As It Is

Yesterday I cooked a pot of pumpkin soup. My husband said it tasted a bit strange. I asked him what he meant by strange? He said it was tasteless. I told him that I cooked the same soup last year for a zen nun. She asked what I have put in for such a tasty pumpkin soup. My soup consisted of only pumpkin, potatoes and water and nothing else. I laughed at him and said because the nun can taste the soup as it is, not as what it should be. We often hear, see and feel the world around us as it should be. This is how our suffering begins. For example when we taste the pumpkin soup, we expect it as a French or traditional English pumpkin soup. It has to be as smooth and creamy as silk with right seasonings. Unlike my hand mashed pumpkin soup without any seasoning. We can use this analogy in parenting. Parents often have a set standard for their children. If their children are not up to their standards or expectations then they suffer. Parents are not the only ones who suffer their children are also the victims. As a parent why can't we accept our children as who they are? In most cases we are not able to accept our appearance, job, family, status in the society, etc, etc. Why should we match them/us with what the world has set for them/us?

All troubles begin with us not accepting things as they are. This is a very important factor in finding our inner peace and happiness if we can accept the phenomena as it is. To practise this we don't judge when our five senses come into contact with the outside world. For example our eyes see objects and we just see them as they are. Our mind has no judgement/comment on objects that we see. This applies to our hearing and touching/feeling senses. If we can do this then we see/hear/feel the world around us objectively. We give ourselves and the phenomena a fair go. Let's go back to the pumpkin soup example. We can taste the real taste of the pumpkin and potato, not the past pumpkin soup nor the future pumpkin soup. In this we make peace with ourselves as we enjoy our lives right here and now.

Gemstone

I recently bought a stone on eBay. I showed it to my girl. She just glimpsed it and ignored. I asked her about my stone. She said she wouldn't keep it even it is for free. I wonder how many people will recognise this stone other then the gemologists.

Do you know this is a brown star sapphire? It cannot be recognised easily because it is covered with dirt. Once it gets cut and polished, it will show its beauty and asterism under specific lighting.

Do you know we have a gemstone within us? We cannot recognise it because it gets covered with all sorts of thoughts. Thoughts belong to the past, future and present. We often do not give one second to ourselves to look at our gemstone within. We are too busy, too busy to think what are we going to have for dinner, too busy to think what we are going to do next, too busy for our work, too busy to be too busy. In the morning we are too busy to work. We don’t even give ourselves a good look in the mirror to look for our imperfections. We never slow down to see our gemstone within.

There was once a Buddhist monk who gave me a Geo stone. He asked me to tell him what message the stone gave. I examined it and opened it. I saw glittering crystals. I said "Don't judge people from outside". He said: "Yes, but that is one very important message." I said: "Our beauty is from within." He asked: "Yes, what beauty?" I said our kindness, compassion, love. He said one day I will truly understand.

Years passed and today I now know what our gemstone is called in Buddhist terms - our Buddha nature. This gemstone appeared in most of the Buddhist texts. How do we realise our Buddha nature? We need to give ourselves a little bit of time each day to relax our mind by letting go of our thoughts. There are techniques to train our mind to become quiet. We can only meet our Buddha nature with a calm and silent mind. According Buddhist texts this gemstone within us has ultimate wisdom - infinite light, infinite life.

A lesson from Ayya

My friend Chi, Nun Nibbida and I went to offer dana to Ayya Santacārī on 26/08/2017. Ayya talked about the future Buddhist youth weekend school and other stuff. One teaching that stuck in my mind was when Ayya gave a talk to a 16 year old boy. She said: “Before we do meditation we examine how much compassion is in our minds? How much calmness is in our minds? How much kindness is in our minds? How much anger is in our minds? How much agitation is in our minds? How much happiness is in our minds? After a good meditation we will examine again to see how much compassion is in our minds. How much calmness is in our minds? How much kindness is in our minds? How much anger is in our minds? How much agitation is in our minds? How much happiness is in our mind?

To me this should not only apply in a meditation session. We should apply this into our daily activities such as before we talk we should examine our stage of mind and after we talk we should examine again our stage of mind. By doing so we will then be able to clearly see the motives of our talk. For example when I say someone is not right. I examine what is the purpose of this when I say someone is not right? Is this because of my jealousy? Is this because I don’t like this person? Do I want to hurt this person? Is this the situation true? Even if the situation is true do I have to confront this person? How much kindness in my mind? How much happiness in my mind? After I have said it I should again examine what stage of my mind is in.

This is a very important lesson that I have learnt from Ayya. It is a very simple but effective way to examine the activities in our mind. With time and practice of knowing our minds we will be able to become masters of our minds instead of slaves to it

Lapidary Philosophy

A good lapidarist can always find their own faults in their work.
A good Buddhist can always see their own faults not others.

A good lapidarist can take in people's criticism so that they can improve their work.
A good Buddhist can take in people's criticism so that they can improve their practice.

No matter how ordinary a piece of stone is, a good lapidarist can turn it into a precious gem.
No matter how ignorant a person can be, a good teacher can lead them on the path to enlightenment.

It doesn't matter whether it is a precious gem or an ordinary stone once it is in your hand, you should treat it as precious as it can be.

A good lapidarist should treat each of their work as serious as can be.
A good Buddhist should treasure each duyen (faffinity) as no tomorrow.

No matter how sharp or rough a stone is, slowly with time under a turning wheel it will become smooth and round as it can be.
No matter how much defilements/bad habits we have, with time and consistent practice we will become a better happy person.

You cannot be a lapidarist master in 5 minutes. You have to learn it step by step under a good teacher's guidance.

The turning wheel or tumbler will smoothen any rough surface.
Sila (precepts) and samadhi (mindfulness) are just like the turning wheel, these will smoothen our craving, hatred and ignorance.

Lapidary is like meditation. You are fully aware the surface of the stone, the turning wheel and your hands. Without your full awareness you might chip off your finger nails or damage your stone.

A person is just like a rough piece of stone. It is full of sharp edges (ego) and covered with dirt (defilements). With good lapidary (Sila/precepts, samadhi/mindfulness and panna/wisdom) a stone will turn into a gem (a liberated happy person).

The harder you push your stone into the polishing wheel, the quicker it flicks out and as a result you will break your stone. You have to be slow, rolled, gentle and gentle to the wheel and your stone. The result will be brilliant if you are patient and gentle.