We all know that as part of being a noble Buddhist, it is necessary to keep the five Precepts. However it is also important to read the fine print regarding each one. As the fifth Precept is written, it says to avoid substances that cause heedlessness to the mind. A Bhikkhu once explained to me that this Precept is the most difficult to keep, However there are exceptions to this Precept.
For instance, we are not permitted to drink alcohol, but there are exceptions to this rule regarding when alcohol is permitted. some examples are; if there is alcohol in your mouthwash to preserve it, then it is acceptable to use it. Also, if you use alcohol for flavoring your food, then it is also permissible, since the part that makes you euphoric is eliminated and gets cooked off.
The main message to you is that when examining the Precepts, it is important to read the fine print, so your following the Precepts will become more sensible and manageable.
By the way, the reason the fifth Precept is the most difficult to keep is because, if you consume any of those substances such as alcohol or recreational drugs, your mind becomes weakened, therefore enabling you to make it easier to break the other four Precepts.
Yours in the Triple Gem,
Jenny Michaels
Thursday, October 4, 2018
Saturday, May 23, 2015
The Buddha's Teachings on Aquiring and Sustaining Wealth
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
The Lord Buddha never equated spirituality with materiality. However there is a lesser known teaching called the Navakovaddha Sutta where the Lord Buddha addresses how one can create material stability and maintain it, that can carry over to future lifetimes, if one strictly abides by them. In order to do so there are four guidelines that He teaches us to adhere to:
1) When one loses something, one must find it immediately.
2) When something is damaged, one must repair it immediately.
3) Eat and drink in moderation.
4) Never promote a bad person to be a leader.
According to a quote from an article, "Women in Early Buddhist Literature" from the Pali Text Society,
the Lord Buddha precisely stated:
“All families that have attained great possessions have done so for one or other of the following reasons:
They search for what is lost,
They repair what is dilapidated,
They eat and drink in moderation,
And they place in authority, *issariya (*Pali - also known as)a virtuous woman or man.” (A ii 249; AN 4.255).
When our feet are firmly planted in the Triple Gem:
The Buddha and His gifts that He has spread since the Time of His Enlightenment,
The Dhamma, which contains the many teachings He imparted to the people of the world and,
The Sangha, our Buddhist communities and temples where we can support the monks and nuns, make offerings to them, and learn and share the Dhamma and practice meditation,
And our steady focus is keeping the 5 Precepts each day:
Do not kill.
Do not steal,
Do not commit sexual misconduct,
Do not lie, curse or gossip,
Do not ingest substances that cause heedlessness of the mind,
Then we can truly step off of the merry-go-round of samsara (the endless cycles of birth, aging, sickness and death) and walk with our brothers and sisters on the path to enlightenment, and never look back.
The Lord Buddha never equated spirituality with materiality. However there is a lesser known teaching called the Navakovaddha Sutta where the Lord Buddha addresses how one can create material stability and maintain it, that can carry over to future lifetimes, if one strictly abides by them. In order to do so there are four guidelines that He teaches us to adhere to:
1) When one loses something, one must find it immediately.
2) When something is damaged, one must repair it immediately.
3) Eat and drink in moderation.
4) Never promote a bad person to be a leader.
According to a quote from an article, "Women in Early Buddhist Literature" from the Pali Text Society,
the Lord Buddha precisely stated:
“All families that have attained great possessions have done so for one or other of the following reasons:
They search for what is lost,
They repair what is dilapidated,
They eat and drink in moderation,
And they place in authority, *issariya (*Pali - also known as)a virtuous woman or man.” (A ii 249; AN 4.255).
When our feet are firmly planted in the Triple Gem:
The Buddha and His gifts that He has spread since the Time of His Enlightenment,
The Dhamma, which contains the many teachings He imparted to the people of the world and,
The Sangha, our Buddhist communities and temples where we can support the monks and nuns, make offerings to them, and learn and share the Dhamma and practice meditation,
And our steady focus is keeping the 5 Precepts each day:
Do not kill.
Do not steal,
Do not commit sexual misconduct,
Do not lie, curse or gossip,
Do not ingest substances that cause heedlessness of the mind,
Then we can truly step off of the merry-go-round of samsara (the endless cycles of birth, aging, sickness and death) and walk with our brothers and sisters on the path to enlightenment, and never look back.
Friday, November 28, 2014
AmericanBuddhistLight: Eager Beaver
Eager Beaver
Hi all Brothers and Sisters,
I had an interesting exchange with one of my online meditation group members today. This lovely girl has reached out for help from me. She was getting bullied at her job and lost her position seven months ago. Her depression increases by the day. She learned that her habit of interjecting aid and opinion to others when not asked for was behavior that she used with quite a lot of gusto, and only increased her own suffering. This young lady sadly stated that she had actually gotten angry at others when they did not heed her suggestions for their own troubles.
So many times us healers, spiritual teachers, ministers and monks and nuns are so filled with fireworks going off when we receive a revelation or inspiration in meditation. We have all been there. We have advanced another step on our pathway towards Nibbana (Pali=Nirvana-Sanskrit). We want to charge down the streets and shout it, we get stunned and bubbly and our chakras are spinning at lightening speed. It's true right?
The Lord Buddha had some valuable teachings related to tonight's story that I would like to share with you:
Receiving a revelation in meditation should be one that we observe and not get attached to. It will integrate into us and reveal it's messages in its own time,. So we should remain composed and not get stuck on it. Just let it be. If we tried to grab it, it would probably slide out of our hands and back into the water, like a flounder. We need to be mindful, as meditation is the training of mindfulness. This will help us train the mind and follow the pathway to the center of the body: 2 finger widths up from the navel at the cross section of two perpendicular lines that go left to right and front to back. The Enlightened Center, can be visualized as a crystal ball the size of an egg yolk or any other meaningful object of meditation like the sun, the moon or a flower right there in the exact center of the body. It is where every human being's Enlightened Center exists.
The other lesson from the Buddha is a calamitous one in deed. Are your socks knocked off yet? Well they will be. Luke said to Yoda when he came out of the cave, "I'm not afraid." And Yoda's reply was, "Oh you will be."
The lesson is this:
The Buddha says that we should never plow our ideas and suggestions onto another. Do not push your way into his or her dilemma. If you persist in forcing someone into one course of action or another, then their negative kamma will surely become yours. My response to my lady friend was, that I was sorry for her troubles, could I put her name on my healing altar where she will be prayed for every day. I then mentioned the consequences to her according to the Buddha's teachings. In this case, our young lady asked me for help. As we are travelers of this overwhelming life path, the hardest one there is to choose, where we are already working on your own body, mind, emotions and spirit, while trying to stop doing bad kamma, continue performing good kamma and meditating and chanting, etc. Do we really want to inherit the bad karma of another person, or ten persons or from someone who has killed people. Do we really want their heavy burdens added to our own.
Always remember that H.H. the 14th Dalai Lama stated, "I can only liberate myself."
Hi all Brothers and Sisters,
I had an interesting exchange with one of my online meditation group members today. This lovely girl has reached out for help from me. She was getting bullied at her job and lost her position seven months ago. Her depression increases by the day. She learned that her habit of interjecting aid and opinion to others when not asked for was behavior that she used with quite a lot of gusto, and only increased her own suffering. This young lady sadly stated that she had actually gotten angry at others when they did not heed her suggestions for their own troubles.
So many times us healers, spiritual teachers, ministers and monks and nuns are so filled with fireworks going off when we receive a revelation or inspiration in meditation. We have all been there. We have advanced another step on our pathway towards Nibbana (Pali=Nirvana-Sanskrit). We want to charge down the streets and shout it, we get stunned and bubbly and our chakras are spinning at lightening speed. It's true right?
The Lord Buddha had some valuable teachings related to tonight's story that I would like to share with you:
Receiving a revelation in meditation should be one that we observe and not get attached to. It will integrate into us and reveal it's messages in its own time,. So we should remain composed and not get stuck on it. Just let it be. If we tried to grab it, it would probably slide out of our hands and back into the water, like a flounder. We need to be mindful, as meditation is the training of mindfulness. This will help us train the mind and follow the pathway to the center of the body: 2 finger widths up from the navel at the cross section of two perpendicular lines that go left to right and front to back. The Enlightened Center, can be visualized as a crystal ball the size of an egg yolk or any other meaningful object of meditation like the sun, the moon or a flower right there in the exact center of the body. It is where every human being's Enlightened Center exists.
The other lesson from the Buddha is a calamitous one in deed. Are your socks knocked off yet? Well they will be. Luke said to Yoda when he came out of the cave, "I'm not afraid." And Yoda's reply was, "Oh you will be."
The lesson is this:
The Buddha says that we should never plow our ideas and suggestions onto another. Do not push your way into his or her dilemma. If you persist in forcing someone into one course of action or another, then their negative kamma will surely become yours. My response to my lady friend was, that I was sorry for her troubles, could I put her name on my healing altar where she will be prayed for every day. I then mentioned the consequences to her according to the Buddha's teachings. In this case, our young lady asked me for help. As we are travelers of this overwhelming life path, the hardest one there is to choose, where we are already working on your own body, mind, emotions and spirit, while trying to stop doing bad kamma, continue performing good kamma and meditating and chanting, etc. Do we really want to inherit the bad karma of another person, or ten persons or from someone who has killed people. Do we really want their heavy burdens added to our own.
Always remember that H.H. the 14th Dalai Lama stated, "I can only liberate myself."
Tuesday, April 1, 2014
"Happy Fool's Day Means..."
Hi Dear Friends,
Today is 4/1/14, a fun-filled holiday, known as April Fools Day. But the term fool is quite significant when found in the Teachings of the Buddha.
There is a teaching called the 38 Blessings of Life and is called The Mangala Sutta. It deals with what 38 Blessings you should find and study, live by and spread to others in order to have the perfect environment to practice, teach and receive the Dhamma. The first teaching of the 38 Blessings of Life is:
"Not to associate with the foolish, but to associate with the wise; and to honor those who are worthy of honor — this is the greatest blessing." The Lord Buddha Siddhartha Gotama.
Yet how do we link this to April Fools Day, a lighthearted day to play practical and funny jokes on our friends and loved ones, with one of the Buddha's greatest teachings?
Let's look forward into the future. The next Lord Buddha, will be reborn during our present Buddhist Eon. His name will be Lord Buddha Ariya Meitreiya. He has been nick-named the "Happy Buddha," or the "Laughing Buddha." We all have seen His statue, a jolly laughing Buddha with His arms raised high with a jolly belly as he laughs and laughs.
I asked the well educated Buddhist volunteers to explain to me the meaning of the Laughing Buddha and their response was that He represented good luck, and just rub his belly for your good luck they said. That could not be further from the truth.
Just for background information, most Buddhist Eons contain 1 or 2 Lord Buddhas. However, since our Buddhist Eon is so particularly difficult and in many ways destructive, shameful and degredating, that five, yes five Lord Buddhas, have been assigned to our Buddhist Eon. The reason is not because that our Eon is longer, it is because our Buddhist Eon is much more daunting and difficult. Our Lord Buddha Siddhartha Gautama Buddha was the fourth one in our Buddhist Eon. With each successive Lord Buddha in this Buddhist Eon, each Lord Buddha has had to teach and to deal with a group of people who have been moving more and more away from the path of the Lord Buddha as to how to follow His teachings, reach inner peace, and how to reach more world peace through inner peace, and how to spread the Lord Buddha's Dhamma, after we have heard it, investigated it and we had successful results, thereby causing us to adopt the Lord Buddha's teachings.
So it is April Fools Day and it is the day for you to discover the meaning of the posing of Lord Buddha Ariya Meitreiya. He is laughing at the foolishness of Humankind. At the end of the Lord Buddha Siddhartha Gautama's time the plight of human suffering will be greater, and less people will end up following His teachers. So it will be up to Lord Buddha Ariya Meitreiya to re-ignite the flame of the Triple Gem, The Buddha, The Dhamma and the Sangha inside all human beings. I can only say that with each successive Lord Buddha in His time starting with the first one, He had less suffering people to deal with and they were not as evil as the second Lord Buddha's disciples. Each successive Lord Buddha had many more troubled people, places and circumstances to deal with until His time was completed. And His legacy continues on, but it will dwindle in the end as predicted by the Wise Sages in our history.
Here is an opportunity to wake up, recite the 5 Precepts and meditate that you will not associate with fools, destroy any living thing, you will not hurt anyone with your words, you will not covet another who is already in a steady relationship with another. You will not lie or gossip or spread slander. And we will not consume items, such as alcohol, that cause heedlessness of the body and causes weakness of the mind, making it easier to break the previous 4 Precepts.
Let us begin our day, filled with this teaching, ringing throughout our inner center as we meditate on eliminating foolish people, places and circumstances from our lives. And meditate on wisdom instead, how you can acquire it and how you can utilize more in your life to improve each and every day your life. We can give this day a new name! Let's call it "Happy Wisdom Day."
Dear Friends,
Have a loving, awesome, wisdom filled day, filled with people who are the real deal, starting with you.
Today is 4/1/14, a fun-filled holiday, known as April Fools Day. But the term fool is quite significant when found in the Teachings of the Buddha.
There is a teaching called the 38 Blessings of Life and is called The Mangala Sutta. It deals with what 38 Blessings you should find and study, live by and spread to others in order to have the perfect environment to practice, teach and receive the Dhamma. The first teaching of the 38 Blessings of Life is:
"Not to associate with the foolish, but to associate with the wise; and to honor those who are worthy of honor — this is the greatest blessing." The Lord Buddha Siddhartha Gotama.
Yet how do we link this to April Fools Day, a lighthearted day to play practical and funny jokes on our friends and loved ones, with one of the Buddha's greatest teachings?
Let's look forward into the future. The next Lord Buddha, will be reborn during our present Buddhist Eon. His name will be Lord Buddha Ariya Meitreiya. He has been nick-named the "Happy Buddha," or the "Laughing Buddha." We all have seen His statue, a jolly laughing Buddha with His arms raised high with a jolly belly as he laughs and laughs.
I asked the well educated Buddhist volunteers to explain to me the meaning of the Laughing Buddha and their response was that He represented good luck, and just rub his belly for your good luck they said. That could not be further from the truth.
Just for background information, most Buddhist Eons contain 1 or 2 Lord Buddhas. However, since our Buddhist Eon is so particularly difficult and in many ways destructive, shameful and degredating, that five, yes five Lord Buddhas, have been assigned to our Buddhist Eon. The reason is not because that our Eon is longer, it is because our Buddhist Eon is much more daunting and difficult. Our Lord Buddha Siddhartha Gautama Buddha was the fourth one in our Buddhist Eon. With each successive Lord Buddha in this Buddhist Eon, each Lord Buddha has had to teach and to deal with a group of people who have been moving more and more away from the path of the Lord Buddha as to how to follow His teachings, reach inner peace, and how to reach more world peace through inner peace, and how to spread the Lord Buddha's Dhamma, after we have heard it, investigated it and we had successful results, thereby causing us to adopt the Lord Buddha's teachings.
So it is April Fools Day and it is the day for you to discover the meaning of the posing of Lord Buddha Ariya Meitreiya. He is laughing at the foolishness of Humankind. At the end of the Lord Buddha Siddhartha Gautama's time the plight of human suffering will be greater, and less people will end up following His teachers. So it will be up to Lord Buddha Ariya Meitreiya to re-ignite the flame of the Triple Gem, The Buddha, The Dhamma and the Sangha inside all human beings. I can only say that with each successive Lord Buddha in His time starting with the first one, He had less suffering people to deal with and they were not as evil as the second Lord Buddha's disciples. Each successive Lord Buddha had many more troubled people, places and circumstances to deal with until His time was completed. And His legacy continues on, but it will dwindle in the end as predicted by the Wise Sages in our history.
Here is an opportunity to wake up, recite the 5 Precepts and meditate that you will not associate with fools, destroy any living thing, you will not hurt anyone with your words, you will not covet another who is already in a steady relationship with another. You will not lie or gossip or spread slander. And we will not consume items, such as alcohol, that cause heedlessness of the body and causes weakness of the mind, making it easier to break the previous 4 Precepts.
Let us begin our day, filled with this teaching, ringing throughout our inner center as we meditate on eliminating foolish people, places and circumstances from our lives. And meditate on wisdom instead, how you can acquire it and how you can utilize more in your life to improve each and every day your life. We can give this day a new name! Let's call it "Happy Wisdom Day."
Dear Friends,
Have a loving, awesome, wisdom filled day, filled with people who are the real deal, starting with you.
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
The Buddha's Words on Meditation
"For the sake of other's welfare, however great, let not one neglect one's own welfare. Let one be intent on one's own goal." The Buddha
Taking time each day to meditate is the first and biggest step we can take towards our path of inner peace and personal spiritual unfoldment. Dear Friends, it so valuable and important that it can be summed up by this occurrence at the time of the Buddha's dying:
When the Buddha declared that he would attain parinibbana (the exalted state of a Buddha after passing away) in four month's time, many bhikkhus (i.e. monks who had not yet gained Arahanthood*) were sad and did not know what to do. So they kept close to Him. A monk named Attadatta, however, did not go to see Him, and, having resolved to attain Arahanthood during the lifetime of the Buddha, was striving hard in the meditation practice. Other bhikkhus, not understanding him, took him to the Enlightened One and said, "Venerable Sir! This bhikkhu does not love and revere you as we do. He is egoistic and keeps to himself." The monk (Attadatta) then respectfully explained that the greatest homage he could pay the Buddha was to attain Arahanthood before his (the Buddha's) parinibbana.
In applauding the monk, the Buddha told the bhikkhus, "Those who love and revere me should act like Attadatta. You are not paying me homage by coming to see me; you pay me homage only by practicing the Dhamma (the Buddha's teachings = Pali or Dharma - Sanskrit) I have taught you."
Dhammapada Verse 166
*Arahanthood ~ simply put, is the state of enlightenment, free from striving, free from suffering, free from the rounds of birth, old age, sickness and death, by following The Right View**. Whereas attaining Buddhahood or Nirvana (=Sanskrit or Nibbana - Pali)) is, as the Buddha referred to Himself, as the first Arahant, the one who has come during this Buddhist eon (much longer than an eon as we understand it) to teach others the path to Nirvana.
**The Right View is denoted as the first guideline of The Eightfold Noble Path***, the Buddha's teaching on how to reach enlightenment. But many use the term The Right View as the connotation for all eight guidelines.
***The Eightfold Noble Path
1] Right View or Understanding
2] Right Intentions
3] Right Speech
4] Right Action
5] Right Livelihood
6] Right Effort
7] Right Concentration
8] Right Mindfulness
So dear Friends,
"Do not even consider going to sleep until you have meditated." Venerable Luang Phaw Dattajeevo
Taking time each day to meditate is the first and biggest step we can take towards our path of inner peace and personal spiritual unfoldment. Dear Friends, it so valuable and important that it can be summed up by this occurrence at the time of the Buddha's dying:
When the Buddha declared that he would attain parinibbana (the exalted state of a Buddha after passing away) in four month's time, many bhikkhus (i.e. monks who had not yet gained Arahanthood*) were sad and did not know what to do. So they kept close to Him. A monk named Attadatta, however, did not go to see Him, and, having resolved to attain Arahanthood during the lifetime of the Buddha, was striving hard in the meditation practice. Other bhikkhus, not understanding him, took him to the Enlightened One and said, "Venerable Sir! This bhikkhu does not love and revere you as we do. He is egoistic and keeps to himself." The monk (Attadatta) then respectfully explained that the greatest homage he could pay the Buddha was to attain Arahanthood before his (the Buddha's) parinibbana.
In applauding the monk, the Buddha told the bhikkhus, "Those who love and revere me should act like Attadatta. You are not paying me homage by coming to see me; you pay me homage only by practicing the Dhamma (the Buddha's teachings = Pali or Dharma - Sanskrit) I have taught you."
Dhammapada Verse 166
*Arahanthood ~ simply put, is the state of enlightenment, free from striving, free from suffering, free from the rounds of birth, old age, sickness and death, by following The Right View**. Whereas attaining Buddhahood or Nirvana (=Sanskrit or Nibbana - Pali)) is, as the Buddha referred to Himself, as the first Arahant, the one who has come during this Buddhist eon (much longer than an eon as we understand it) to teach others the path to Nirvana.
**The Right View is denoted as the first guideline of The Eightfold Noble Path***, the Buddha's teaching on how to reach enlightenment. But many use the term The Right View as the connotation for all eight guidelines.
***The Eightfold Noble Path
1] Right View or Understanding
2] Right Intentions
3] Right Speech
4] Right Action
5] Right Livelihood
6] Right Effort
7] Right Concentration
8] Right Mindfulness
So dear Friends,
"Do not even consider going to sleep until you have meditated." Venerable Luang Phaw Dattajeevo
Wednesday, February 19, 2014
A Meditation on the Center of the Body.
When you quiet the mind and relax, it is then that you can meet your true self. Just relax into the stillness. If your mind wanders, don't worry, just reel it back in. If it wanders again, it's OK. Just bring it back, back to the center, and let your mind rest at the center of your body. Breathe into it. You will find that spot. You will know when you bring your mind to the center of your body. You will feel a complete familiarity with the center of your body. Take a breath while you focus on the center. Picture something to focus on there, like the sun, a shining star, or a flower. You can hold your image there. Just relax.
There are all types of meditation for all types of people, all types of temperaments and all types of moods that we have from one time of meditation that we sit for, to the next. This is a brief overview, for a touch of one, to see how it feels.
Sunday, February 9, 2014
Did you meditate today?
There is always time to meditate. Meditation is the only way to get to know your true self. Can you find five minutes to turn off the phone, close the laptop and get comfortable in a quiet space. Close your eyes and just observe the breath. If your mind wanders it is OK. Just gently bring your focus back to the breath. Notice the breath at the tip of the nose. I observe a short breath going in and I observe a long breath going out. It is simple to do. Do you notice a spot where you feel tension such as behind the eyes or shoulders? Is your stomach tight? Just let yourself relax each area while exhaling and those areas will loosen. There is no objective, no goal to reach. Just keep it simple and relax.
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