Six Principles of Enlightened Living - Buddha Mind, Buddha Body

This is a small part of the text in the book of "Buddha Mind, Buddha Body". I borrow most of my books from County Library, therefore I do not possess the book to refresh my mind of what I have learned six months later. The way to help me practice this profound teachings of "Buddha Mind, Buddha Body" is to painstakingly copying down in my journal so that I can remind myself from time to time. I found the message down-to-earth common sense. But in the midst of my busy daily living, how easily I forget them.

" You Must Know Yourself, Know Your Weakness" - E. J Gold
--------------------------------------------------------------------

• Giving

The first practice is the practice of giving. It is wonderful to give. When you are angry with someone, you have the tendency to punish him or her. You want to deprive him or her of this and of that; that is our natural tendency. But if you can bring yourself to give him or her something, your anger will vanish and you will go to the other shore right away, the shore of non-anger. Try it. Suppose from time to time, you get angry of your partner and you know that it will happen again in the future. So,you go and buy or you make a gift and you hide it somewhere. Next time you get angry at him or her, don't do or say anything, just take the gift and give it to him. You will no longer be angry with him. That is the recommendation of the Buddha.

The Buddha taught us many ways to deal with our anger, and this is one of the ways. When you are very angry of someone, give him something, give her something; practice generosity. You don't need to be rich in order to practice giving. You don't have to go to supermarket in order to make a gift. The way you look at him is already a gift. There is compassion in your eye. The way you speak is a gift, because what you say is so sweet, is so liberating. A letter you write her can also be a gift. We are very wealthy in terms of thinking, in terms of speech, in terms of action; We can always be generous. Don't be thrifty. You can give at anytime, and that will inspire the happiness of people around you. Always give, and you become richer and richer every moment. That is the first practice of giving.

• The Mindfulness Training

The second practice is the practice of mindfulness training. The practice of mindfulness training is also a gift- a gift to you and a gift to people you love. If you abide by the practice of mindfulness trainings, you protect yourself, you make yourself beautiful, you make yourself wholesome, you make yourself safe, and that will support the happiness of the other people. By practicing the mindfulness trainings, you are protected by the energy of buddha, the dharma, you will not create suffering for yourself and for people around you. The mindfulness training deal with integrity, honesty and compassion. They encompass protecting life, preventing war and destruction of life, practicing generosity, preventing sexual misconduct, practicing mindful, loving speech and deep listening, and practicing mindful consumption.

• Inclusiveness

The third principle is the practice of inclusiveness, the practice of helping your heart to grow larger and larger all the time. How can we help our hearts to grow eneryday , to be able to embrace everything? When your heart is big, you have a lot of understanding and compassion, and then there is no problem, you don"t suffer, and you embrace him or her because your heart is big. We suffer because our heart is small. And we demand that the other person should change in order to be accepted by us. But when our heart is large, we don"t put forth any conditions, we accept them as they are, and they have a chance to transform. The secret is how to grow our hearts.

Helping our heart to grow big is the capacity of embracing everyone, everything, you don"t exclude anyone. Whatever a person's color, religion, or political beliefs, you accept them all with no discrimination whatsoever. Inclusiveness here means nondiscrimination.

• Diligence

When we study consciousness in buddhism, we understand the meaning of diligence in terms of Store consciousness (Subconsciousness), in terms of seeds. In our subconsciousness there are seeds of suffering and seeds of happiness, wholesome and unwholesome seeds. The practice of diligence consists of watering the wholesome seeds.

First of all, arrange your life in a way that the bad seeds will have no chance to manifest. This takes a little bit of organization. We have to organize our life, our environment in such a way that the seed of violence, the seed of anger, the seed of despair in us has no chance to be watered. There are those of us who live in the kind of environment where negative seeds are watered every day. And of by chance the negative seeds have been watered and manifest, what should you do? Arrange so that they can go back to their form of seeds as quickly as possible.

• Meditation

Meditation means to generate the energy of mindfulness and to maintain concentration. With mndfulness you can get in touch with the wonderful events of life for your nourishment and healing. Concentration helps you to look at everything deeply in order to discover the nature of impermanence, non-self and inter-being.

• Wisdom

We cultivate mindfulness, we cultivate concentration and understanding, and wisdom is the fruit of our cultivation. Wisdom is the fruit as well as the means to reach liberation. When w live deeply every moment with mindfulness, concentration and understanding, your insight grows. It is our understanding that brings compassion, that liberate us from afflictions like fear, like anger.