The Story of Stuff

Living simply and being happier. It's what we strive for in our practice.

 

But it's so easy to forget this goal, especially at this time of the year when the holiday shopping season is kicking into high gear.  But do you ever wonder what happens to the stuff from holidays past?

Find out in Free Range's new movie, The Story of Stuff with Annie Leonard.

The Story of Stuff will take you on an "enlightening" tour of our consumer-driven culture—from resource extraction to iPod incineration—exposing the real costs of our use-it and lose-it approach to stuff.

 

 

Rebirth in Every Moment

Rebirth does not relate just to past and future lifetimes. Every moment of our life we experience rebirth. Every day, we can begin anew through the thoughts we have. So even if we are still uncertain about "Rebirth," we can still see how it works within just one lifetime.

During Monday night's class, I read a short meditation to be done in the morning. Essentially, we pause before rising and consider how we want to spend our time that day: wisely or wastefully. We can consider the good things of the moment be they the sounds we hear in the early morning or the thoughts that arise. With positive thoughts thus reinforced, we will face the day in a better frame of mind.

By focusing our thoughts, we can positively direct them. By cheerfully greeting those we encounter as the day unfolds, we plant the seeds for happiness. We don't have to wait for these seeds to mature in some distant lifetime. When we smile, we feel better. Right away. Instant rebirth. Instant cause and effect.

One moment we didn't quite feel like smiling because we were wrapped up in replaying what happened yesterday or in worrying about what might happen tomorrow. But remembering that we had opted to be reborn that morning, we smile and our act of smiling manifests as happiness. And the happiness is shared as it is now felt by the one we smiled at.

Face each new day as a new beginning, a day in which to plant seeds and instantly receive some of the results.

Cinderella Returns

 

I've had a song from the 1957 television production of Cinderella playing in my head for most of the day. "Impossible things are happening every day," from the song named "Impossible." Rogers and Hammerstein wrote the musical for television. Only broadcast once, it was a live production, something that was the norm when I was growing up.

Periodically, my mother and I used to go in to New York City. We'd go for Broadway and off-Broadway shows, the Metropolitan Opera, the museums, and all the other wonderful things one could afford to do in the city in the 1950's and 60's.

Mom would usually buy me the musical sound track (on records in those days). She must have bought me Cinderella because a few night ago, I sat happily glued to the television, in the warm glow of happy memories, thinking how much Mom would have enjoyed watching this rebroadcast, the first one in fifty years. 

I say she must have bought the sound track because although it was only broadcast one time, I knew every song. By heart. Perfectly. Wow. Talk about long-term memory!

I listened to the sound track fifty years ago, and I still remember it so clearly.

We need to be careful of what we imprint on our minds. Fortunately for me, what I had imprinted that night fifty years ago watching television with my mother was a child's morality tale with wonderful music, each song more beautiful (or funny, like the "Stepsisters' Lament") than the previous one. The world today is sadly different from the one I grew up in. We need to be vigilant and choose those imprints carefully. We never know how long they will stay with us. 

First to Last: Chanting "Amituofo"

In the Avatamsaka Sutra , we read about Sudhana, the young seeker of truth in the sutra. Under Manjusri Bodhisattva’s guidance, Sudhana eliminated a part of ignorance and attained a part of Dharma Body, thus gaining fundamental wisdom. The Zen school calls this state complete enlightenment. The sutra-study schools call it perfect understanding. At this time, Manjusri allowed Sudhana to travel around to visit other teachers. The purpose was for Sudhana to attain acquired wisdom. What followed is the famous “Sudhana’s visit to fifty-three wise teachers.”

The method used to cultivate fundamental wisdom is completely different from that used to cultivate acquired wisdom. To cultivate fundamental wisdom, the practitioner must delve deeply into one method. The practitioner has to be immersed in that method for a long period of time. His mind must be focused. Through deep meditative concentration, he lets go of wandering thoughts, discriminations, and attachments, and uncovers his true nature.

After he has uncovered true nature, the teacher will permit him to come into contact with anyone and get involved in anything. Instead of delving deeply into one method, the practitioner can now learn extensively from many teachers. This will help us understand the Four Great Vows of Bodhisattvas.

Sentient beings are innumerable,
I vow to help them all.

Afflictions are inexhaustible,
I vow to end them all.

Ways to practice are boundless,
I vow to master them all.

Enlightenment is unsurpassable,
I vow to attain it.

The second vow, “Afflictions are inexhaustible; I vow to end them all” is to cultivate fundamental wisdom. The third vow, “Methods to practice are boundless; I vow to master them all” is to cultivate acquired wisdom. Having attained fundamental wisdom, one does not study with just one teacher. Everyone is one’s teacher. Everything can be learned, so we will know everything.

The first teacher that Sudhana visited was Cloud of Virtues Bodhisattva. What was the method this teacher practiced? The method of being mindful of the Buddha!

Sakyamuni Buddha attained enlightenment and Buddhahood at the age of thirty. After he had attained Buddhahood, he started to propagate the Dharma and benefit all beings. He did so for forty-nine years until he entered nirvana at eighty.

During the forty-nine years, Sakyamuni did not have a day off. Why? Because what he taught—ending the cycle of rebirth and transcending the Three Realms—was very important. So he could not take any day off. Had he done so, his students’ learning would have been interrupted, and they would have regressed. Learning is like going upstream in a boat; if you do not move forward, you go backward. It is the same in cultivation; if one does not make progress, one immediately regresses.

To ensure that one does not regress, one has to keep making progress. One should overcome one’s afflictions and residual habits. How does one do so? By being eager to learn. When one has a strong will to learn, one will not regress, and it will be easy for one to learn the teachings.

Cloud of Virtues Bodhisattva diligently chanted the name of Amitabha Buddha, and vowed to attain rebirth in the Western Pure Land. He made a strong first impression on Sudhana. After this first visit, Sudhana visited other wise teachers, and every one of them practiced different methods.

It was the fifty-third teacher, Samantabhadra, who taught Sudhana the Ten Great Vows and urged him to vow to attain rebirth in the Western Pure Land. The first teacher taught the method of being mindful of Amitabha Buddha, and the last teacher vowed to be reborn in the Western Pure Land. So from the beginning of the Avatamsaka Sutra to the end, Sudhana practiced the method of being mindful of Amitabha Buddha and vowed to be reborn in the Western Pure Land.

~ Based on Ven. Master Chin Kung's 2003 lecture series on the Amitabha Sutra 

Seeing with Real Insight

 

If you see things with real insight, then there is no stickiness in your relationship to them. They come—pleasant and unpleasant—you see them and there is no attachment. They come and they pass. Even if the worse kinds of defilement come up, such as greed or anger, there’s enough wisdom to see their impermanent nature and allow them to just fade away. If you react to them, however, by liking or disliking, that isn’t wisdom. You’re only creating more suffering for yourself.

~ Ajahn Chah