Tag: buddhism

Siddhārtha Gautama (Sanskrit; Pali: Siddhattha Gotama) was a spiritual teacher from ancient India and the founder of Buddhism.

He is generally recognized by Buddhists as the Supreme Buddha (Sammāsambuddha) of our age. The time of his birth and death are uncertain: most early 20th-century historians date his lifetime from circa 563 BCE to 483 BCE; more recently, however, at a specialist symposium on this question, the majority of those scholars who presented definite opinions gave dates within 20 years either side of 400 BCE for the Buddha's death, with others supporting earlier or later dates.

Gautama, also known as Śākyamuni or Shakyamuni (“sage of the Shakyas”), is the key figure in Buddhism, and accounts of his life, discourses, and monastic rules were said to have been summarized after his death and memorized by the sangha. Passed down by oral tradition, the Tripitaka, the collection of teachings attributed to Gautama by the Theravada, was committed to writing about 400 years later.

Early Life

Siddhartha Buddha was born a prince in Lumbini, Nepal, at the foot of Mount Palpa in the Himalayan ranges. His father was Suddhodana, king of the Sakhyas. Because his mother, Maya, died seven days after his birth, he was raised by his foster mother, Maya’s sister Mahaprajapati.

When he was born, astrologers predicted that upon achieving manhood, Siddhartha would become either a universal monarch (Chakravarti), or would abandon all earthly comforts to become a monk and a Buddha, a perfectly enlightened soul who would then assist all mankind to achieve enlightenment. His father, who desired his son to become a universal monarch, asked the astrologers what his son would see that might cause him to retire from the world. They replied: “A decrepit old man, a diseased man, a dead man, and a monk.”

Doing his best to prevent his son from becoming a monk, Suddhodana raised him in luxury and indulgence and sought to keep him attached to sensual pleasure. Guards were posted to assure that Siddhartha did not make contact with the four men described by the astrologers. He placed his son in a magnificent walled estate with gardens, fountains, palaces, music, dancing and beautiful women. Siddhartha married Yasodhara at age sixteen, who subsequently gave birth to their son, Rahula. Throughout these early years of his life, he knew nothing of the sufferings that were taking place outside his enclosure.

Discovering Suffering for the First Time

Then one day, desiring to see how the people in his town were living, he managed to get out of his walled enclosure accompanied by his servant, Channa. He came upon a decrepit old man, a sick man, and a corpse and he was shocked. Seeing their mortality, he realized that he also would one day become prey to old age, disease and death. He then met a monk who impressed him with his serenity and beauty. It was at this time that Siddhartha decided to renounce the material world with its luxuries and comforts, as well as suffering and pain, and take up a monastic life, realizing that “Worldly happiness is transitory.”

Leaving Home and Seeking

Siddhartha left his home forever, donning yellow robes and shaving his head, to take up Yogic practices. Seeking instructions from several hermit teachers who lived in caves in the neighboring hills, he practiced severe Tapas (austerities) and Pranayama (breath control) for six years, during which time he almost starved to death and became exceedingly weak. He finally realized that starvation did not serve his aims, as it would lead to the very conditions he was trying to surmount. At this point he decided to give up the extreme life he had been living, eat food in moderation, and take to the “middle path.”

Enlightenment

Given food by a young woman, he sought a comfortable place to sit and eat it. He found a large tree, now known as the great Bo-tree, or Tree of Wisdom. Upon consuming the physical food, he realized that he was starved for spiritual nourishment. Going deep into meditation, he contemplated his journey with its temptations and desires but did not yield to them. The legends tell us that he came out of the meditation victorious, his face shining with illumination and splendor, having attained Nirvana. (Nirvana is the completion of the path of Buddhism in which the person has achieved self-enlightenment and all delusion and anguish are permanently ended). He got up and danced in divine ecstasy for seven days and nights around the sacred Bo-tree, after which he returned to a normal state of consciousness filled with incredible compassion for all. He had an overwhelming desire to share his illumination with humanity.

A Spiritual Teacher

Thus at age 35, Siddhartha was a Boddhisatva (one who has achieved enlightenment but chooses to remain in this world who help those who are suffering). He expressed the experience of his Samadhi (state of consciousness in which Absoluteness is experienced attended with all-knowledge and joy; Oneness):

I thus behold my mind released from the defilement of sensual pleasures, released from the defilement of heresy, released from the defilement of ignorance.

“The Buddha” (enlightened one) left his wondrous Bo-tree behind, venturing out into the world to teach others who were seeking Wisdom and Enlightenment.

He died at age 80 around 480 B.C.

Goenka was a noted Burmese-Indian teacher of Vipassanā meditation. Born in Burma, he followed the tradition of Sayagyi U Ba Khin, under whom he trained for 14 years.

In 1969, he moved to India and started teaching the Vipassana meditation, and started a mediation center at Igatpuri, near Nashik in 1976.

In time, he became an influential non-sectarian teacher of the Vipassana movement and a pioneer of the Vipassana meditation in India. He trained more than 1300 assistant teachers and each year more than 120,000 people attend Goenka-led Vipassana courses.

The technique which S. N. Goenka teaches represents a tradition that is traced back to the Buddha. Goenka emphasizes that, "The Buddha never taught a sectarian religion; he taught Dhamma - the way to liberation - which is universal" and presents his teachings as non-sectarian and open to people of all faiths or no faith. "Liberation" in this context means freedom from impurities of mind and, as a result of the process of cultivating a pure mind, freedom from suffering.

Goenka calls Vipassana meditation an experiential scientific practice, through which one can observe the constantly changing nature of the mind and body at the deepest level, a profound understanding that leads to a truly happy and peaceful life.

He died from old age on September 29, 2013, at his home in Mumbai. He was survived by his wife Elaichi Devi Goenka, also a prominent meditation teacher, and six sons.

Stephen H. Wolinsky, PhD is one of the few direct living disciples of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj living in the United States.

Wolinsky is a founder of Quantum Psychology, integrating Western Psychology, Advaita-Vedanta’s Non-duality, Quantum Physics, Neuro-Science, and Buddhism. In 2002, he founded Post-deconstruction, a scientific approach beyond Postmodernism. He is the author of fourteen books, audio tapes and a DVD series, I Am That I Am.

Wolinsky presently resides in Aptos, California.

Stephen, has a PhD. in Clinical Psychology and began his psychotherapy practice in 1974. From 1975 to 1985 he met over thirty different Gurus, Teachers, Rinpoches, and Meditation Masters. In January 1977, he journeyed to India to study meditation, and remained there for almost six years. Stephen continued traveling back to India for months at a time, over the next four years. In the mid-1980’s he went to Nepal to study three of the six Yogas of Naropa . Later he realized the identical nature of the teachings of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, and Madhyamika, (Middle Way) Buddhism Founder, Nagarjuna, and his Eight Negations.

His Spiritual Journey

In the mid 1970’s, Avadhut Bhagawan Nityananda appeared to Stephen as he spontaneously entered Samadhi. Upon receiving initiation (shaktipat diksa) Bhagawan Nityananda, became his Initiation Guru. A few months later he met Swami Muktananda, a disciple of Nityananda who told him “come to India”. In January 1979, after living in India for two years and studying I AM THAT, he met his Teacher (Acharya) Guru Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj.

Stephen says it was Bhagawan Avadhut Nityananda that guided him to Nisargadatta Maharaj, and that it was Sri Ramana Maharshi that acted as a portal or doorway to Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj. Nisargadatta told Stephen to visit Ramana’s Ashram in Tiruvanamalai, which he did in 1983.

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj and Bhagawan Avadhut Nityananda

The connection between Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj and Bhagawan Avadhut Nityananda goes back to the 1950’s, and was relayed to Stephen twice, first by a brother disciple of Nisargadatta Maharaj, Alexander Smit. In a conversation with Maharaj, Smit asked him, “Did you ever meet Nityananda?.” Maharaj replied, “Yes”. Smit asked, “What did you think of him.” Maharaj replied, “Not a day goes by that I don’t think of him.”

The second connection between Bhagwan Avadhut Nityananda and Nisargadatta Maharaj revealed itself, when S. K. Mullarpattan, Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj’s primary translator in the years 1976-1981, told Stephen that Bhagawan Avadhut Nityananda, as a young man used to stay with Mullarpattan’s family quite often, and that Mullarpattan used to go and see Baghawan Nityananda frequently in Ganespuri, and that he still does his mantra japa, (repetition). More interestingly, both Nisargadatta Maharaj and Bhagwan Avadhut Nityananda gave the same mantra diksa (initiation), and taught the same unique way of repeating the mantra, (japa).

Tenzin Gyatso is the 14th and current Dalai Lama. He is often referred to simply as the Dalai Lama. He is a practicing member of the Gelug School of Tibetan Buddhism and is influential as a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, as the world's most famous Buddhist monk. He is the leader of the exiled Tibetan government in India.

Tenzin Gyatso was the fifth of sixteen children born to a farming family in the village of Taktser, or Tengtser, of the Tibetan province of Amdo, originally named Lhamo Döndrub (Tibetan: ལ; Wylie: Lha-mo Don-'grub). His first language was the Amdo dialect of Tibetan.

At the age of two, Tenzin Gyatso was proclaimed the Tulku (rebirth) of the thirteenth Dalai Lama.

On 17 November 1950, at the age of fifteen, he was enthroned as Tibet's Head of State. Thus he became Tibet's most important political ruler just one month after the People's Republic of China's invasion of Tibet on 7 October 1950.

In 1954, he went to Beijing to talk with Mao Zedong and other leaders of the PRC.

After a failed uprising and the collapse of the Tibetan resistance movement in 1959, the Dalai Lama left for India, where he was active in establishing the Central Tibetan Administration (the Tibetan Government in Exile) and in seeking to preserve Tibetan culture and education among the thousands of refugees who accompanied him.

Tenzin Gyatso is a charismatic figure and noted public speaker. This Dalai Lama is the first to travel to the West. There, he has helped to spread Buddhism and to promote the concepts of universal responsibility, secular ethics, and religious harmony.

He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, honorary Canadian citizenship in 2006, and the United States Congressional Gold Medal on 17 October 2007.

Thich Nhat Hanh (called Thây by his students) is one of the well known and most respected Zen masters in the world today. He is also a poet, and peace and human rights activist.

He was born in central Vietnam in 1926 and joined the monkshood at the age of sixteen.

The Vietnam War confronted the monasteries with the question of whether to adhere to the contemplative life and remain meditating in the monasteries, or to help the villagers suffering under bombings and other devastation of the war. Nhat Hanh was one of those who chose to do both, helping to found the "engaged Buddhism" movement. His life has since been dedicated to the work of inner transformation for the benefit of individuals and society.

In Saigon in the early 60s, Thich Nhat Hanh founded the School of Youth Social Service, a grass-roots relief organization that rebuilt bombed villages, set up schools and medical centers, resettled homeless families, and organized agricultural cooperatives.

Despite government denunciation of his activity, Nhat Hanh also founded a Buddhist University, a publishing house, and an influential peace activist magazine in Vietnam.

He lives in the Plum Village Monastery in the Dordogne region in the South of France, travelling internationally to give retreats and talks. A long-term exile, he was given permission to make his first return trip to Vietnam in 2005.

He has published more than 100 books, including more than 40 in English. Nhat Hanh is active in the peace movement, promoting non-violent solutions to conflict.

Catherine Ingram became involved in Buddhism and meditation when she was seventeen years old. Living in Cambridge, she worked as a journalist for American spiritual magazines such as Yoga Journal and East West Journal, among others; for more than twelve years. Over the course of those years, she interviewed many well-known spiritual leaders and teacher, Krishnamurti, Desmond Tutu, Thich Nhat Hanh, and the Dalai Lama, among them, with a focus on the way they manifested consciousness in the world. Some of these interviews culminated in a book entitled In the Footsteps of Gandhi. At a certain moment she felt that Buddhist practices were not working for her. After a period of what she calls "a dark night of the soul" she met the Indian guru Poonjaji. "With him there was a recognition of something I had always known but had not given its due." It was the end of her belief in reincarnation, karma and even in enlightenment.

Catherine Ingram is an international dharma teacher with communities in the U.S., Europe, and Australia. Since 1992 she has led Dharma Dialogues, which are public events of inquiry into the nature of awareness and the possibility of living an ethical and happy life without beliefs or religious dogma. Catherine also leads numerous silent retreats each year in conjunction with Dharma Dialogues. She is president of Living Dharma, an educational non-profit organization dedicated to inquiry and service with offices in Oakland, California. For the past twenty-five years, Catherine has helped organize and direct institutions dedicated to awareness and service. She is a co-founder of Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts (1976).

Ram Bahadur Bomjon (also written Bomjan, Banjan, or Bamjan), also known as Palden Dorje (his official Buddhist name), is from Ratanapuri village, Bara district, Nepal and is believed to be the reincarnation of Buddha by his followers.

He drew thousands of visitors and media attention for spending months in meditation. Nicknamed the Buddha Boy, he began his meditation on 16 May 2005, disappeared from his hometown on 11 March 2006, and reappeared elsewhere in Nepal on 26 December 2006 only to leave again on 8 March 2007. On 26 March 2007, inspectors from the Area Police Post Nijgadh in Ratanpuri found Bomjon meditating inside a bunker-like square ditch of seven feet.

Dagpo Rimpoche Losang Jamphel Jhampa Gyamtshog, born in 1931 in Southeast Tibet, was recognised by H.H. the 13th Dalaï Lama as a tulku or reincarnated lama.

He is head of several monastic communities in Tibet and doctor of Buddhist philosophy. He taught Tibetan language and civilization for 30 years at the School of Oriental Studies in Paris.

Invited all over the world, he gives lectures in France, Italy, Germany, Holland, Switzerland, Belgium, India, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore.

Dagpo Rinpoche's previous incarnations are said to include the main spiritual guide of the Indian sage Atisha, the great Serlingpa of Indonesia and the great 11th-century translator Marpa Lotsawa, one of the pioneers of the Kagyu School of Buddhism in Tibet, as well as several abbots.

The name Kwan Yin, also spelled Quan Yin, means "One Who Sees and Hears the Cry from the Human World." The legend speaks of Kwan Yin beginning life as an Indian Bodhisattva, a male, and instead of entering Nirvana chose to stay on earth to help relieve suffering.

Another legend states that Kwan Yin was female and a Buddhist who through her great love of humankind and her personal sacrifice could have entered Nirvana but after hearing all the anguished cries of the world chose to remain and show mercy.

Beginning Life as Avlokiteshvara
The Chinese recognize Kwan Yin as the Goddess of Mercy but believe she may have entered this world in the form of a male called Avolokiteshvara. He was known as a merciful lord and identified with utter enlightenment. Avolkiteshvara belonged to the early 12th century and it is thought that he evolved many times and is today the female version of the Goddess of Mercy.

The Legend of Miao Shan
An ancient tale is told about a beautiful daughter of an Indian Prince called Miao Shan. She decided at an early age to become a Buddhist and to follow the traditional path of self-sacrifice and unreproachable virtue. So devoted to her faith that she earned the right to Buddhahood but refused the honor to remain on earth and help the helpless.

She tried to convert her father to Buddhism and finally succeed when she told him, as a transfigured stranger, to swallow the eyeball of on of his children to cure his blindness. None of the children would give him an eyeball and Miao Shan pointed out to him, through this exercise, the vanity of the world in which his children would not give him the sacrifice.

Acharya Nāgārjuna was an Indian philosopher and the founder of the Madhyamaka school of Mahāyāna Buddhism.

His writings are the basis for the formation of the Madhyamaka school, which was transmitted to China under the name of the Three Treatise (Sanlun) School.

He is credited with developing the philosophy of the Prajnaparamita sutras, and was closely associated with the Buddhist university of Nalanda. In the Jodo Shinshu branch of Buddhism, he is considered the First Patriarch.

He was born in Southern India, near the town of Nagarjunakonda in present day Nagarjuna Sagar in the Nalgonda district of Andhra Pradesh. He was born into an upper-caste Brahmin family, but later converted to Buddhism. This may be the reason he was one of the earliest significant Buddhist thinkers to write in classical Sanskrit rather than Pāli or Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit.

Nagarjuna wished to achieve a consistent understanding of the Buddha's doctrine as recorded in the Canon. In the eyes of Nagarjuna the Buddha was not merely a forerunner, but the very founder of the Madhyamaka system.