Short interview with HHDL

?

What "HHDL" stands for? :confused:

HHDL stands for...

His Holiness the Dalai Lama

Sorry for using the acronym without thinking!

Norbu

Thank you for posting that link. Reading what HHDL said about the key parts of Bhuddist practice has reinforced what I had previously learnt in my own practice and classes.

In direct relation to the 'unborn' my understanding of this is as follows...

Emptiness is what we find when we examine an object to find it's true nature. For example a house. When we look at all the aspects of house to find the core of what house is, we may begin by taking apart certain parts.

Lets take the window away, is this House? Well no because it is the window and without the walls, roof, doors ceilings etc it looses the essence of what house is.

Take the door then, is this House? Again, no because by the same principle as above, door looses it's affiliation with house when it is studied in its own right.

We can apply this reasoning to all aspects of House. Eventually there is no more material to which we can apply the lable House. When we look at the pile of objects we have placed to one side as 'definately not house', we see that House has gone, it no longer exists - it has no inherant existance on its own side.

So what was House? It was the collective term we used for door, ceiling, floor, bricks etc etc. The emptiness we discovered is a property of the collective feature we know and label as 'House'.

Now go back prior to human's living in a house, to when we lived in fields, with hay to keep us warm at night. If you could talk to a human back then and talk about the concept of 'House', they would have no idea what the heck you were on about. The concept does not exist to them, it is beyond their current understanding. They have yet to assemble the components of house that we find so familiar and label so easily.

House has not yet been ''born'' in their minds, it is ''unborn''.

In the same way, the real nature of reality has not yet been ''born'' within our minds. We are yet to gather and assemble the components of what ''reality'' truly is and so cannot appreciate its concept, it is for us the ''unborn''.

By studying and contemplating emptiness by the method above, taught by Bhudda, we can become familiar with this new concept of objects laking inherant existance.

When this new understanding becomes familiar in our minds and mixes with our knowledge and wisdom as we now have, we will gain deeper and deeper understandings/realisations of emptiness until we understand the concept completely.

Blessings and Peace
Lily xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The unborn

Hi Lily,

Here's the Nibbana sutta translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu:

I have heard that on one occasion the Blessed One was staying near Savatthi, in Jeta's Grove, Anathapindika's monastery. Now at that time the Blessed One was instructing urging, rousing, and encouraging the monks with Dhamma-talk concerned with Unbinding. The monks — receptive, attentive, focusing their entire awareness, lending ear — listened to the Dhamma.

Then, on realizing the significance of that, the Blessed One on that occasion exclaimed:

There is, monks, an unborn — unbecome — unmade — unfabricated. If there were not that unborn — unbecome — unmade — unfabricated, there would not be the case that emancipation from the born — become — made — fabricated would be discerned. But precisely because there is an unborn — unbecome — unmade — unfabricated, emancipation from the born — become — made — fabricated is discerned.

???

Norbu

Norbu, thank you for that. I stand by my definaition of the unborn. The quotation you posted reassures me that my understanding of the unborn is justified.

In my explaination I presented the unborn as an object (or for that matter, belief/concept) that has yet come to be born (understood) within the consciousness we possess as humans. Like in the way we could never have understood nor appreciated mobile phones, computers and other modern technologies at the turn of the century.

We possess a gross mind in our present form. Lets think about the levels of existance within samsara - hell beings, animals, humans, gods, enlightened beings. At each level the being possess a certain grossness of mind. i.e one of the blessings we have as a human is the ability to learn and understand dharma which animals cannot do (it is due to the limit of their level of ability of mind). In the same sense as we study and contemplate dharma teachings our ability of mind is increased. We gain realisations which in turn help us to gain deeper realisations and more and more profound understandings of the more complex lessons such as emptiness. Our wisdom increases.

Imagination is a human charactertrait. It enables humans to create and to grow beyond what is their current level of awareness, belief, understanding and existance. It is a tool that helps us to understand the dharma and to develop our understanding of the teachings we receive.

As we progress throught the levels of understanding we can contemplate how we have grown and altered. Looking back, we can see how we have progressed, how one idea lead to another, one understanding led to a deeper understanding. Yet when we try to look forward along our path, we cannot appreciate what we have not yet experienced. It is still unborn, unfabricated to our gross mind. As the mind becomes less gross and progresses toward the clear pure subtle mind of the bhudda, the more we can see. As our wisdom increases the greater the knowledge and understanding that is born onto the mind.

To help gain deeper realistaions of emptiness, it is important to increase our wisdom. We can increase our wisdom by contemplating dharma lessons we have been taught, and by repeating the mantra of Bhudda Manjushri (Bhudda of wisdom) with sincerity

'Om ah ra pa tza na di'

Peace and blessings
Lily xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Buddha nature

Hi Lily,

Buddha nature is sometimes described as a seed that can grow if given the right conditions and this fits nicely with your explanation I think. Sometimes Buddha nature is described as a jewel in the mud. It's also often said that the mother and father of Buddha nature are wisdom (insight into emptiness) and skillful means (compassionate action to liberate oneself and others from suffering).

So maybe be we are working to become something that we already are by working to let go of ignorance and training our hearts and minds to be less clinging and more accepting. We are just trying to wake up.

This is an interesting snippet from the HHDL interview which the link I posted in this thread takes you:

If there was inherent existence and inherent causation, then we couldn't escape from samsara [cyclic existence]. So therefore what we say is that on the conventional level there is a path, there is causation and so forth. But because of the fact that the causation has no inherent existence, to perceive that causation does have inherent existence is ignorance. And to be able to perceive that lack of causation in the nature of inherent existence is wisdom.

Isn't the path only the dream of cause and effect that results in awakening? Isn't this awakening merely a removal of our delusions to find reality where it always was before? Isn't the unborn the same as the causeless?

Norbu

We all have bhudda nature, we all have within our minds the pure subtle mind of bhudda. It is just clouded by delusion, so that its power is dulled and we cannot concieve things as they truely are.

I agree that the path is mearly the stripping away of these gross or deluded minds to reveal what is within us all - our bhudda nature. We all have this seed, therefore the potential to become a bhudda is there within each of us. The path is an awakening, and true that as we change our karma by purification, and by cessation of deluded acts, we create the cause to our own enlightenment.

Like this whole thread, the mear discussion and sharing of our understanding of bhudda's teacgins is great merit on our behalf, this whole discussion itself is awakening our bhudda nature.

Beautiful aint it? I love being a bhuddist!

Much peace and love to you!

Lily xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I like the word "unborn"…..

Unborn is the potential of me
the unrealised me
the perfectness of me that existed
before I was born.

When I was unborn
I was perfect
When I was unborn
I was without boundaries
When I was unborn
I was everything.

And now
I am born
?

I only know
what I know
here
within
these boundaries
of me

I await my unborn-ness again
I await those moments of realisation of no boundaries
I await the knowing of being unborn again.

And whilst I am waiting
I am doing this thing we call living.

Just the other morning
I wanted to say hello to all those things which are yet unborn.

Unborn
I await your arrival into the consciousness of my being.