed in the form of Yin and Yang and are represented as complementary and opposite entities and maybe expressed in tabular form, two broad categories of complementary terms, the list below is only a representation of the Yin and Yang phenomena and is by no means exhaustive.

Yin / Yang
Female / Male
Dark / Light
Cold / Hot
Rest / Movement
Static / Dynamic
Moon / Sun
Earth / Heaven
North / South
West / East
Winter / Summer
Solid (Liquid) / Vapour (Gas)
Condensation / Evaporation
Contraction / Expansion
Descending / Ascending
Below / Above
Lower part / Upper part
Left / Right
Night / Day
Water / Fire
Yielding / Resistance
Soft / Hard
Passive / Aggressive
Introverted / Outgoing
Quiet / Loud
Slow / Fast
Even / Odd
Wet / Dry
Chronic / Acute

Lunar Eclipse

Whilst I was offering incense to Buddha out side in the garden at 0530 this morning I became aware at just how bright the moon was in the sky, it was casting my shadow across the garden and on to a wall. When I looked in the direction of the moon, I saw it was almost a perfect sphere under the loest branch of our neighbours cherry tree, beautiful. I then savoured its beauty, captivated by the moon and the tree and the sound of birds and started to laugh as I remembered the story of when the famous Japanese scholar Kameda Bosai paid a visit to the Zen master and poet Ryokan.

Bosai found Ryokan sitting zazen on the porch of his hut, and waited—several hours—for the monk to finish, and then Bosai and Ryokan happily talked poetry, philosophy, and writing until evening, Ryokan rose to fetch them some sake from town. Again Bosai waited several hours, then grew concerned and began to walk toward the village. When he found Ryokan, a hundred yards away, sitting under a pine tree, he exclaimed, "Ryokan! Where have you been? I’ve been waiting for hours and was afraid something had happened to you." Ryokan looked up. "Bosai, you have just come in time. Look, isn’t the moon splendid tonight?" When Bosai asked about the sake, Ryokan replied, "Oh, yes, the sake. I forgot all about it," and headed off to town.

To be distracted by life’s moments is indeed a Zen virtue, though it is often a trial for friends.

In the evening I sat out on the beach watching the Lunar eclipse...............beautiful......look, isn't the moon splended tonight......

The thief left it behind

The moon

At the window.

Ryokan

Photo: Matt Ohman, Somerset.