2009 December 17 « Rev. Danny Fisher

A Gift of Dharma for 12.17.09

Today’s quote is another from Her Eminence Mindrolling Jetsün Khandro Rinpoche, whom I previously quoted and wrote a little biography for here. It’s from her book This Precious Life: Tibetan Buddhist Teachings on the Path to Enlightenment:

In essence, ignorance is nothing more than a supposition. Like something invisible, it only seems to be there. Gampopa describes ignorance in his Jewel Ornament of Liberation as “a flower in space.”

Imagine that you and I are sitting together, and I begin describing for you a very beautiful flower that I’m holding – which you may or may not be able to see. I go on and on about the qualities and magnificence of this flower, but the flower is imaginary, a flower in space. You might call this daydreaming, and because you can’t see any flower you find it difficult to believe in it. In the same way, ignorance is the assumption that there is a “flower” in space when in fact there is nothing there.

Similarly, the thoughts and feelings that seem so real – my ignorance, my anger, my desires, my actual existence – are like this imaginary flower, and we can be just as obsessed by them. Certainly these emotions have a definite feeling and texture, but there is no real evidence to prove their existence. They are like flowers in space. From that perspective, we spend our entire lives enslaved by invisible thoughts and emotions with no actual existence. And another lifetime goes by – accumulating even more karmic causes that bring more fruition. This cycle of suffering is never exhausted, and we’re unable to pull out of it. This is the essence of samsara. We must truly understand that suffering is caused by the ignorance of sentient beings who are unable to see their true nature.

This world is definitely filled with great suffering – birth, sickness, old age, and death, as well as hatred, violence, pain, and other difficulties – but the intensity of that suffering is up to us. We are all very accustomed to making things difficult, complicated, and “necessary.” Grasping at such intense illusions, we allow formless thoughts to become so real that they completely overpower us and our human sensibility to just be – simple human beings, honest and kind.

1 comment

Bless This Mess

Photo by University of the West Public Relations.

We’re having a little work done here at UWest. Everything kicked off last week, following a blessing from Hsi Lai Temple Abbot Hui Chi. (That’s me at the top of the steps in the background.)

Bat Nha Monastery Petition

This via The Petition Site:

Please sign this petition addressed to the European Union, the United States government, ASEAN governments and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to ask the Vietnamese government to formally recognize the Plum Village practice of buddhism. By joining the petition and the group of 100,000 people asking for religious freedom, you will make a great measurable step towards global human rights in Southeast Asia.

The Bat Nha community has been under severe violent governmental pressure to cease activity in Viet Nam. The monks and nuns were forcefully expelled from Bat Nha monastery and are been persecuted in their place of refuge, Phuoc Hue temple, Bao Loc, in Lam Dong province. These monks and nuns are practicing in the tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh and continue his tradition in his homeland.

Our initial effort and petition to protect the Bat Nha monastics was recognized by EU and U.S. leaders, which in turn caused the Viet Nam government to ease pressure on the Bat Nha monastics for the last three weeks of Oct 2009. But on Nov 2nd, the Chief of the Province Lam Dong summoned the Abbot who is currently hosting the 400 refugee monks and nuns, and demanded he force them to leave by the first of December.

The strong harassment and intimidation of this community continue with attempts to disband them from Phuoc Hue and other temples where they have sought refuge. They also are threatening to draft the young monks into the army within a few weeks. We need your help to bring an end to religious persecution in Viet Nam with this new petition to ASEAN, European Union, United States governments and the High Commission for Human Rights to continue diplomatic pressure, and give legal status to these monks. The pressure should demand that the monks be allowed to practice together.

The Bat Nha monastics are requesting the Government of Vietnam and authorities in Lam Dong Province to:

Immediately stop the current campaign of persecution and all attempts to intimidate, harass, disrupt and forcefully disperse the community

Officially confirm the Bat Nha monks’ and nuns’ full right (guaranteed by the law of Vietnam and international treaties to which Vietnam is party, and already stated in government documents 212/CV/HDTSand 525/TGCP-PG issued in 2006) to practice Buddhism according to the Vietnamese Plum Village tradition, together as a community, in an established location of their own choosing.

Religious freedom is a basic human right and a core principle of democracy. These 400 monastics, all Vietnamese citizens, aspire to offer the fruit of their practice of the mindfulness trainings to their homeland. These gentle, peaceful people seek to soothe society’s ills, bridge understanding between family members, friends, co-workers, faiths, and to spread greater world, human and environmental peace. Senior lawyers in Hanoi have confirmed these nuns and monks have not violated a single law of Vietnam.

Please act on behalf of global human rights and this young generation of peace seekers in Vietnam. By signing the petition and strengthening political pressure, you are supporting peaceful, nonviolent action to support a soothing salve quietly working its magic of openness and tolerance. And tell your friends about it and have them sign, too.

Thank you from all the monastics of Plum Village (France), European Institute of Applied Buddhism (Germany), Deer Park Monastery (CA, USA), Blue Cliff Monastery (NY, USA), and the Bat Nha-Phuoc Hue Monastics (Viet Nam), as well as all lay-friends of Thich Nhat Hanh globally.

Sign here.

2 comments

Burma – “Where Impunity Reigns”

Benedict Rogers, East Asia Team Leader with Christian Solidarity Worldwide, and the author of Than Shwe: Unmasking Burma’s Tyrant, writes a powerful editorial on Burma for the New York Times today. Here’s a snippet:

The world needs to be reminded, again and again, that the military regime in Burma (Myanmar) continues to perpetrate every conceivable human rights violation.

Any Burmese showing any dissent is brutally suppressed, as the world witnessed two years ago when peaceful Buddhist monks demonstrated. Many monks were killed or have disappeared; several hundred remain in prison.

Beyond that, more than 2,000 political activists are in Burmese prisons today, subjected to torture, denial of medical treatment and ludicrous sentences.

Student leader Bo Min Yu Ko is serving a 104-year prison term; Shan ethnic leader Hkun Htun Oo has been imprisoned for 93 years; democracy activist Min Ko Naing for 65 years. The most famous human rights activist, Aung San Suu Kyi, has been under house arrest for almost 14 years, and the term was extended for a further 18 months after a sham trial.

Many of these activists are in prisons thousands of miles from their families, and several are critically ill.

One category of victims of the military dictatorship that gets far less attention is Burma’s ethnic minorities.

In eastern Burma, the regime has been conducting a brutal military campaign against people of the Karen, Karenni and Shan groups. Since 1996, more than 3,300 villages have been destroyed and more than a million people internally displaced. A Karenni friend of mine has described it as “Pol Pot in slow motion.”

The catalogue of terror includes the widespread, systematic use of rape as a weapon, forced labor, the use of human minesweepers and the forcible conscription of child soldiers.

In northern and western Burma, the predominantly Christian Chin and Kachin peoples also face systematic religious persecution.

The Muslim Rohingyas, targeted for their faith and ethnicity, are denied citizenship, despite living in Burma for generations. Thousands have escaped to miserable conditions in Bangladesh.

[...]

Last week marked the 61st anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. If that is to mean anything in Burma, the time has come for the U.N. to impose a universal arms embargo on the regime, to invoke the much-flaunted “Responsibility to Protect” mechanism, and to investigate the regime’s crimes. The time to end the system of impunity in Burma is long overdue.

Read the rest here.

December 17, 2009

Ollie Mani Padme Hum

This via our pal Rod Meade Sperry at The Worst Horse:

Follow “Rev. Danny Fisher”