Before trying to guide others, be your own guide first.
It is hard to learn to guide oneself.
Your own self is your master; who else could be?
With yourself well controlled, you gain a master very hard to find.

- Dhammapada

Kingdom in the clouds preserves Buddhism

The Buddhist kingdom of Bhutan is one of the world's most isolated nations. Yet its ancient Buddhist culture and mountain scenery make it one of most attractive countries in Asia.

In 2008 Bhutan will have perhaps the largest and the tallest statue of Buddha ever to be built in the world. The 169-feet bronze statue of Buddha, seated on lotus, will be erected at Kuensel Phodrang in Changbangdu, overlooking the capital Thimpu valley.

The groundwork has already been completed and the work on the statue begun in August last year.

Approved by His Majesty the King and the government, the project is being initiated to commemorate the hundred years of monarchy in 2007.

Within the gigantic bronze structure including the lotus there will be enough space to house 17 storeys of different lhakhangs. (Lhakhangs are Bhutanese temples or the home of the gods and are found in every valley, village and also on almost every mountain in the country.)

The structure includes three storeys within the lotus, two each inside the lotus, waist, chest, face and shoulder and one each in the legs, neck and head. In the first two storeys inside the lotus, which are both 15 feet high there will be 25,000 images of 12-inch Buddha statues. Made of copper and gilded in gold they will be displayed around the walls of the meditation hall inside the lotus.

The first storey, which surrounds the centre, will house eight 10-feet standing bodhisattvas. The second storey surrounding the centre pillar will have eight more 10-feet sitting Buddhas.

The third storey inside the lotus seat will house six-feet high 16 arahats, Maitreya Bodhisattva, Sutra Holder and the four direction kings. In the centre chamber will be seated the main Buddha Shakyamuni.

The rooms from the third storey up to the top will accommodate 100,000 statues of eight-inch Buddha statues made of copper and gilded in gold placed in multi-layered grid-boxes.

The project will also have public galleries, restaurants, dharamsalas, monk's quarters and camping grounds.

The statue is expected to be a major pilgrimage centre and a focal point for Buddhists all over the world to converge, practice, meditate and retreat.

It is also meant to fulfil the prophecy of bestowing blessings, universal peace and happiness to the world as a whole. According to the Bhutanese age-old literature there was a prophecy by Lam Sonam Zangpo, a renowned yogi, who said that construction of a statue of Buddha in this region would bring stability, peace and prosperity in the country.

LW

########################

Building self-esteem - the Buddhist way

Thanissaro Bhikkhu

Throughout the history of Buddhism, the Buddha has been described as a doctor, treating spiritual ills. The path of practice he taught has likewise served as therapy for suffering hearts and minds.

This understanding of the Buddha and his teachings dates back to the earliest texts, but its meaning for contemporary practitioners has become more relevant than ever. Buddhist meditation is often touted as a form of healing, and many psychotherapists now recommend that their patients try meditation as part of their treatment.

But the Buddha understood - and experience has shown that meditation on its own can't provide a total therapy. It requires outside support.

In many ways, modern meditators have been so destabilised by the stimuli of mass civilisation that they often lack the resilience, persistence, and self-esteem needed to achieve concentration and cultivate insight.

To provide grounding in these qualities, and to foster a personal environment conducive to meditation, the Buddha prescribed a path made up not only of mindfulness, concentration, and insight practices, but also of virtue.

And virtue begins with the Five Precepts, which are: to refrain from intentionally killing any animal, from insects on up the evolutionary ladder; to refrain from stealing; to refrain from illicit sex, that is, sexual intercourse outside of a stable, committed relationship; to refrain from lying; to refrain from intoxicants (such as alcohol, marijuana, and psychotropic drugs).

These precepts constitute the first step on the path. There is a tendency to dismiss them as Sunday-school rules bound to old cultural norms that no longer apply to modern society, but this misses the role that the Buddha intended for them: to be part of a therapy for wounded minds.

In particular, they are aimed at curing two ailments that underlie low self-esteem and block progress on the path - regret and denial.

When our actions don't measure up to certain standards of behaviour, we either regret the actions or engage in one of two kinds of denial - denying that our actions did, in fact, happen, or denying that the standards of measurement are really valid.

These responses are like wounds in the mind. Regret is an open wound, tender to the touch, while denial is like hardened scar tissue twisted around a tender spot. When the mind is wounded in these ways, it can't settle down comfortably in the present, for it finds itself resting on raw, exposed flesh or calcified knots.

This is where the Five Precepts come in. Healthy self-esteem comes from living up to a set of standards that is practical, clear-cut, humane, and worthy of respect. The precepts provide just such a set of standards. The standards are simple.

They may not always be easy or convenient, but they are always possible to live by. Some people translate the precepts into standards that sound more lofty or noble. To some, taking the second precept, for example, means not abusing the planet's resources. But that's an impossibly high standard.

The Buddha understood that if you give people standards that take a little effort and mindfulness but are still possible to meet, their self-esteem soars dramatically as they find themselves actually meeting those standards. They can then face more demanding tasks with confidence.

The precepts are formulated with no ifs, ands, or buts. This means that they provide very clear guidance. There's no room for waffling or less-than-honest rationalisations. An action either fits in with the precepts or it doesn't.

Anyone who has raised children has found that while they may complain about hard and fast rules, they actually feel more secure with them than with rules that are vague and always open to negotiation. Clear-cut rules don't allow for unspoken agendas to come sneaking in the back door of the mind.

If, for example, the precept against killing allowed you to kill living beings when their presence is inconvenient-as in the case of mosquitoes - that would place your convenience on a higher level than your compassion for life. Convenience would become your unspoken standard - and unspoken standards provide huge tracts of fertile ground for hypocrisy and denial to grow.

If, however, you stick by the standards of the precepts, then you are providing unlimited safety for all. In terms of other precepts, you provide safety for their possessions and their sexuality, and truthfulness and mindfulness in your communication with them.

The precepts are humane both to the person who observes them and to the people affected by his or her actions. If you observe them, you are aligning yourself with the doctrine of karma, which teaches that the most important powers shaping your experience of the world are the intentional thoughts, words, and deeds you choose in the present moment.

This means that you are not insignificant. With every choice you make - at home, at work, at play - you are exercising your power in the ongoing shaping of the world. At the same time, this principle allows you to measure yourself in terms that are entirely under your control: your intentional actions in the present moment.

In other words, they don't force you to measure yourself in terms of your looks, strength, brains, financial prowess, or any other criteria that depend less on your present karma than they do on karma from the past. Also, they don't play on feelings of guilt or force you to bemoan your past lapses. Instead, they focus your attention on the ever-present possibility of living up to your standards in the here and now.

When you adopt a set of standards, it's important to know whose standards they are and to see where those standards come from, for in effect you are joining their group, looking for their approval, and accepting their criteria for right and wrong. In this case, you couldn't ask for a better group to join: the Buddha and his noble disciples.

The Five Precepts, in the words of the Buddha, are "standards appealing to the noble ones." From what the texts tell us of the noble ones, they aren't people who accept standards simply on the basis of popularity. They have put their lives on the line to see what leads to true happiness and seen for themselves, for example, that all lying is pathological, and that any sex outside a stable, committed relationship is spiritually and emotionally, as well as physically, unsafe.

Other people might not respect you for living by the Five Precepts, but noble ones do, and their respect is worth more than that of anyone else in the world. You can look at the standards by which you live and breathe comfortably as a full-fledged, responsible human being. For that's what you are.

(Thanissaro Bhikkhu was ordained in the Thai forest tradition of Buddhism in 1976. He has translated numerous Buddhist texts, among them the Dhammapada)

####################

Meditating at Home

Ven Pannyavaro

The image most often associated with meditation is that of a sitting Buddha fixed in a crossed-legged posture. While such a representation is undoubtedly inspirational and aesthetically pleasing, it unfortunately suggests to the uninitiated that meditation is a static, 'statue-like' pursuit practised only in temples.

If meditation is to have any relevance to everyday life it has to be done at home. This does not just mean your residence but wherever your attention happens to reside. To meditate at home requires a 'hands-on', dynamic practice that is not restricted to any particular time, place or posture.

When applied in this way, it naturally becomes integrated into the ordinary activities of life and becomes the basis for a meditative lifestyle in everyday life.

Yet it has to be acknowledged that integrating meditation into daily life is not easy. Therefore you need to purposefully set yourself up to do it; good intention is not enough.

There has to be commitment. So consider your priorities, what is more important, hours sitting in front of the TV screen (or computer monitor) or a half to an hour or so of sitting meditation.

The regular daily home sit is the anchor for the practice. Even if it is only used as a form of mental hygiene, as in 'unstressing', it will greatly contribute towards harmonising family and work relationships.

Essentially meditating at home is about paying attention.

The actual meaning of 'attention' indicates its practice: 'to attend upon', 'to be present with'. So by being attentive 'presence of mind' is developed. While there are degrees of attention (down to lack of attention), it can be said that there are two types: natural attention, which is 'automated attention' and the intentionally 'deployed' attention that is developed in 'meditative attention'.

Deployed attention is either passive, or in the sense of being applied, active. The passive mode is 'bare attention' that is just registering what is happening, in a receptive state of mind, without reaction. While the active mode of attention is applied when any kind of movement or action is done, including active reflective thought on things observed.

So what do you pay attention to? Your own body and mind. There are four areas to establish attention on:

Body - either tuning into its elemental qualities and/or sensations or actively monitoring body movements and actions;

Feelings - knowing the feeling tone as either pleasant, unpleasant or neutral (not to be confused with emotion);

Mind-states - happiness, sadness, calm, elation, etc.;

Mental Content - the things of the mind e.g. thinking, concepts, ideas. Whatever is the predominant experience in any of these 'four spheres of attention' is used as a frame of reference to help guide the practice of paying attention to whatever is happening in your body and mind from moment to moment.

It is important to get your bearings. So it is a matter of literally coming to your senses, by being attentive at one of the (Six Sense-Doors): these are the five senses, seeing, hearing, and smelling, tasting and touching plus the sixth sense or mind-door which is the consciousness or knowing. By being present with bare attention at any of these six sense-doors you observe what happens between the senses and their objects during a sense impression.

One thing to notice when watching at a sense-door during a sense impression is the feelings that arise. If the feeling is unpleasant a negative reaction occurs; if it's pleasant grasping arises. Thus the mind is most just reacting: liking, disliking.

The result is that you are being caught in the conditioned cycle of suffering at the linkage of feelings and grasping. But there is no need to be. By intercepting the primary feeling at a sense-door, without the following emotion, the feeling will go no further, therefore no attachments, no liking or disliking, end of story, end of suffering.

The ability to 'home in' is really the key to this practice. Get your bearings at a sense-door and keep in mind the 'four areas of attention'. Success in doing so also depends very much on the way you are relating to things: witnessing the experience rather than just reacting to it; having an attitude of acceptance of all thoughts, feelings and mind states into awareness without discrimination or selection.

The kind of 'spaciousness in the mind' allows you to be more receptive and intimate with what is observed.

Awareness of Daily Activities

For awareness to deepen, continuity of attention, which gives momentum to the practice, needs to be maintained for at least a few hours in the day.

Continuity arises through careful and precise attention to movements, actions, feelings and mind-states, (whatever is prominent), for as long as possible in whatever situation you are in during the daily routine.

Nothing can be dismissed as unimportant: domestic chores, eating, cleaning your teeth. Any and every movement and activity is repeatedly noted in order to establish the habit so that it becomes your second nature to note during the daily routine.

Of course, this is not easy to establish and so requires patience, perseverance and a sense of humour, especially when you feel frustrated by constant forgetfulness.

Set yourself up to do a daily mindfulness exercise using 'triggers' as reminders. Such a trigger can be every time there is contact with water to remind you to be present with whatever you are doing while you are doing it. So what are the situations when you come into contact with water: washing your hands, the dishes, hosing the garden, washing the dog, etc.

If you succeed only once in paying full attention it can be the start of establishing the habit of being mindful at home.

It is very helpful as well to reinforce your efforts by reviewing or taking stock of your daily notes at the end of the day. You can record your efforts in a meditation diary, so long as you do not make judgments on the quality of the practice or be discouraged by blank pages.

It is important to maintain the daily meditation sits at home as a way of sustaining and stabilizing your practice. With a busy life it is easy to convince yourself that you really haven't the time anymore to maintain the regular sitting or when you are feeling tired, just want to drop it.

Naturally, when you get stressed or overtired there is resistance to facing the stress by meditating. But it is usually only an initial resistance you have to face before you go through it.

Also, do not evaluate your practice, thinking if the meditation isn't of sufficient good quality you are wasting your time. It is all grist for the mill; you must persist as it is vital to maintain the habit of practice to get the long-term benefits.

There is a saying that the beginning and the end of a journey are essentially the same. This is especially true of meditation. For there is nowhere you need to go to discover your true nature other than where you can be now - meditating at your home-base.

(Courtesy Buddha Dharma Education Association, Australia)