I'm writing about the Dhammadessana I heard from Bhante Pannaloka in the last praying service (8 Aug 09).

Bhante talked about the things needed for the spiritual development for the Buddhist.

It is said, when we listen or hear about Dhamma, we should practice it, not just learn/read without practicing.

Dhamma is like a mirror. We look at ourselves in mirror to correct what's not appropriate/wrong to make us look better and nicer. Hence, Dhamma is like a mirror. We need to practice/use Dhamma to correct ourselves so we can be a better, nicer and wise person.

So, the pre-requisite for this spiritual development is Sadha, which means faith.

Why do we need faith? Well...faith/sadha is needed to make that person/ourselves to act more properly. Simple eg, we have faith in our family to take care of them, so we would do our best to protect, care and love them as much as we could.

If we don't have faith in something (be it life, religion, family, partner, etc), we wont' be doing all those wholeheartedly. Thus, Sadha is the most important thing in the path of development of Dhamma. It is the first step for everyone to develop.

Now, we are not saying you need to bow & worship to Buddha statue to have the faith or show the faith in Buddha/Buddhism. We are merely respecting, worship and value the Compassion and Wisdom of the Buddha himself (the quality).

For the Buddhist, we always chant Buddhanussati sutta. Do you really know what it means?

Iti pi so Bhagavā Arahaṃ Sammā-sambuddho,
Vijjā-caraṇa-sampanno Sugato Lokavidū,
Anuttaro purisa-damma-sārathi satthā deva-manussānaṃ
Buddho Bhagavā’ti

Translation:
Demikianlah Sang Bhagava, yang maha suci, yang telah mencapai penerangan sempurna. Sempurna pengetahuan serta tindak-tandukNya, sempurna menempuh Jalan (ke Nibbana). Pengenal segenap alam, pembimbing manusia yang tiada taranya, guru para dewa dan manusia yang sadar (bangun), yang patut dimuliakan.

So, you see...we are chanting the Buddhanusatti sutta to show we do worship the compassion, wisdom and value of the Buddha, which are the noble quality of the Buddha. Why do we need to do so? Coz a Buddha is a person who has reached the highest level of compassion and wisdom.

The word Arahaṃ means "one who never do anything wrong, even in secret". A Buddha never do anything wrong, in front or behind its people. Thus, a Boddhisatta & Arahat will never create anymore Karma when they have reached that level, but their past Karma still come to them.

The word Bhagava means "the blessed one".
The word Sammā-sambuddho means "the fully enlightened one, who has realized everything in this world. Thus, the highest level of mind".

The word Vijjā means "knowledge (that comes under Wisdom)".
The word caraṇa means "behaviour".
The word Sugato means "who reach to nibbana/nirvana".
The word Lokavidū means "who nail the world (Wisdom)".

So again, we are chanting the sutta to worship and value the Buddha's quality, which are the wisdom and compassion. Not the person, the statue, the name or etc.

Buddha himself said "Don't trust external value/force to help you, but rely and depend entirely on yourself, your own mind". Practice it, make effort. Don't expect things will just "come" on to you.

Devotion to Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha will give you courage and determination in practicing Dhamma and spiritual development.

We, also, shouldn't just have blind faith/sadha to the Sangha. We should have faith to the Sangha to those who practice the Dhamma, the value, the good and correct (rightful) monk; those who can give guide, not those who don't even practice Dhamma.

My rule of thumb "if you feel something is wrong with that one particular monk, then you should start look elsewhere. Don't just because they're wearing a robe, you should trust them 1001%. Because a monk still a person, they still can do wrong and have emotion".

So the 3 steps of this spiritual development are:

1) Dana
Dana basically means giving away to other people something that you like and own. Why we need to do this? Well, this is to practice letting go.

Why practice that? It's to prepare ourselves from "attachment", coz the Buddha said "everything is impermanence". If we always practice giving away something we like, hopefully, when we are losing something, we won't feel too sad about it.

Giving my own example. We were robed in Macau during our trip in Jan 09. We lost lots of money from that stupid taxi driver. Of coz I felt so sad and devastated over that event. Thankfully, Hub and I were strong about it. Although we are sad, but we realised that nothing is permanent. Eventually, we will also 'finish' that money by spending it. It is okay. We lost it now (although in bad way), but we will gain it back again one day. I told hub "I could cry non stop about it, but what good would it do? The money won't come back to me just like that. I have to just accept it's gone and live with it. And move on. We just need to find money again then". Thankfully, Hubs are strong too and patient with it. I'd say, good thing we practice Dhamma and meditation, so we are, even in little way, have strong mind

2) Sila
Sila basically means the precepts, virtue, morality, or discipline. It is to control our body (speaks & actions) and words. When we practice pancasila (the 5 sila) and chant pancasila sutta, it doesn't mean we promise to Buddha or the monk about those 5 sila, but it means we are promising ourselves not to violate those sila. We are practicing sila to be a good and wiser person, not so because we can go to heaven/hell.

What are the 5 sila?
Pāṇātipātā veramaṇī sikkhā-padaṃ samādiyāmi.
Adinnādānā veramaṇī sikkhā-padaṃ samādiyāmi.
Kāmesu micchācārā veramaṇī sikkhā-padaṃ samādiyāmi.
Musāvādā veramaṇī sikkhā-padaṃ samādiyāmi.
Surā-meraya-majja-pamādaṭṭhānā veramaṇī sikkhā-padaṃ samādiyāmi.

Translation:
I undertake to observe the precept to abstain from destroying living beings.
... taking things not given.
... sexual misconduct.
... false speech.
... taking liquor causing intoxication and heedlessness.
I undertake to observe the Five Precepts to the best of my ability.(3x)

So you see, without Sila, a person tend to be more wild and lose. If we practice Sila, for e.g., when someone make us soooooo angry until we wanna punch/kill him, we will think again of the Sila we've promised and realised why we get angry in first place and abstain from doing so (to punch/kill).
Without Sila, it is very difficult to develop into the spiritual path.

3) Bhavana
Bhavana means meditation. Meditation is useful to help us purify our mind from all our senses (eye, nose, ear, etc). Why purify it? Coz our senses, most of the time, are impure from hate, desire, anger, emotion, etc.

Oh ya....the monk said "when you meditating, doesn't mean you should sleep, but concentrate". Concentrate is the most difficult thing for me to do

Now, the 5 hindrances of practicing and developing of the spiritual path:
1) Desire for sexual pleasure (aside from your own partner)
2) Anger (if we practice meditation, we can control our emotion easier/better).
3) Laziness (always lazy to practice Dhamma, keep on postponing).
4) Restless & wrong (about everything)
5) Doubt (or confusion)

.....................

There you have it. The Buddhist Spiritual Path.

I hope this will give you some guidance and help in your own spiritual development.

May the Tri-Ratna always be with you.

Sadhu Sadhu Sadhu

Dhamma...the word is so simple yet quite complex.

For many people, Dhamma basically means The teaching of the Lord Buddha. Apparently, Dhamma has other meanings too. This I've just heard from Bhante Kolita Dhammadesana on Saturday, Jun 13, 2009.

Dhamma has few meanings, some of it are the Truth, teaching of Buddha, and experience of the Buddha (that he got from attaining Buddhahood).

It is said, a person who lives his life according to the Dhamma is simply called Dhammacitta. It's funny, I have always like the name CITTA. Hub agreed that if we have a baby girl, we'd name her Citta. It has such a beautiful meaning in Pali.

So anyway, there is this story that a monk called Anurudha, who used to live in the forest thought to himself what kind of person that actually learn Dhamma, and suitable to learn Dhamma?

He came out with 7 types, that later on the Lord Buddha approached him and told him he agreed with his 7 types and the Lord Buddha further added the 8th type on top of his list.

Dhamma is:
1) For a person who has less or few "wanting" desire/feeling, than those who has lots of "wants".
A simple life is the key. If you have simple life, you have simple demand. Simple demand means lesser desire/kisela, which eventually we would be able to train ourselves, little by little, to stop this kilesa all over for once and hence, hopefully, to stop to be born again in Samsara world.

2) A person who is contented, aka you are happy with what you have right now; and not for those who is always discontented.

Lord Buddha said the typical person who falls into the 1st 2 types are the monk, and they'd have:
- To wear only robe that was used to wrapped a dead body, cut it into certain way and washed it with juices from the tree. Not to take robe from other people or trouble the lay people by asking for it.
- Except food from lay people and put it into their alms bowl. Not to eat from fancy plates. To prevent jealousy and injustice among monks (and lay people).
- Don't live on expensive house, but live under tree. (To live a simple life)
- They don't except beautiful nice rug, but only rug that's made by leaves.
- Monk don't except medicine, but only those that are made with cow's urine (there's a specific method to make this).
*i know that last part is weird eh...*

3) A person who is secluded (like to be alone), not to those who like to be in the crowd.
Buddha said when a person lives alone, he'll protect his words. But if a person lives with other people, he will tend to talk a lot about that other people, talk about other people's ill aka gossip.

Gossip or idle chatting isn't encouraged by the Buddha, in fact it's considered one of the sila that we, the buddhist, should abide by. It's consider bad kamma to idle chat, gossip.

This 3rd type basically means, a person need inner peace and calmness to achieve enlightenment. This Dhamma and enlightenment journey is not for those who likes to seek companion on the outside, like to be in the crowd, to only chat non stop, partying non stop. Those outside companion wont bring you inner piece and calmness. Only you, yourself, can make yourself calm and be at peace.

4) For energetic person
It means, we have to always guard our senses.
If we have wrong thinking, speaking and action, we have to get rid of it. And replace those with right thinking, speaking and action. This is called viriya. Viriya is one of the ten paramis (the ten perfection).

Dhamma is not for a lazy person. Not for those who are lazy and refuse to improve/remove their negative thoughts, words, and actions. Any lay people or monk can also be lazy. Doesn't mean you are a monk then you won't be lazy. NO wayy...

A monk is still a human being, they still make mistakes. So, if the monk get lazy, they should reliased it and improve their negative & wrong thinking, speaking and actions. So as we, the lay people.

5) Person who keeps their awareness in themselves.
As regular people, we always pay attention to outside thing. Buddha asked us to practice and keep attention on our inside, not outside. To observe how our mind works:
- On our body
- On our feeling
- On our emotion, and
- On the Dhamma

The Lord Buddha always emphasised on this:
Thinking is thinking,
Seeing is seeing,
Touching is touching,
Speaking is speaking,
Doing is doing,
Eating is eating

In other words, this simply means, don't think of other stuff when you are talking, thinking, touching something or even doing something. You should always be aware with what you are doing, even as simple as just drinking water, cooking, walking or running. Mindfulness.

We, as regular people, always like to think so much. Our mind always like to 'run' around and so busy thinking of useless stuff. Hence, we should practice this awareness to train our mind to always be focus.

6) Is for those who wants to practice tranquility in their life; it's not for those who have agitated mind.
When we practice our mind (Sati), our mind would become calm, thus called tranquility mind.

There are 5 hindrances that we should practice to reach that tranquility mind:
- Desire for sensual pleasure (the 5 senses: see, smell, feel, taste, and hear). Eg, if you always watch tv and don't study, how can you get a good grade?
- Angry thoughts
- No energy to practice Dhamma, always lazy
- No calming mind, instead the mind is always jumping around
- Always have regret feeling of the past actions
- Doubt of the Dhamma and Buddha (Buddhahood), in other words you prefer partying, gossiping, fooling around than practicing Dhamma.

Basically, the Lord Buddha emphasising that we shouldn't have too much thinking and judgment on anything. If the food is not tasty, you should still eat it with no complaint. If it is tasty, you should still eat it normally.

If someone praise you, you shouldn't be big headed and arrogant, just be normal. If they curse or criticize you, you should also be normal, no harm feeling or get angry.

Be neutral.

7) For those who are wise, aka understand the reality of life
Simply means, thing in this world is not permanent. Everything in this world is impermanence, anicca.

So don't hold on things, be it good or bad, because that too will go away one day. Thus, we should practice and generate wisdom. That nothing is permanent.

8) For those who don't categorize everything in their life
Most people always categorize thing in their life, anything. When we touch, smell, sense or taste anything, we would categorize it. Like, when you eat banana, you'd say "Oh it's a nice sweet banana", when you watch tv you'd think "I'm watching tv".

The Lord Buddha encouraged us to stop categorizing things in the world. Coz if we always categorize things, we tend to create desire.

If we know that banana is sweet, we want for more. If we know watching tv is fun, we want to have more of it. Then, it will be harder and harder for us to stop this desire feeling in our life, or kilesa. Since kileas is actually the biggest culprit that causes us to be born again and again in this Samsara life.

.....................................

Alrighty, that's the summary of what Bhante Kolita gave us on Jun 13, 2009. I hope this too will give some insight to your life

I know..Dhamma is not easy to understand, but I always believe in this simple mantra:

No to do any evil,
To cultivate good (Do good kamma),
To purify one's mind,
This's the teaching of Buddhas

Have you ever wonder why the monks/bhante/bikkhu have so many rules they have to abide by?

From what I heard and read, when Buddha Siddhartha was still alive, he didn't have much rules/vinaya that he instilled upon the monks. Only upon one incident after another, he created rules for the monks to abide.

1) Why Monks not allowed to eat after noon time?

Many years ago when Buddha Siddhartha was still in this world, the monks are free to eat at any time.

In the past, most of the monks were living in the jungle or deep in the jungle. Since monks live based on the donation of the lay people, they'd bring their bowl, stand outside the lay people's house hoping the lay people will give them some foods into their bowl. Then the monk will walk all the way back to their place/vihara in the jungle and eat the food from the bowl.

So, one time, there's this monk who got hungry in the night. So he walked down from the jungle to the village. He stood outside one of the lay people's house, outside the window and stood still.

It was very late at night. The owner of the house happened to woke up and wanted to get some water to drink. He suddenly saw a dark image standing outside his window. He got scared and shocked by that and thought there's a ghost or whatever.

This news came to the ears of Lord Buddha. Apparently this is not the 1st incident. It has happened quite a few times already.

So the Lord Buddha told the monk "From now on, we, the monks, should not eat pass noon time because:

- So we will have more time to focus and study about Dhamma
- So we have more time to meditate
- So we won't injured ourselves by walking in the jungle in the middle of the night (many monks got injured due to this fact)
- So we won't scare the lay people in the middle of night
- Many of the lay people have not much food and money to share with us, so we shouldn't ask for more from them
- To train ourselves to get rid of craving feeling in ourselves
- Eating just 2x a day is enough (breakfast + lunch)

Hence, the monks, until now, still abide by the rules not to eat after noon time.

2) What time is the noon time?
Apparently, the noon time referred to the time where the sun is directly on top of you. You know when your shadow is directly below you.

But to make it easier, normally the monks set a time not to eat pass 11.30am.

After the noon time, the monks are still allowed to drink though. Drinks such as tea, coffee, fruit juice and of course water. They are not allowed to drink fruit juice if the fruits are bigger then their palm size. And no milk allowed.

One time Hub and I blended tomato + carrot juice for Bhante. Then when the Bhante drank 1 sip, he told us he couldn't finish it. We didn't know why. Then he said "coz it's not filtered, it still has all the fibers. This is like eating, not drinking. We are only allowed to drink the water". Upsss....we didn't realised we have made the monk broke his vinaya! ouch!
A lesson....you must juice it, not blend it!

3) Why some monks are vegetarian and some eat meat?

Actually this is neither right or wrong.

The Lord Buddha did tell us and the monks try not to eat meat, coz by eating meat means you have to kill the animal. And killing a living being is one of the sila that we, the buddhist, are not suppose to do.

However, it is also written that the Lord Buddha didn't force the monks NOT to eat meat, but they are welcome to train themselves not to eat meat. Why? Coz the monks eat based on the donation of the lay people. So they should be easy to be taken care of and not to trouble the lay people much.

Eating should be just another way to survive in this world, not the reason for them to live in this world. We eat to survive, not live to eat.

Now, why some monks still eat it? Coz the Lord Buddha once said monks are supposed to take and eat anything the lay people give/donate to them, regardless it's fresh or not. So, if the lay people give them meat, the monks have to eat it. If the lay people give them white rice only, they still have to eat it with NO COMPLAINT.

So no matter how tasty or blend is the food, the monks still have to eat it.

The monks still can eat meat as long as:
- The animal is not killed specifically for them to eat (So you can buy the pre-packed meat from supermarket, not the live animal then you butchered it)
- The monk didn't hear the animal's sound/scream during the 'butchering'
- Or see it (witness)
- The monk should not suspect the meat is killed for him.
However, the Mahayana monks still insist on not eating meat. The Theravada still accept it.

Now, I, for one, prefer the monks, be it from Mahayana or Theravada, not to eat any meat. I still believe in the monks are not suppose to eat meat. That I hope, one day, I too would stop eating meat.

It's sometimes very sad thou that I witnessed some monks actually request to eat meat. They'd choose the foods they want to eat.

By right, the monks are not supposed to choose their food. They must not choose, coz choosing is one of the desire too, which the Lord Buddha taught us to try to get rid off (and this is a must for the monks).

4) Why monk has to celibate?
Yeah, for us, lay people, we do enjoy making love with our partner. Why not?! it's nice isn't it?

But, after you made love, what you feel next? Nothing. That heated-wonderful-great feeling is gone. Then, you want more next.

The cycle never stops.

So, if the monks celibate, they won't experience the "want more" feeling.

The Lord Buddha once said, kilesa (desire) is one of the biggest culprit that causes us to be re-born again and again in this Samsara world. If we are able to stop kilesa from ourselves, we won't be re-born in this Samsara world anymore.

Hence, celibacy is one of the way to stop the kilesa. Also celibacy is one of the Paramita, the great quality to become Buddha.

Another reason of celibacy...
Since the monks live purely based on the donation of the lay people, be it food or money, they normally just have enough for their basic necessity.

So, if the monks have wife and children, that means they'd have a house, car, more money for education, more money for foods, and maybe insurance.
How can you get all that from the donation of the lay people?

Remember, The Lord Buddha always emphasised that the monks should always be humble and not to be hard to be taken care of by the lay people nor to trouble the lay people.

If the monks live on donation and still have family, that means they expect the lay people to give MORE donation right?!...that's why....celibacy

Bhante Kusala also said this before "Besides, I won't have any headache or stress if I have wife and children. I won't have stress coz of not having enough money, the schools, insurance, car or home. I'll be free"

...........

There you go....

Remember, these are all my own opinion based on what I heard and read. So, please don't take all these blindly and assume it is 100% correct. Please do find the answer yourself and prove it yourself. If you agree with me, do say HOORAY. Otherwise, I'm sorry

Just as mentioned in my previous blog, I'd like to write about the reason behind why the Buddhist always pray to the statue, burn joystick, kneeling/sitting on floor, etc.

This answer I get mainly from the speech given by Bikkhu Uttamo that I heard from YouTube. The speech titled "The reason why Bikkhu Uttamo chose Buddhism". It's divided into 4 parts and I cant remember which part I heard about this particular topic. Here's one of the link. It's a link to part 3 that I liked the most.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFRWc05ZQxM

I also gathered this understanding from reading the Buddhist books and listened from the other monks.

So...lets break it down to one by one.

1) Why Pray or Bow to the Statue of Buddha?
Simple. The statue of Buddha is created to remind us of the sacrifices made by the Prince Siddhartha Gautama. How he given up his prince title, wealth, wife and newly born son, parents and everything to discover the true meaning of life, to discover why is there life, sickness, death and monk.

He left all those behind, go deep into the jungle, learn almost every religions at that time from all teachers and yet he still can't find the answer. One time, he met 5 men/monks that also tried to discover what Prince Siddhartha tried to discover too. Together, the 6 of them practiced the most extreme meditation ever that is by starvation (not eating anything). For 6 years Prince Siddhartha tried that and not working. One day, during his meditation there's this group of singer and violin player passed by and the singer sang "If you pull the string too tight, the violin's string will break. If you tie it too lose, it won't make a nice sound. So you have to tie it jst nice".

It was upon hearing that Prince Siddhartha realised that what he has been practicing is wrong. One should not torture himself to attain enlightenment. Hence, Prince Siddhartha discovered the way, which is often called The Middle Way basically means, we shouldn't torture ourselves for it, but we shouldn't just sit and do nothing too. The extreme way is not the way. We should practice at the right time, the right condition and the right way. That's the basic key in Buddhism.

When he has finally reached enlightenment, the 5 men that he meditated together with became his 1st Sangha. Sangha basically means the monkhood, where they swear to themselves (and to Buddha and Dhamma) to learn and practice Dhamma to reach enlightenment too.

This Buddha Siddhartha is not the 1st Buddha ever in this world. In fact some books said he was the 28th Buddha ever born in this world. But why is he famous? Well, aside the fact he's the latest Buddha, he actually rediscovered the Dhamma all by himself.

A person who has reached Buddhahood by rediscovered the way all by himself is simply called the Buddha, who has the right to teach Dhamma to everyone. The Dhamma (or teaching) i always the same from one Buddha to the next Buddha. Dhamma never change.

However, a person who reached Buddhahood from the teaching of previous or current Buddha, s/he is called Pacceka Buddha otherwise known as the "Silent Buddha". That's the type of Buddha that doesn't teach Dhamma to people coz he, himself, attained Buddhahood from the teaching of other Buddha.

So, back to the question, why bow to the statue? It's because we, the buddhist, understand how hard it is to attain Buddhahood, to leave everything behind just to reach enlightenment or to reach Buddhahood.

So whenever we see a statue or painting of Lord Buddha, we would bow to respect him. Respect his journey, respect the Dhamma he taught us and respect the Buddha.

Don't pray to the statue and request for things. That's not how things work. Praying to request is wrong, but praying to give merits to other people or living being is the correct way.

2) Why Burn Joystick?
Do you noticed that whenever you burn a joystick it smells so nice? It has a really nice fragrant. The smokes from the burn joystick will just goes up in the air, slowly lingering the air around and to everyone.

The smoke will go to and through everything. It will go to your nose whether or not you are a Buddhist or non-Buddhist. The smoke cant suddenly stop and turn around if you are non-Buddhist. Or the smoke would just run straight to a Buddhist's nose.

Dhamma is like that. Dhamma is beautiful and 'fragrant'. Dhamma doesn't choose people. Dhamma is for everyone. Whether or not you are Buddhist or non-Buddhist, Dhamma can be learn, practice and accepted by everyone. Dhamma is universal and can be use by everyone, every living being, be it alive or dead, human or animal, fat or skinny, EVERYONE.

So we burn joystick to remind us of the Dhamma, that Dhamma is universal, fair, beautiful, doesn't choose people and free for everyone.

3) Why is there Flower on the altar/table?
A freshly cut flower is beautiful, isn't it? But a dead flower is ugly, isn't it?

When there's fresh flower, you'd put it upfront, decorate your house, or even put on your table/altar. But when the flower is dead or even yellow, you'd throw it away directly.

The Lord Buddha always told us that everything in this world is impermanent (Pali: Annicca). One day you have it, one day it will be gone. Now you are hungry, but after you eat, you won't be hungry anymore.

Now you have water to drink, but later the water will be gone after you drank it. When you go party dancing, you are happy. But once you are back home from the party, you won't be dancing anymore, maybe you will be so tired and drunk.

Now you have your dog, but one day your dog will die. Now is 3pm, but in just 1 second, it won't be 3pm again. Nothing is permanent, that's what Lord Buddha taught us.

Hence, we should always remind ourselves of this impermanence and train ourselves not to be too attached to something too tight. If it's time to go, we should be able to let it go and remind us about annicca.

Thus, putting fresh flower on altar is to remind us about annicca or impermanence. Not because the statue of Buddha could smell the flower...that will be scary if it could

5) Why Chanting?
Well, if you don't feel like chanting, you are always welcome to just read quietly in your mind. Who said you have to chant out loud?

What the Buddhist chant? Well, we chant one of the Sutta. The Dhamma is written and composed into Tipitaka or Tripitaka. As the word suggested, it's divided into 3 categories. You can read more in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tripitaka.

Tipitaka is divided into Abidhamma, Vinaya and Sutta. Vinaya Pitaka is the code of ethics to be obeyed by the monks, Sutta Pitaka is the summary of Buddha's teachings, and Abidhamma Pitaka is the further elaboration and explanation of the Sutta Pitaka.

So, the Buddhist normally would chant few Suttas in the Sutta Pitaka. It is said there are about 10,000 suttas in the Sutta Pitaka.

Why chant? Coz sometimes if you just read quietly you would fall asleep if you are bored. Coz if you just read quietly, other people can't hear, especially those who have died or spirits. So, if we chant out, those spirits (good or bad spirits) could also listen to the sutta and we may be able to help them gain merits for themselves, accumulate good kamma, understand the Dhamma even just a little bit, make them calm, and hopefully after all that, they would be able to be born again into a better world.

There may be different way of chanting, especially in the tones, but it is all the same. We are basically reading the same suttas. By reading the sutta, we read again what the sutta is all about. We remind ourselves again and again about the sutta and the Dhamma. If you have forgotten, hopefully, by reading the sutta you would remember it again.

............

Fiuhh.....I've write so much and so long. I hope you would be able to understand what I'm trying to write and explain here. And I hope this will give an insight into what Buddhism is all about. Especially hope those who are Buddhist would understand what they are doing all along in Vihara.

Next I will write more about this.

Always with Metta

Almost everyone know what is Avalokiteśvara or otherwise famously known as Guan Yin in Chinese. So what is Avalokiteśvara? Is it a saint? A Buddha? A Bodhisattva? or merely a creation?

Here's simple explanation/background about Avalokiteśvara that I got from Bhante Dhammadhiro.

The word Avalokiteśvara is made up of Avalokita that means Looking down and iśvara that means a lord/ruler. In Pali, "a+i" read as "e", so Avalokita+iśvara is read as Avalokiteśvara. So Avalokiteśvara means "A lord/ruler who is looking/gazing down". Over here, the Chinese has wrongly translated it into Guan Yin. Guan means Looking and Yin means sound because they misunderstood the a+isvara in this case, which they assumed it was svara OR sound.

So why is there Avalokiteśvara in the first place? It was merely a creation by the Mahayana Buddhist at the time when the Hindu Religion became very strong and almost everyone changed their religion from Buddhist to Hindu.

It's widely known that in Hindu religion, they do believe in many Brahma or Bodhisattva. Hence, the Mahayana Buddhist also created the so called "Avalokiteśvara Bodhisattva" in Buddhism to entice the people that "we also have one".
*note: In Buddhism we do believe there's such a thing as Bodhisattva*

So why Avalokiteśvara? In Buddhist teaching, the Lord Buddha mentioned the 3 most fundamental characteristic every person should develop, in themselves, to achieve Buddhahood is Wisdom, Purity, Loving kindness. These 3 traits are not easy to understand and develop by every person, especially to those in middle-low class, due to many reasons; some of it due to their lack of chances and resources to get some education, they had to work hard all the time to make a living hence no time to study, and etc. Another meaning of middle-low people are referred to those who don't have wisdom in their mind.

Hence, the Mahayana Buddhist created a manifestation of each of these traits to make those middle-low class people easily understand what are Wisdom, Purity and Loving kindness means.

In many Mahayana Buddhist poster, you can find easily a poster/image of 3 Bodhisattva. The Buddha will be in the middle to represent Purity. Another one (forgot the name) will be on his right side to represent Wisdom and Avalokiteśvara will be standing on his left side to represent Loving kindness.

Again, the purpose of these manifestation is merely to help the people to understand and imagine easily the 3 important basic traits that they should develop in themselves.

So why is Avalokiteśvara always being pictured as a woman? This is because many years ago, in China, when they wanted to draw/carve a statue/painting of Avalokiteśvara, they would imagine Loving kindness as a Mother. A mother's love. They imagined, loving kindness is the same as mother's love to their children. Hence, they made Avalokiteśvara as a woman, so people could easily imagine and understand what is Loving Kindness.

For those middle-low class people, developing and understanding Loving Kindness is much easier than understanding what is Purity and Wisdom. It is indeed hard to understand and develop Purity and Wisdom coz it cant be seen. However, to understand, develop and act out Loving Kindness is much easier. A parents' love to their children is loving kindness. Helping those in need is loving kindness. Not to kill a living being is loving kindness.
Hence, Avalokiteśvara became more and more famous due to that notion.

However, throughout the years, people have been mislead by the true meaning of this manifestation and Avalokiteśvara. Throughout the years and many generations, people had became lazy and assumed they could just pray to the Avalokiteśvara statue. That Avalokiteśvara is the source of Loving Kindness. That they can simply pray hard and request for anything to Avalokiteśvara. That Avalokiteśvara is a Fair Lady that helps everyone in need.

The image or statue of Avalokiteśvara is supposed to be used to remind people of Loving Kindness, that they should develop that trait in themselves. However, since people/human are plain lazy, they'd just pray hard, asking and hoping that this "loving kindness" can just come and delivered to them from the statue of Avalokiteśvara.

Not only just the statue of Avalokiteśvara, in fact there are many people who also pray hard, request and asking for anything from the statue of the Buddha. This statue of Buddha is actually just a reminder for us to always remember the sacrifices Siddhartha Gautama Prince has made to became a Buddha, the journey of Siddhartha Gautama and the teaching of the Buddha (The Dhamma).

The Lord Buddha never encouraged its people to pray to ask/request for something. In fact, pray and asking for something is actually quite wrong. Coz when we pray and ask for something, we are hoping and expecting for that pray to come true. Since we are expecting it, we have hope in our heart and we are waiting and waiting. If the pray doesn't come true/happening, we will get frustrated, mad and angry. Our heart will be filled with many defilement and ill thoughts.

In fact, the Lord Buddha encouraged us to pray for other people well being. E.g. "I hope my parents will be healthy and safe, I hope every living being will be happy and safe". That's the kind of pray the Lord Buddha encouraged us to do. By doing such pray, our heart will be light coz we are not asking/requesting something and waiting for it to happen.

I hope with this really brief and simple explanation about Avalokiteśvara, people can understand, even just a little bit, what is Avalokiteśvara all about.

I, myself, grew up thinking that Avalokiteśvara is a fair lady/Bodhisattva that I can just pray and ask for safety, requests, hope, etc. But if i asked everyone what is Avalokiteśvara, no one can give me a solid consistent answer. Mostly they'd say "Oh, it's a Bodhisattva that come down from heaven to help us the lay people". "She was once a prince". "He was once a woman". "Oh, Avalokiteśvara is not a man nor a woman. It has no gender".

If I asked what's the history of Avalokiteśvara. So many people will give me so many different versions of it. So I grew just took it blindly and except it that there's such a thing as Avalokiteśvara.

I'm not saying I dont respect Avalokiteśvara at all. I do, I still do. But not as blindly as before. I now know clearly what is Avalokiteśvara now.

It's quite sad to see there are so many buddhist who mixed the Buddha teaching with their own Chinese traditions. Thus, those who are not buddhist always assumed that Buddhist is all about praying to statue, burn a joystick, pray hard to statue. In fact, there are many those who are coldly enough to gave crude comment such as "why should i kneel down on floor? Why should I sit on floor, not on chair? Why are you praying/bowing to that bald man? Why you have such a big giant statues or many statues that you bow to?"

For those Buddhist who don't really understand the answer behind it, they would just said "That's the way it is". These are the people that grew up not understanding what a Buddhism is truly about. I have to say, I was once that person too.

In the past, if anyone asked me what is Buddhism, I'd say the same. oh, we just go vihara, chanting every week, burn joystick and pray to many different statues. And why? I dunno why.

But after I met my husband and came to LA, I've came to know that in fact that's wrong. True Buddhism is not all about that. The statues are just a reminder to us about the journey of Siddhartha Gautama, the good traits of Buddha and the teaching of Buddha.

The sutta that we chant every week/every day is basically some part of the sutta from the Lord Buddha that giving us some pointers, guidance and teaching of what we should do, know and develop. Why we chant? It's basically to remind us again and again what the sutta is all about. Chanting also helps us to focus, concentrate and meditate.

I'll write in my next blog about these more. It's whole another explanation all by itself.

Hope you enjoy reading this. And do remember this is just my own opinions and writing upon hearing the explanation from one of the monk.