Buddhist concepts offer meaningful insights into meditation practices

Buddhist Concepts 1.

The most important step in building support for right livelihood is giving back more than you get. It's not really a matter of keeping track in some kind of ledger book. It's more a function of the attitude that you adopt in caring for yourself and those around you. People tend to mirror the way they are treated.

If you show an interest in helping and sharing, those around you will start helping you and sharing more with you. If you empathize with other people's situations, they tend to empathize more with yours. The key is to be active about it. Look for opportunities to cooperate.

With a proactive attitude of supporting others, you will seldom experience a shortage of support from others. A simple caution is in order, however, when it comes to giving to others. Give more than you get, but not more than you've got.

Claude Whitmyer, Mindfulness and Meaningful Work

Buddhist Concepts 2.

Buddhism is neither pessimistic nor optimistic. If anything at all, it is realistic, for it takes a realistic view of life and of the world. It looks at things objectively. It does not falsely lull you into living in a fool's paradise, nor does it frighten and agonize you with all kinds of imaginary fears and sins. It tells you exactly and objectively what you are and what the world around you is, and shows you the way to perfect freedom, peace, tranquility and happiness.

One physician may gravely exaggerate an illness and give up hope altogether. Another may ignorantly declare that there is no illness and that no treatment is necessary, thus deceiving the patient with false consolation. You may call the first one pessimistic and the second optimistic. Both are equally dangerous.

But a third physician diagnoses the symptoms correctly, understands the cause and the nature of the illness, sees clearly that it can be cured and courageously administers a course of treatment, thus saving his patient. The Buddha is like the last physician. He is the wise and scientific doctor for the ills of the world.

Walpola Rahula, What the Buddha Taught

Buddhist Concepts 3.

The art of dharma practice requires commitment, technical accomplishment, and imagination. As with all arts, we will fail to realize its full potential if any of these three are lacking. The raw material of dharma practice is ourself and our world, which are to be understood and transformed according to the vision and values of the dharma itself.

This is not a process of self- or world- transcendence, but one of self- and world creation. The denial of self challenges only the notion of a static self independent of body and mind not the ordinary sense of ourself as a person distinct from everyone else. The notion of a static self is the primary obstruction to the realization of our unique potential as an individual being. By dissolving this fiction through a centered vision of the transiency, ambiguity, and contingency of experience, we are freed to create ourself anew.

Stephen Batchelor, Buddhism Without Beliefs

Buddhist Concepts 4.

To say that Buddhism is transitory, insubstantial and conditional is merely to restate its own understanding of the nature of things. Yet its teachings endlessly warn of the deeply engrained tendency to overlook this reality.... Instead of seeing a particular manifestation of the Dharma as a living spiritual tradition of possibilities contingent upon historical and cultural circumstances, one reifies it into an independently existent, self sufficient fact, resistant to change.

Living continuity requires both change and constancy. Just as in the course of a human life, a person changes from a child to an adolescent to an adult while retaining a recognizable identity (both internally through memory and externally through recurring physical and behavioral traits), so does a spiritual tradition change through the course of its history while retaining a recognizable identity through a continuous affirmation of its axiomatic values.

Thus Buddhism will retain its identity as a tradition as long as its practitioners continue to center their lives around the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha and affirm its basic tenets. But precisely how such commitment and affirmation are expressed in different times and places can differ wildly. The survival of Buddhism today is dependent on its continuing ability to adapt.

Stephen Batchelor, The Awakening of the West

Buddhist Concepts 5.

With regard to the Four Noble Truths we have four functions to perform: The First Noble Truth is Dukkha, the nature of life, its suffering, its sorrows and joys, its imperfection and unsatisfactoriness, its impermanence and insubstantiality. With regard to this, our function is to understand it as a fact, clearly and completely.

The Second Noble Truth is the Origin of Dukkha, which is desire, "thirst", accompanied by all other passions, defilements and impurities. A mere understanding of this fact is not sufficient. Here our function is to discard it, to eliminate, to destroy and eradicate it.

The Third Noble Truth is the Cessation of Dukkha, Nirvana, the Absolute Truth, the Ultimate Reality. Here our function is to realize it. The Fourth Noble Truth is the Path leading to the realization of Nirvana. A mere knowledge of the Path, however complete, will not do. In this case, our function is to follow it and keep to it.

Walpola Rahula, What the Buddha Taught

Buddhist Concepts 6.

Kisagotami was a poor widow who had suffered many cruel reversals in life. Then, a final twist of the knife, the beloved baby that was all she had in the world died. She was inconsolable and would not have the child's body cremated. Despairing, some of her fellow villagers suggested she go to see the Buddha. She arrived before him, still clutching the child's corpse in her arms. "Give me some special medicine that will cure my child," she begged.

The Buddha knew at once that the woman could not take the bald truth, so he thought for a while. Then he said, "Yes, I can help you. Go and get me three grains of mustard seed. But they have to come from a house in which no death has ever occurred."

Kisagotami set off with new hope in her heart. But as she went from door to door, she heard one heart-rending tale of bereavement after another. That evening, when she returned to the Buddha, she had learned that bereavement was not her own personal tragedy but a feature of the human condition and she had accepted the fact.

Sadly, she laid down her dead child's body and bowed to the Buddha.

John Snelling, Elements of Buddhism

Buddhist Concepts 7.

Just as the water flows under the ground So those who seek it find it, Without thought, without end, Its effective power all-pervasive, Buddha Knowledge is also like this, Being in all creatures' minds; If any work on it with diligence, They will soon find the light of knowledge.

from The Flower Ornament Scripture

Buddhist Concepts 8.

One of the most common analogies used to describe the Buddha-nature is space itself. This analogy has three aspects. First, just as space is omnipresent and yet is unpolluted by everything it pervades, similarly, Buddha-nature pervades every sentient being without being in any way tainted.

Second, just as galaxies and universes arise and pass within space, so do the characteristics of our personalities arise and pass within Buddha-nature. Our sensations arise and pass away; Buddha-nature continues.

Third, just as space is never consumed by fire, so this Buddha-nature is never consumed by the "fire" of aging, sickness, or death.

B. Alan Wallace, in Tibetan Buddhism from the Ground Up