Buddhist Monk Leaves Footprints Embedded in the Floor
http://www.buddhistchannel.tv/index.php?id=6,7833,0,0,1,0
The Tibetans are very diligent in their practices with many accomplishing hundreds of millions of mantras, prostrations and/or prayers.
Just an observation, it seems that many of them reached accomplishment, namely, freedom over life and death, they know time of death and have total ease in dying, some can even choose to go off anytime. Which is saying alot about their lack of attachments.
Many of them accomplished through simple ways like reciting mantras, prayers or prostrations. Anyway, it is not 100% certain that one need to always go through meditation. One of the recent rainbow body case, Khenpo Ah Chuk, he practised the mani mantra 400 million times or so. I have been told by a master of several other rainbow body cases of people who practised mantra diligently (this is not long time ago). In those cases, they were uneducated, did not know how to meditate, but through one-pointedly practising, they accomplished astonishing deep levels of understanding. Through the experiences of many people, some around me, faith, perseverance and single-minded practice can definitely produce results.
Anyway, i'm just sharing this with anyone who is interested.
If they have a great master to impart them the View, just following that master's instruction one will certainly gain liberation given that he also practices sincerely. If lets say, a practitioner is transmitted Dzogchen instructions, he can actually practice at any moment of his life, whether he is chanting, prostrating, or even walking or doing his dishes. There were even well known 'sleeping yogis' who pretended to be beggers sleeping off the streets, but is actually very advanced and enlightened meditators.
Whatever practice one does, there must be direct realisation of the nature of mind which can be pointed out by an experienced teacher. The recognition of the nature of mind is not dependent on which state or circumstances we are in, whatever we do, whether meditating, chanting, or just daily activities, we can sustain the recognition of our true nature since our true nature is ever-present and 'always available', as the basis of all knowing and activities. Without insight into our true nature, chanting, visualisation etc is more of a matter of developing concentration and shamatha.
As Bodhidharma says:
"To find a Buddha, you have to see your nature." Whoever sees his nature is a Buddha. If you don’t see your nature, invoking Buddhas, reciting sutras, making offerings, and keeping precepts are all useless. Invoking Buddhas results in good karma, reciting sutras results in a good memory; keeping precepts results in a good rebirth, and making offerings results in future blessings-but no buddha. If you don’t understand by yourself, you’ll have to find a teacher to get to the bottom of life and death. But unless he sees his nature, such a person isn’t a tea6er. Even if he can recite the Twelvefold Canon he can’t escape the Wheel of Birth and Death. He suffers in the three realms without hope of release. Long ago, the monk Good Star was able to recite the entire Canon. But he didn’t escape the Wheel, because he didn’t see his nature. If this was the case with Good Star, then people nowadays who recite a few sutras or shastras and think it’s the Dharma are fools. Unless you see your mind, reciting so much prose is useless."
"The sutras say that someone who wholeheartedly invokes the Buddha is sure to be reborn in the Western Paradise. Since is door leads to Buddhahood, why seek liberation in beholding the mind?
If you’re going to invoke the Buddha, you have to do it right. Unless you understand what invoking means, you’ll do it wrong. And if you do it wrong, you’ll never go anywhere.
Buddha means awareness, the awareness of body and mind that prevents evil from arising in either. And to invoke means to call to mind, to call constantly to mind the rules of discipline and to follow them with all your might. This is what’s meant by invoking. Invoking has to do with thought and not with language. If you use a trap to catch fish, once you succeed you can forget the trap. And if you use language to find meaning, once you find it you can forget language. To invoke the Buddha’s name you have to understand the Dharma of invoking. If it’s not present in your mind, your mouth chants an empty name. As long as you’re troubled by the three poisons or by thoughts of yourself, your deluded mind will keep you from seeing the Buddha and you’ll only waste your effort. Chanting and invoking are worlds apart, Chanting is done with the mouth. Invoking is done with the mind. And because invoking comes from the mind, it’s called the door to awareness. Chanting is centered in the mouth and appears as sound. If you cling to appearances while searching for meaning, you won’t find a thing. Thus, sages of the past cultivated introspection and not speech. This mind is the source of all virtues. And this mind is the chief of all powers, The eternal bliss of nirvana comes from the mind at rest. Rebirth in the three realms also comes from the mind. The mind is the door to every world and the mind is the ford to the other shore. Those who know where the door is don’t worry about reaching it. Those who know where the ford is don’t worry about crossing it."
That is why a teacher is important, but not just any teacher - a liberated, very enlightened teacher who is able to know the right view, and this is not so common. And it is even subtler than that. If we practice very very hard, and experienced deep states and realisations similar to Hinduism, we still won't be enlightened if we do not have the right view imparted by a teacher.
As I wrote in my blog: "I also do not think she said nor implied that teachers and teachings are not necessary. And I have to agree with you that a teacher is important - an experienced and enlightened teacher who can impart the Right View. This is to help us 'see' how a non-dual non-conceptual direct meditative experience is being reified into a metaphysical essence without even us noticing it. Ignorance goes far deeper than a non-dual, non-conceptual meditative state. Hence, a teacher is necessary to point out the right view, otherwise we will reify our meditative experience and get stuck on the monist view that you mentioned."
hi AEN,sorry for late reply,
there are many people who attained realisation through pure praying and reciting mantra. Guru only transmit mantra, they practised and through receiving blessings, they realised.Certain mantras. Actually the only common theme that runs through these people is diligence and strong faith. anyway, in history this has happened so many times with so many examples.
If the practitioner did not receive instructions like on Dzogchen or Mahamudra, but they are practicing mantra as part of the tantric tradition, then what they are practicing is actually called the Development stage. It is part of the path, but itself is not the same as the realisation of the nature of mind.
Chanting is a form of Shamatha practice. Shamatha (tranquility, one pointedness, concentration) practice serves as a foundation for Vipashyana (insight), but they are not the same. Chanting calms the mind so that you are not lost in the thoughts, but even if you transcend thinking, you may not necessarily realise the nature of mind. At this stage one must look and observe directly to discover the nature of mind. The thing is, you will never be able to observe the nature of your True Mind if you are constantly overwhelmed by thinking, hence Shamatha is helpful in the beginning. But even if thoughts stop or slow down, that doesn't necessarily mean you discovered your Mind, or are directly observing the true nature of Mind.
As someone (who himself spoke about realising his own Mind while reciting a mantra many years ago, but that webpage was taken down) wrote, Imagine a torch shining on a wall...The torch symbolises the SEEING, and the light which emanates from the torch and hits the wall symbolises the thoughts. The problem is that you are trying to find the torch, (ie: the SEEING), but you are looking for it on the wall, (ie: in the thoughts). Also, thoughts can happen thick and fast and can be quite erratic... so not only are you looking in the wrong place, but you are chasing a moving target. A mantra at least steadies the appearance of the thoughts. It's like steadying the light on the wall, so you have a better chance of tracing the beam back to its source, but never forget, only the torch (the SEEING) is the source. The mantra is nothing but a thought, an appearance that has no independent nature, repeated. However, as I have said, whilst a mantra can help on the so called 'search', it is not actually necessary. Knowledge is the DIRECT method.
No techniques are needed. The SEEING ( the ordinary everyday awareness ) does not need to do anything to BE, to exist. Any techniques can only be on the level of thought, and therefore are outside of the only reality which is the SEEING. The SEEING is NEVER not there, it is ALWAYS seeing the thoughts, no matter what they may be. It is always aware of everything, it cannot under any circumstances not be there, you can't lose it. So just BE IT. HAVE A SENSE OF IDENTITY WITH IT AND NOTHING ELSE. You ARE the torch !
(Mingyur Rinpoche)
Within the skilful means there are also two divisions: the development stage and the completion stage. What does the development stage mean? It means to realize the wisdom of the Buddha and to practise visualizing ourselves as a deity, the buddha body relates to the visualization of the physical form of the deity one is practising. The speech aspect is the mantra recitation. The mind aspect is to do with visualizing in the heart centre various objects. Sometimes it's a letter: hung or hri, it can be a Dorje and so on. These aspects together define the development stage practice. The wisdom of the Buddha has no shape or colour, however, we practise with shape and colour.
Some people like this method. If people feel positive towards this type of practise, then they should do that. But some people don't like that kind of practice. For people who don't feel drawn to this type of practice, they shouldn't do it too strongly, just a little bit. That's the explanation of the development stage.
What does completion stage mean? Within our mind we have wisdom and awareness the same as a Buddha, and our body is also the same as the buddha body. When we are practising the completion stage we have the idea that our body is the wisdom aspect of the Buddha. Then we practise with the body, we train with the body physically. Having trained physically, the channels and the wind energy and the essence which travels around in the channels are slowly transformed. Because our physical nature is transformed, our mind also becomes transformed. The main point is practising with one's body. So then, if one is training with the wisdom wind which moves through the channels and the precious drops, then one adopts the posture and holds the vase breath and does the trulkor or the yoga practice and it's very physical. When one gradually over time purifies the impure winds, impure channels and impure drops, then all of one's defilements and obscurations are purified. One will naturally give rise to recognition of the nature of mind. That's the explanation of the completion stage.
http://www.thebuddhadharma.com/issues/2006/fall/forum-perfection.html
MINGYUR RINPOCHE: In Vajrayana, we have development-stage practice, involving visualization and mantra, and completion-stage practice, which involves working with the energy channels – prana, nadi, and bindu. Dzogchen gets right to the heart. It’s more direct than any other method. You need preparation and various kinds of support, but the practice itself is direct. Even if you have a shortcut, there still needs to be a road there to travel on. Otherwise, you can’t use the shortcut.
...
MINGYUR RINPOCHE: The teacher’s role is to point out. There are many stages of development and many experiences that can be quite similar to or confused with rigpa. For example, the practice of formless or objectless shamatha – resting the mind without an object of meditation – can be similar to Dzogchen practice, to rigpa, but it is not the same. Similarly, one may experience a kind of dullness of mind that has very little conceptualization, which we call alaya, the base consciousness. Many people think that alaya is the essence of the mind, but that’s not really Dzogchen. So the teacher keeps pointing out the natural mind, so you can see very clearly the difference between conceptual mind and natural mind, between alaya and rigpa, between objectless shamatha and rigpa.
http://www.dharma-haven.org/thrangu-medicine-buddha.htm
(Thrangu Rinpoche)
In his "Introduction," the Editor, Lama Tashi Namgyal, sets the these teachings on the Medicine Buddha Sadhana in the context of Buddhist meditation practice, in general, beginning with the statement "All of the Buddha's teachings can be subsumed under the two categories of shamatha and vipashyana— calm abiding and insight."
------------------------
When one meditates on the form, the attire and other attributes, the entourage and environment, and the internal mandala of a deity, and when one recites the deity’s mantra, one is practicing shamatha; and when one realizes that all that one is meditating on is mere empty appearance, one is practicing vipashyana.
.........................
http://buddhism.sgforums.com/forums/1728/topics/262408
(Skype conference with our moderator Thusness on Lankavatara Sutra, participant asking about chanting)
Thusness: Ok. I
think when we
view consciousness, we have to understand that
there are a few
things. We cannot keep on thinking about the
objective world first.
We must see how consciousness reacts. That is if
we react very
intensely, strongly towards symbols, then
whatever reactions will
go back deep into your consciousness. This is
one thing. My
perspective is that when you chant, you are not
dealing with our
luminous clarity. We're dealing with
propensities deep in your
consciousness. Insight meditation itself deals
directly with this
clarity. That is the luminous clarity. But if we
were to continue
to chant, you are actually focusing more on the
deeper layers of
consciousness that deals with propensities and
the power of
concentration. Do you see what I mean? It's not
so much of the
luminosity. However, the chanting itself, when
it takes strength,
it creates a kind of momentum. A momentum that
synchronises not
only with your sub-conscious or the deeper
layers of your
consciousness, but also your conscious level.
This means it can
sync the two layers into one. This syncing the
two into one clears
your mind, clears your thoughts. And then at
this time, you ask who
you are, that is, not letting the momentum take
place, but just
feel and sense... then you ask what is it. At
that moment, you
might see your reality. But your mind must be
able to settle down
first. But you must know there is a difference
between working at
the concentration level, dealing with the karmic
propensities and
creating new momentums, and practicing insight
meditation that
touch directly the clarity and the luminous
nature, are two
different things. You see what I mean or not?
Participant 1:
Yeah I think so.
This means that I still need to do insight
meditation?
Thusness: Yes
you have to do
insight meditation. Even if you attain calmness
you still have to
do insight meditation. You must feel the
awareness... You must
sense it everywhere... That is very important
for liberation. Now
when we talk about awareness, we don't call it
Self or we don't
call it Mind. Why people call it Awareness is
because they do not
want to call it Self, because there is no Self.
The reason they
said Awareness, is because Awareness is not an
entity. It is not a
thing. It is just a point of luminous clarity.
It is just clarity.
But because we are so accustomed to thinking
things in terms of
object and subject, we always take Awareness as
something. It must
be somewhere inside, residing somewhere. Even if
it is not residing
inside the body it must be somewhere, someplace.
This is the
problem, you see. So when you say that letÂ’s be
aware. We always
think of “how?” How to be aware? When we say
“where is awareness”,
they always look for a place, they always look
for a something.
This is how the mind react, this is what I call a
momentum. They
always behave this way. They do not know how to
say “Just do
nothing. Everything is expressing itself by
clarity.” They always
want to react, you see what I mean?
.........................
http://www.vipassana.com/meditation/mindfulness_in_plain_english_5.php
(Bhante Gunaratana)
Meditation is a word, and words are used in different ways by different speakers. This may seem like a trivial point, but it is not. It is quite important to distinguish exactly what a particular speaker means by the words he uses. Every culture on earth, for example, has produced some sort of mental practice which might be termed meditation. It all depends on how loose a definition you give to that word. Everybody does it, from Africans to Eskimos. The techniques are enormously varied, and we will make no attempt to survey them. There are other books for that. For the purpose of this volume, we will restrict our discussion to those practices best known to Western audiences and most likely associated with the term meditation.
Within the Judeo-Christian tradition we find two overlapping practices called prayer and contemplation. Prayer is a direct address to some spiritual entity. Contemplation is a prolonged period of conscious thought about some specific topic, usually a religious ideal or scriptural passage. From the standpoint of mental culture, both of these activities are exercises in concentration. The normal deluge of conscious thought is restricted, and the mind is brought to one conscious area of operation. The results are those you find in any concentrative practice: deep calm, a physiological slowing of the metabolism and a sense of peace and well-being.
Out of the Hindu tradition comes Yogic meditation, which is also purely concentrative. The traditional basic exercises consist of focusing the mind on a single object: a stone, a candle flame, a syllable or whatever, and not allowing it to wander. Having acquired the basic skill, the Yogi proceeds to expand his practice by taking on more complex objects of meditation: chants, colorful religious images, energy channels in the body and so forth. Still, no matter how complex the object of meditation, the meditation itself remains purely an exercise in concentration.
Within the Buddhist tradition, concentration is also highly valued. But a new element is added and more highly stressed. That element is awareness. All Buddhist meditation aims at the development of awareness, using concentration as a tool. The Buddhist tradition is very wide, however, and there are several diverse routes to this goal. Zen meditation uses two separate tacks. The first is the direct plunge into awareness by sheer force of will. You sit down and you just sit, meaning that you toss out of your mind everything except pure awareness of sitting. This sounds very simple. It is not. A brief trial will demonstrate just how difficult it really is. The second Zen approach used in the Rinzai school is that of tricking the mind out of conscious thought and into pure awareness. This is done by giving the student an unsolvable riddle which he must solve anyway, and by placing him in a horrendous training situation. Since he cannot flee from the pain of the situation, he must flee into a pure experience of the moment. There is nowhere else to go. Zen is tough. It is effective for many people, but it is really tough.
Another stratagem, Tantric Buddhism, is nearly the reverse. Conscious thought, at least the way we usually do it, is the manifestation of ego, the you that you usually think that you are. Conscious thought is tightly connected with self-concept. The self-concept or ego is nothing more than a set of reactions and mental images which are artificially pasted to the flowing process of pure awareness. Tantra seeks to obtain pure awareness by destroying this ego image. This is accomplished by a process of visualization. The student is given a particular religious image to meditate upon, for example, one of the deities from the Tantric pantheon. He does this in so thorough a fashion that he becomes that entity. He takes off his own identity and puts on another. This takes a while, as you might imagine, but it works. During the process, he is able to watch the way that the ego is constructed and put in place. He comes to recognize the arbitrary nature of all egos, including his own, and he escapes from bondage to the ego. He is left in a state where he may have an ego if he so chooses, either his own or whichever other he might wish, or he can do without one. Result: pure awareness. Tantra is not exactly a game of patty cake either.
Vipassana is the oldest of Buddhist meditation practices. The method comes directly from the Sitipatthana Sutta, a discourse attributed to Buddha himself. Vipassana is a direct and gradual cultivation of mindfulness or awareness. It proceeds piece by piece over a period of years. The student's attention is carefully directed to an intense examination of certain aspects of his own existence. The meditator is trained to notice more and more of his own flowing life experience. Vipassana is a gentle technique. But it also is very, very thorough. It is an ancient and codified system of sensitivity training, a set of exercises dedicated to becoming more and more receptive to your own life experience. It is attentive listening, total seeing and careful testing. We learn to smell acutely, to touch fully and really pay attention to what we feel. We learn to listen to our own thoughts without being caught up in them.
The object of Vipassana practice is to learn to pay attention. We think we are doing this already, but that is an illusion. It comes from the fact that we are paying so little attention to the ongoing surge of our own life experiences that we might just as well be asleep. We are simply not paying enough attention to notice that we are not paying attention. It is another Catch-22.
Hi AEN,
II agree that reciting mantra induces shamatha. But don't forget, mantra invokes deity. There is such a thing as blessings. And blessings are inconceivable. Meditation is largely relying on self-power. Blessings involves a bigger picture.
I am glad to hear that someone realised his mind through reciting though it's a pity he pulled down his site.
it's just good to encourage people that if they feel inclined to it, chanting is a perfectly good path to take... i always encourage pureland. Many Dzogchen realised lineage masters emphasize that pureland practice must take place together with Dzogchen practice. Cos in case you can't accomplish deep enough level, got insurance. Buddha's blessngs more powerful than self-effort most cases u know.
AEN, point to add, i look at your post again. Wah lau, so technical. Anyway, i dun know what your tradition is, my feeling is, dun think/analyse too much...it may help you to progress faster.
In a nutshell:
Basically what I am saying is that purely chanting is pure shamatha practice and by itself cannot lead to enlightenment, but leads to calmness and concentration and deals with the momentum (the seeds in 8th consciousness).
Chanting can lead to a state of calmness, which is condusive for insight meditation (vipashyana), which is to investigate and observe directly the nature of mind.
However we must not confuse shamatha with vipashyana practice. We must not give others wrong info.
Shamatha leads to samadhi and some shamatha practice even leads to jhanas, but in itself does not result in enlightenment.
It is important to understand that chanting by itself deals with momentum and concentration and calmness, while vipashyana deals with the luminous and empty nature of mind.
What you said about pure land is valid, but it's important not to let others misunderstand. They must clearly understand the difference between shamatha and vipashyana.
What I said has nothing to do with 'analysing too much' - in fact I didn't even post much, most of what I posted are direct quotes from other masters. Are you saying they are analysing too much?
There is in fact no problem with analysing if provided with the correct teachings. Analysing is an important and essential tool. We have to have the right analysis to counter 'wrong analysis'. Then we have to develope insights so that whatever we learnt is immediately experienced without the need of analysing.
In fact I don't think the masters are giving purely mental analysis: they are in fact speaking from experience. Just because we do not fully comprehend what others said doesn't mean it's just theory. For others it could be their direct experience, and we should take it to heart.
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Originally posted by wisdomeye:I dun know what happend to in those peoples' minds but i have heard of some accounts (some present-day ) of people who accomplished not just realisation of mind nature but RAINBOW body which is at least quite near buddhahood just thru recitation. Not only rainbow body but also some other forms of very high accomplishments. They are very simple people, dun know much about dharma.
If they attained rainbow body, that means they not only practiced Trekchod which is cutting through illusions to the nature of mind, but also Thodgal, which is a specific Dzogchen (Mahamudra also have their own practices) practice to develope the rainbow body.
Many Tibetan practitioners are hidden Dzogchen practitioners. On the surface they only chant but their inner practice may not be known. They are certainly not just Shamatha practitioners.
1. people nowadays in general dun have the karmic roots deep enough to be liberated thru ch'an, zen
This is an assumption. We can never know. However I do know that even among those who have realisations not many have gone all the way, because of the lack of right view.
2. there are case examples of people like the fifth patriarch of Ch'an coming back as Su Dong Po, ie not fully liberated, although his realisation is already so deep. If come back, still can reconnect with path is ok, if some other karma/obstacle ripen, then good luck
If that practitioner has even attained Sotapanna (the first out of four stages to Arhantship), he is already assured no more rebirth in lower realms, and certainty to attain full liberation (arhat) within 7 lifetimes.
If he is Once Returner, that means at most he can return 1 lifetime to complete his path.
Non Returner too return only at most return only once, but he will go to the 4th Jhana Abode and will not return to our human realm because they overcome sensual attachments, so cannot return to sensual realm.
Arhat is free from rebirth in samsara.
The above is for the Hinyana path. It should be noted that a Sotapanna does not necessarily have to wait for 7 lifetimes, many practitioners enter Sotapanna stage, then ascend all the way to Arhat in one lifetime.
For the Mahayana/Bodhisattva path: If that practitioner has even attained 1st Bhumi, he is assured non-retrogression into samsara -- means he is like the Sotapanna on an assured path to liberation.
Then you may ask, if 1st Bhumi can no longer fall back to Samsara, why is it that only 8th Bhumi is considered non-retrogression?
It's different thing.
http://chinese.freebuddhistaudio.com/texts/read?num=071&at=text&p=5
Now in the case of the Bodhisattva, he is no longer in danger of falling away from the Bodhisattva Ideal. This is only when he achieves what we call Irreversibility. And the Bodhisattva becomes Irreversible only in the eighth bhumi, the eighth stage out of the ten. So look what a long way the Bodhisattva has to go before he can be completely sure that he's going to persevere to the end. So he becomes Irreversible in this eighth bhumi, that is to say Irreversible from full Enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings. Up to that point, till he becomes Irreversible, there's always the danger, not that he'll fall away from the spiritual life itself no - that danger he has overcome long before - but there is the danger that he'll fall back into spiritual individualism: that he'll give up trying to become Enlightened, trying to become a Buddha for the sake of all, slip back into spiritual individualism in the sense of seeking to gain Enlightenment just for his own sake.
It is very clear that non-retrogression in Eight Bhumi means not falling back into Hinayana. It does not mean Bodhisattvas before eight bhumi can fall back into samsara, pls don't misunderstand.
Then you may ask, does realising nature of mind means achieving bhumi?
It depends on what you mean by realising nature of mind. The criteria in Buddhism to achieve 1st Bhumi means realising the twofold emptiness of self and dharmas. If you realise the union of luminosity and emptiness, you are certainly already in the bhumis.
Some people realise the luminosity aspect of Mind, which is far more common, and reify it as Self. This is what Ch'an Master Sheng Yen called the One Mind or Great Self. Many people go through this stage and think it is enlightenment. In actuality, what they realise is the luminosity, the vivid Presence and Awareness aspect of Mind. It can be misunderstood to be a metaphysical essence, a Source, an Eternal Witness. This is still not the realisation of no-self. But nevertheless it is still an important realisation, a stage to go through.
In other words, some practitioners seen Mind, which is the luminous aware aspect, the essence of mind. But they did not realise the nature of mind, which is Empty. That is why Thusness always said 明心 (see Mind) is not the same as �性 (see the [empty] nature)
If a person realises the union of luminosity and emptiness, he is truly enlightened in the Buddhist sense and is already in the bhumis.
So just realise mind is not enough, you got to have depth in your realisation which may take beyond this life. For eg. Gampopa when he was talking about one-taste on meditation, when he give the theory, he also say, actually one taste is like this--- then he wave his hand through the pillar beside him as if it is not solid.
Gampopa is trying to show the non-solidity and emptiness of appearance.
However it doesn't mean everyone who realised One Taste must therefore perform miracles like moving through pillars. That's not the point.
The One Taste realisation is when the realisation of the luminous and empty nature of mind is realised to be the very essence and nature of all appearances.
There is still one more stage after One Taste: the stage of Non-Meditation. It is a natural progression from One Taste stage. When all appearances are realised to be of the spontaneously perfected luminous and empty nature, already so, so called practice moves from efforting to spontaneity.
Those people I'm referring to are normal people.
Originally posted by wisdomeye:the problem with such discussions, is that i post some statement then you read off your interpretation of it and write your comments then i have to veer off my initial perspective to go address your perspective. Goes too far afield.
I think to cut things short, i'd put it this way, relevant to the initial point i am making in the first post here.
Those people I'm referring to are not hidden Dzogchen yogis. Normal people, in fact i think a bit handicapped.The teacher just gave them the simple practice of reciting. There are certain practices that have been described by Buddha in tantras to be able to bring such effects. Of course takes diligence and faith. Just that brought high accomplishments. Of course one can choose to practice trekchod and togal.
Sorry for my comment about you analysing too much. I thot it might be too bzbody of me. Didn't mean harm. Anyway, you are free to choose your own path.
Chanting practiced by itself is a pure shamatha, concentrative practice that leads to absorption. Thusness told me it can lead to non-dual experience where subject and object merges, where there is only just the sound and the chanting but no background/separate hearer, like a temporary experience of no-self, yet it is not the realisation and insight of the nature of reality as no-self. Just by chanting something doesn't necessarily give rise to insight.
If you insist that chanting by itself alone gives rise to insight, I would like to ask you, how is this practice any different from the chanting practiced in Hinduism, Islam, etc, since they also practice chanting (and yes Islam and I think Catholics too have their own rosary beads and keep chanting the name of God. Hinduism needless to say: the tradition of mantra chanting actually originated from Hinduism).
I think what Bhante Gunaratana (and likewise what Thusness and Ven Shen Kai) pointed out is very important. Vipassana is something peculiar to Buddhism. Shamatha already existed long before Buddha. Pure concentration leads to samadhi, absorption, calmness, and can deal with karmic momentum. However Vipassana/Vipashyana deals with the luminous clarity, the Awareness, and the empty nature of Awareness.
However the thing is this: when one reaches a state of thoughtless samadhi through chanting, at that moment, there is a very good chance one can inquire or 'trace the beam back' into the Source, like a spontaneous inquiry 'Who am I' will draw one back to the Source and realise true Mind.
dear AEN,
chanting per se does not lead to accomplishments. BUT, chanting invokes deity and blessings, and blessings can lead to accomplishments.
Chanting not only can lead to insight, it can purify karma and even lead right up to rainbow body, it can also solve alot of worldly problems. It solve both relative and ultimate problems. Unfortunately many people are just satisfied with solving worldly problems and stop there.
There are many past examples of people who attained accomplishment by chanting alone. Requires great faith and diligence.
About your point on chanting in other tradition, look at what other traditions chant, and what we chant. I think there is difference right?
Actually if you look at chanting of Amitabha, it can also be considered accomplishment by chanting. But different from what i'm talking about above, which is accomplishment in this life. Once one go into Amitabha pureland, one can attain very high realisation easily, in fact it is said that once out of the lotus and see Buddha Amitabha is first bhumi already which is very very high level. Going into pureland is not that much longer than this life. This life is brief, death comes anytime and after death, straight to pureland. Very fast.
Actually, i dun know how many people really appreciate. Pureland practice is very great kindness to us.
Originally posted by An Eternal Now:
As Bodhidharma says:
"To find a Buddha, you have to see your nature." Whoever sees his nature is a Buddha. If you don’t see your nature, invoking Buddhas, reciting sutras, making offerings, and keeping precepts are all useless. Invoking Buddhas results in good karma, reciting sutras results in a good memory; keeping precepts results in a good rebirth, and making offerings results in future blessings-but no buddha. If you don’t understand by yourself, you’ll have to find a teacher to get to the bottom of life and death. But unless he sees his nature, such a person isn’t a tea6er. Even if he can recite the Twelvefold Canon he can’t escape the Wheel of Birth and Death. He suffers in the three realms without hope of release. Long ago, the monk Good Star was able to recite the entire Canon. But he didn’t escape the Wheel, because he didn’t see his nature. If this was the case with Good Star, then people nowadays who recite a few sutras or shastras and think it’s the Dharma are fools. Unless you see your mind, reciting so much prose is useless."
ä¸�识本性，å¦ä½›æ— 益？
not æ— ç›Š but is only ä¿®ç¦�, 结善缘, cannot 解脱