Buddha's Words...

A man asked Lord Buddha
"I want happiness."
Lord Buddha said first
remove "I" that's ego.
Then remove "want"
that's desire. See now
you are only left with
"Happiness".

Diligence in action...

Do not wait another second to practice. Do something about it immediately.
Totally abandon worldly activities and devote yourself to the practice of the Dharma right now. Otherwise you will never find the time -- one worldly activity will follow another , endlessly like ripples on the water. They will only stop when you decide once and for all to put an end to them.

As the omniscient Lonchenpa says:
Worldly preoccupations never end until the moment we die
But they end when we drop them -- such is their nature.
Patrul Rinpoche.

10 Virtuous Activities

There are ten virtuous activities that you should engage in to produce the cause for buddhahood.

The first is writing, specifically the writing down of scriptures, the buddha's teachings and in general anything that has to do with dharma;
The second is offering to the three jewels;
The third is generosity;
The fourth is attentiveness to dharma discourse;
The fifth, recitation of dharma, for example, reading the kangyur;
The sixth is memorization;
The seventh is teaching others;
The eighth , reciting prayers;
The ninth, contemplation upon the meaning;
and the Tenth, meditation upon the meaning.

Karma

As a Buddhist, someone who believes in the law of cause and result, you should know that every time you feel discontent, every time you suffer, it is only because you have accumulated non virtue in the past. You have accumulated the cause and your suffering is the condition and result of what you yourself have done. There is no such thing as a fruit( or result) without a seed; nothing happens without a cause.

Gyatrul Rinpoche.

Impermanence

Whatever is born is impermanent and is bound to die,
Whatever is stored up is impermanent and is bound to run out,
Whatever comes together is impermanent and is bound to come apart.
Whatever is built is impermanent and is bound to collapse.
Whatever rises up is impermanent and is bound to fall down.
So also, friendship and enmity, fortune and sorrow, good and evil, all the thoughts that run through your mind-- everything is always changing.

How to strenghten Dharma Practise

When a seed is sown ,it takes some time to bear flowers and fruits. Just we have to provide favorable conditions( proper water , sunlight etc.) for that seed to grow.
Similar is Dharma practice also. when one starts doing it, immediately nobody(neither the practitioner nor others) can see any change or transformation but we should not get disappointed and should continue our practice with more diligence and gradually we will notice some changes. Now we can understand the situations more clearly; how situations/ people propel us to lose our mindfulness and act in more afflictive way, atleast understanding of this is also a great achievement on the path of Dharma.
Once we understand this , we can reflect more on the Theory of karma and understand that whatever, good or bad , is coming in life is all because of our past actions/ speech/thoughts.
Usually we don't dig ourselves to see our mistakes, but if we can do that we will find that most of the bad situations/people we are facing, similar or almost similar bad things we have done to others in this lifetime only.
We should understand that non virtues can never give us happiness but can give only suffering , so we should pracice to be virtuous all the time.
When we live with this attitude ,we can see that even similar bad situations are no longer causing us suffering , because now we have proper understanding. And we can observe that the seed of Dharma is growing within us.

Autobiography in 5 chapters

Autobiography in five chapters:

1. I walk down the street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk I fall in. I am lost ... I am hopeless. It isn't my fault. It takes forever to find a way out.

2. I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I pretend I don't see it. I fall in again. I can't believe I'm in the same place. But it isn't my fault. It still takes a long time to get out.

3. I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I see it is there. I still fall in ... it's a habit My eyes are open I know where I am It is my fault. I get out immediately.

4. I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk I walk around it.

5. I walk down another street.

Reflection can slowly bring us wisdom. We can come to see we are falling again and again into fixed repetitive patterns, and begin to long to get out of them. We may, of course, fall back into them, again and again, but slowly we can emerge from them and change.

Power of Compassion ...

Compassion is the wish-fulfilling gem whose light of healing spreads in all directions. There is a very beautiful story that illustrates this. Buddha once recounted one of his previous lives, before he became enlightened. A great emperor had three sons, and the Buddha had been the youngest, who was called Mahasattva. Mahasattva was by nature a loving and compassionate little boy, and thought of all living things as his children.
One day the emperor and his court went to picnic in a forest, and the princes went off to play in the woods. After a while they came across a tigress who had given birth, and was so exhausted with hunger that she was on the point of eating her little cubs. Mahasattva asked his brothers:
"What would the tigress need to eat now to revive her?"
"Only fresh meat or blood", they replied.
"Who could give his own flesh and blood to see that she is fed and save the lives of her and her cubs?" he asked.
"Who indeed?" they replied.
Mahasattva was deeply moved by the plight of the tigress and her cubs, and started to think: " For so long I have been wandering uselessly through samsara, life after life, and because of my
desire, anger and ignorance , have done little to help other beings. Here at last is a great opportunity."
The princes were walking back to join their family, when Mahasattva said: "You two go on ahead. I will catch you up later." Quietly he crept back to the tigress, went right up to her, and lay down on the ground in front of her, to offer himself to her as food. The tigress looked at him,
but was so weak that she could not even open her mouth. So the prince found a sharp stick and cut a deep gash in his body; the blood flowed out, the tigress licked it, and she grew strong enough to open her jaws and eat him.
Mahasattva had given his body to the tigress in order to save her cubs, and through the great
merit of his compassion, he was reborn in a higher realm and progressed toward his enlightenment and his rebirth as the Buddha.
What a vision this story gives us of how vast and mysterious the power of compassion truly is !

An explanation of suffering

In a way, all-pervasive suffering so thoroughly impregnates our world that we have become numb to it. Part of the reason that we do not realize it is that we have no awareness of any other spectrum of life and so have nothing with which to compare our own.

So let us consider our situation from the perspective of the gods. Imagine that we have a rainbow-like "light-body" like those possessed by beings in the realm of the gods. It is a non-physical body of light that enables us to fly through space where ever we move or travel. There is no darkness around us and no need for the light of sun or moon, as our own body-light illuminates the area around us. There is no physical pain and pressure as our body is immaterial , intangible, and indestructible. We enjoy it for years. Then one day this light-body suddenly changes into a body of flesh, bone and blood wrapped in a bag of skin and filled with all kinds of filth. We cannot move except by measuring the ground with the two bone-poles of the legs, step by step. We cannot see anything if there is no light from other sources. We could easily be crushed , smashed flat, pierced through, broken into parts, or cut into pieces, never to heel or walk again, if we do not carefully watch, avoid, and negotiate everything all the time. This would be an intolerable form of suffering.

Of course, the gods happiness cannot compare to the joy of the ultimate state.

- TULKU THONDUP

We are more than this body...

We are trained since our childhood to take good care of our health(physical) and our belongings . We like doing many things.... like indulging in different variety of foods, buying stylish clothes, watching good cinema, going for party and many other things we do just to satisfy our outer or physical needs.
But I wonder why do we not accept people when they die. here by accepting I mean why can't we show same love, same care, same behavior for a dead body of our loved one.... When we say a person is no more... what is there that is no more.... his/her body is in front of you lying still on the ground..... then why do we say a person has died........ ???? This means that there is something more than body in us.... that we call mind (soul ).
Once we recognize the real part of us, then we need to check what we are doing for that portion of ourselves in this life.....
Nature of our mind is love and kindness, when we were child our body wanted to grow and our mind wanted to expand, to reach more people.... we all were very friendly and loving in our childhood , even to strangers we would have passed smile and made friends....
But we were nourished in such a way that only our body grew but true nature of mind shrinked as the time passed..... Now we are so closed that we raise doubts even if somebody loves us or wants to help us , we try hard to find others ulterior motives, we always think for ourself first, we have ill-will for others.
This is happening with all of us and will continue to happen until we stop and think for a while that there is need for nourishment for our mind also......
There is need to calm down the mind, control the negative aspect of mind(which is selfishness within us).There are many spiritual paths .... which can work on our mind and make it more happy , contented, loving and kind for all. We need to search it.....

True Happiness.....

True happiness is not something that can be brought by money.... sometimes the poor people are more happy and enjoying their life more than the rich ones......
Today I talked with my maid and came to know that she and her husband after 14-15 years of marriage still eat together both the meals..... I was wondering that how happy she is...... she even laughs more than me...... she looks like contented.....
On the other side....... we are so much determined to make so much of money that in the process we miss many small pleasures of life...
I was reading a book "The monk who sold his ferrari" By Robin Sharma and got something very interesting......it says.... " The moment I stopped spending so much time chasing the big pleasures of life, I began to enjoy the little ones, like watching the stars dancing in moonlit sky or soaking in the sunbeams of a glorious summer morning "
And it's really true........

True value of money.....

One day my husband asked a question.... If every one (human) on this earth is given a huge amount of money and asked not to come for work just stay at home and enjoy then how will it be ????
When, everyone has a lot of money and no worry to go for work.... then neither farmers will go to their farms.... vegetables, grains and other things will not be cultivated , business person , shopkeepers etc. will not open their shops ....we may not get food (neither from store not from restaurant) clothes, books, electronic items, cinemas, malls,schools, colleges, jewelery shops,recreation centers.. everything will be closed..... Now we have money but don't have the things to spend it on.... then we may realize the true value of money.
Money in itself is nothing...... if one day whole world stops working then there is no value of money...
Money is valuable only because we work...... otherwise it's just a piece of paper.... which we cannot eat , can't drink, can't wear , it can't provide shelter, we can't play with, ,they can't provide us knowledge ...... nothing can be done with it.

Shifted House....

Sometimes I think what is more important -- money/valuables or happiness/life of a living being , well if the choice is between our money and our loved ones life,,, then surely life/happiness will be more important to us rather than money..... but if the choice is between our money/valuables and life of others(who are not closely related to us) then we may give more importance to our money.
Recently I shifted my house. I was quite happy with the guys(movers & packers) work .... they were putting all their effort .... packing and moving such heavy things(furniture and interiors etc.) from second floor all by stairs is not easy , and even I felt pity on them that I am paying much but they may get less as the company owner will take more profit from that......
They wrapped all the crockery items into paper then put them into the cartons ....suddenly a thought arise in my mind..... what if he dropped that carton and all my crockery gets broken.... he didn't do that but It's quite natural that if he would have done that....most of us in that case would have got angry and asked the person to work properly.... and all the pity feeling would have gone..
This happens when we are paying for somebody's work..... we think that they are working only for money(which is true) and good behavior from our side towards them is a bonus... if they do their work without any error then they may deserve the bonus otherwise no bonus for them ... which is wrong.... because if we compare money to any living being.... living being is always more precious..... because money in itself is nothing....
(I am not sure that it happens in developed countries also.... but in developing countries and other poor countries.... I guess it happens...)

Remembering Neha Tyagi............

Very shocked to know that one of my old friend is no more.......... as I heard the news questions arised...... she was too young to die naturally.......
She was very friendly , very sweet , very helpful girl..... I still remember.... when I got chicken pox in 10th standard......she was the only girl to visit me in the hospital (where i was admitted).... other friends and roommates were so scared to get infection from me.... so they ... (I guess )came only once... but this girl came to see me daily in evenings.... and read all the notes loudly to me ,sitting a meter or 2 away from me...( we were in hostel , and 10th grade exams were scheduled )... Our hostel was far from hospital... this girl came regularly riding her bicycle.... sometimes twice a day...
That time she proved that she is the real friend in need..........
I know that if it was not me somebody else was admitted in the hospital she would have gone and helped her with the same friendliness........ Because it was her nature..... always friendly ready to help... smiling......always.........
She was a die heart Shahrukh fan.... We teased her a lot for that.......
Later , we moved into different directions in life..... but one thing I can say very confidently... that she can't make any enemy............

The most shocking news is that ...she was poisoned..........

What is Yoga?

Yoga is not mere a physical exercise , which helps you to keep fit , it is more than that. Yoga is a lifestyle. If we see only aasana as yoga , we are looking at very small portion of Yoga , Ashtanga Yoga. As it is clear from the name itself, Ashtanga yoga has eight limbs -
1. Yama (Universal moral commandments)
2. Niyama (Self purification by discipline)
3. Aasana (Posture)
4.Praanaayaam (Rhythmic control of breath)
5.Pratyaahaar (Withdrawl and emancipation of mind from the domination of the senses and exterior world)
6.Dhaarana (concentration)
7. Dhyaana (Meditation)
8. Samaadhi (State of super consciousness brought about by profound meditation , in which the individual asipant becomes one with the object of his meditation-Parmaatma or universal spirit)

Literal meaning of Yoga is joining or union . It is union of oneself with the ultimate reality.And when one gets realization of ultimate reality then s/he is liberated from the cycle of death & birth.

The best way to practice Dharma...

One should not practice dharma only in temples or in the company of our loved ones, the real practice can be done in unfavorable conditions ,in front of people whom we do not like much , in our offices, schools , colleges , in shopping malls, playgrounds..... or I must say everywhere.
When we are with our family , friends or loved ones or when we are in good mood it becomes easy to show compassion , generosity , morality and all the positive vibes but becomes difficult otherwise.
But when we habituate ourselves with these qualities , it becomes possible to respond everyone with same compassion , generosity and wisdom without being partial to anyone.

Current scenario..........

Where are we heading to ??? No fresh air , no clean water (some places it is -- no water), no natural fruits veggies, no trees & plants...... What will we pass on to next generation? Its really pathetic situation.

Karnataka invited many companies / production houses for business , its a welcome move, but can we see the other aspect also --what effect they will put on the deteriorating condition of environment. They will pollute air , water , increase carbon emission and may be many other things which we can not foresee now.
How to handle these situations?

How can we prevent losing our green cover-trees

Most of the time we complain about losing green cover, cutting down of trees , woods etc. But have we ever thought why this green cover is being vanished by humans so fast. I must say that this is demand of modern world. Directly or indirectly we are consuming it, in many ways.
Now let us see that if the woods are being cut , where it goes majorly---
1) They are cut to make place for the new buildings (may be office or apartment or mall) to be build up, so that the increasing population may get shelter or job or their daily necessity things.

2) They are cut to make furniture , it is one of our need.

3) Many trees beside the roads are cut to broaden the road , to accommodate the increasing number of vehicles on the road.

4) Trees are cut for making papers and many other similar kind of products.

These consumption areas are not new, people have been cutting wood for long time for the same requirement but we are losing more trees now than before. The reason for losing more greenery now is---
1) Increasing population-- If the population will increase , demands/needs will also increase. For satisfying these needs more resources(trees) will be required.

2) Consumerism-- Few things we do not buy just because we need them but we buy them to build our status symbol or to satisfy the greed within us.A person may have more than one flat, more than one car(or any other vehicle) though at a time we can use only one of them .This tendency of possessing more things than we actually need may directly or indirectly relate to cutting of more trees (to produce more, more resources are required).

3) Plantation-- There is a huge difference between the ratio of cutting down and plantation of trees.
We can try to equalize this ratio by planting more trees around. If all of us plant at least one plant/tree on all the big occasions of our life(Birthday, festival, anniversary etc) , then we could achieve our goal.
And, when we are constructing our house or apartment then we can leave at least 1/3 or 1/4 of total area just for trees or kitchen garden. More open area , more trees/plants can be planted.

4) Use paper efficiently-- We can wisely use paper products to save our trees.
We should make our habit to carry handkerchief(cloth) and restrain use of paper towels.
If we use paper for writing we should check that it is fully utilized before turning to other page.

If we are not able to save the trees from cutting , through this way we can prevent the number of trees really falling down.

Self Analysis.........

Just take at least 2 minutes off from your busy schedule for self analysis. This self analysis should not be as a professional or spouse or as a parent or as a friend. This self analysis should be as a human. Just think ---
1)how many lies you told today , how many people you hurt (emotionally or may be physically) , how many people are there in your hate list, how many times you wished for fall of others.
2) how many people you help today , how many times you controlled your anger and negative emotions towards yourself and others, how many times you wished for success and happiness for others.
Analyze these points and try to reduce point 1 qualities and increase point 2 qualities, next moment onwards. And when you have removed all negativity from your mind for self and others and developed love and compassion for all living being , then imagine how wonderful your life would be.
Like this we can lead our journey of life happily and peacefully.