We are, as philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin said, Spiritual beings having a human experience. Its complicated. Being human is not simple or easy, and it challenges us daily to show up for life, or at least,wantingto show up for life.

Many people dont even want to do that because life is too hard, painful, and even unbearable. Its just too much all the time. So, we escape the moments. We dont want them. We want them to go away. We want them to stop reminding us of how difficult life is, and they do, again and again.

What can we do with such a difficult life? What can we do with so much of our pain and suffering? Escape? Check out? Die? Thats what millions of people do. They escape, either through drugs and alcohol, the overuse and dependency of their devices, or even choose to die through suicide when they cant take it anymore. They want out. And they want out desperately.

How can you explain to someone who doesnt want to be here that this is heaven on earth? Yes, it can be hellish, but that can be overcome if we change the way we look at all of this, and Mindfulness helps us look at life differently. More heaven, and a lot less hell.

Heres how: Stand in front of the mirror and look at yourself. What do you see? Did you immediately judge yourself? Did you immediately criticize yourself? Did you immediately tell yourself that youre unattractive, or over- weight, or unlovable, or unworthy? Or did you look deep into your eyes and get lost? Look into those eyes of yours.

Let them invite you in where you can meet yourself. Go ahead. Dont be afraid to go deeper into you. You have nothing to be afraid of. You just think that you do, and that is part of the problem, what we think. We think ourselves right out of the moment by telling ourselves how inadequate we are in it.

This mind of ours never stops. Thousands and thousands of thoughts are going through our minds daily, and we do very little to regulate its activity. Thats like allowing thousands of ants to traipse through your house without doing something about it, and we know how insidious ants can be. You look away, and the next thing you know, theyve multiplied in droves.

Being present means we not only see the ants but we also mindfully take care of the problem. And, if the problem keeps recurring, which an ant problem most certainly can, we become even more mindful of what can solve that problem in the best way possible. And we do it with a very clear mind. You have a problem, and you take care of it with a clear-thinking mind.

This is a mind that is uncluttered, unfettered, and that doesnt get lost in distraction or in thinking about something that happened yesterday, or worrying about whats going to happen next. You dont want to take care of an ant problem by wishing they werent there or by worrying about more ants coming into your home. Thats a complete waste of time.

I use the ant analogy because it shows where our mind can go, and how prone it is to want to go out of the moment. You cant go out of the moment if you have an infestation of ants in your home. You need to stay right there and fix it.

Mindfulness helps us stay right there, even when its uncomfortable staying right there, and this is something very important for us to learn. We must discipline our mind to be present, aware, and focused, even when we would rather do anything but that.

***

Ora Nadrich is founder and president of theInstitute for Transformational Thinkingand author ofLive True: A Mindfulness Guide to Authenticity, named among the top 18 books on what an authentic life looks like by PositivePsychology and one of the 100 Best Mindfulness Books of All Time by BookAuthority. She is a certified life coach and Mindfulness teacher, specializing in transformational thinking, self-discovery and mentoring new coaches. Her new book isMindfulness and Mysticism: Connecting Present Moment Awareness with Higher States of Consciousness(IFTT Press, Nov. 11, 2021). Contact her atoranadrich.com.

Original post:
Dont Be Afraid to Look More Deeply into Yourself - Thrive Global

Buddha was a historical person, a prince in ancient India, who left his royal life in search of a truly reliable, lasting refuge. After years of meditation, he achieved enlightenment, and taught others to do the same.

Learn more about Buddha...

Being a Buddhist means trying to bring the insights from our meditation into daily life. Keeping the view from meditation gives us more space to act consciously instead of from habit or disturbing emotions.

Learn more about being a Buddhist...

Thaye Dorje, His Holiness the 17th Gyalwa Karmapa, shares the following message regarding the birthday of Lama Ole Nydahl. Karmapas message for Lama Oles 81th birthday Karmapas congratulations reached Lama Ole Nydahl at the European Center in Immenstadt during his Continued

Diamond Way Buddhism is an international network of Buddhist meditation centersfor people who want to integrate the Buddhist view with daily life and work. We offer a wide range of meditations, from those for complete beginners, through to advanced methods learned in retreat conditions. All Diamond Way meditation practices come from the Karma Kagyu lineage, a thousand-year-old tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, whose teachings have been passed down from the historical Buddha.

The Karma Kagyu lineage has been headed by the Karmapas the first reincarnate line of Tibetan teachers since the 12th century. The 17th Karmapa, Thaye Dorje, lives in India and travels widely to teach his students around the world. His predecessor the 16th Karmapa asked Lama Ole Nydahl and his wife Hannah Nydahl to establish Karma Kagyu Buddhism in the West. Since the early 70s they have started 640 Buddhist centers around the world, in over forty countries to date.

See the original post here:

Diamond Way Buddhism

Kadampa Buddhism is a Mahayana Buddhist school founded by the great Indian Buddhist Master Atisha (AD 982-1054).

In the word, Kadampa, Ka refers to Buddhas teachings, and dam to Atishas special Lamrim instructions. Kadampas, then, are practitioners who regard Buddhas teachings as personal instructions and put them into practice by following the instructions of Lamrim.

By integrating their understanding of all Buddhas teachings into their practice of Lamrim, and by integrating their experience of Lamrim into their everyday lives, Kadampas use Buddhas teachings as practical methods for transforming daily activities into the path to enlightenment.

After Atisha, the Kadampa lineage was passed down through a succession of great Kadampa Teachers including Dromtnpa, Geshe Potowa, Geshe Sharawa, and Geshe Chekhawa.

These precious Teachers were not only great scholars but also spiritual practitioners of immense purity and sincerity.

They placed particular emphasis on the practice of Training the Mind (Lojong) by which all our daily life experiences, and especially all our problems, suffering, and difficulties, can be transformed into the spiritual path.

The Kadampa lineage passed from generation to generation until the fourteenth century when it reached the great Buddhist Master Je Tsongkhapa.

Je Tsongkhapa clarified all the teachings of Kadam Dharma and made them very accessible to the people of that time.

In particular, he showed how to combine Lamrim, and Lojong with Mahamudra Tantra in a unified daily practice.

Just as the union of study and practice was a hallmark of the early Kadampas, so the union of Sutra and Tantra was to become a hallmark of the New Kadampas, as the followers of Je Tsongkhapa became known.

After Je Tsongkhapa, the New Kadampa lineage flourished for hundreds of years, down to the present day.

In recent years, it has been promoted widely throughout the world by the contemporary Buddhist Master, Venerable Geshe Kelsang Gyatso.

By founding the New Kadampa Tradition, the International Kadampa Buddhist Union, Geshe Kelsang has created a truly global infrastructure to preserve and promote Kadampa Buddhism for many generations to come.

Use the menu to discover more about Kadampa Buddhism.

Here is the original post:

Kadampa Buddhism - Kadampa Buddhism

Once associated in the United States with the alternative spirituality of hippies and beat poets, Buddhism is now ubiquitous in Silicon Valley. In 2016, tech giant Salesforce set up Mindfulness Zones at its annual Dreamforce Conference, with pavilions where Buddhist monks from Thich Nhat Hanhs Plum Village monastery taught meditation and mindfulness techniques. LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner calls his leadership style compassionate management, which he describes as putting yourself in another persons shoes and seeing the world through their lens or perspective, and claims it is inspired by teachings of the Dalai Lama. Bill Gates took up meditation in private lessons from Andy Puddicombe, the former Buddhist monk who co-founded Headspace, an app which has turned online meditation into a multimillion-dollar business. Google even has its own in-house mindfulness guru, Chade-Meng Tan, a former software engineer who says his program Search Inside Yourself not only boosts profit but also contributes to world peace.

What we see in the tech world is an extension of American Buddhisms adaptation into the US mainstream, a process that has been shaped by influential mindfulness entrepreneurs such as Jon Kabat-Zinn, who claimed to have extracted from the Buddhas teachings the universal essence of Buddhism without the rituals and paraphernalia of religion. Kabat-Zinn popularized meditation traditionally an advanced practice for gaining insight into the ultimate nature of reality as a secular practice to boost mental health and productivity. Now, business meetings often open with a brief meditation session to make sure everyone is fully engaged:a mental hack in service of productivity.

In her new book, Work Pray Code, Carolyn Chen a sociologist at the University of California, Berkeley argues that a new kind of American Buddhism has evolved, one which serves the logic of work and business. Buddhism has found a new institutional home in the West: the corporation, she writes. Chen spent five years studying American tech companies infatuation with Buddhist-inspired mindfulness and meditation practices. She participated in company meditation sessions; attended corporate mindfulness retreats; interviewed personal mindfulness coaches who help CEOs find their authentic selves; and spoke to tech workers who use meditation as a self-hack to improve focus, efficiency, creativity, and confidence. Her book describes a corporate culture where meditation and mindfulness address workers mental and spiritual needs, imbue work with a spiritual aura, and turn workplaces into productivity-centered faith communities.

Chen warns that corporate spirituality is turning work into a religion that replaces community-based spirituality and engagement. In an industry where 70+ hour workweeks are normal, the boundary between private life and work has been erased. Chen describes how tech professionals are dropping out of political and civic participation because their commitment to their companies leaves no time for such engagements outside the workplace; instead, they are encouraged to seek meaning and connection at work. Instead of building friendships, trust, and goodwill within their communities, writes Chen, [workers] develop the social capital of their companies.

Judith Hertog for Guernica

Guernica: In your book, you describe how Buddhist meditation practices have been disconnected from their religious context and repackaged for business. Is there something inherent in Buddhism that lends it to being used this way?

Chen: The Buddhism practiced among white Americans does not have the same structures of centralized authority that we witness in many Abrahamic religions. You could say its been an unregulated market. Especially early on, there was no formal credentialing if you wanted to teach meditation or mindfulness. But there are also historical reasons why this has happened, in particular in the Bay Area. The Bay Area has been the epicenter of this fascination with Asian religions and Buddhism, starting in the late 1950s with the arrival of the Japanese Zen master Shunryu Suzuki, the Beat movement, and then the counterculture movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Many of the people who initially brought mindfulness and meditation to the Silicon Valley corporations were what I call mystics, spiritual seekers who had come to the Bay Area to participate in the great counterculture movement.

But then we saw the mainstreaming of both the tech industry and Buddhism. People like Jerry Brown and Steve Jobs, who had an interest in Buddhism and had traveled to Asia, became the political and business elites, and the ethos and practices of the baby boomers became part of the establishment. Many of the meditation and mindfulness coaches in the tech industry picked up these practices in the 1960s and 1970s. For most of their careers, they were teaching in dharma centers or community centers, but with the rise of the tech industry and the rise of the cost of living in the Bay Area, they increasingly found that they had to service the tech industry if they wanted to survive and make a living. And this came with certain compromises or adaptations to the teachings and practices to meet the needs of the tech industry. I call it trickle-down Buddhism, because their culture became the ambient culture of the Bay Area.

Guernica: You write that most white Westerners know only a particular brand of Buddhism that has repeatedly been altered and adapted to appeal to them. Can you talk more about this process?

Chen: For the overwhelming majority of Asian Buddhists, Buddhism is a devotional practice. Bowing to images of deities, burning incense, worshiping at an altar those are all fundamental elements of Buddhist practice. There is this acknowledgement of worshiping higher beings. Meditation was not at all a mainstream lay practice in Buddhism. It only became popular in the early twentieth century, when Buddhist reformers such as the Burmese monk Mahasi Sayadaw, founder of modern Vipassana meditation, promoted it as a lay Buddhist practice. Mindfulness, as it was practiced for most of its history in Asia, was a very elite practice reserved only for advanced monastics. But Jack Kornfield, who is one of a number of influential teachers responsible for making Buddhist meditation go mainstream, understood that devotional Buddhism would be an obstacle for white Americans. He emphasized meditation because he understood that devotional Buddhism would be too associated with religious practice.

I want to clarify, by the way, that Im not necessarily critical of American Buddhist entrepreneurs. The problem is if you mistake this white American Buddhism for all Buddhism, or claim that this is the right or only way to practice Buddhism.

Guernica: How have traditional Buddhists leaders responded to the Western demand for Buddhist spirituality?

Chen: The Dalai Lama was instrumental in advancing the secularization of meditation. For him it was in part a political calculation. He wanted to make Buddhism relevant and useful to the West. Richard Davidson, a professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, played a key role. In 1992, Davidson traveled to Dharamsala to meet with the Dalai Lama, and they discussed studying meditation scientifically. What ultimately grew out of that encounter is the Center for Healthy Minds, a research center that promotes scientific research on the efficacy of meditation. Talking about meditation in terms of data and metrics and facts has totally revolutionized Buddhism. Theres now a huge body of science on mindfulness and meditation, which has taken it out of the world of spirituality and allowed it to become standard practice in secular therapeutic spaces like hospitals, counseling centers, and schools. You no longer need to be a Buddhist to practice Buddhist meditation.

Guernica: Hasnt the validity of some of this research on meditation been questioned?

Chen: Yes, and I think the other question here, to which I never got a satisfactory answer, is: Why meditation? Why mindfulness? When I looked at additional research, I learned that gardening can produce similar health outcomes to decrease your stress. Or just sleeping more! But nobody promotes those practices in the same way or to the same scale because theres nothing to gain there. Several meditation teachers I interviewed told me that meditation is really hard and difficult to sustain, but here are all these companies touting it and claiming its making people more productive and improving their mental health. Yet there are all these other things that could be equally beneficial that people can do if they just get more time off work. But employers are unwilling to entertain that option.

Guernica: Youve identified a kind of doublespeak that meditation coaches often rely on to market themselves: on the one hand asserting that meditation and mindfulness are secular, science-based techniques, but on the other hand drawing on the spiritual authority of Buddhism. Could you speak more on this paradox?

Chen: Let me first emphasize that I would not characterize the meditation teachers I interviewed as manipulative or dishonest. Their motivations were genuine and came from spiritual experiences they had had themselves. Their concern was to bring wholeness to people and to share their own spiritual transformation with the world. But because of the particular circumstances of living in the Bay Area, in the techtopian ecosystem, they have to figure out ways to monetize these teachings.

For that reason, they resorted to this kind of doublespeak. They felt that in order to market their spirituality, they had to quote the science and use the PowerPoints and language legible to tech professionals. They have to present meditation in secular terms because many companies have qualms about bringing religion into the workplace. These teachers consider this doublespeak as expedient means, which is a Buddhist term that justifies adjusting the teachings to make the dharma accessible to a variety of people. But I think all the teachers had some qualms about being forced to leave the ethical aspects of Buddhism out of the workplace. They were not being hired to make the employees more ethical; they were being hired to make them more productive.

Guernica: Its also interesting to look at it from the other side. If companies are so focused on the secular and scientific aspects of meditation and mindfulness, why are they bringing it in as a spiritual practice?

Chen: For some companies its just a matter of out-perking other companies. On that level, it has nothing to do with spirituality; its just another perk. But on another level, companies are concerned about the spiritual care of their employees. They realize that employees do not perform well if their physical and mental state is not optimal. They worry about burnout. Many HR people talked to me about the spirituality of their workers as a competitive advantage. Human capital is the most valuable asset in a knowledge economy. So how do you grow the value of your capital and increase profit? You invest in your most important asset, which is your high-skilled workers. You try to persuade them to align the deepest parts of themselves with the company. You use spiritual practices to try to get them to love work and completely identify with the company. And the meditation and mindfulness that are being promoted in corporate workplaces are all part and parcel of that.

At some companies I observed, they would teach loving-kindness, Metta meditation, which is a traditional Buddhist meditation to promote compassion. Participants would be told: Imagine yourself spreading your love to your family. And now imagine a circle of love that you enlarge to include all of your workplace, and then all of your community, and then all of the world So, first of all, you might ask, what does any of this have to do with work? But when you associate these practices with your company because they happen at work, you begin to associate this sense of wellbeing and spirituality with your workplace. The social and spiritual binding that happens when you practice meditation together this is what gets people to develop a sense of belonging and identification with their company. It has nothing to do with compassion anymore.

And this happens not just in Silicon Valley. Almost all Fortune 500 companies are now organizing themselves to function as religious organizations. They have an origin story, a mission, ethics, and a particular set of practices, and many of them have a charismatic leader, which are all basic components of organized religion. I would say that this is strategic. They have learned that managing meaning is a central labor practice to compete for highly skilled workers in a knowledge economy.

Guernica: What would Marx say about that?

Chen: (Chuckles) He would say, I told you so! I actually found myself thinking a lot about Marx as I was doing my research.

Guernica: Youve talked about how companies aim to develop their human capital by cultivating a spirituality of authentic selfhood. Is this similar to the individualism that informed the counterculture movement?

Chen: Whether its a countercultural movement or a deeply mainstream American movement, there is in the United States this celebration of individualism and the ideal of the autonomous individual, who not only gets to make political choices and exercise their rights, but also gets to make economic choices in the marketplace. In the spiritual realm, this is expressed as an expectation of an unmediated relationship with the divine and of envisioning the divine as embodied in each individual person. At the core of this, whether its from the left or from the right, there is this celebration of self-fulfillment, of self-optimization, and of the idea of the autonomous, unencumbered, authentic self. Which, by the way, completely contradicts the Buddhist principle of no-self.

Guernica: You call the spirituality promoted by corporate America Whitened Buddhism, which claims to capture the essence of the Buddhas teachings without any distracting cultural baggage. How do the racial politics of the US play into this?

Chen: What we see is the erasure of Buddhism as a religion or tradition that Asians or Asian Americans can claim or identify with. In a place like the United States, there is a racial dimension to what is considered universal. Things like chanting, bowing, devotional practices, robes, incense, or having an altar are considered religious because they are associated with Asians or Asian Americans, while Buddhist meditation practices are presented as universal: something that can cross all times and people and spaces. And this matters a lot, because the universalization of Buddhism makes it marketable for business and therapeutic use. Such supposedly universal aspects of Buddhism are promoted in a secular context, while beliefs and practices associated with a particular cultural or ethnic group are considered to be religious.

I remember talking to someone at a company that brings meditation and mindfulness to businesses. She made it really clear to me that they did not bring in any zany gurus to teach meditation; they offered straight-laced teachers (they actually called them trainers) who didnt wear robes but looked just like the people they were teaching, wearing something like khaki pants and a button-down shirt. The way she saw it, they had done away with the accoutrements of religion that were not fundamental to meditation.

Guernica: Could this desire for a spirituality geared towards ones individual needs explain the backlash against organized religion in the US?

Chen: What we see in American religion, even if it is practiced in a corporate setting, is often the question, How can the group help the individual realize themselves? Whereas in other cultures this question tends to be reversed: How can the individual help realize the goals of the group? Interestingly enough, I think that companies have been able to command great self-sacrifice from Americans in a way that no other institution can today. I would argue that companies or workplaces have become the new faith communities that are replacing organized religion.

But there are downsides to this. We start to organize our selves, communities, and spiritualities around capitalisms goals of efficiency and productivity, ignoring other possible ethics of justice, kinship, and beauty. Ultimately, companies, which are driven by the bottom line, cannot offer us a solution for a flourishing life.

Guernica: What worries you most about corporate control over spirituality?

Chen: Its a problem when work becomes the alpha institution around which our lives revolve. I use the example of Buddhism to show how tradition and practices become flattened, impoverished, and hollowed out because they now serve the needs of the corporation. We see this also in families and in communities where civic participation has declined in the past 50 years. If we look at the economy of devotion in a community, devotion is collectively organized; it is organized around institutions such as the family, or the church, or the temple, or the workplace. But its a problem if you have only one game in town the workplace and essentially everything else orbits around it. This is increasingly what were seeing as we, human beings, become flattened into workers whose value is determined only by what we produce. This, I think, is also whats behind much of the obsession with self-optimization, positive psychology, and the health and wellness industry: we are under constant pressure to boost our value as individuals to stay competitive in a capitalist society. And this also damages our democracy. People are spending all their time and energy at work. In a place like Silicon Valley, the workplace takes care of workers needs, but it also claims all their employees time, energy and devotion, so that they have nothing left to give outside work.

I think this is where traditional religions have a role to play. To be sure, religious affiliation and participation is on the decline, and extreme groups like white Christian nationalists have monopolized Americas popular conversation on religion. But religion still is a powerful vehicle for social justice, especially among people of color think about the role of religion in the civil rights movement, the United Farm Workers movement, or immigration reform. But religions have articulated traditions and practices of meaning and purpose and of community and kinship that can counteract the extremely individualized, decontextualized, secular kind of spirituality that is being marketed today.

Here is the original post:

Carolyn Chen: Buddhism has found a new institutional home in the West: the corporation. - Guernica Magazine

After the Mahaparinirvana of Shakyamuni Buddha, his profound non-sectarian, universal teachings were not confined to the borders of India but rather travelled throughout Asia, crossing the paths of oceans, deserts and mountains and reaching to the rest of the world.

In the North-West of India, a network of ancient trade routes popularly known as Silk Route originated during the 2nd century A.D. It was used by different sections of people like merchants, traders, scholars, monks and missionaries etc. with which different ideas, culture, art and scriptures also travelled along.

One of the essential philosophies that transmitted through this route was the Buddha Dharma. The dissemination of Buddhism and Buddhist art was launched from northwestern India to modern Pakistan, Afghanistan, Central Asia, Xinjiang (Chinese Turkistan), China, Korea and Japan.

The transmission of Buddha Dharma from the North-West region of the Indian sub-continent to other land is incomplete without mentioning the royal patronage of King Ashoka of Maurya Empire, King Menander and King Kanishka of the Kushan Empire.

In Buddhist history, King Ashoka is considered as the first great royal patron of Buddhism post the Mahaparinirvana of Shakyamuni Buddha. It was through his efforts and determination that Buddhism came to occupy a prominent position in both India and abroad. Buddhism was the first religious philosophy that transmitted along the Silk Route from India to Gandhara region, Central Asia up to China.

According to Buddhist historical sources, King Ashoka organised the Third Buddhist Council under the chairmanship of Moggaliputta Tissa at Pataliputra (now Patna) in 247 B.C.

This council was conducted to preserve Buddhas teaching in its purest form. Post this council, it was decided to send Buddhist religious missionaries to different parts of the world. Consequently, King Ashoka sent out Buddhist missionaries to countries outside India through land and sea routes, thus reaching the lands west of India in Central Asia and South costal countries like Sri Lanka.

Historical sources mentioned that he deputed monk Majjhantika to travel to Kashmir and Gandhara region though which Buddhism eventually reached China and thereafter further flourished up to Korea and Japan. Besides, he also sent his son Mahindra and daughter Sanghamitra to the southern countries as far as Sri Lanka.

As Ashokas empire extended to the northwestern borders of Punjab, the Buddhist monks were free to move throughout the region.

An ancient Khotanese tradition credits Vijayasambhava, a grandson of King Ashoka, for introducing Buddhism in Khotan. According to this tradition, Arya Vairocana, a Buddhist scholar from India, came to Khotan and became the preceptor of the Khotanese King.

With this the first Buddhist monastery in Khotan was erected in 211 B.C. Thus, during the Ashokan period, Buddhism emerged as a distinct religion with great potential for expansion.

After the decline of the Mauryan Empire, the Greeks established its suzerainty over Afghanistan and the north-western region of India. Among the Greek rulers, the account of King Menander (also known as Milinda) is found in the Pali Buddhist literature called Milinda Panha (Question of Milinda). This text records a dialogue between King Menander and Indian Buddhist monk Nagasena where the latter through his masterly skill was successful in resolving the doubts of the King that ultimately led him to embracing Buddhism.

It says the King made donations to Sangha and also built a monastery called Milinda-vihara and gifted it to Nagasena. Besides, the Buddhist wheel of Dharmachakra was found on the coins of Menander period and the king remained a great patron and supporter of Buddhism till his last breath.

Subsequently, the foundation of Buddhism along the Central Asian route was further strengthened by King Kanishka of the Kushana Empire whose suzerainty was stretched from todays Hindu Kush to Kabul, Gandhara, northern Pakistan and north-west India.

Therefore, a ceaseless missionary activity was carried out from north-west India to the regions along the Silk Route. Buddhist history records that King Kanishka played a vital role in the history of Buddhism. Under his patronage, the fourth Buddhist Council in Kashmir was convened, which was presided over by Vasumitra and Ashvagosha.

Also, during his period a new style of Indo-Greek art known as Gandhara Art was developed that flourished mostly in Punjab and north-western India. An example of this art is very much alive in the form of Buddhist paintings and statues in the Himalayan region of Ladakh.

Thus, the ancient trade route played a significant role in disseminating Buddhism beyond the Indian territory. Buddhist art that originated on the Indian subcontinent played a vital role in the proliferation of Buddha Dharma to Central Asia and Far East countries, thereby adapting the local style and norms in each new host country.

20220712-212003

Read the original:

Buddhism along the Silk Route - CanIndia News

Bodh Gaya : Bodh Gaya, located in the central province of Bihar State is one of the holiest sites for Buddhists all over the world where thousands of foreigners mostly Buddhist devotees throng each year.

Under the sacred pipal or Bodhi tree, Gautama Buddha (Prince Siddhartha) attained enlightenment and became the Buddha. It is believed to be the centre of the universe according to some Buddhist texts and the seat of enlightenment of all past and future Buddhas.

In the 3rd century BCE, a simple shrine was built by the emperor Ashoka to mark the spot, and this was later enclosed by a stone railing in the first century BCE, part of which still remains.

Ashoka's stone slab purporting to mark the exact position where the Buddha sat is traditionally called the Buddha's Vajrasana (literally "diamond throne" or "thunder seat").

In the 2nd century CE, the shrine was replaced during the Kushan period by the present Mahabodhi temple which was itself refurbished in the Pala-Sena period (750-1200), heavily restored by the British archaeologist Sir Alexander Cunningham in the second half of the 19th century, and finally restored by Myanmar (Burmese) Buddhists in 1882.

The temple's central tower stands 180 feet (54 metres) above the ground. Its pyramidal shikhara (tower) comprises several layers of niches, arch motifs, and fine engravings. Four towers, each identical to its central counterpart but smaller in size and topped with an umbrella-like dome, adorn the corners of the two-story structure.

A shrine inside the temple holds a yellow sandstone statue of the Buddha encased in glass. One of the most famous of Ashoka's many pillars (on which he had engraved his edicts and his understanding of religious doctrine) stands at the southeast corner of the temple.

The 4.8-hectare (11.9-acre) complex also includes ancient shrines and modern structures built by Buddhist devotees. It was recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2002.

On September 5, 2015, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in the midst of delegates from different Buddhist countries reiterated the relevance of this holy place saying, "We are meeting in Bodhgaya, a land that has a distinctive place in the history of humankind. This is the land of Enlightenment. Years ago what Bodhgaya got was Siddhartha but what Bodhgaya gave to the world was Lord Buddha: the epitome of knowledge, Peace and Compassion."

Resonating PM Modi's thoughts, some of the firsthand accounts of the Asian Buddhists who took a pilgrimage to Bodhgaya write about their experiences at this holy site.

A Korean nun Hyeran Lee who got her PhD degree in Buddhist Studies from the University of Delhi in 2016 and is currently a Lecturer at Dongguk University, Republic of Korea writes, "Bodhgaya is the place where I can feel the energy of the Buddha. I had become a Buddhist nun at the age of 20 in order to devote my life to pursuing the Buddha's teaching and dharma. I was very curious about India - the land of the Buddha. When I was in my mid-twenties, I visited India for the first time. I had always been curious about the land of the Buddha and had seen the pictures of Buddhist sacred places so many times and did not expect to visit Bodhgaya and the other Buddhist sacred sites in India."

"But when I actually made a pilgrimage to Bodhgaya, I realized that the pictures cannot express everything that a Holy place holds. The atmosphere of Bodhgaya was sacredly mysterious and the place was crowded with pilgrims from all parts of the world. There were many people making prostrations to the Buddha and around the Mahabodhi Temple. Bodhgaya is a religious site where the Buddha attained Enlightenment under the Bodhi Tree. When I visited Bodhgaya again after 20 years, I felt the same feeling as I had felt during my first visit to Bodhgaya. I could feel the energy of the Buddha when he lived around 2600 years ago. I think that Buddhists and non-Buddhists can feel the Buddha's power in Bodhgaya, as many come on a pilgrimage to Bodhgaya every time," she added.

Another nun scholar from Vietnam Li Thi Kim Lien who finished her Masters in Buddhist Studies from University of Delhi very sincerely expresses her moment of experience in Bodhgaya saying, "It was a great blessing for me to come and admire Bodh Gaya under the Bodhi tree, which all Buddhists called the land of enlightenment. When my foot entered the gate of the Great Stupa, occasionally listening to the chanting of the Pali sutras emanating from the loudspeakers, I felt an indescribable emotion in my heart- an atmosphere of sacredness, mystery, and majesty pervades Bodh Gaya."

"I respectfully folded my hands and saluted the Great Stupa facing me. As I started walking toward the steps leading to the Great Stupa, I felt there was an invisible power that affected my consciousness. It affected my every step. Every step I took was like an electric current being transmitted to my body, making my whole body vibrate strangely. A spiritual force at the place of Buddha's enlightenment acted on my body and mind. At that time, I felt I am just a tiny human being before that spiritual power. It is strange that being under the influence of this spiritual power and the majesty of the Great Stupa, my heart felt peaceful and reverent, and I felt all my fears going away," she said.

Read this article:

Bodh Gaya is one of the holiest sites for Buddhists - Times of Oman

Hardly paid attention to for two decades, Archaeological Survey of India has now taken up conservation work at this important Buddhist site near Kalaburagi

Hardly paid attention to for two decades, Archaeological Survey of India has now taken up conservation work at this important Buddhist site near Kalaburagi

Left almost unattended to for 20 years after it came to light through the excavation by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) between 1994 and 2001, the ancient Buddhist site on the bank of Bhima river near Kanaganahalli (forming part of Sannati site) in Kalaburagi district, has finally got some attention.

The ASI has now come up with a plan for the conservation of the site at a cost of 3.5 crore and work has just begun. ASI Regional Director (South) D. Maheshwari and Circle Superintendent (Hampi) Nikhil Das are camping at the site monitoring work.

Till now, some items of antiquity found during excavation were kept in three tin sheds in the same site, while many remained scattered in the open.

The conservation project taken up now envisages the resetting of the remains of Maha Stupa retrieved in the excavation to their original positions without much ornamentation and reconstructing of fallen portions of the Ayaka platforms using newly-fabricated bricks of the same size, shape and texture.

The stupa was built with locally available limestone. Most of the dome slabs, drum slabs, inscribed sculptures and other structural remains were in a broken state when they were retrieved. We will start with the removal of core filling from the drum portion and then proceed to reset stone blocks to their original position. Once the consolidation of the entire stupa is done, we will go for railings and other peripheral work, Mr. Das told The Hindu.

It is a long-term project that may take 2-3 years. There had been conservation attempts in the past too. Some of them failed and some others were not sustained, Mr. Das added.

The conservation work under way at the Kanaganahalli ASI site near Sannati in Chittapur taluk of Kalaburagi district on Thursday.| Photo Credit: ARUN KULKARNI

Sannati and Kanaganahalli were small and ordinary villages on the bank of Bhima till 1986 when the Kali temple at the Chandralamba temple complex in Sannati collapsed. In the process of clearing the debris, they discovered an Ashokan edict which put the villages on the world map and opened new avenues of historical research on Mauryan Emperor Ashoka and Buddhism in its early years. It prompted the ASI excavations at Sannati and nearby Kanaganahalli and attracted historians across India and beyond.

The Kanaganahalli excavation opened up many marvels an abandoned well in the eyes of local villagers turned out to be the magnificent Maha Stupa, which was referred to as Adholoka Maha Chaitya (the Great Stupa of the netherworlds) in the inscriptions and, more significantly, the stone-portrait of Emperor Ashoka, surrounded by his queens and female attendants. While the Stupa is believed to be one of the largest of its time, the stone-portrait is considered to be the only surviving image of the Mauryan Emperor which had the inscription Raya Asoko in Brahmi on it. This image of Ashoka is currently in one of the tin sheds. It was only six months ago that this historically significant find got a glass cover.

The Maha Stupa is believed to have been developed in three constructional phases Maurya, Early Satavahana and Later Satavahana periods stretching from 3rd Century B.C. to 3rd Century A.D. The Stupa is believed to have been destroyed in an earthquake.

The recoveries included around 60 dome slabs with the sculptural rendering of Jataka stories, Portrait of Ashoka, Shatavahana monarchs and certain unique depictions of Buddhist missionaries sent by Ashoka to different parts; 72 drum-slabs decorated with a variety of Dharma-Chakras, Stupas, the first sermon, Bodhi-tree, Naga Muchulinda, Viihara complexes; over 10 inscribed sculptures of the Buddha, over a dozen Buddha-Padas; fragments of Ayaka pillars, umbrella stones and shafts, parts of sculptures of Yakshas and lion and 250 Brahmi inscriptions with varied paleographical features.

Ms. Maheshwari says that a lot of work is yet to be done to explore the hidden historical treasures in and around Sannati, which was Ranamandal about 2000 years ago.

The Karnataka government has given 25 acres of land which included the excavated area. The remaining area is to be used for developing tourist amenities. At present, our priority is to restore the Maha Stupa to its original position. After that, we can think of excavating other sites and connecting them into a storyline, she said.

The ASI site in Sannati is worth being a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We are preparing a detailed report on the historical importance of the site to submit to UNESCO. It is a long procedure, Mr. Das said.

However, as of now, there are not even well-developed roads to Sannati and Kanaganahalli which have the potential of attracting tourists from all over the world, especially from countries with sizable Buddhist populations like China, Thailand, Japan, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Vietnam. Barring a few occasions of visits by a handful of research scholars, historians and enthusiasts, the ASI site wears a deserted look throughout the year with armed guards at its gate.

There were also plans to preserve the historically precious finds at Sannati safe in a museum and develop the area into a major tourist and pilgrimage destination. The State government established Sannati Development Authority for the purpose.

Through Housing Board, it also built a museum building, dormitories, staff quarters and a compound wall around the 18-acre plot at a cost of 3.52 crores near the excavated site in 2009. However, things did not move forward as per plans. The museum building has not been handed over to ASI even 10 years after its construction. Abandoned for a long time without any maintenance, the building has developed cracks and the entire premise turned out to be a wasteland full of weeds and thorny bushes.

The ASI was ready to take the museum building into its fold and keep the excavated antiquities there. But, the State government did not hand it over to ASI. But now, we dont need it as we have planned the resetting of Maha Stupa and placing all the excavated antiquities in their original positions, said ASI Circle Superintendent (Hampi) Nikhil Das.

Here is the original post:

Sannati: Ancient Buddhist site finally in focus after 20 years - The Hindu

If I had to describe the literary style of the manga artist Tatsuki Fujimoto in one word, it would be Genuine. His famous serialized manga Chainsaw Man has been taking the world by storm for some time now, but his serialized One-Shots (One Chapter Manga Works) are equally impressive in a different way, and each of them feels like they contain a hint of the true him, the genuine Fujimoto, and his new work Just listen to this song is no different.

Look Back, published on Shueishas Manga+ service in July 2021, has a strong message about Fujimotos growth as an artist, while Goodbye, Eri, published in February this year, was more about the author coming to terms with his own family, life, and the inevitability of death that rules over everything. Just listen to this song, released earlier this month, continues the trend of the author speaking from his own heart to the readers. This time, however, he is sending a clear message about the reception of the fans to online stories and media, among other themes that are worth exploring.

The start of the story is simple and cliched enough. A high-schooler who loves playing guitar is trying to win the heart of his crush by playing a song, and recording it on video for her to watch. He would have landed a hit if it werent for him uploading the video to Youtube, causing himself to become mocked by the entire school, and later the whole country and the world itself. Furthermore, he got turned down very harshly by the same girl he was infatuated with.

The boy had one simple wish, as he stated in the video: Let these feelings in my heart be understood, by the one who I love best. Nevertheless, no one really understood his true intentions. Everyone in the world saw the video differently, and perceived it as a form of political or religious criticism, among other outrageous claims. The boy got disheartened and quickly wanted to delete it. Despite that, he held back after someone warned him not to, saying Form Is emptiness.

He could not quite grasp the meaning of these words, but regardless, he composed himself and uploaded a second song, this time called: Just Listen to This Song. Even though this one contained his true and genuine feelings, no one bothered to watch it, and it was universally ignored. He later gave up and deleted all his videos. Yet still, the ending sends a warm message that if a feeling is truly from the heart, it will resonate with the heartstrings of the one its aimed at.

There is a lot to dissect from this story about modern trending topics and how they are perceived, and what the author wanted to say by writing it.

Modern communication is a wonder. There are a lot of barriers that could prevent you from understanding the true meaning of things. Whenever a new book or a movie is released, you are bound to find endless discussions and theories about what the creator was truly aiming for. The death of the author is a recurring daily subject when trying to appreciate fiction.

Most of Fujimotos works are surreal and symbolic, thats why they always spark a discussion about what could be the true essence of his stories. At first glance, you can feel that he is using Just Listen to This Song to call out his fans. The ones that are invested in figuring out deep meanings and messages behind his works, and boast about their superior intellect. In reality, and with reflections from his earlier works such as Goodbye, Eri and Look Back, he has always been just getting by, trying to be himself, and having fun. Nothing more.

But this latest manga suggests that the author is at a stage in life where he is satisfied with the conclusions he reached, the peace of mind he has longed for. He wants to inspire other readers to feel and do the same; to be true to themselves, and never have doubts when they are doing the things they love. Thats why Just Listen to This Song was not only about the boys feelings, but also about his own hesitation.

Its easy to miss the true significance of the advice the boy got from another school girl when he was confused about what to do after the video went viral. She said these words: Form is Emptiness. This is actually a direct reference to the Heart Sutra, a popular sutra in Buddhism. It does not mean that you should relinquish the constraints of form to reach the state of emptiness, but describes Form itself as emptiness.

Lets say you want to define something as good or bad. The mental process of doing that depends on you distinguishing that something between what it is and what it is not. If you like a color, its because there are colors you dont like. If a certain smell evokes good memories, itll be different from the smells of other things that you associate with bad memories. In other words, we put things in pre-established forms to define them, according to our fixed self-identity and how we define things.

We ignore their own individual nature because we inherently discriminate against the things we are not familiar with. Happiness in our minds is tied to a specific form. That form has to have specific logic and connections, but thats not necessarily true. Buddha calls this the reason for humanitys suffering. The boys suffering was because he was fixated on his preconceived notion of how his confession should have gone. Other peoples confusion is also tied to the form they chose to apply to the video he uploaded, with that form changing as the trend kept going.

The origin of suffering was that the boy didnt want things to change. He was afraid of that change. Emptiness on the other hand, does not refer to a space or a void in space, but to the true nature of all things. That there is nothing in this world that doesnt have a single fixated existence. Everything is in constant change. Therefore, its wrong to assume happiness will come if abstract things are given form, or even if we reject form for emptiness as the better truth of the world. Happiness will only come if we accept both form and emptiness as one unified reality.

Once the boy decided to upload his video on Youtube, he should have accepted immediately that his confession will take any form in peoples minds and thats okay. At the same time, he should have not waited for his feelings to reach the girl, but instead for the girl herself to perceive his love in her own way. Then after that, she would decide to accept his love, in whatever form it may take. Even the word Cringy which she used to describe his confession, was used again towards the end in a different context, showing that even her own perception of what is Cringy, has changed over time.

Of course, all that is just my perception (my form) of what could Fujimoto have wanted to say through his new one-shot Just Listen to This Song. Our interpretations of Fujimotos works will also keep changing as he releases more serialized manga and one-shots. Thats fine though, because form is emptiness after all.

Just Listen to This Song is now available to read for free on VIZ Medias partner website MANGA Plus by SHUEISHA.

More here:

Tatsuki Fujimotos Just Listen To This Song Is A Lesson In Love And Buddhism - DualShockers

A video on an ancient Buddhist city, Mes Aynak, which was once a vast city organised around the extraction and trade of copper.

A video on an ancient Buddhist city, Mes Aynak, which was once a vast city organised around the extraction and trade of copper.

This ancient Buddhist city, Mes Aynak, was carved out of immense peaks near Kabul in Afghanistan

Believed to be between 1,000 and 2,000 years old, it was once a vast city organised around the extraction and trade of copper.

Mes Aynak, in the Logar province, has been compared to Pompeii and Machu Picchu in size and significance.But, it is in danger of disappearing.

A Chinese consortium has been looking to exploit one of the worlds largest copper deposits.

This has worried archaeologists, who over the years have unearthed Buddhist monasteries, stupas, fortresses, buildings statues, frescoes, ceramics, and more.

They fear mining operations would destroy all remaining gems waiting to be discovered

Follow this link:

Watch | Why is this ancient Buddhist city near Kabul in danger of disappearing? - The Hindu

What happened in East Turkestan is being replicated in the Tibet Autonomous Region at an accelerating pace.

by Tenzin Tsultrim

The revelation of a cache of files containing thousands of sensitive images and classified speeches of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leaders further confirms the veracity of Chinas crackdown on the identity and the culture of Uyghur and Turkic peoples. However, in the past, the Party-state hasdenied the existenceof transformation through education camps in East Turkestan (Ch: Xinjiang).

Like Xinjiang, Tibet is another region where after the 2008 mass uprising, the Party-state has long accelerated its plan for the enforced assimilation of Tibetan people. Since 2009, the repressive policies resulted in theself-immolations of around 158 Tibetans.Despite the spate of self-immolations, the CCP has continuouslydenied human rights violations in Tibet.

In the past few months, the self-immolations of a popular Tibetan singer, Tsewang Norbu, and an elderly Tibetan, Taphun, reminded us that nothing has changed in Tibet. These self-immolators come from different backgrounds and age groups. Some were as young as 16-year-old and the recent self-immolator Taphun from Ngaba was 81-year-old. This indicates that the repressive policies of the Party-state have engulfed every section of Tibetan society. For instance, the commentary by Dolma Tsering has systematically described thecauses for the composition of different age groupsamong the self-immolators. For the past few years,the Party-state has initiated a renewed crackdown on Tibetan culture, particularly on Tibetan Buddhism and the Tibetan language.

For the past few months, numerous reports highlighted deteriorating human rights violations and increasing repression in Tibet. For instance, according to the 2021annual reportof the U.S. Central Executive Commission on China (CECC), The Party and government continued to restrict, and seek to control, the religious practices of Tibetans. Officials in Tibetan areas of China continued to enforce restrictions on religious observance or expression of faith, including prohibiting individuals from participating in religious events or celebrating holidays.

For the past several years,Tibet scored only one out of 100 in the global freedom rankings,and the Freedom House 2021 report tied Tibet with Syria as the least-free territories in the world. The report further concluded that, The governments efforts to Sinicize Tibetan Buddhism have accelerated in recent years, with officials requiring Tibetan Buddhist clergy and lay believers to pledge their loyalty to the CCP and socialism above their religious beliefs, to denounce the Dalai Lama, and attend increasingly long political education sessions.

Tibet Action Institutes reportreleased on 7 December 2021 further confirms the Party-state intentions to eradicate Tibetan identity and further assimilate the Tibetan people. The report highlights that the Tibetan students are at risk of losing their mother tongue and connection to their cultural identity because1) Classes are primarily taught in Chinese.2) They live apart from their families and communities and are, therefore, unable to practice their religion or access the most authentic expressions of Tibetan culture and traditions.

All these coercive and assimilationist measures implemented by China in Tibet require a very large amount of expenditure, and this is reflected in Chinas oversized budget for maintaining internal security.

There is no doubt that the source of intensive coercive measures in Tibet and Xinjiang is high domestic security spending by China. For instance,Adrian Zenz found thatDuring Xi Jinpings term from 2013 to 2017, Chinas domestic security spending grew 34 percent faster than total spending. In particular, security-related expenditures in sensitive regions such as Xinjiang and Tibet have risen so rapidly that they now exceed the United States average on a per capita PPP basis.

Before becoming the Party Secretary of Xinjiang, for around five years Chen Quanguo, the mastermind behind the grid-style social management, was the Party Secretary of the Tibet Autonomous Region and the person who successfully laid the groundwork for the current planned implementation of thethree-dimensional security measures in Tibet,as in the 14thFive-Year Plan 2021-2025. This involves what they call rule of law, specialized, and intelligent measures to maintain public order by combining the efforts of both professionals and the people for preventing and controlling crimes through public participation.

For instance,during a meeting in March 2017, Xinjiang governments were required to practice the Fengqiao experience, which is one of the parts of three-dimensional security measures, also known as Double Family Defense Stability Maintenance in Xinjiang. Hence, it is no surprise that during Chen Quanguos term as the Party Secretary in Xinjiang from 2016 to 2021 the so-called Fengqiao experience was introduced. The Fengqiao experience is the process of mobilizing the masses in order to strengthen the dictatorship over class enemies.

In Tibet too, it was during Chen Quanguo that the Fengqiao experience came in the form of Double-Linked Households. In short, what happened in East Turkestan (Ch: Xinjiang), is happening in Tibet and whathappened in Tibet, is happening in East Turkestan.

From the current developments in Tibet, it appears that the Party-state is implementing exactly what it has planned in 14thFive-Year-Plan. For instance, with the introduction of new regulations such as Measures for the Administration of Internet Religious Information Services, released on 20 December 2021 and came into force on March 1, 2022, exactly a year after the 14thFive-Year-Plan was officially endorsed by the National Peoples Congress on March 11, 2021. The regulation banned all foreign organizations and individuals from spreading religious content online in China.

One reason for the acceleration of the Sinicization of Tibetan Buddhism is to fully control every nook and corner before the Party-state implements its grand plan in Tibet. The conclusions offered by the different reports further confirm that the situation in Tibet is further deteriorating with the implementation of repressive policies specifically aimed at eliminating Tibetan culture and Tibetan Buddhism. For instance, in the 2021 Shigatse Municipal government work report,the implementation of the Fengqiao experience and Sinicization of Tibetan Buddhism was encouraged.On the Dingri government website too,there is a mention of taking a major survey among the Tibetan people focusing on the stability, development, ecology and strengthening of the border.

The leaked Chinese police records are a strong reminder that the Party-state has taken every measure to suppress the Uyghur population and it is a matter of time before Chinas iron curtain over Tibet will also be lifted. After all, the Party-state has skeletons in all its cupboards.

More here:

Is Tibet Finally Going the Way of Xinjiang? - Bitter Winter