A Bodhisattva's Garland of Gems
(Byang-chub sems-dpa'i nor-bu'i phreng-ba, Skt. Bodhisattva-mani-avali)
by Atisha (Dipamkara Shrijnana)
translated by Alexander Berzin, 2004
(Source: The Berzin Archives)
I make prostration to great compassion.
I make prostration to the sublime teachers.
I make prostration to the Buddha-figures,
Those in whom to have belief.
(1) Let me rid myself of all indecisive wavering
And cherish being wholeheartedly earnest in my practice.
So, let me rid myself fully of being sleepy, foggyminded, and lazy,
And always make effort with joyful perseverance.
(2) Let me always safeguard the gateway of my senses
With mindfulness, alertness, and care.
So, let me check repeatedly the flow of my mind,
Three times each day and each night.
(3) Let me make my own failings be known
And seek not mistakes in others.
So, let me keep my own good qualities hidden
And make the good qualities of others be known.
(4) Let me rid myself of (desire for) material gain and honor
And always rid myself of (desire for) profit and fame.
So, let me have few desires, be content,
And show appreciation for the kind acts that've been done.
(5) Let me meditate on love and compassion
And stabilize my bodhichitta aim.
So, let me rid myself of the ten destructive actions
And make myself stable, always, with belief in fact.
(6) Let me overcome rage and pride
And come to have an attitude of humility.
So, let me rid myself of dishonest ways of living
And make my living with a livelihood that accords with the Dharma.
(7) Let me rid myself of all material burdens
And adorn myself with an aryas' gems.
So, let me rid myself of all bustling activities
And live in seclusion.
(8) Let me rid myself of idle words
And always restrain my speech.
So, when I see a sublime teacher or learned master,
Let me extend my service with respect.
(9) As for persons with the eye of the Dharma
And limited beings who are beginners,
Let me expand my discernment
Of them as my teachers.
(10) Whenever I see any limited beings,
Let me expand my discernment of them as my father,
my mother, my child or grandchild.
So, let me rid myself of misleading friends
And entrust myself to spiritual friends.
(11) Let me rid myself of hostility and uneasy mental states,
And go happily everywhere.
So, let me rid myself of whatever I'm attached to
And live without attachments.
(12) With attachment, I won't attain even a happy rebirth
And I'll cut off the life of my liberation, in fact.
So, wherever I see a Dharma measure (for bringing) happiness,
Let me exert effort always in that.
(13) Whatever I've undertaken to start with,
Let me accomplish that very thing first.
Everything, this way, will get accomplished well;
Otherwise, neither will come about.
(14) While still acting always negatively and parted from joy,
When a feeling of superiority arises about anything,
Let me cut off my pride and remember
My sublime teacher's guideline instructions.
(15) And when a feeling of discouragement arises,
Let me praise the glories of the mind
And meditate on the voidness of both (states).
(16) Whenever an object of attachment or hostility
arises in any situation,
Let me regard it like an illusion or a projection;
Whenever I hear unpleasant words,
Let me regard them like an echo;
And whenever harm happens to my body,
Let me regard it as (coming from) my previous karma.
(17) Let me step up to living in a sequestered place,
Outside the limits (of any town),
And, like a corpse of a dead game animal,
Hide myself in solitude and live without attachments.
(18) (There,) let me always be stable with my Buddha-figure
And whenever a feeling of laziness or exhaustion arises,
Let me enumerate my own shortcomings
And remind myself of the essential points
of taming behavior.
(19) But if I happen to see others,
Let me speak calmly, gently, and sincerely,
Rid myself of any frowns or closed-off expressions,
And always keep a smile.
(20) And when I'm continually seeing others,
Let me not be miserly, but take joy in giving,
And rid myself of all envy.
(21) In order to safeguard the minds of others,
Let me rid myself of all contention
And always have patient tolerance.
(22) Let me not be fawning, nor fickle in friendship,
But rather always stay faithful.
Let me rid myself of insulting others,
And keep a respectful manner.
Then, when imparting guideline instructions to others,
Let me have compassion and a mind to help.
(23) Let me never deny the Dharma and,
Setting my intention on whichever ones I fervently admire,
Let me make effort to split my days and nights
(Passing) through the gateways of the ten Dharma acts.
(24) Let me dedicate to great peerless enlightenment
As many constructive acts as I've amassed
throughout the three times,
And extend out to limited beings my positive force.
So, let me always offer the great prayer
Of the seven-part practice.
(25) Doing like that, let me complete my two networks
of positive force and deep awareness,
And deplete my two obscurations as well.
Thus, making my attainment of a human body meaningful,
Let me attain a peerless enlightenment.
(26) The gem of belief in fact, the gem of ethical self-discipline,
The gem of generosity, the gem of listening,
The gems of care for how my actions reflect on others
and of moral self-dignity,
And the gem of discriminating awareness make seven.
(27) These sacred gems
Are the seven gems that will never deplete.
They must not be mentioned to quasi-humans.
(28) When in the midst of many,
Let me keep a check on my speech;
When remaining alone,
Let me keep a check on my mind.
Notes
Verse 23:
The ten Dharma acts (chos-spyod rnam-bcu) are (1) copying scriptures, (2) making offerings to the Three Gems, (3) giving to the poor and sick, (4) listening to teachings, (5) reading scriptures, (6) taking to heart the essence of the teachings through meditating, (7) explaining the teachings, (8) reciting sutras, (9) thinking about the meaning of the texts, and (10) meditating single-pointedly on the meaning of the teachings.
Explanation of A Bodhisattva's Garland of Gems
(Berlin, Germany, November 2004)
Part 1 (8.4 MB) 0:35 hours mp3 audio
Part 2 (13.5 MB) 0:57 hours mp3 audio
Part 3 (13.7 MB) 0:58 hours mp3 audio
Part 4 (16.7 MB) 0:71 hours mp3 audio
--------------------------------------
Technorati: Buddhism Buddha Buddhist Dharma Compassion Wisdom Religion Meditation Zen Philosophy Spirituality Inspiration Peace Insight
Sunday, April 29, 2007
A Bodhisattva's Garland of Gems
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
The Eighty-Fourth Problem
Dear friends,
I'm not sure if Buddha really did have this conversation with the farmer, but I felt this is a good meaningful story so let's learn from it with an open mind.
With metta,
Colin
The Eighty-Fourth Problem
by Yin Yao Shakya, OHY
This essay is about problems - the kind we all share. Big ones and little ones, problems that we cause ourselves and problems that the world inflicts upon us.
A man once came to see the Buddha because he heard that the Buddha knew how to solve problems. The man had more trouble than he could handle and so he knelt and begged, "Lord, my life is nothing but conflict and sorrow. Help me to find peace."
The Buddha smiled. "Tell me what is wrong, my brother."
"I'm a farmer," said the man, "and a good one. I enjoy farming. But there is always trouble with the weather. Sometimes it doesn't rain enough and my crops die, and my family nearly starves. Other times it rains too much and my crops die, and my family nearly starves. No matter what I do, my livelihood brings me nothing but anxiety."
The Buddha listened quietly as the man continued.
"I have a wife and two children. I love them all, but sometimes being a husband and father is nothing but headaches! My wife nags me so much that if I lived to be a hundred I couldn't figure out all that she wants from me! And my children! They eat my food and spend my money, but they don't respect me or the land. They sit around, useless and greedy."
The Buddha nodded.
"And then there are my neighbors! This one steals my water; that one moves his fence onto my property. Another one drives his cattle across my field. And the worst of the lot has an idiot son who wants my precious daughter. I can't work my crops without having to argue with one of them about something."
The man went on this way, carefully cataloging all his troubles. After an hour or so he was nearly in tears, too agitated to speak. He bowed his head and waited for the Enlightened One to speak the words that would would end his suffering.
The Buddha said, "I'm sorry, brother. I cannot help you."
The man was incredulous."What do you mean, you can't help me?" And then, disgusted, he sneered, "What use are you if you can't even tell a simple farmer how to improve his life?" He stood up to leave.
The Buddha answered, "It's true that I can't help you. And I don't think anyone else can, either. But perhaps I can tell you how to get help from the one person who can help you... yourself."
The farmer sat down and listened.
"You," said the Buddha, "and everybody else who is born into this world of Samsara have been given Eighty-Three problems. You deal with them as best you can. Whether you merely survive them or whether you constructively work to solve them, you find that no sooner do you handle one problem, but another one instantly arises to take its place. That's how life is."
The farmer considered this. "Yes," he said. "but can we solve all Eighty-Three problems in this lifetime?"
"Ah, said the Buddha, "that's the trouble. Once solved, they don't stay solved. They keep coming back, sometimes in different places and sometimes with different people."
"Then, will I never be happy? Will these Eighty-Three problems hound me even to the grave?" Suddenly the farmer was angry. "What kind of teaching is this? What am I to do now?"
"Well," said the Buddha, "You can solve the Eighty-Fourth problem."
"Oh, wonderful!" said the man sarcastically. "Now I have Eighty-FOUR problems! And what might that problem be?"
"The Eighty-Fourth problem," replied the Buddha, "is deciding not to have any problems."
And that's about all there is to it.
Like all of us, the poor farmer had a lifetime's experience with trouble and frustration. Like us, he dreamed of putting an end to his problems once and for all. But like everyone else who comes to Buddhism, he had to progress beyond the First Noble Truth: Life in Samsara is bitter and painful.
The fact is, being a Buddhist doesn't take the problems of life away. A Buddhist still has work and family and traffic jams to deal with. Neither does Buddhism offer comforting, easy-to-digest solutions for each of the bitter problems life puts on our plate.
Buddhism teaches that troubles go with life like wetness goes with ocean. Only the dead have no problems. And certainly we can find no comfort in telling ourselves, "Well, the next life will be better." To be alive at any time and any place is to struggle. Life is struggle. It is our attitude towards life that determines whether or not we regard the struggle as trouble or challenge.
George Polya, that preeminent mathematical problem-solver, said, "A great discovery solves a great problem, but there is a grain of discovery in any problem." And this is Buddhism's approach: to embrace problems great and small and to seek in each of them that grain of discovery. There is great joy in solving a problem when we see that problem as the very source of its own solution.
We tend to lose perspective. We see an obstacle and are blinded to the fact that it is in being alive and in being able even to see the obstacle that we have the ability to surmount it.
Often the closest we come to dealing with a problem is to make it seem less significant than someone else's. We find comfort in cliches. "I cried because I had no shoes until I saw a man who had no feet." But Buddhism says, "Why do you cry because you have no shoes? Stop crying and find a way to get yourself some shoes. Solve the Eighty-Fourth problem first!"
Recently I saw a bunch of guys who had no feet. They were playing basketball in wheelchairs. They were laughing and whooping it up no differently from the way they'd have acted if they had been conducting their offense and defense on two feet each. These men were in that Eighty-Fourth moment, in the game, enjoying life.
The world is filled with men who have two feet but who enjoy nothing and complain about everything because they cannot find that seed-grain of discovery inside a single problem.
The men in the wheelchairs accepted what had been put on their plate and no matter how bitter it was, they let it nourish them. They found a way to solve their problem and to find the joy of discovery in that solution.
And this is what that farmer needed to do. Instead of complaining, he needed to respond to the weather's challenges by acquiring other skills, by seeing to it that he and his family learned trades or cottage crafts so that when drought or flood came they'd be able to continue to prosper. He needed to meet with his neighbors and discuss the solutions of law and mutual respect, of teamwork instead of opposition.
There is joy in discovery, in creating something new and useful, in accepting a challenge and involving ourselves constructively in its solution. We all need to solve the Eighty-Fourth problem first. It is Attitude. It is Grace. It is being grateful to be alive here and now and to be blessed with all life's other Eighty-Three challenges.
--------------------------------------
Technorati: Buddhism Buddha Buddhist Dharma Compassion Wisdom Religion Meditation Zen Philosophy Spirituality Inspiration Peace Insight
