Podcasts about manjusri

Following on the previous UnMind series of three segments on aging, sickness and death, the Three Marks of Buddhism's worldview, we will expand our scope to the broader world of international conflict, characteristic of our modern world, where Buddhism's three conditions of existence are also manifested, if in a more universal form. Traditional definitions of these basic aspects of life are universal in scope: impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, and no-self (Skt. anicca, dukkha, anatta). We can see clearly that in today's world, these givens of existence are not warmly embraced on the social level in America, let alone on national or global levels, which surely follows from their avoidance on the personal level. Beginning with Buddhism's “compassionate teaching” – the Dharma – we find that along with the three marks of aging, sickness and death, Buddha promulgated the “Three Poisons,” usually rendered as “greed, anger or hatred, and delusion or folly.” What a witch's brew is conjured, when we mix the six ingredients together. In the context of aging, greed becomes the longing for longevity, the overreliance on meds to avoid the ravages of illness, and extravagant, catastrophic efforts at prolonging life at all costs. Anger and hatred arise when we are denied the ability to forestall aging, when we are overcome by a pandemic, and when we blame widespread death and destruction on others. Delusion and folly ensue when we act on our mistaken beliefs, attacking others for the natural consequences of our collective and individual actions. The unexpected consequences threaten us all, whether in our dotage or full-flowering youth, with the Four Horsemen – plagues, famine, and the predations of war, and not necessarily in that order. Just who is to blame for this situation and how can we hold them accountable? In the worldview of Zen, everything, including charity, begins at home. To quote Master Pogo Possum, “We have met the enemy, and he is us.” The first embrace of reality is to “study the self.” The second is to “forget the self,” as Master Dogen reminds us in his famous teaching, Genjokoan–Actualizing the Fundamental Point.Actualizing the fundamental point of existence requires that we embrace our own aging, sickness and death – the close-up-and-personal reality of impermanence, imperfection and insubstantiality, including our precious self – while recognizing that greed, anger and delusion are fueling the fires of discontent, leading to blaming others for our personal predicament. Sometimes, others are to blame for making things worse, of course, just as we are to blame for making their world more crowded. Stop the world and let me get off. Would it were so simple. The blame game can range from blaming our parents for our birth, on one extreme, to blaming those others most distantly related to us by blood. I read somewhere that the furthest removed any human being can be from any other human, biologically speaking, is something like 26th cousin, if memory serves. One wonders, with the growth in population, whether that tenuous kinship is getting closer, or further apart, as time goes by, with 8 billion people and counting. I also read of a laboratory experiment, some years back, where they used the classic maze of rats to find out what happens when you simply keep adding rats to the maze, without letting any escape. At one point of increasing density, the rats begin attacking each other. They “blame” the others for their own discomfort, apparently. The analogy to human population should not be lost on anyone. The anxiety and outright hostility associated with immigration on a global basis is too obvious a parallel to ignore. Or we can aim all of our blame at the political system, or the candidate du jour. Now that the “debate of the century” has landed with a thud, the rats are having a hard time deciding which of the two leaders of the rat pack is most at fault. Much of the anger and hysteria we witness on ideological and political fronts of the public discourse seems motivated by underlying fears, exacerbated by perceived worsening conditions, including density of population. The identified “foreigners” – bringing unintelligible languages, peculiar cultural customs, and bizarre belief systems – induce anxiety, stereotyping and suspicion amongst native populations, triggering the threat of the privileged being “replaced” by them in the great scheme of things. This probably arises from a tribal, protective social instinct, linked to the survival of “our kind.” Hyped to the max by political opportunists, into the bargain. But on a more personal level, this anxiety, amplified by mob hysteria, surely finds its origin in the triple threat of aging, sickness and death, that is inborn with each individual. Birth is the leading cause of death, after all, like it or not. This perceived threat, however irrational, is tied to what biologists call the survival instinct, or imperative. Reality is not a respecter of persons. But biology is designed to privilege survival of the species over all comers, adapting to ever-changing circumstances. Natural and artificial changes in context often outpace and outmaneuver biology, engendering threats to survival, to cycles of “extinction panic,” or to actual extinction of the species, potentially including humanity. Cultural evolution – our ability to pass on technological advances to the next generation, and their ability to further improve on their cultural inheritance – is ensconced in the social sphere. But it likewise runs into trouble when it is not agile enough to keep up with the rate of change of conditions to which it is adapting, in the natural and universal spheres. Such as climate change. Aye, there's the rub. “Survival of the fittest” is the shorthand catchphrase for dumbing down Darwin's elegant and complex theory on the “Origin of Species.” To find a cogent example of society's collective resistance to this notion that we privilege the fit, we need look no further than the recruiting, drafting and conscription of young men and women – the “fittest” – into the modern military – the main mechanism oriented to societal survival – across the globe. Civilian leaders, and those at higher command levels, manage to keep a safe distance from the front lines, so as to return to fight another day, one assumes. But the survival of the oldest is not Nature's way. It is not natural to put younger members of the species at risk to protect older members. Witness the wolf pack. This biological imperative dictates an age-related triage, protecting those most likely to survive, to survive longer, and to reproduce. Yet humans do the opposite in wartime, and did it again in the face of the pandemic, by sending younger first responders into the fray, while protecting elderly and senior leaders through isolation, quarantine and access to medical care. Notwithstanding how miserable a failure that effort turned out to be, the point is still well-taken. Of course, from a practical perspective, the young provide the necessary numbers, and the vitality, needed on the frontlines. Even if senior members of society were willing to take point in crisis conditions, the question would be whether or not they are able to. Setting aside such considerations of the neurotic societal implications of turning younger generations into cannon and virus fodder, what will it take to finally bring about world peace? Can we beat our swords into plowshares, turn intercontinental ballistic missiles into spaceships, cyberwar into cyberfun? The current national debate is styled as a contest between democratic governance “of the people, by the people, and for the people,” striving toward a “more perfect union” of the republic; versus power elites exerting autocratic control over a hopelessly divided populace. The appeal of the latter is understandable for the “haves,” those who already enjoy a relative elite status of economic and social privilege. They stand to come out on top, liberated from the messy business of compromise with those on the bottom end of income equality. Likewise, the uneasiness of the “have-nots” is easy to understand. They see themselves as already victimized by the unlevel playing field, touted as equal opportunity for all. This, it would seem, is the real wall that is being built, not on the border, but right down the middle of the country. Its building blocks consist of the institutions installed by the founding fathers, rearranged to reassert the original privilege of white, land-owning males. But is all this – the daily fare being served up by the media and opposing forces – really the root of the problem? Whether or not we believe in an eternal soul, or reincarnation, as did the ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Hindus, or resurrection, as do modern Christians, we finally come to face our mortality, in person. In Zen, the only mate who will accompany us to the grave is our deeds. Whatever wealth, honor, or powers of reasoning we have accumulated in managing and manipulating the vagaries of behavior and vicissitudes of fortunes encountered in life, they serve us little in the face of death. The same may be said of family, though better to die surrounded by loved ones than alone, or surrounded by hostiles, I suppose. On the cushion we sit “without relying on anything” as Master Dogen reminds us in his version of “Needle for Zazen (Zazenshin),” including all the tricks, trash and trinkets we have assembled in our toolkit. Try as we might to think our way to enlightenment, or to reason ourselves into insight, we find ourselves failing again and again. Finally we must surrender to the chaos of not knowing, and abandon reliance on reason itself, spawn of philosophy and the other kind of Enlightenment. We find verification of our practice in “making effort without aiming at it.” Needless to say, this is a very uncomfortable place to find ourselves, at a pass that is not really negotiable, in any ordinary sense. All the stages of grief prove futile in the face of the relentless process and progress of biology. We need to confront reality when we are young and vigorous, as in “Stamp life and death on your forehead, and never let it out of your mind,” paraphrasing a truth long lost to attribution. Life takes its meaning in the context of death. If you find that too morbid, just imagine what life would be like if we did not die. Its meaning would be entirely different, and not entirely positive. When the grim reaper arrives, we may want to embrace her / his relentless, unsympathetic and unforgiving scythe, as being not at all different from the sword of Manjusri, hopefully cutting through our final delusions. Just as hopefully, the passing pageantry of life, particularly the concurrent social-political dimension, will have little or nothing to do with the circumstances surrounding the last breath we take. Preferable to die on the cushion, of course. * * *Elliston Roshi is guiding teacher of the Atlanta Soto Zen Center and abbot of the Silent Thunder Order. He is also a gallery-represented fine artist expressing his Zen through visual poetry, or “music to the eyes.”UnMind is a production of the Atlanta Soto Zen Center in Atlanta, Georgia and the Silent Thunder Order. You can support these teachings by PayPal to donate@STorder.org. Gassho.Producer: Shinjin Larry Little

In the last episode of UnMind, we concluded our review of the design intent of the Three Treasures of Buddhism. In this segment, we return to the current state of the campaign for political leadership of the country. My intent in these essays regarding the practice of Zen in an election year cycle is not to persuade or convince anyone of anything, other than the efficacy of sitting in zazen to straighten this mess out for yourself. I will try to make the case that it ‑ the political discourse ‑ is not at all disconnected from the Three Treasures. After all, the design of the three branches of government, and even partisan politics, are nothing more than manifestations of the community writ large – however subject to manipulation and distortion by special interest groups and individuals who may not honor the harmony of the larger Sangha, as their highest ideal. To be clear, I am not interested in getting out the vote, or influencing your vote. I regard politics as only one of the multifarious – and perhaps nefarious – arenas of civic action available to us in modern times. But because the unremitting and relentless campaign is currently taking all the oxygen out of the air, and threatens to do so for some time, more than ever should we turn to our own council, and tend to our own knitting, on the cushion. Zen meditation provides a safe haven, a dependable redoubt, for refreshing our resolve to take action in the most compassionate way, but informed by the wisdom of the ancestors. The political pageantry of the moment is subject to the cardinal marks of dukkha – impermanence, imperfection and insubstantiality – perhaps more than any other dimension of existence. We can regret, or rejoice, at its passing. It is also a given that most of those in positions of power and influence do not have the wisdom and compassion of the Dharma forming their guiding principles, nor even that of the founding documents of the republic. Nor can we claim that the clarity of Buddha's wisdom, or buddha-nature, resides at the heart of the American cult of the individual. In spite of the complexity, confusion, and downright contrariness of human nature, in coming to terms with the polity, I think I speak for all the ancestors of Zen in saying that our recommendation remains the same, regarding the spectrum, or spectacle, of governance across the countries of the globe, and the span of centuries since the advent of Buddhism in India. Physical samadhi is first in priority – more centered and balanced, less off-kilter, in the form of sitting upright and still, in zazen as well as kinhin, walking meditation. Then follows emotional samadhi – manifesting as more calmness, less anxiety. Then mental samadhi – fostering more clarity and less confusion, especially as to the deeper meaning and ramifications of the compassionate teachings. And finally, social samadhi – finding more harmony and less friction, in personal and social relationships. Girding our loins, as it were, with the “sword of Manjusri,” cutting through delusion, and reentering the marketplace with bliss-bestowing hands. By starting at the center of things, the personal sphere, eventually we may find our way in the social, natural, and even the universal spheres of influence that surround us, bringing the eyes and ears, and helping hands, of the bodhisattva to bear upon the suffering of the world. A large dollop of humility, and perhaps a healthy sense of humor, may be in order. We have introduced the notion that what we are doing in Zen training is, after all, only developing our penchant for independent thinking, along with its counterpart, a capacity for interdependent action. This is the tightrope we walk, while keeping all the balls in the air, of the many influences surrounding us. The nexus of near-infinite causes and conditions can bring about analysis paralysis if we succumb to the usual approach to defining and solving problems based on self-defense. What is called for is recognition and acceptance of the Japanese proverb cited by Master Dogen: “Fall down seven times; get up eight!” We need to give ourselves permission to fail in the social realm. Partisanship in politics requires that we suspend independent thinking. We are often prevailed upon to subscribe to views and opinions that may not be fully vetted or justified, in order to take advantage of the opportunities of the moment, to win over sufficient numbers of voters to the cause. But when we examine the sources of the ideological divide, it seems that underlying factors, which would fall into the skandha of “mental formations,' or unconscious volition, may play a greater role than we think. Further to the point, a recent article in the New York Times by Neil Gross, a professor of sociology at Colby College, titled “Are You Thinking for Yourself?” approached the problem of ideological division from a demographical perspective: If you're trying to guess whether people are Republicans or Democrats, knowing a few basic facts about them will take you a long way. What's their race and gender? How far did they get in school? What part of the country do they live in and is their community urban, suburban, or rural? He goes on to support the point with examples, which we will not detail here. His basic conclusion is that your demographics often determine what you believe, in regards to your general worldview, as well as political leanings. A seemingly determinative factor is that of the influence of parents and family. A majority of partisans of the new generation reflect the ideology of their parentage, apparently going back for generations. From this we might conclude that the vast majority of voters are going to be biased in favor of their family and social history from childhood – nature and nurture – and not likely to be persuaded by rational or ideological argument to switch allegiances. This suggests that the majority of campaign messages and ads attempting to sway so-called independents and moderates to join one camp or another may be a waste of time and money. It might be more effective to track the generational histories of constituencies, homing in on the genetically captive audience, known colloquially as “the base.” New coalitions may be limited by this unseen dimension, holding steady through generations. Please indulge an exercise involving simple mathematics, something we do not often engage in to make a point about Zen, or the teachings of Buddhism. But we have to admit that a major factor in differentiating our lives and times from those of our Zen ancestors is the burgeoning population and geometrically expanding demographics of the modern age. Pardon me while I “do the math,” with an assist from my onboard calculator, using search results from online sources, both inaccessible to the ancients. The current US population is estimated at about 333 million, of which roughly 240 million, or 72% of the total, are eligible to vote. In 2020, around 66% of those eligible actually registered and voted, a record, but representative of less than 50% of the total population. The Democrat candidate won the election with a little over 51% of the vote, while the Republican candidate lost, with about 47% of the vote. Political spending in the 2020 election totaled $14.4 billion – more than doubling the total cost of the also record-breaking 2016 cycle – according to opensecrets.org. So the last victory came at a cost of about $2000 a vote, if my math is correct. Even though a record 60-plus percent of eligible voters turned out in the 2020 election, the final decision was made by a miniscule fraction – 0.03% -- of the total, assuming the count was accurate, and that my math is close enough for jazz. Throw in the electoral college, with its handful of “swing states,” and the final decision comes down to a cohort less than the population of the metro area of Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, Texas. Yet the winners (and losers) not only endeavor to rewrite history to favor their cause, they also claim to enjoy the mandate of “the American people,” a tiny portion of whom actually put them in office. Or threw them out. The losing side famously claimed the election was stolen through voter fraud, though the electoral college tally came in at 306 to 232, a decisive difference, along with the overage of multiple millions of voters in the popular vote. But, as we hasten to say, that's a story for another day. Who are we to argue the truth of politics? Zen calls upon us to challenge the truth of our very senses! So we have to look at whatever leaders we get as being “the leaders we deserve,” in the context of a system demonstrably incapable of representing the “will of the people,” let alone “government of the people, by the people, for the people.” The fact that a large percentage opt out, and others are disenfranchised, belies a foundational tenet of the democratic republic: “one man-one vote.” This remains an ideal, one that may be forever out of reach, even with our vaunted technical connectivity. It may come down to a matter of free will, or the inexorable ignorance of the modern hoi polloi. Nobody is legally required to vote, after all, which may be a good thing. Further into the article, Gross generalizes: Although there are certainly people whose politics defy generalization, the underlying demographic tendencies are powerful predictors of belief – powerful enough that elections have become as much a turnout game as an exercise in persuasion. Do tell. But if it takes $2 grand a pop to get a single person to the polls, one has to question whether it is possible to turn that massive a “push” into a “pull,” to borrow from marketing terminology. Of course, there are those who would question whether it is wise to target people who are disinclined to vote in the first place. How informed would their choices likely be, if they are finally dragged out of their inertia, and into the polls? Gross concludes his essay with a turn to something deeper, the humanity underlying our behavior, including political activism: By all means, let's duke it out in the public sphere and at the ballot box. You'll fight for you interests and I'll fight for mine. That's democracy in a big, diverse, boisterous nation. But if we could bear in mind that we sometimes stumble into our most passionately held beliefs, the tenor of our discourse might be a bit saner and more cordial. The fact that we are all deeply social creatures, in politics and otherwise, underscores our shared humanity – something that we would be wise to never lose sight of. Whether or not you agree with the implicit assumption that making the tenor of our public discourse saner and more cordial would be a good thing – many seem to feel the opposite, that the squeakier the wheel, the more grease it will get – most would probably agree with the appeal to our shared humanity, and recognize the lamentable truism of frequently stumbling into our most passionately held beliefs. Aye, there's the rub – that our actions within the social sphere, including the political arena, are too often based on belief, rather than reality. Here is where Zen comes in. The deeper implicit assumption is that our shared humanity is necessarily a good thing. But I think Buddhism points to something deeper. We do not aspire to human nature in Zen – we aspire to buddha nature. Meaning to wake up to the deeper meaning and implications of our lives – our very existence – beyond the immediate and local causes and conditions impinging upon us, including the political machinations of our fellow travelers. Again, my intent in these essays is to emphasize the necessity of the practice of Zen in an election year cycle, not to persuade you of anything, other than the efficacy of sitting in zazen to straighten this mess out for yourself. That said, or resaid, I do encourage you to vote. You will make the right choice, informed by your meditation, I am sure. In the next episode of UnMind, we will return to considerations of more broadly focused adaptation of design thinking principles of problem definition and potential solutions in everyday life, of which politics is only one, if one of the most noisy and noisome.* * * Elliston Roshi is guiding teacher of the Atlanta Soto Zen Center and abbot of the Silent Thunder Order. He is also a gallery-represented fine artist expressing his Zen through visual poetry, or “music to the eyes.”UnMind is a production of the Atlanta Soto Zen Center in Atlanta, Georgia and the Silent Thunder Order. You can support these teachings by PayPal to donate@STorder.org. Gassho.Producer: Shinjin Larry Little

Monday, March 11, was my birthday, as I mentioned in the last segment of UnMind. Wednesday, March 27th, happens to be my late brother's birthday. So in his honor, let us continue exploring the theme of Time — its seeming passage and constant presence. He was a professional jazz pianist and teacher of music, and so was fully immersed in time. Once upon a time, while discussing time signatures in music, such as four-four time, three-four time — the familiar waltz tempo — and so on, he leaned toward me, a mischievous smile on his face, saying that, “You know, there is also ‘one-one' time” – counting off with his forefinger: “One-one-one-one.” He and I had many such dialogs at the intersection of music theory and Zen thinking. He has since passed on, sitting in with that great jazz combo in the sky. I bet he draws a crowd. (Some of the material in what follows originally appeared as my Dharma Byte of the month, titled “Swords into Plowshares,” in 2020, when the pandemic was in full swing.) In that message, and at that time, I made the point that privileging the survival of the oldest is not Nature's way; it is usually the survival of the fittest. It is not natural to put younger members of the species at unreasonable risk, in order to protect the older members. This goes against the natural order, as we witness in survival strategies of wildlife, as well as in social structures of the earliest human tribes. The survival of the species dictates age-related triage, in favor of those most likely to survive, to live longer, and to reproduce. Exceptions always arise to prove the rule; Nature is not simple. Yet humans reverse this natural logic, in wartime as in the example of the military draft, as well as in recruiting methods for police officers and firefighters. People in their late teens and early twenties often enter into dangerous occupations, in service to the larger community. Those who study such things tell us that neurological networks, including the brain, are not yet fully formed at that age, recognition and fear of mortality typically arising about the mid-twenties, when the brain finishes wiring, as we say. We were doing it again in the face of the pandemic, sending younger first responders into the fray, while protecting elderly and senior members by isolating and quarantining them. I have reported on my own encounter with COVID 19, which dragged out for the better part of a year, beginning with a three-month up-and-down sickbed recuperation from congestion and other flu-like symptoms, followed by slow recovery of lost strength, flexibility, balance, energy, and the kind of “brain fog” associated with “long covid,” the lingering effects on the nervous system. As part of that recovery, I developed an aggressive approach to the sitting posture and its relationship to the breathing process of Zen meditation, as well as to walking meditation, with its focus on physical balance. At about the time I began returning to morning meditation sessions, the new era of private billionaire space exploration was heating up, with more frequent launches than ever seen in the history of NASA. Perhaps this was a subliminal prompt to my beginning to count my breaths down to zero, in contrast to the usual counting up from one to four or more, and avoid counting beyond ten, as are common recommendations in Zen. With an initial, deep inhalation, I would hold the breath for a count of eight or so, while doing a full-body crunch, tensing the core muscle groups, as well as my newly stiffened legs, and weakened arms and shoulders. With the exhalation, I would intone “nine,” then “eight” for the next cycle, and so on, down to “one,” and finally, “zero.” After repeating this pattern for a half-dozen times or so, I would settle more quickly and deeply into the period, while the counting and muscular effort naturally subsided. A curious thing began to happen each time I would reach zero in the count. By then, my breath would have slowed to five or so cycles per minute, and I could feel my heartbeat. So I found myself counting my heartbeat, instead of my breath. Or rather, noticing how many heartbeats accompanied each cycle of breath. The heartbeat is clearly the metronome of our instrument, the body. And number, or counting, is clearly fundamental to our worldview, intrinsic to all design thinking and measurement, and basic to Zen's nondualism: “leaping aside from the one and the many,” as Master Dogen reminds us. As my breath slowed to a lower, slower tempo, my pulse also slowed, synchronizing with the breath. This resulted in a profound degree of stillness in both posture and breath, as well as fixed gaze, affecting my overall sphere of attention, reminding me of Matsuoka-roshi's comment that the “real zazen” is manifested when the posture, breath and attention all come together in a “unified way.” And that it feels as if you are “pushing the crown of your head against the ceiling” — “mountain-still” stability. I began to feel that unification viscerally, encompassing the apparent “outside” and “inside” dimensions of awareness. Familiar, but more intense than ever before. I call this “returning to zero.” There are many phrases in the lexicon of Zen that seem to be pointing to this same kind of experiential phenomenon, such as Master Dogen's “backward step”; the ancient phrase “Shi-kan” meaning something like “stopping and seeing”; the “shamatha-vippasana” pairing of insight meditation; et cetera. The process of letting go — primarily of our own preconceptions, interpretations, and opinions of direct, sensory experience; and by extension, of our concepts and constructions of the world, trying to explain this reality to ourselves — seems inherent in all major systems of cultivating realization. That the method is so quintessentially physical, is what is striking about the Zen approach to just sitting still enough, straight enough, for long enough. The idea, or concept, of “zero” has philosophical and psychological implications as well. The common trope of the “zero-sum game” is a case in point. The definition online: A zero-sum game is one in which no wealth is created or destroyed. So, in a two-player zero-sum game, whatever one player wins, the other loses. Therefore, the players share no common interests. There are two general types of zero-sum games: those with perfect information and those without. This amounts to another version of the meme: that if there are winners, there must be losers, so there can be no actual win-win. This ignorant assumption unfortunately informs much of what passes for political discourse, and socially conservative ideology.I refer you to the lectures of R. Buckminster Fuller for a fuller exposition of the limitations of the view that there is not enough to go around, and the survival of the fittest means that we must, above all, ensure that we get ours, to hell with the losers. Such innovations as the guaranteed minimum income are beginning to crack the facade of this fundamental error. The last line, concerning the dual nature of the zero-sum game being dependent upon “perfect information,” may provide a clue as to how the notion of winning and losing connects — or doesn't — to the personal practice-experience of Zen. Beyond a direct “return to zero” — the personal dimension of awareness on the cushion — there is a returning to zero on the social level, as well as within the natural and universal spheres. In his rephrase of a Ch'an poem, Zazenshin, meaning something like “lancet” or “needle” of zazen, Master Dogen wraps up the penultimate stanza with: The intimacy without defilement is dropping off without relying on anything.
The verification beyond distinction between Absolute and Relative is making effort without aiming at it. This experience of “intimacy without defilement” is the zero sum point of zazen: nothing to be gained and nothing lost; nothing excluded and nothing extraneous, nothing to share with others – it is too intimate, too close in time and space. The fact that at this point we cannot rely on anything, is another aspect of Zen's “zero” sum. We sit “without relying on anything” as Master Dogen reminds us, including all the tricks and trinkets we have painstakingly assembled in our toolkit. Our toolkit is exhausted, the tools we usually rely on, relatively or absolutely useless. “Absolute and Relative” constitute one of the last resorts of dualistic thinking; the fundamental bifurcation of “truth” in Buddhism is usually stated as absolute truth versus relative truth. So this “verification” must be of a different order altogether, one that is immeasurable. So far beyond any measurement, is this realization — though there is continuing effort, it is no longer aiming at anything. This means that there is ultimately nothing of significance to gain or lose in relationships in the social sphere, nor do we have to distort our relationship to biology, our connection to the resources of Natural ecology. In terms of resolving the Great Matter of life and death, we can embrace the inevitability of aging, sickness and death as the central koan — one that comes bundled with birth — the illogical riddle of existence itself. We no longer have to rely on life, itself. Here and now, we arrive at the final zero-sum game. Whether or not we believe in an eternal soul, and its resurrection, as do modern Christians; or in reincarnation, as did the ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Hindus; or rebirth as taught by Buddha, as a corrective to reincarnation; we finally come to face our mortality close-up and personal. It is natural, and universal, whatever its interpretation by the social milieu in which we find ourselves. According to an old Zen metaphor, the only “mate” who will accompany us to the grave, is our deeds. Whatever wealth, honor, power, or powers of reasoning we may have accumulated in managing and manipulating the vagaries of fate and vicissitudes of fortune encountered in life, they serve us little in the face of death. Try as we might to think our way to enlightenment, or to reason ourselves into insight, we find ourselves failing again and again. Finally, we must surrender to the chaos of not knowing, and abandon our reliance on reason itself — spawn of philosophy and that other kind of Enlightenment, the triumph of reasoning over belief. Instead, we find verification of our Zen practice in “making effort without aiming at it.” Needless to say, this is a very uncomfortable place to find oneself, at a pass that is not really negotiable, in any ordinary sense. Paraphrasing Seikan Hasegawa, a Rinzai master, from The Cave of Poison Grass, he reminds us that putting off confrontation with this particular koan of aging, until we find ourselves on the death-bed, is futile: “like eating soup with a fork.” We need to confront this koan when we are young and vigorous — “Stamp life and death on your forehead, never letting it out of your mind” — another Zen pearl of wisdom long lost to attribution. Life takes its meaning in the context of death. If you find that too morbid, just imagine what life would be like if we did not die: Its meaning would be entirely different, and not entirely positive. When the grim reaper arrives, we may want to embrace her relentless, unforgiving and unsympathetic scythe, as being no different from the sword of Manjusri, cutting through our final delusion. Preferable to die on the cushion, of course. As Kosho Uchiyama reminds us, our whole world is born, and dies, with us. “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” In contemplating our inevitable demise as a loss of something, we have to remember that it amounts to returning to where we came from, a kind of null hypothesis that the effect we are dreading is not measurable, or sums to zero: In scientific research, the null hypothesis is the claim that the effect being studied does not exist. Note that the term "effect" here is not meant to imply a causative relationship. That last caveat calls to mind the famous Zen koan concerning Baizhang, or Hyakujo, and the fox. The point goes to the question of whether or not an enlightened person would be subject to, or free from, the law of causality. The ancient master responds: “Free from,” and is condemned to be reborn as a fox for five hundred (fox) lifetimes. Baizhang kindly corrects his confusion with something like: “One with causality” or “We do notignore causality,” which liberates the old man. If we fear death — or, conversely, seek it out; fearing life, instead — we have made an assumption that we know what life is, but do not know what death is; or, conversely, that we prefer death over life; or vice-versa. Either side of this formula ignores the fact that the overall equation inevitably sums to zero. I came across a pamphlet titled “The 11th Hour,” in my brother's hospice care clinic, wherein its Christian, female author clarified: Birth is the death of whatever precedes it; death is the birth of whatever follows” — refreshingly without bothering to define the “whatever.” In the next segment — speaking of zero-sum games — we will return to pick up the monthly thread of “Election Year Zen,” now that we have surpassed Super Tuesday, in this year's endless campaign cycle. This, too, is the Dharma.* * * Elliston Roshi is guiding teacher of the Atlanta Soto Zen Center and abbot of the Silent Thunder Order. He is also a gallery-represented fine artist expressing his Zen through visual poetry, or “music to the eyes.”UnMind is a production of the Atlanta Soto Zen Center in Atlanta, Georgia and the Silent Thunder Order. You can support these teachings by PayPal to donate@STorder.org. Gassho.Producer: Shinjin Larry Little

As promised, at the beginning of each month in 2024, we return to the topic of “Election Year Zen,” with my “DharmaByte” column (DB) for the Silent Thunder Order monthly newsletter, followed by my first subsequent “UnMind” podcast (UM) of the month. To review the underlying rationale for this approach to a topic most practitioners would prefer to avoid, please refer to last month's DB and UM if you have not already done so. In an earlier DB from June of 2023, I had broached this subject gingerly, and I touch upon it in my second major book, “The Razorblade of Zen.” In the newsletter column, I make the point that partisan politics in general is not a topic we would recommend bringing up in the context of the meditation hall — in Japanese called the “zendo” — a sensitive point which had come up in dialog with one of our affiliated Zen centers (quoting myself again): In a recent meeting with one of our affiliate centers, the focus was on “The Platform Sutra of Huineng,” in which he admonishes all to not find fault with others. One of the members who helps organize these events sent me some questions she wanted me to address, including the dilemma of how we are supposed to not find fault with people who are waging war on others, and committing atrocities such as bombing cities, civilians, and children. She was concerned that raising these issues might be too personal, in the context of a Zen community, where the underlying premise might be to provide some shelter and sanctuary from the insanity of the world. But I assured her that, no, these very events are apt examples of the very ignorance, and resultant unnecessary suffering, that are pointed to in the foundational teachings of Buddha. And that she is right to raise such questions in the context of Zen practice in modern life. It is my understanding that in the monasteries, and perhaps the smaller temples in cities and villages of the countries of origin of Zen Buddhism, the custom is to have little or no speaking in the zendo itself. As I learned in 1989, when visiting Eiheiji, the training monastery established by Master Dogen in the 13th century, ceremonial services are typically conducted in an entirely separate building, as are formal talks and other forms of dharma study. This tradition has carried over into the American Zen community, where we are encouraged to leave the zendo quietly after the meditation and gather in another chamber before engaging in dialog. So the idea that we preserve the sanctity of the zendo, and the sanity of its attendees, has some legs. There are good reasons for the specific designs of the protocols we have inherited from Zen's storied past. However, in most smaller temples and training centers, having multiple rooms, let alone separate buildings, in which to conduct various activities is a luxury that many cannot afford. This is the reason both the main altar (J. butsudan) and the smaller zendo altar dedicated to Manjusri are often in the same room, separated by space, or located on different walls of the meditation hall. So we compromise, and hold competing sessions at different times. The meditation hall becomes the dharma hall, then reverts back, when sitting in zazen. Silent, upright seated meditation is the hallmark of Zen, taking precedence over all other activities, fostered by instruction periods for newcomers. However, Zen is not unconnected from reality outside the temple, and the zendo does function as a kind of social sanctuary, as does zazen itself, in the personal sphere. We can manage to accommodate both personal practice and social service functions in the same space, by scheduling them at different times. This does not mean, however, that everyone has to participate, just as everyone need not attend all newcomer instruction sessions. Which is why instructions are not given with every session in the zendo. Members who do not want to discuss buddhadharma on any other than the personal plane are welcome to avoid attending dharma dialogs that have a social slant. But if we prohibit such discussions, we are sidestepping our civic responsibility, which, if you study the Buddhist canon, from Buddha on down to the present day, you will see that the ancient sages and their modern counterparts have not shied away from the subject. When it comes to indiscriminate bombing of civilians and children, we are no longer in the realm of politics. If we are silent, we become complicit. Buddha, I believe, would have spoken out against this betrayal of compassion and wisdom. As did Matsuoka Roshi, concerning the corrupt regime in Vietnam, and other atrocities of his time. We can look to the teachings and meditation practice of Zen Buddhism to find a degree of solace and sanctuary from these insults to humanity, but we cannot run, and we cannot hide from them, ultimately. But we do not have to join the partisan divide, either. To provide some historical context for this discussion, we refer to the foundational documents of the founding fathers of this nation, the oldest surviving democratic republic. In the prior installment on this matter, we quoted the famous first paragraph of the Declaration of Independence. Let us continue with the second section: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. Aye, there's the rub: if “all men” — which phrase we now define to include all women and all children, of all races, ethnic backgrounds, and countries of origin — are indeed created equal, and endowed with “unalienable rights,” then there is no rationale, no excuse, for waging war in which innocents are slaughtered as “collateral damage.” — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. If the very purpose of government is to secure such rights as to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, then the institutions of government — including first and foremost the military — must be prohibited from depriving citizens of any country of these rights, with or without the concept of a “Creator.” They go on to define the remedy: — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. So here is the ostensible rationale for the recent attempts to overthrow the present government, though the events of January sixth clearly appear to have partisan roots. At the time of this writing, of course, this ultimate right was claimed in the context of Great Britain's “crazy” King George, and his autocratic grip on the colonies. The history of protests of the original tea party and privileged Tories — loyalists and royalists, or “King's men” — illustrates that the times were probably as divisive, or even more so, than our present partisan divide. Anticipating that this passage might be construed to lend support to purely partisan motives, the framers optimistically hang the hope of future jurisprudence on the dictates of prudence itself: Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. Leaving aside for now the determination as to which causes should be eschewed as “light and transient,” this suggests that this call to arms is based on the degree of oppression the hoi polloi are willing to bear. This returns to the theme of the last segments of UnMind, with their emphasis on the intersection of design thinking and Zen, where in both arenas, one of the central questions bearing on happiness and suffering is, How much is enough? If the majority of people are fat and happy, and “kitchen table” issues — the price of eggs, bread and butter — are relatively bearable, little attention will be devoted to overthrowing the government, no matter how corrupt. “Let them eat cake” works, if there is fairly widespread access to cake. The division of the citizens into haves and have-nots, with those at the top of the game, the “one-percenters,” raking in wealth that is unimaginable, and inaccessible, to the rest, may be much more exaggerated today, as well as more obvious and available to scrutiny, owing to the ubiquitous availability of 24/7 real-time news media. A recent newspaper column revealed the staggering increases in incomes of the country's top three or four wealthiest individuals, compared to their more meager incomes of only a few years ago, alongside the minimum wage, which has remained static in the same time period, This disparity of incomes has national and international implications as an impetus to immigration, to make matters more complicated. You may argue that these captains of industry deserve the income they earn, but that stretches the concept of earning to the breaking point. You cannot “earn” this level of income in any rational sense of the word. Corporate income comes from “owning,” not earning. We are not going to solve these problems in this analysis, but we can at least compare and contrast the current cultural norms and memes that attempt to justify them, with the teachings of Buddhism, such as encouraging us to engage compassion in dealing with our fellow travelers in the dusty realm of Samsara, the everyday world of patience. So we have to practice patience with a situation that seems to have no justification whatever, or very little from this perspective. While the case can be made that not all people are created equal, it can be argued that to the degree reasonable, the playing field should be leveled. A child born with a silver spoon in their mouth, whether currently or 2500 years ago, is no more deserving than a child born into a family that doesn't even own a spoon. To argue that those parents should not have children who cannot afford to have children ignores the reproductive drive of the species, which pays little regard to the material circumstances of its sperm donors and receivers. Once a child is born, it has the same potential for realizing its buddha nature as any other child, regardless of the causes and conditions into which it is born. And we cannot misuse the Buddhist take on karma and karmic consequences to dismiss these disparities, nor the social injustices that often accompany them, out of hand. The teachings of Buddhism were never intended to be held up to others as a criticism or justification for inaction, but to be reflected back upon our own follies, foibles and failings. This is the “mirror of Zen,” which reflects the good, bad, and the ugly without discrimination. We come to see ourselves in this mirror, along with all others, in our extended dharma family. Buddha was said to have come to see everyone as his “children,” and not in a condescending way. To close this segment, I will lean on Master Dogen's admonition to “thoroughly examine this in practice.” Let us return to our cushions, but not turn our back on those who have not even been exposed to this excellent method. Our mission is clear. We need to wake up on every possible level. Compassion and wisdom — like charity — begin at home.* * * Elliston Roshi is guiding teacher of the Atlanta Soto Zen Center and abbot of the Silent Thunder Order. He is also a gallery-represented fine artist expressing his Zen through visual poetry, or “music to the eyes.”UnMind is a production of the Atlanta Soto Zen Center in Atlanta, Georgia and the Silent Thunder Order. You can support these teachings by PayPal to donate@STorder.org. Gassho.Producer: Shinjin Larry Little

Speaking personally about stepping onto the Buddhist path, Padmavajra shares stories of spiritual friendship in the context of his own life and reflected in the work of Gampopa's Jewel Ornament of Liberation. The work, inspired by devotion to Manjusri, is one of the key texts in the development of the Tibetan Lam Rim teachings. And Gampopa, being one of the two principle disciples of the yogi Milarepa, presents both the monastic Lam Rim approach of Atisha and the Mahamudra meditation teachings of Milarepa himself. Talk given at Padmaloka Retreat Centre, 2008, the third talk in an eight part series entitled Themes from Gampopa's Jewel Ornament of Liberation. *** Subscribe to our Free Buddhist Audio podcast:  On Apple Podcasts | On Spotify | On Google Podcasts A full, curated, quality Dharma talk, every week. 3,000,000 downloads and counting!Subscribe to our Dharmabytes podcast:  On Apple Podcasts | On Spotify | On Google Podcasts Bite-sized inspiration three times every week. Subscribe using these RSS feeds or search for Free Buddhist Audio or Dharmabytes in your favorite podcast service! Help us keep FBA Podcasts free for everyone: donate now! Follow Free Buddhist Audio: YouTube  |  Instagram  |  Twitter  |  Facebook  |  Soundcloud  

Rev. Amanda Robertson gives a dharma talk after the annual festival ceremony of Manjusri Bodhisattva, who is the personification of wisdom  in Mahayana Buddhism, offering some reflections on wisdom. This talk was given at Shasta Abbey on Sunday April 2, 2023. YouTube: https://youtu.be/RGE4mPV_wjsTwitter: @shastaabbey 

Vimalakirti pergunta a Manjusri como se faz um Buda

Rev. Master Meian, Abbess of Shasta Abbey, uses a classic Zen image of Manjusri on his beast to illuminate our own practice of training ourselves. In Mahayana Buddhism, Manjusri is the embodiment of Wisdom. For a picture of the statue Rev. Master Meian is referencing during her talk, visit Shasta Abbey's twitter page @ShastaAbbey. This talk was given at Shasta Abbey on Sunday October 16, 2022.-YouTube video of this talk:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJp-1FiUVAY-Twitter: @ShastaAbbey

Manjusri pergunta a Vimalakirti como um bodhisattva deve ver os seres sencientes.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 09/11/2022 - From The Blue Cliff Record, Case 35 - The Dialog of Manjusri and Wu Cho

Vimalakirti e Manjusri continuam conversando sobre qual é a doença do bodhisattva.

Nesta sessão vemos Suddata pedindo para não ser enviado e Manjusri aceitando a missão dada pelo Buda.

Last time we spoke, Xiong Tingbi had created a grand defensive strategy that paved the way for the defeat of the Jin invaders. However he was soon impeached and executed, a victim to his rivals in the Ming Court. Despite this his defensive strategy would live on with the appointment of Sun Chengzong. We also talked about the rise of the Sea King Mao Wenlong and how his crazy antics impressed the Ming Court. Yet something was not right about Mao Wenlong's victories, they simply did not add up. Then at the last hour when all hope seemed to be lost for the lonesome commander, Yuan Chonghuan at the fortress of Ningyuan a miracle happened. The cannon expert managed to not only defeat the Jin invaders at Ningyuan, he also managed to kill the great Khan Nurhaci. With the death of Nurhaci, what will the Jin empire do next? Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on world war two and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War. This episode is Wrath of Hung    In the wake of Nurhaci's death, his son Hung Taiji became the new Khan of the Jin Empire. Hung faced many rivals amongst his own relatives when he took power. Interestingly enough Hung began his Khanhood by flirting with some peace talks with the Ming. Hung laid out 2 conditions for peace, the first that the Ming should send tribute to the Jin, the second that a border be fixed at Shanhaiguan. In return the Jin would also send the Ming tributary gifts, thus the Jin would be below the Ming Emperor, but above the Ming officials, honestly a fair arrangement. Emperor Tianqi warned his officials not to enter peace talks lightly, but did seem to heed to offers. Now historians think Hung was perhaps doing all of this merely to raise his own authority in the grander scheme of things. To talk the way he was to the Ming Dynasty really elevated the status of the Jin. Another major reason historians argue as to why Hung began these peace talks was to buy time for a new operation. Somewhat as a result of the Sea King Mao's ventures, raiding on the Bohai coast drew attention to the unfortunate land due south east of it, Korea. Hung chose to invade Korea to secure his flank for anticipated attacks on the western Ming front. The Ming held an overwhelming advantage in resources and some of those resources such as food came from Korea. By defeating Korea, Hung could extract tribute, such as much needed food supplies from the koreas and stop it from getting into the Ming's hands. The Korean's for their part were aiding and abetting the sea king Mao by shielding many of his raiders within Korea. Though they did this begrudgingly might I add as they did not trust Mao.   The Jin sent 30,000 troops over the Korean border in 1627 easily overrunning the border towns. When they advanced on Uiji, Mao fled into the Bohai gulf with some of his forces. Soon the Jin captured Anju, Pyongyang and were quickly crossing the Taedong River. The battle for Anju was very intense and when the defenders knew they were going to be beaten they allegedly blew themselves up with gunpowder. As soon as the word got out of the invasion, the Ming dispatched a relief force to help the Koreans. Meanwhile the royal family of Korea fled to Kanghwa island and tried desperately to bribe the Jin to stop. Hung was amenable to this and left only 1000 Jurchen and 200 Mongols at Uiji and 300 Jurchen and 1000 Mongos at the Fortress of Zhenjiang, allegedly to guard against raids by Mao. After this point, the Joseon Dynasty now had a tributary relationship under the Jin state. The relationship was that of an older brother and younger brother unlike the Ming-Joseon tributary relationship which was more like that of a father and son. Hung also pressed the king of Korea to stop trade with the Ming. Meanwhile Yuan Chonghuan was impeached at once because many in the Ming Court perceived him to have been duped by the Jin when entering into peace talks, while the Jin were simply biding time to invade Korea.    Hung next struck out at Jinzhou not too far away from the island of Juehua. Hung led 40,000 troops against the city which held 30,000 defenders under the commander Zhao Shuaijiao. Emperor Tianqi immediately ordered a relief force of 30,000 to rush to its aid as Hung's army began their siege. The Jin scaled the walls of Jinzhou with siege ladders as the defenders rained arrows, rocks and cannonfire upon them. The battle raged for over 12 hours until the Jin pulled back to their camp. Zhao allegedly shouted out over the walls “You can keep attacking the city but we're not coming out!”. Enraged, Hung would continue the attacks upon the city for several days, but it did not fall. Hung in frustration took some of his forces back to probe nearby Ningyuan where there was an advancing Ming column out in the open field. The Ming column attacked the Jin as the wall cannons of Ningyuan aided them, forcing the Jin to flee back to their camp beside Jinzhou. Despite this the Ming did not come over to his camp, thus Hung resumed the attack on Jinzhou despite the advice to not do so by some of his sub commanders and for his efforts the Jin received thousands of casualties. Hung in frustration simply continued to attack Jinzhou, now from a different side of the walls. The Jin corpses began to pile up and finally Hung gave the orders to retreat after losing 2-3 thousand men. The battle became known as the Great Ming victory of Ning-jin. Hung learnt a painful but valuable lesson from all of this.   Taking a look back at the situation in Korea, the Korean were very leery of the Jin, but also of Mao Wenlong whose adventurism got them into the terrible situation they were in. The Joseon Court was divided as to how best to deal with the Jin-Ming situation. Some thought Korea had no place in the Jin-Ming war, others argued the very preservation of the Joseon Dynasty was owed to the Ming. The Ming eventually installed a new King named Injo in Korea and began to twist his wrist to their side. They wanted Korea to cut off ties with the Jin and to adopt a more pro-Ming policy. This of course meant working with Mao Wenlong who they deeply distrusted. The Koreans continued to report that Mao was exaggerating his claimed fights against the Jin and was actually spending most of his time hiding on islands. They also lamented over Mao's army consuming a ton of Korean food rations while achieving little in return. Yet whenever they made these statements to the Ming court, Mao would also come along with some Jin heads to showcase his achievements. Still there were those in the Ming Court growing wary of Mao, theorizing he might be actually working with the Jin and planning to rebel against the Ming. Mao continued to demand more and more supplies from the Koreans to feed refugees fleeing from the Jin state, a process that had begun when Nurhaci died, quite a few inside the Jin territory fled. The Koreans acquiesced, handing over provisions, but Mao stated it was not enough. Mao then began to open up markets on his islands and offered to protect merchants willing to trade there. Then he attempted to produce his very own coinage with metals extracted from Korea. THENNN he asked the Joseon Court to make fewer tributary missions to the Ming and instead help build up his trade monopoly in the gulf. Well the Ming began to see the illicit trading going on. Then in 1627, Emperor Tianqi died and was succeeded by his younger brother, Zhu Youjian, becoming Emperor Chongzhen. When Chongzhen took the throne he felt he had 2 major problems: 1 the court needed a cleansing of the enormous power of the eunuchs and their supporters, 2 Liaodong needed to be pacified. His first act as emperor was to recall the Eunuch military inspectors from the frontiers. This led one of the Eunuchs favorite supportive commanders, Wei Zhongxian to believe he was soon going to be arrested soon and thus he hung himself. I have not stated it too much at this point, but a large issue that was growing was the dispatching of Eunuchs as military inspectors all around China. The Eunuchs began to be quite meddlesome and their authority kept growing. Then the emperor set about micromanaging everything and demanded his officials bring him all reports. It seemed from the offset, unlike his predecessor, this Emperor was going to be a very active ruler. But this would have an adverse affect. In his efforts to stop factionalism with the dynasty, the new Emperor who tried to control everything made it much harder for any policies to be implemented. In turn this actually contributed to making it more factional, as every sign of possible failure was pounced upon by enemy factions on another. The emperor also would have a bad tendency to execute competent officials for minor setbacks.    With the new emperor came the reappointment of Yuan Chonghuan as Censor in chief of the right. He was also given supreme command of military affairs in the northeast. Yuan proclaimed to the emperor that he could recover all of Liaodong in just 5 years time if they implemented his defensive strategy that he had been using before being impeached. He advocated that the people in the Jin state were starving and now fleeing as a result, the best course of action was to “use the people of Liaodong to defend Liaodong and the land of Liaodong to nourish the people”. While the Emperor fully endorsed his plans, Yuan would unfortunately only receive around 40% of the funding he asked for. Reduced funding was a problem everywhere in the frontier, many places faced multiple mutinies.   Upon his appointment Yuan first turned his attention to the sea king Mao, he wanted to evaluate the troops strength of Bohai so they could better coordinate their operations. Mao told him that he had 28,000 serviceable men, but not enough food supplies to support them. Now while Mao was telling Yuan this, Yuan was receiving reports from an informant with the Jin that Mao was secretly negotiating with them. Thus Yuan resolved to act decisively. Yuan began to funnel supplies through his own bases, curtailing Pidao, the stronghold of Mao. Now it is theorized Mao had been in secret talks with the Jin as early as 1622, but Nurhaci had died before any concrete agreements were made. Hung Taiji did not trust Mao and broke talks off when he launched his invasion into Korea. But after his setback in 1627 at Ningyuan, Hung Taiji realized he lacked the strength to fully engage the Ming and the Jin were also very low on food supplies, leading to many refugees fleeing to none other than Mao. So this led Hung to open up talks again with Mao, and by 1628 Mao was pretty fearful his charade with the Ming was in jeopardy. And he was certainly right about that, as Yuan finally resolved to pay Mao a personal visit bringing with him a significant contingent of loyal troops. Yuan met with Mao and asked him to relocate to a base closer to China proper rather than Korea and to coordinate operations with him. Mao protested against this stating it was important he kept near Korea to keep them in the fold, which was the very opposite of what he was actually doing. Now for a few days, Yuan would keep persisting to try and meet with Mao and ask him to come closer into the fold with him and other Ming officials, and Mao would continuously find reasons not to do so. Each day, Yuan would hand out gifts and rewards to Mao's soldiers. Then one day Yuan began asking Mao's officers their surnames and they kept answering “Mao”, which Yuan found very curious. He then asked them how they could complain about rations when they had been sent ample supplies from Ningyuan. He proceeded to ask where had all the supplies gone to, to which the men began to weep and bow before Yuan. Yuan then  berated Mao for squandering funds without overseeing all he had been entrusted with concluding “where has all the money we sent you from Ningyuan gone?”. Mao protested upon which Yuan said “You can till look me in the eye, but how can you resist the imposition of national law as imposed by the sagacious son of heaven as derived from heaven with brave martiality. “You were given the authority of a general. But now you, Mao Wenlong, have treacherously raised yourself to the level of a lord, amassed soldiers, siphoned off rations, slaughtered the refugees of Liaodong, despoiled Korea, harassed Denglai, carried out illicit commerce, looted and plundered commoners' boats, changed people's names, and violated the people's sons and daughters. These are the crimes for which you will be put to death.”. Mao pleaded for his life and Yuan turned to his commanders and asked them if they disagreed with the charges adding “if you don't think I should kill him, then you may come forward and kill me”. No man budged at this, and Yuan took up a double edged sword and decapitated Mao in front of them all stating “The punishment was only for Mao Wenlong. The rest of you have committed no crimes”. Then Yuan presided over a funeral for Mao stating “ “Yesterday I killed you by the order of the emperor; this was in accordance with the Court's law, but today I offer you oblations and this is in accordance with my own personal feelings.”. Thus ended the great sea king Mao Wenlong, who might I add was stealing all the limelight from Yuan's great achievement at Ningyuan. Yuan divided the 28,000 former troops of Mao into 4 wings, with 1 wing given to a son of Mao named Mao Chenglu. He disbursed money to all the soldiers making sure they were properly organized and paid. Yuan then set out to Korea to report to them his execution of Mao. While the Koreans shed no tears for the death of Mao, the man who had caused them some much trouble, many were concerned with what his death would mean for Korea.    Another problem loomed for the Ming dynasty was occurring in the northwest. Since 1627 a widespread drought had hit Shaanxi. Food prices skyrocketed, people began to starve and many fell into banditry. For the past 60 years or so, not a single year went by without at least 1 natural disaster occuring. To add insult to injury, because the Ming were so preoccupied with the Jin in the northeast, most funding and supplies also went there. Peasant rebellions began rising up, one under Wang Jiayin who assembled a large force of starving peasants to raid parts of the Great Wall. Soon army deserters joined the ranks and before long all of Shaanxi was falling into chaos. Wang Jiayin held some 5-6 thousand followers, one of them being Zhang Xianzhong, someone who would deeply impact the future. The Ming sent forces to quell the rebellion, but the rebels would simply flee into the mountains, and re-emerge later to raid more. The Ming eventually appointed Yang He as supreme commander of the 3 border regions of Shaanxi. He identified the key problems in the northwest to be 1) supply issues, 2) constant threat of Mongol raids and 3) dereliction of duty by local officials. His answer was to improve the administration and to try and pacify the rebels by encouraging them to surrender in exchange for food or agricultural opportunities. Meanwhile officials in other areas were simply employing Mongol allies to help smash rebel forces which did a lot to dissuade rebels from surrendering overall. Seeing the looming problem, the Emperor ordered famine relief to be sent to Shaanxi, but this would not stop the rebellions from springing up more and more. Eventually Yang He was impeached for his apparent too light of a touch approach and was replaced by Hong Chengchou.   Back to the warfront, in 1629 the Jin began an invasion of Da'ankou and Zunhua, bolstered by their Mongol allies. The Jin forces first captured Jizhou with the aid of Ming fifth columnists. The commander of Jizhou had his own men turn on him, trying to force him to surrender, he refused and his men soon were routed and he alongside them fell to the rain of arrows. Sun Chengzong was appointed Minister of War and given command of the armies at Tongzhou as Man Gui prepared a force of 5000 to face the Jin at Shunyi. Man's force were soon driven back towards Deshengmen. Hou Shilu's force was nearby and was routed, leaving Man on his own. Man enjoyed a lot of artillery support from the walls, but his forces were ironically hit by friendly fire and had to pull back within the cities walls losing over 40% of his troops, yikes. Now the Jin were a threat to Deshengmen, so Yuan Chonghuan turned his focus northeast, taking tons of forces from garrisons all over to drive the Jin away. Yuan's efforts won out and they did push the Jin back and now Yuan began to strengthen the defenses at the city. At Deshengmen the Jin re-commenced their attacks, managing to kill Man Gui and routed Zu Dashou's army who fled east. More Ming forces tried to push the Jin back around the Marco Polo Bridge but it was a disaster, the men routed yet again and many Ming commanders were captured. As more and more troops were plucked from the west to meet the invaders, a general panic began to emerge in the capital. Ming officials were being executed left right and center and many of the relief forces being sent to the northeast were looting Ming cities enroute to Beijing. Yongping fell to the Jin in 1930 and the Jin just kept coming. There were quite a few setbacks at this point, many fortresses managed to fight off the Jin. Hung Taiji sent some letters to Yuan Chongzhen trying to come to some terms, but received no replies. Hung eventually decided to take his forces back to Shenyang leaving behind some of his commanders to occupy the newly conquered cities. Now the Ming attempted to gather forces near Luanzhou and Yongping to launch a counter attack.   Yuan Chonghuan then was impeached, because it was believed by some in the Ming Court that he was secretly working with the Jin. Turns out Hung Taiji had leaked false information to Ming Court officials about him working with Yuan. It did not help Yuan's cause that he had recently executed the sea king, who was still loved by many officials. Also that friendly fire that hit the forces of Man Gui, was done by Yuan's forces, and they happened to also be rivals, so there was an air of conspiracy going around. Thus Yuan was tossed into jail while his forces were actually doing quite well by this point, driving the Jin back past the Great Wall. Eventually the Ming forces reached the fortress of Luanzhou in mid 1630 as the Jin tried to slow them down via diplomacy. The Ming forces brought with them heavy artillery and now it was the Jin desperately trying to hold onto a fortress while being besieged. The Jin utilized all the tactics they had seen the Ming use: tossing burning pots of oil, rocks and logs, using cannons, amongst other defenses. The Ming's artillery however was so fierce, the Jin knew they had to try something else. Thus a Jin forces came rushing out of the eastern gate trying to attack a force led by Zu Dashou, but they were met with intense crossbow fire and had to flee back into the city. The Jin were so low on ammunition, that allegedly they began to use severed heads as projectiles, eeek. Eventually it was incendiaries being lobbed over and fire arrows that smoked the Jin out of the city, who had to flee. In turn 4 more large walled cities and 12 fortresses were taken back by the Ming in 1630, with over 3300 Jin troops captured.   But by no means was the Jin excursion in any way a failure, they had plundered a considerable amount and the raiding had exposed many weaknesses in the Ming's ability to wage wage. For one thing, Hung Taiji's sneaky ploy against Yuan that got him impeached simply by sending false information, proved the Ming were quite incompetent and perhaps more efficient commanders could be taken off the board using similar tactics. In the wake of the invasion, for the Ming a debate began to brew as to how best to defend the capital if it came to that. One idea was to employ more Portuguese cannons, and in 1930 they would get their hands on 30 new ones from Goncalbo Teixeria Correa. However some in the Court were suspicious of the westerners and thought they might be working for the Jin. Regardless, a few Portuguese would end up training Ming forces in gunnery and how to create the cannons. One major supporter of utilizing the Portuguese knowledge and weaponry was Xu Guangqi who further proposed a new style brigade; outfitted with new wheeled wagons pulling cannons alongside a considerable specialized infantry gunnery force. The Ming also began to put pressure on the Bohai coast by putting to use their naval units to link up with their Korean allies. Their idea was to open up a new front by using coastal defenses, perhaps by mustering troops from Lushun and the many islands in the gulf.   Meanwhile the poor imprisoned Yuan Chonghuan was executed via dismemberment in the marketplace, and many saw him as a “fall guy” for the Jin excursions of 1630. As for the man he executed, Mao Wenlong had a long lasting effect on the Bohai region even after his death. It seemed now the gulf had become the focal point for Sino-Korea relations and joint military operations. The Jin took notice of this and realized the best way to prevent the two dynasties from cooperation would be to sever their communication/transport network. The Jin required legitimization of their state and a major component of that was to exact tribute from other places like Korea. Mao for his part brought so much bad attention to the Jin Korea border and after his death, his former forces continued to be a problem for the Ming. They continued to beg for supplies while doing little militarily in return. Then in late 1630, a revolt occurred on Pidao island led by Liu Xingzhi, to which the Ming tried to appease him and his forces by sending supplies, but the Jin were able to stop them from getting out of Lushun. Eventually the Ming did manage to get supplies to Liu Xingzhi and talked him down, but the underlying problem still loomed.    With the competent Yuan Chonghuan taken out of the picture and the Korean flank secured, Hung Tiaji now decided to hit the important fortress of Dalinghe. Dalinghe was the most forward Ming base in Liaodong and the largest threat to the Jin capital of Shenyang, yeah did I ever mention the capital was back at Shenyang? The Jin capital moves around a  lot hard to keep track of. Dalinghe had been heavily fortified, with 13, 800 troops as a garrison and many more on the way. Hung Taiji had intel, that the Ming were undergoing a massive construction project at Dalinghe to reinforce it even more and was eager to hit it before it became too well defended. Another large worry was that if Dalinghe was made impenetrable, it might entice the Ming-Joseon to consolidate more trade and resources into the region thus kicking the Jin out. In preparation for the attack, Hung created his first ever, entirely Han divisions, whom would eventually become the Han banners. Leading them was Tong Yangxing who was tasked with overseeing the construction of 40 Western style cannons. By 1631, Tong's efforts were greatly rewarded as he was given command over all Han under the Jin state. In July of 1631, Hung's army of 80,000 reached Dalinghe and began to construct a large network of siege weapons. Hung took to heart how his father Nurhaci had died at Ningyuan, knowing suicidal frontal assaults were no longer the way to go about things. Hung's siege weapons were soon set upon the Ming defensive towers. Tong's oversaw the red cannons: Ie: western style cannons, as they would smash Dalinghe's most vulnerable posts. Meanwhile Hung took some forces to Jinzhou to guard against Ming relief forces. The Jin siege weapons devastated the outlying defense towers in under a week. One of the commanders of Dalinghe, Zu Dashou led a couple of sorties, inflicting considerable casualties but being forced back into the city each time. When some Ming relief forces showed up, Tong's red cannon force defeated 2 small armies at Songshan and Jinzhou. Hung also defeated a relief army later on at Jinzhou. Now Hung needed to try something to get the Dalinghe defenders to come out, so he began circulating false reports of Ming relief forces being on the way and requiring their assistance. Zu Dashou fell for this ploy and came out, and was immediately ambushed but managed to crawl back into the city. Another relief force of 40,000 tried to help the city in August, but were easily turned back at Changshan.    The siege would enter a new phase when Hung began sending letters to Zu Dashou trying to get him to defect. In one letter Hung said “Who does not desire peace but rather wished for war? Now that our peace talks have been severed, I want to strengthen my state, to extend happiness and prosperity; this is my wish. If the general believes I am sincere, please send a reply”. Well Zu Dashou replied he would die in defense of Dalinghe, buuuuut that he also feared for the safety of his family should the city fall. This prompted Hung to pledge he would not kill anyone stating “the slaughter of people in Liaodong happened during Nurhaci's reign but we are different. In my state we make use of soldiers. Those who should be punished are punished. Those who can be of use are employed. As some can tell you, my kindness is great. For those who submit you can rest assured that my kines will be extended”. Rations in Dalinghe were running out, so much aso that people began to eat horses and then if its to be believed resorted to cannibalism as well. Meanwhile Beijing was wondering what was happening, while those in Dalinghe wondered why no relief forces were showing up. The situation was hopeless and Zu Dashou surrendered.   The people within Dalinghe had suffered 80 days of starvation, it is estimated 11,632 people were left alive when it was captured. In exchange for his life and his families, Zu pledged allegiance to Hung and would assist him in taking Jinzhou and Songshan. Zu Dashou was showered with gifts and even shared wine with Hung as they planned their attack on Jinzhou. Zu Dashou's plan was that he alongside 350 men would go on ahead pretending to be refugees to get inside Jinzhou and open the gates for Hung. As you might have guessed,  instead Zu Dashou rejoined the Ming and requested a dismissal from his post for failing at Dalinghe. So he pulled a fast one on Hung to save his family and men from death. Despite that, Hung had acquired a lot of firearms at Dalinghe which accelerated their growing firearms program. Hung told Tong to manufacture as many new cannons as possible, stating “even 1 hundred cannon were not too many and even 100,000 catties of gunpowder was still too little”. The Jin cannon industry secretly began to flourish under the oversight of Tong, though he would die in 1632 and be succeeded by Shi Tingzhu, another Ming defector.    With the firearms program being built, Hung also began to develop his army structure more. He organized a left and right wing led by Ming defectors, Kong Youde and Geng Zhongming. The story of how both these Ming defected will be told shortly as they are key players. Both these men had convinced Hung to create Han banners to augment his army and thus these forces they commanded became artillery wings, expanded into 4 units which eventually evolved to become the Han banner of the 8 banner army.    Meanwhile the Ming Court was quite dismayed by the loss of Dalinghe. Yuan Chongzhen advised constructing more defenses and reinforcing the northeast to prevent further Jin incursions. But a problem was brewing from within yet again. A rebellion had emerged under the leadership of a man named Luo Rucai in the northwest and a subordinate of the late Mao Wenlong named Kong Youde was performing a mutiny.    As I mentioned previously, the revolt on Pidao under Liu Xingzhi was somewhat quelled, but not extinguished. When Mao was executed, all of his former men began to factionalize, despite the efforts of Ming officials to wrangle them into the fold. Many of Mao's subordinate officers were given command of the forces, but none of them panned out. All the former commanders under Mao fought to take control of the force while simultaneously struggling to get supplies from the Ming/Joseon/ or even Jin. The Ming tried to transfer many of these commanders around to thwart the mutinies, one man they moved to Shandong was Kong Youde. Kong ended up commanding one of the relief forces sent to help Dalinghe. The force he was given was undersupplied and not at all happy about. Thus enroute to Dalinghe, they looted Ming towns and soon a mutiny had sprung up. The mutineers turned their attention to the port of Dengzhou and Laizhou in January of 1632. Kong's small force of men enjoyed some success as they had a good amount of firearms, thus they were able to plunder parts of Shandong. Soon the mutineers were a full on rebel group fighting off Ming forces and were working with Mao Chenglu, a son of the sea king who had forces on some islands in Bohai. Kong began to siege Dengzhou and Laizhou while his force of 15,000 rebels simultaneously fanned out to plunder Shandong. The Ming dispatched commanders to stamp out Kong's rebellion, but Kong had access to the sea which allowed his forces to fight off quite a lot of Ming armies. Kong eventually managed to take Dengzhou and deceived the commander of Laizhou to come out and negotiate with him, where he promptly assassinated him. This prompted Yuan Chongzhen to enact a policy of extermination against Kong's rebellion. Relief armies rallied up at Changyi and advanced on the rebels at Dengzhou smashing an army that was outside the city there. Parts of the relief army then marched on the rebels besieging Laizhou, prompting Kong to lead 3000 men out of Dengzhou to try and save them. Kong's force was then caught between the defending forces at Laizhou and the relief army, forces to abandon a lot of their weapons and retreat back to Dengzhou. Kong's forces tried to fight in the field again, but a decisive battle was won by the Ming at Baima where they killed 13,000 rebels. Now the Ming surrounded and besieged Dengzhou, but Dengzhou was also a port and the Ming had trouble naval blockading it, as Kong had friends helping him in the Bohai gulf. Regardless, Kong's forces held out for 4 months and resorted to cannibalism. Kong planned a breakout, but was caught in an ambush and forced back to Dengzhou in December. This prompted Kong to try and flee via the sea in February of 1633. The Ming pressed on trying to capture islands in the gulf and capture Kong, but he kept evading them. Eventually Kong and one of his fellow commanders Geng Zhongming defected to the Jin. Kong was made a marshal and Geng a commander. Yuan Chongzhen hailed all of this to be a major victory for the Ming, they had quelled a rebellion successfully, however the other side of the coin was that Kong and Geng would be vital to the expanding of the Jin. Hung Taiji took his 2 new allies and had them help him retake the port city of Lushun. Kong and Geng advised Hung that he should attack Lushun with a joint land-sea operation, which would be a first for the Jin. Thus in 1634, the Jin hit Lushun from the land, being repulsed by Lushun formidable cannons, but soon the Ming defenders ran low on ammunition. Then attacks came from the sea and with the simultaneous fronts battering the city, Lushun fell. Now the Jin held a strategic port and could use it to root out Ming power in the Bohai gulf. Hung followed this up by sending a letter to Pidao trying to get its commander to defect.   Meanwhile in the northwest, the successor to Yang He, Hong Chengchou set to work thwarting growing rebellions. Hong proved to have a much firmer hand than He and scored repeated victories over bandits in the early years of his appointment. Hong dished out bonuses to soldiers based on the number of bandits killed which as you would imagine resulted in the slaughter of many bandits as well as commoners. Despite Hong's efforts, by late 1631 there were an estimated 200,000 bandits still at large, then the following year it would grow to be 300,000 in Shanxi alone. 3 rebellion leaders would emerge here who would play major roles for the next 15 years, Zhang Xianzhong, Li Zicheng and Lao Huihui. In 1632, the Ming Court dispatched the censor, Wu Sheng to investigate the situation in Shaanxi. Wu reported the problem to be starvation and privation. Many commanders were reduced to eating grass and bandit leaders were strolling around with official Ming seals of authority to which he referred to them as “official bandits”. Basically it was bandits who were pacified by the late Yang He who were continuing banditry but under the guise they were changed men. Wu advised the emperor to enact a campaign of extermination and that's just what he did. 200, 000 taels were allocated to help agriculture and sooth the starvation and edits were made that all rebels would be henceforth exterminated. A major issue for the Ming was that the bandits were increasingly enlisting in the Ming military as soon as they had nowhere to plunder. Then after a while in the army, they would desert and return to banditry. This turned into a vicious cycle where the bandits would take advantage of the military troop transfers, to find new regions to plunder, particularly the Liaodong frontier. To make matters so much worse, most of these bandits knew another and were able to form larger rebellions all over the place. Rebels began to hit major cities, and when Ming armies came after them they would simply flee into the countryside. In turn pursuing the rebels left more cities vulnerable to attack.    In mid 1634, Hung Taiji resumed his invasion of China. This time his forces went through Mongolia with his Mongol allies by his side. They advanced in 4 wings towards Shouzhou, Xuanfu, Datong and the Yellow River. The primary purpose of the assaults was to test Ming readiness and continue to chip away at the morale of the local populaces, exposing the Ming's inability to protect its subjects. Over the course of 50 days, dozens of Ming fortresses and towns were attacked with various degrees of success. While they performed these operations they sent word to the Ming that they were simply trying to earn recognition as an equal neighboring state, but received no replies. Some officials did reply to the Jin however and this led the Emperor to fall into a state of paranoia that his dynasty was full of traitors. Thus more officials were exiled or executed by the end of 1634. A lot of the time it was Ming officials simplifying trying to opt out rivals that led to this. As bad as things were getting for the Ming, they did manage to grab a few victories and this led them to believe if properly outfitted and led, they could stand up to the Jin threat, especially if it was them dictating the circumstances of battles. But the Ming were hampered by lack of troops, lack of training and lack of supplies, the usual.    Beginning in 1635, Hung Taiji began the practice of designating the Jurchen peoples as the Manchu, forbidding the term Jurchen. The origin of the term “Manchu” is still argued to this day. Some believe the term arose from the word for “river”, others say it is linked to efforts made by Hung to venerate his father, who claimed to be the reincarnation of the bodhisattva Manjusri. That one in effect may have been an effort by Hung to establish himself as a multi ethnic ruler. Regardless, calling themselves Manchu imbued a sense of unity and significantly departed from the past. It also provided a sort of mythos, or ancient identity befitting a state. Hung  purged Daisan, who he saw as a rival amongst the Jurchen nobles. Hung then had a major victory over the Great Khan Ligdan, leader of the Chahar Mongols, making himself the heir to the Chinggisid line. While he consolidated his inner circle, Hung saw his peace talks with the Ming not coming to fruition and resolved yet again, to invade the Ming. But what was different now, was Hung was now in a position to challenge the Ming on a whole new level, he was about to adopt a dynastic name. He chose the term Qing, meaning “pure” and sent the message to the King of Korea, Injo in early 1636, requesting recognition of the new state. The Joseon dynasty refused to meet with the Qing envoy's. On top of this the Joseon dynasty was supplying the Ming with rice and other supplies, despite previous agreements with the Jin to not do so. Hung was furious and mobilized an invasion force. But instead of attacking Korea outright, he instead sent investigators to find out why they would not recognize his state and in the meantime set out to attack the Ming. The attack was led by Hung's brother Ajige and this time they hit Shanxi, razing towns west of its capital. There was a ton of back and forth, but by August, the Manchu's were driven back east, by a commander named Lu Xiangsheng. Lu was promoted to supreme commander of both Xuanda and Shaanxi and soon recovered many lost towns to the Manchu. Still the Manchu forces got as close as the Marco Polo Bridge and began probing attacks on Shanhaiguan, but were repulsed. The Emperor freaked out, demanding to know from his officials how the Manchu had got so close to Beijing. For the Qing, it was like any other raid they had made countless times over the years. They acquired plentiful booty and further weakened their rival. Now Hung could turn his attention to the pesky koreans.    The second invasion of Korea would be much bloodier than the first. To prevent the Ming from sending aid, Ajige and other Qing commanders were sent a month ahead to secure the coastal approaches to Korea. In december of 1636 the invasion commenced and Hung went to Zhenjiang to personally direct operations. The Qing commanders, Dorgon, a brother to Hung and Haoge led Mongol wings that swept in towards Seoul. The invasion was quick and overwhelmed the guards of the Joseon capital. Dorgon's wing defeated 15,000 troops sending other Korean armies to flee. Kong Youde who was now made Prince Gongshun since the creation of the Qing struck out by sea against Kanghwa island and Pidao. The Qing now boasted 70 ships commanded by countless Ming and Joseon defectors hitting the islands with cannon barrages. The Ming lost an estimated 10,000 men trying to defend Pidao. The Joseon King fled to the mountain fortress of Namhan, trying to order his armies into battle as the Qing ransacked Seoul. More and more Korean armies tried to repel the invaders, but to no avail. Soon the Qing forces were setting up a siege of Namhan, when the King began to make peace talks. In the meantime Dorgon had captured the Kings concubines and children from Kanghwa island and displayed them before the army. The Qing used this to threaten the King to capitulate if he wished to save his family. King Injo relented and sent a minister to surrender at the Han River. King Injo sent a son to the Qing as a hostage and turned over his Ming seals of investiture. Hung stated to the Koreans, henceforth their relationship would be that of elder and younger brothers. The Koreans were ordered to now submit tribute as they had done for the Ming, but now to the Qing. They were also ordered to provide boats for the Qing war effort, which was to be a real game changer. In turn the Qing would not harm or loot the subjects of the Joseon dynasty. Now the Ming had lost this important vassal and the Qing had secured their flank and acquired a much needed new source of war supplies. The Qing dynasty was emerging with a real bang.   I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me.  With Nurhaci's death at the legendary battle of Ningyuan, now Hung Taiji was the great Khan. The pesky Sea King Mao Wenlong proved to be faking much of his famed achievements and may have been a turn coat to boot. Yuan Chonghuan got his chance to take out Mao and take his turn in the sunlight unmolested by his rival anymore,  but would ironically fall victim to being called a turn coat himself and be executed. As the Ming lost more and more competent commanders, a new problem emerged and it was internal rather than external. Peasant bandits were spreading in Shaanxi and full on rebellions were soon emerging. Hung Taiji got his hands on some very useful Ming defectors and the military underwent numerous upgrades. Hung Taiji proclaimed his people to be the Manchu under the new Qing dynasty as he defeated all of Korea forcing their tribute to go to the Qing rather than the Ming. Now Hung set his eyes on trying out his new toys upon the Ming.   

Genjo Marinello Osho gave this Teisho during the April, 23, 2022, Walla Walla Sangha half-day retreat. This talk examines Case 42 of the Mumonkan and explores why Manjusri, the teacher of all the Buddha's, could not awaken a woman in deep meditation.

Here Padmavajra explores a great classic of Tibetan Buddhism – Gampopa's 'Jewel Ornament of Liberation'. The work, inspired by devotion to Manjusri, is one of the key texts in the development of the Tibetan Lam Rim teachings. And Gampopa, being one of the two principle disciples of the yogi Milarepa, presents both the monastic Lam Rim approach of Atisha and the Mahamudra meditation teachings of Milarepa himself. This is the seventh talk in an eight part series entitled Themes from Gampopa's Jewel Ornament of Liberation given at Padmaloka Retreat Centre, 2008. *** Subscribe to our Dharmabytes podcast:  On Apple Podcasts | On Spotify | On Google Podcasts Bite-sized inspiration three times every week. Subscribe to our Free Buddhist Audio podcast:  On Apple Podcasts | On Spotify | On Google Podcasts A full, curated, quality Dharma talk, every week. 3,000,000 downloads and counting! Subscribe using these RSS feeds or search for Free Buddhist Audio or Dharmabytes in your favourite podcast service! Help us keep FBA Podcasts free for everyone: donate now! Follow Free Buddhist Audio: YouTube  |  Instagram  |  Twitter  |  Facebook  |  Soundcloud  

So, what is the point?No — the point of life, itself?Hearing the Dharma?* * *This segment and the next will each take up one of Master Dogen's briefer teachings, this one known as Dogen's Vow, the other as Zazenshin, variously translated as an “acupuncture needle” or “lancet” for zazen. These are often chanted together in service, probably owing to their relative brevity. But they also bookend the master's teaching, so to speak. The vow paints a broad-brush picture of why we pursue this practice, as far as that can be expressed. Notably, it does not mention zazen directly. Whereas the needle poem homes in on the centrality of zazen, as the very transmission of the teaching.We vow with all beings, from this life on throughout countless lives, to hear the true Dharma; that upon hearing it, no doubt will arise in us, nor will we lack in faith; that upon meeting it we shall renounce worldly affairs, and maintain the Buddhadharma; and that in doing so, the great earth and all beings together will attain the buddha way.That's quite a vow, and all in one breath. Note that the “true Dharma” implies that there could be “untrue” Dharma, which we are also capable of hearing, one would presume. And we vow to listen for it not just in this lifetime, but, effectively, forever. Which brings up the question, what do you mean “we,” white man? Of course, Master Dogen was not, technically, white. We are all red, under the skin. That “no doubt” whatever will arise in us seems to contradict the old Zen admonition to “Keep your doubt at a keen edge.” That gnawing doubt is the sword of Manjusri, programmed to cut through all delusions, if you but keep it sharp. Zazen is the whetstone.Not lacking in faith, nor feeling doubt, means our trust in the ancestors' teaching, and our trust in original Mind, remains unflagging, in the face of the mashup that passes for “worldly affairs” these days. Like one continuous pileup on the expressway, or an unending train wreck, all other inducements and various seductions of modern life are ultimately disappointing, if not dismaying. But actually being able to maintain the essential and ongoing Buddhadharma depends upon our “meeting it.” When and where does this meeting occur? Somehow, if we do so, not only all beings, but the earth itself will benefit. This may be a nod to the ecological stewardship of the environment, not as obvious an issue in those days.Although our past evil karma has greatly accumulated, indeed being the cause and condition of obstacles in practicing the way, may all Buddhas and Ancestors who have attained the buddha way be compassionate to us and free us from karmic effects, allowing us to practice the way without hindrance.May they share with us their compassion, which fills the boundless universe with the virtue of their enlightenment and teachings.We tend to prefer the word “harmful” to “evil,” or perhaps, “counter-productive,” with reference to karma. The contemporary take on evil is laden with unfortunate associations from theism and the culture. Not that there is no evil abroad in the world, just that it consists mainly in the actions of people plagued by ignorance, e.g. of the Buddhadharma, or other compassionate teachings that lobby against their lesser angels. This accumulation of karma, like sludge clogging the kitchen sink drain pipe over time, conjures an image from the Beatles: “Boy, you're gonna carry that weight, carry that weight, a long time.”Calling on “all Buddhas and Ancestors,” as he is wont to do from time to time, we find a bit cringeworthy. For us sophisticated 21st century humans, it smacks of superstition, or worse, religious belief. Do we actually expect those who have gone before to be able to “free us from karmic effects,” via some spooky action at a distance? I think we can afford to forgive Master Dogen this kind of construction, given that he lived in a time that most people still believed that illness was the consequence of the action of demons. And who are we to disagree?My Dharma name, Taiun, means “great cloud.” Matsuoka Roshi explained that the aspirational aspect of it means that, like a big cloud floating overhead in the sky, there are no barriers anywhere. However, down here on the ground, I am continually running into one or another kind of barrier, or “hindrance.” Some of which, I am sure, would qualify as karmic in nature, and provenance. Just imagine being able to practice free of all such constrictions. Would that still qualify as legitimate “practice”?In sharing their compassion, does Dogen mean that they actually take heed of our problems, or, like Job, is this the constant conundrum, or koan, of everyday life? Suffering with us, the literal meaning of compassion, may be taken to imply that the long-suffering saints of Buddhism do suffer fools gladly, we being the fools in question. That the “virtue of their enlightenment and teachings” fills the boundless universe, is tantamount to what is meant by merit, I think. Any merit is already built into this existence. It is up to us to realize it. It seems unfair that we may accumulate karma, but not merit.Buddhas and Ancestors of old were as we; we in the future shall be Buddhas and Ancestors.Revering Buddhas and Ancestors, we are one Buddha and one Ancestor.Awakening Bodhi-mind, we are one Bodhi-mind.This should be reassuring, that they were like us and we shall — not will — be like them. “Shall” carries the connotation of certainty, with the glaring caveat of “in the future.” Coupling this with the “countless lives” of the first stanza should disabuse us of any expectations of anything significant happening in the present lifetime. Could happen, but not likely. However, if it should come to pass that we gain an insight into this mystery, we will find that we are one with them. Here is another version of the wave and the ocean, only this time the little wave wakes up to the vast ocean, just in time. Needless to say, it is impossible for a wave to drown.Because they extend their compassion to us freely, and without limit, we are able to attain buddhahood, and let go of the attainment.So we get no credit for attaining buddhahood. No kudos, no golden ring or free ride on the merry-go-round. It is all up to them and their limitless compassion, remembering that we are, fundamentally, them. Attaining Buddhahood is an interesting construction. It is the attainment of non-attainment. Like the fish swimming in the ocean, and the bird flying in the sky, two of Master Dogen's favorite analogies, what if one day the fish, or the bird, wakes up to the fact of flying; or the fish realizes that it is swimming, and that there is no end to the air, or the water? That would amount to quite an attainment for a fish, or a bird. But it would not change a thing.Therefore the Ch'an master Lung-ya said, “Those who in past lives were not enlightened will now be enlightened. In this life save the body — it is the fruit of many lives. Before buddhas were enlightened, they were the same as we; enlightened people of today are exactly as those of old.”What is the turning point that now enables the enlightenment of those unable to turn the trick in past lives? What changed, and when? Now that what, exactly, has occurred? Lung-ya was a student and dharma successor of Tozan Ryokai, accredited with founding Soto Zen in China. He lived during the 800s and 900s, in which the legacy of Bodhidharma and the first four centuries of Zen in China had been secured. Maybe this is what he meant by “now.” Now that these living buddhas and ancestors had transmitted their compassion to us “freely and without limit,” in the form of their recorded teachings, as well as their transmitted successors. Those living today, who were not enlightened in their past lives, now have a golden opportunity. If they do wake up, they will be “exactly as those of old.”Quietly explore the farthest reaches of these causes and conditions, as this practice is the exact transmission of a verified Buddha.Repenting in this way, one never fails to receive profound help from all Buddhas and Ancestors.By revealing and disclosing our lack of faith and practice before the Buddha, we melt away the root of transgressions, by the power of our repentance.These “causes and conditions” are not limited to the specific circumstances of existence at Lung-ya's or Dogen's time. They are here with us now, and are not separable from the transmission of our own buddha-mind. Repenting our wasteful and self-destructive ways, we too can avail ourselves of this legacy from all Buddhas and Ancestors. Our lack of faith is not in a belief system, but in the process of meditation itself. As Dogen says elsewhere, “In zazen, what precept is not fulfilled?”This is the true and simple color of true practice of the true mind of faith; of the true body of faith.The “true and simple color of true practice” is one of my favorite turns-of-a-phrase by Master Dogen. The choice of the term “color” is compelling, whether literally what Dogen said, or a translator's choice. We speak of our experience being colored by emotion, preconceptions, and misconceptions. Color carries the connotation of emotional overlays, which may or may not be appropriate to the situation at hand. Here, the term denotes accuracy, I think, a true and correct shading of the practice of the “true mind of faith,” one in which repentance is the guiding principle keeping us coloring within the lines. The use of “true body” of faith at the end I think suggests the predominance of the physical over the mental, or the real over the imaginary. The body can make no mistake as to this true practice. It already manifests the truth, in all its homeliness. Only the mind can get it wrong. But, as there is no separation of mind and body, all is well.* * *Elliston Roshi is guiding teacher of the Atlanta Soto Zen Center and abbot of the Silent Thunder Order. He is also a gallery-represented fine artist expressing his Zen through visual poetry, or “music to the eyes.”UnMind is a production of the Atlanta Soto Zen Center in Atlanta, Georgia and the Silent Thunder Order. You can support these teachings by PayPal to donate@STorder.org. Gassho.Producer: Kyōsaku Jon Mitchell

Further instructionIs apparently called for —Don't eat those onions!* * *Immediately on the heels of the last sections we explored, “Instructions for Practice,” and the testimony of Buddha's posse, the “Twenty-Five Sages,” comes an excruciatingly long and detailed examination of what seems to be the entire litany of Buddha's teachings, some directly relevant to the focus of the Surangama, others seemingly thrown in just for good measure, or simply because they were available. This discursive digression, from one subject to another, and yet another — like the featured acts of a modern television talk- or talent-show — lends credence to the supposition by some scholars that the whole sutra amounts to a pastiche of relatively disconnected teachings. The Ananda-focused narrative provides the through-line, pulling the smorgasbord together.The whole thing runs to about 550 pages, in the new translation by the Buddhist Text Translation Society, Burlingame, California. We will squeeze a Reader's Digest condensed version into this segment, suggesting that you follow up for detail.Next on the program, we find two long solo performances from each of the guest stars, who need no introduction. First up, Avalokiteshvara, “The Bodhisattva Who Hears the Cries of the World,” testifies to the efficacy of the faculty of hearing, as the go-to gate to samadhi, running down all the major implications of audial insight. He famously vows to help all others in their quest, magically appearing in 32 various human and nonhuman forms suitable to their predispositions, and to provide protection to them in 14 kinds of dangerous situations, leading them to liberation. The original standup chameleon.With no break, commercial or biological, Buddha cues up Manjusri to further explain, and expand upon, the limitations of the sense faculties and mind, hot buttons of the times. Manjusri dutifully heaps high praise on Avalokiteshvara's method of relying solely on hearing, akin to promoting his fellow panelist's latest book, or movie. One wonderful, circular question he asks of Ananda is, “Why haven't you been hearing your own hearing?” Later declaring that “It is the easiest way to reach enlightenment.”Both guest performers express gushing admiration for Buddha's discourse — he is the star of the show, after all — along with some sympathy for the devil, in the person of Ananda, playing second banana to Shakyamuni. You can't help listening for the laugh track. Or the theme song.Occasionally, the unnamed master of ceremonies turns the camera on the live audience: Ananda and “all the others in the great assembly… were like someone who has traveled far from home on matters of business: although the traveler has not yet been able to return, he knows the road that will lead him home.” Rather than applause lines, Buddha's intended effect on his audience is realization itself.This rather modern analogy — being on the road — resonates with my coinage, “The Original Frontier.” Buddha was the historical discoverer, and explorer, of this strange realm of the mind itself. He blazed trails for the rest of us. During his time, he may have been the foremost inspirational speaker on the circuit, but would never have qualified for a TED Talk, let alone develop a following on Twitter.Then, in what may be the earliest expressions of what later became Zen Buddhist precepts, Ananda receives “Four Clear and Definitive Instructions on Purity: On Sexual Desire, On Killing, On Stealing, and On Making False Claims.” These are four of the sixteen precepts that we receive yet today, as householders. We understand “purity,” however, as non-dual, not as a puritanical ideal of morality.“Establishing a Place for Awakening,” follows, thoroughgoing instructions for how to set up an altar room for practice, detailing what kinds of statuary should be displayed. Of course, actual statues of buddhas and bodhisattvas would not put in an appearance for centuries after Buddha's time.Then comes the “The Śūraṅgama Mantra,” in phonetic Chinese. It is offered up for “people who cannot get rid of their stubborn habits.” A kind of catch-all cure-all, good-for-what-ails-you charm, talisman, or spell — if you will but recite it. To put a weird twist on it, a virtual “Buddha,” whom Buddha “makes appear” from his “unconditioned mind,” then recites all 554 lines.This is followed by an effusive guarantee of the powers of the mantra to protect. Mantra magic. Your results may vary, of course.Then follows yet another lengthy discourse, on the “Levels of Being.” The subtitle, “The Coming into Being of the World of Illusion,” reprises the title of a prior section. But this time, “coming into being” comprises a synopsis of the biology of the times. It details “Twelve Classes of Beings,” all of which are “bound to the cycle of death and rebirth in this world as a result of” various causes and conditions. Next, for human beings only, a prescription for practicing and mastering “the samadhi of the Buddhas” is proffered. A formula of “Three Gradual Steps.” The first — I am not making this up — advocates:A. Avoiding the Plants of the Onion GroupAversion to the onion family (Vidalia onions excepted) is explained as a specific example of a general principle: that of avoiding, or eliminating, contributing factors. That is, factors that contribute to less desirable internal states and outflows, especially for the aspiring monastic. Onions were thought to arouse sexual desire when cooked, and anger when raw. Meat is included in this category, along with raw foods in general. This would constitute contemporary views on healthy diet and wellbeing, at that time. But modern attitudes toward nutrition are not all that much more sophisticated. See: obesity.B. Ending Any Violation of the Fundamental Rules of BehaviorThis second gradual step is another iteration on the precepts, as they were conceived at that time, focusing on celibacy, killing, stealing and lying. These evolved as rules for living together in the context of the Buddhist Order, called vinaya in Sanskrit. Both Dogen Zenji and Keizan Zenji produced voluminous monastic regulations, called shingi in Japanese, over three millennia later.C. Avoiding Intentional Engagement with Perceived ObjectsThe third refers to the outflows through the six faculties of engagement — the intoxication of the senses and their objects — promising that eventually, no mental objects will arise, leading to “peaceful abiding.” Are you beginning to see a pattern here?Next we are treated to another longish discourse on “The Fifty-Seven Stages of the Bodhisattva's Path,” detailing the stages of “Arid Wisdom, Ten Stages of Stabilizing the Mind, Ten Abodes, Ten Practices, Ten Dedications, Four Additional Practices, Ten Grounds” and finally, “Two Final Stages,” the first of which is called “Equivalent Enlightenment,” and concluding with the declaration:Thus, having passed through these various stages — twelve stages in all, some counted singly, some in groups — they reach at last the stage of Wonderful Awakening, which is the unsurpassed enlightenment.Here the numbering is getting a bit out of hand, but you can still count them on both hands, fingers and toes. Modern Zen teachers, such as Master Dogen, push back on this idea that zazen is “step-by-step meditation,” transpiring in clear, linear stages of development.But it is clear that in Buddha's time, breaking the path into digestible bites was an absolute necessity, especially when attending such a moveable feast as we are being served here. No one in the great assembly is taking notes on their mobile devices. They cannot get back to them later. But Buddha is merely pointing at the humble, homely truth — accessible to all, nothing hidden. However we slice and dice it, reality finally has to be holistic, both in the method of realizing it, and the resulting realization.Now comes an interesting diversion: “Naming the Discourse.” This challenge to the host comes from the prompting of one of the guest celebrities, Manjusri. In design, we have a related exercise called “Name that Concept.” If an innovation is truly new, there will most likely be no phrase in the vernacular that adequately captures it. Thus, we must go to some absurd extremes in brainstorming:The Sutra of the Supreme and Magnificent Dharma-Imprint of the Mantra of the White Canopy, Which Is Spoken above the Crown of the Great Buddha's Head, and Which Is the Serene and Pure Oceanic Eye of the Thus-Come Ones of the Ten DirectionsThis is the first mention, the longest and most unwieldy. The shortest entry in the contest is the last:The Sutra of the Consecrating Mantra Phrases and the Myriad Śūraṅgama Practices of the BodhisattvasWhich is pretty concise, and touches on most of the bases. Surangama means something like “heroic valor,” “heroic progress,” or “heroic march.” Reading it certainly requires a heroic effort.Nowadays, you may have noticed that books, movies, television series, and other public media presentations, often have a one-word title, or at the most, a couple of words. This inevitable trend helps to cut through the clutter of competing offerings. The subtitle carries the load of explaining the title.Then, just to set the proper tone for the warnings of the “Mara states” to come, what better than a trip to hell? Google “Mara,” and you find: “In Buddhist cosmology, Mara is associated with death, rebirth and desire. Thera has described Mara as ‘the personification of the forces antagonistic to enlightenment.'” Now, of course, we have to also Google “Thera.”The subtitle gives us our first clue: “Ananda Requests Instruction.” The resultant title, “The Hells,” confirms our worst fears. Ananda asks how can there still be such destinies as hells, when “the essential nature of all Buddhas is the true reality?” and do they, the hells, conform to the formula of existing on their own, or are they based on the “deluded habits of living beings?” Graphic content alert: gory descriptions of hells, reminiscent of Dante's Inferno, based on various bad behavior and judgment calls.I would second Ananda's disbelief. I have always considered the threat of hell to be the curse of theism. It is bad enough that we suffer so, during our lifetime. Do we really need the threat of eternal perdition on top of that, adding the demeaning insult of the blame game, to the agony of existential injury?But it is clear that early Buddhism, at least, thought, and taught, the reality of the hells, long before Jesus Christ came on the scene. However, in Zen, these hells are considered to be the product of our own minds, and, like everything else in reality, impermanent. In one famous incident in the history of Zen, a monk goes into hell intentionally, to save his mother. How did he do that? I suppose it was in a dream within a dream. My mother appeared to me in a dream the night she died.Next, in “The Roles of Emotion and Thought,” Buddha explains how internal, as well as outer-directed, deluded habit-patterns develop, how autonomic processes entangle with mental desires and emotions, including the impulse to shun death, and to embrace life. Alive, we follow natural inclinations; after death, the various currents of our karma. These lead to all kinds of karmic consequences, unintended and intended, including falling into various kinds of hells, based on the degree of emotional dysfunction.“Ten Causes and Six Retributions” follow, developing Buddha's point that karmic retribution is brought upon ourselves by our intentional actions. This indicates, as an aside, that some actions may not entail karmic consequences, as they are not exactly intentional. A ray of sunshine at the end of the tunnel.Then comes the familiar lineup of the usual suspects: 1, Sexual desire, joined with physical contact, leading to intercourse; shout out to Schopenhauer. 2, Craving, with attraction, leads to plotting. 3, Arrogance and self-superiority, to competitiveness. Hilariously, Buddha points out that when the “Thus-Come-Ones” see this arrogance, they greet it with an expression, “taking a drink of stupidity.” 4, Hatred, with defiance, leads to confrontations. 5, Enticing others, plus conniving, to entrapment. 6, Falsehood, joined with deviousness, leads to insults. 7, Festering resentment, nursing a grudge, leads to vengeance. 8, Holding wrong views, joined to rejecting the opinions of others, leads to mistakes, such as that the self is real. 9, Blaming, joined to defamation, leads to false accusations. 10, Disputatiousness, joined to engagement, leads to vociferous court proceedings. Who would have thought that in Buddha's time the “see you in court,” hurled as an expletive, would echo as it does today? All these egregious habit-patterns are accompanied by the gnarly details of their consequences, along with the admonition to avoid them assiduously.Then a summary — of actions of the sense faculties — as the root causes of these consequences and retributions. “The Seven Destinies Are the Result of Karma” brings to a close this dystopian vision of all that can go wrong if only we follow our instinctual pursuit of pleasure. Buddha offers a bit of hope:Ananda, such is a detailed explanation of the seven destinies — of beings in the hells and of ghosts, animals, humans, ascetic masters, gods, and asuras. In their confusion, all are submerged in the attributes of the conditioned world. Their deluded mental activity leads them into rebirth in accordance with their karma. Within the wondrous perfect understanding that is the fundamental unconditioned mind, these destinies are like mirages of flowers seen in the sky. These destinies do not actually occupy any location; they are simply illusions. Even less do they signify anything real.Well, now you tell us! After scaring us half to death with apocalyptic visions of eternal suffering… it's all just overactive imagination? We have to cut Buddha some slack here, understanding that his original compassionate teachings have been strained through the filter of centuries of social, cultural and economic evolution, before they were committed to paper. Who can know how he may have couched his terms?This is the last of the Surangama Sextet. But we are not done yet. There is more — an appendix on the Fifty False states that may occur in each of the stages of meditation, through each of the aggregates of Form, Sensation, Perception, Formations, and Consciousness. Stay tuned. Don't go anywhere.* * *Elliston Roshi is guiding teacher of the Atlanta Soto Zen Center and abbot of the Silent Thunder Order. He is also a gallery-represented fine artist expressing his Zen through visual poetry, or “music to the eyes.”UnMind is a production of the Atlanta Soto Zen Center in Atlanta, Georgia and the Silent Thunder Order. You can support these teachings by PayPal to donate@STorder.org. Gassho.Producer: Kyōsaku Jon Mitchell

文殊菩薩真言 The Mantra of Manjusri - 黃慧音 Powered by Firstory Hosting

This Sunday is both the Festival of Manjusri Bodhisattva and the 18th anniversary of the death of Reverend Master Daizui MacPhillamy. In “Great Wisdom From Within” Rev. Clairissa considers the bright mind of meditation, as reflected in the figure of Manjusri (embodiment of Great Wisdom), together with a tribute to the example and teaching of Rev. Master Daizui, who offered so many of us the benefit of his own bright mind and heart. 

Im Shumon Kattoshu, Fall Nr. 210, wird eine Szene aus dem Gandhavyuha Sutra ("Eintritt in den Bereich der Wirktlichkeit"), einem Teil des Avatamsaka Sutra, verwendet, in der Manjusri seinen Schüler Sudhana über die möglichen Wirkungen eines Grashalms unterrichtet. Fukuoka Masanobu (1913-2008), japanischer Mikrobiologe und später Landwirt, entwickelte eine Form der Landwirtschaft, die mit der Natur kooperiert, statt sie mit Hilfe von Chemie und Maschinen als Ressource auszunutzen. Die Art seiner Landwirtschaftsmethode bezeichnet er als Anwendung des taoistischen Wu-wei-Prinzips. Die Natur mit ihrer Fähigkeit sich selbst zu erhalten, gilt bei ihm als Vorbild für einen Umgang mit der Welt, der auf Zusammenarbeit statt auf (Aus-) Nutzung basiert. Fukuoka etablierte auf seinem Land ein ökologisches Gleichgewicht für den Schutz der Nutzpflanzen vor Schädlingen und für die Nährstoffanreicherung des Bodens. Seine Felder und Gärten sind reich an Tieren und Pflanzen und müssen weder gepflügt noch chemisch gedüngt werden. Mit Hilfe dieser Landwirtschaftsmethode ließe sich – laut der Aussage von Fukuoka – auf vergleichbar wenig Fläche bequem die Versorgung aller Menschen mit ausreichend Nahrung sicherstellen. Diese würde nicht nur satt machen, sondern zugleich als Medizin eine gute Gesundheit bewirken. Voraussetzung ist jedoch, dass sich die Menschen auf eine jahreszeitliche und regionale (sowie fleischarme) Kost einstellen, nicht immer mehr exotische Nahrung zu sich nehmen und diese zu Jahreszeiten verlangen, in denen deren Grundzutaten natürlicherweise nicht gedeihen. Seine Bücher sind Standardwerke der Permakultur. Das Buch: Masanobu Fukuoka. "The One-Straw Revolution: An Introduction to Natural Farming" von 1978, wurde 2009 in den USA und auf deutsch (Der Große Weg hat kein Tor. Pala-Verlag) 2013 neu aufgelegt. Christoph Rei Ho Hatlapa weist anhand von Fukuokas Beispiel darauf hin, dass unser Umgang mit der Natur entweder zur gegenseitigen Ausnutzung und zum Untergang als auch – wie eine "Medizin" für uns und für die Natur selber – nachhaltig und heilsam wirken kann. Es kommt darauf an, wie wir mit dieser "Medizin" – mit der Natur im Kleinen und im Großen – umgehen. Im Tempelmanifest der Choka Sangha wurde festgehalten, dass unsere Praxis und Übung in den jahrhundertealten Wurzeln der Tradition des Zen-Buddhismus und in der Ökologie gründet, speziell in der Permakultur mit ihren ethischen Prinzipien “Sorge für die Erde, Sorge für die Menschen und Wachstumsrücknahme und faires Teilen der Ressourcen”. Für die Verwirklichung dieser ethischen Prinzipien brauchen wir aber auch die Übung eines heilsamen sozialen Miteinanders, in dem Konflikte nach Möglichkeit in WIN-WIN-Lösungen umgewandelt werden können. Masanobu Fukuoka selber fand erst nach einer tiefgreifenden Lebenskrise zu seinem unkonventionellen und nachhaltigen Ansatz des Umgangs mit der Natur. Auch für uns geht es heute darum, einen nachhaltigen und sozial verträglichen Umgang mit der Natur zu entwickeln; dabei geht es, wie Fukuoka betont, sowohl um eine naturgemäße Wirtschaft und Landwirtschaft als auch um die Förderung und Vervollkommnung von Menschen.

Perguntas e respostas com Monge Genshô. - Sensei, em alguns vídeos seus é possível ver a bela imagem de um Buda sobre um leão. Poderia, por favor, contar a história desta imagem e comentar sobre o simbolismo? - Com o que devo me importar com a postura do zazen? - Costurar o Rakusu tem sido uma profunda pratica. Porém há momentos de dúvidas sobre se está Belo e correto. Com o que de fato devo me importar na costura? - Poderia falar um pouco sobre como cultivar compaixão?

Nothing to attain!Oh, what a relief it is —this no-attainment* * *The third section of the Heart Sutra begins with the declaration that, although we speak of the difficulty of achieving the spiritual awakening of the Buddha, it finally cannot be an attainment:With nothing to attain, a bodhisattva relies on prajna paramitaSo what is this “prajna paramita” upon which the bodhisattva relies, in the absence of any such attainment? First we should recall that “bodhisattva” means “being,” the sattva part, and “awakening” or “enlightening,” the bodhi part. Presumably a human being, as other sentient beings are not considered capable of this process, owing to causes and conditions of their level of awareness; and awakening preferable to enlightenment, as it is a gerund form of noun, meaning it functions as a verb, an ongoing process. A bodhisattva is then anyone on the path to awakening, as was Buddha before his profound insight. You and I, all human beings, are on this path, whether we know it or not. Those who admit to it are bodhisattvas, no matter the degree or depth of insight they may evince at present.“Prajna paramita” is often translated as “perfection of wisdom,” for which, again, and for similar reasons, “perfecting” is preferable, indicating an ongoing process rather than a state of existence. And wisdom is recognized as a result of practicing or perfecting the other five paramitas — namely generosity or charity, precepts (ethics or morality), patience or forbearance, effort or energy, and lastly concentration or contemplation (we usually call meditation) — rather than regarding wisdom as an isolate that can be developed separately, or gained by sudden insight, a change of perspective. Would it were that easy.So this emphasis on process, rather than attainment, is intrinsic to the open-ended, long-term nature of Buddhism’s worldview and the practice of Zen, particularly its meditation. We practice zazen in the midst of the chaos of our everyday world without the additional burden of any expectation that we will attain some special, out-of-the-ordinary reward, called “enlightenment.” We are all enlightened, in that we have recognized the Dharma and are focusing our attention on it. That we are practicing Zen Buddhism at all is proof positive of this prosaic meaning — even though it is not yet Buddha’s awakening — much like the common cultural meme of enlightened self-interest. This distinction is necessary to embrace the idea that awakening itself is not something that we can do intentionally, but the natural result of a process that can come to fruition.The sutra goes on to clarify:and thus the mind is without hindrance — without hindrance, there is no fearAlong with setting aside the hindrance of the idea of attainment, all such expectations of something positive — and their doppelgängers, fear of negative developments — are cleared from the mind. This is the monkey mind of fame, the mind that imagined expectations of something to gain, or attain, in the first place.As with most Buddhist teachings, the traditional view of what constitutes a hindrance to the clear mind organizes them into a set, and enumerates them as a mnemonic for purposes of memorization. Remember, these teaching were not written down, but only spoken, for the first four centuries or so of their propagation. The classic hindrances, like the skandhas, are five in number: sensory desire or pursuit of pleasure; ill will toward others, sloth, or torpor, particularly in the pursuit of one’s meditation practice; restlessness or worry, which today we call anxiety; and doubt, particularly insidious doubt directed toward the Buddhist teachings themselves.Because fear finds its provenance in doubt, the sutra assures us that we will become fearless, especially in pursuit of awakening, and in the face of the circumstances of our daily lives, even when elevated to klaxon levels of pandemic and resulting panic. Worst case scenarios include panic attack, which often has no identifiable proximate cause, but feels life-threatening nonetheless.But we should keep in mind that doubt is not a bad thing in Zen. In fact, keeping one’s doubt at a keen edge is one of the ancient admonitions in Zen. Like sharpening the sword of Manjusri, in order to cut through all delusion, relatively petty doubts, such as regards our own understanding of this difficult teaching, are nurtured, and allowed to grow, until they accumulate to the level of Great Doubt, in which our entire existence is called into question. The universe becomes just one big question-mark. Then, the resolution of this koan of reality will be commensurate in scale. All minor doubts can be resolved only if and when the central, fundamental doubt of not-knowing is embraced and transcended.far beyond all inverted views, one realizes nirvanaFurther, the sutra assures us, this resolution clarifies all of our views up till now to be inverted, or in the charming phrase of the original translation I learned, “topsy-turvy.”The jargon term, “nirvana,” here is not capitalized, which helps to normalize it, as simply the worldview that one develops through this process of embracing the ambiguity of an attainment in which nothing is really attained. Getting beyond what is between us and the clarity of Zen’s take on reality is a matter of seeing this nothing that is to be attained, revealing the true source of our anxieties, doubts, hindrances and fears, and learning to live with them. Buddhism is not about avoiding suffering. Zen is about embracing it. Zazen is what to do about it. Sit with it. It is your best friend, and means you no harm.The next bit is a bit like the “Thus have I heard” intro to all sutras. The messenger wants to assure us of the validity and historicity of the message to follow. We are not making this up:All buddhas of past present and future rely on prajna paramitaAny so-called buddha worthy of the name emerges from the swamp of human existence by virtue of their reliance on the perfecting of wisdom, and no other process will result in the same, authentic credentialing. This cannot be gotten at through learning, intelligence, erudition or scholarship, and is not something you can glean from the leavings of others. Everyone climbing the Zen mountain has to climb all the way from the bottom to the top. And more difficult, perhaps, all the way back down. Otherwise, without re-entering the fray, all of that effort was for naught. In the beginning, the middle, and the end, the bodhisattva relies on perfecting the process of practice leading to wisdom, and the buddha, the awakened one, is at one and the same time the manifestation and the continuation of this same process. There is no end to it, and actually, there was never any beginning. It is buddha seeking buddha from womb to tomb and beyond, from time immemorial and endlessly into the fog of the future.This section closes with a seeming contradiction:and thereby attain unsurpassed, complete, perfect enlightenmentSo, now you tell me! What is attained in unattainment is unsurpassed, complete and perfect enlightenment — in Sanskrit anuttara samyak sambodhi — another jargon term bandied about, as if we cognoscenti know what it means, and you hoi polloi don’t. Don’t be fooled. Even Buddha did not know the entire meaning of his experience. But that did not stop him from attempting to share it with others. Notoriously, there were those in his times that did not get it, refused to listen, insisted on arguing, even tried to assassinate him, if you believe the story. But I think we are left with this ambiguity, that while this is no attainment — nothing to see here, just keep moving along — at the same time, it is the only worthwhile thing to aspire to, in spite of the slings and arrows, disparagement and disrespect from others, that pursuit of awakening may bring down upon our heads. Throw the words away, and pay attention to the reality to which they are pointing. Then all will be well with you. Let nothing stop you, because nothing but yourself can stop you.* * *Elliston Roshi is guiding teacher of the Atlanta Soto Zen Center and abbot of the Silent Thunder Order. He is also a gallery-represented fine artist expressing his Zen through visual poetry, or “music to the eyes.”UnMind is a production of the Atlanta Soto Zen Center in Atlanta, Georgia and the Silent Thunder Order. You can support these teachings by PayPal to donate@STorder.org. Gassho.Producer: Kyōsaku Jon Mitchell

(Chinese) Do you want to know the special reason why Shakyamuni Buddha gave the sermon of the Shurangama Sutra? Is the Surangama Sutra related to Ananda? To find out, listen to Supreme Master Ching Hai talking about the origin of Buddha’s preaching of the Surangama Sutra. The Supreme Master said that many Bodhisattvas, Pratyeka Buddhas and Arhats had never heard about the Quan Yin Method at that time because it was not that easy to hear about it; people did not know about the Quan Yin method until Manjusri ...

This is the seventh talk in an eight part series by Padmavajra exploring a great classic of Tibetan Buddhism – Gampopa's 'Jewel Ornament of Liberation'. The work, inspired by devotion to Manjusri, is one of the key texts in the development of the Tibetan Lam Rim teachings. And Gampopa, being one of the two principle disciples of the yogi Milarepa, presents both the monastic Lam Rim approach of Atisha and the Mahamudra meditation teachings of Milarepa himself. Talk given at Padmaloka Retreat Centre, Winter 2008 This talk is part of the series Themes from Gampopa's Jewel Ornament of Liberation. *** Help keep FBA free for everyone! Become a supporter today.  Subscribe to our Dharmabytes podcast - bite-size pieces of Dharma inspiration, two times a week! Follow our blog for news and new Dharma FBA on Twitter FBA on Facebook FBA on Soundcloud

在这个故事里，我们学1个单词1、mysterious 神秘的、不可思议的the bodhisattva Manjusri 文殊菩萨

在这个故事里，我们学1个单词1、mysterious 神秘的、不可思议的the bodhisattva Manjusri 文殊菩萨

在这个故事里，我们学1个单词1、mysterious 神秘的、不可思议的the bodhisattva Manjusri 文殊菩萨

In this episode I speak with Akashic Record Soul Reader Carly Manjusri Roberts!

Views & Voices is a series of brief and personal responses to works of art and film selected by BAMPFA staff who work in different departments . . . some, by UC Berkeley students as well. At a time of distance, these commentaries are designed to bring you closer both to individual people behind BAMPFA and to individual works in our collections. We hope you'll enjoy hearing these personal views. Listen as Lynne Kimura looks at a 13th century Chinese painting of the Bodhisattva Manjusri. https://bampfa.org https://bampfa.org/program/buddhist-art-roof-world https://bampfa.org/program/deities-demons-and-teachers-tibet-nepal-and-india Subscribe to the BAMPFA Podcast: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bampfa/id1520467594

Sanghadevi shares a story on the development of enlightenment through tales of pilgrimage from the Avatamsaka Sutra, known as the Flower Ornament Scripture. This story illustrates the art of engagement and the art of letting go, combining activity with receptivity, which supports the arising of the unbounded energy of the creative mind. From the talk entitled Spiritual Receptivity and Spiritual Community given with a series of talks organised by the Cambridge Buddhist Centre, 2014, called A Year of Spiritual Community Talks. *** Subscribe to our Free Buddhist Audio podcast - a full Dharma talk every week! Follow our blog for news and new Dharma FBA on Twitter FBA on Facebook FBA on Soundcloud  

The Universal Gateway of Manjusri (Sutra # 10 of the Maharatnakuta Sutra) Sutra recitation by M.C. Owens, adapted from the English translation by the Buddhist Association of the United States. Recorded on April 6, 2019

The Universal Gateway of Manjusri - Part Two (Sutra # 10 of the Maharatnakuta Sutra) M.C. Owens Recorded at the San Francisco Dharma Collective March 31, 2019 Part 3 of 3

The Universal Gateway of Manjusri - Part Two (Sutra # 10 of the Maharatnakuta Sutra) M.C. Owens Recorded at the San Francisco Dharma Collective March 24, 2019 Part 2 of 3

The Universal Gateway of Manjusri - Part One (Sutra # 10 of the Maharatnakuta Sutra) M.C. Owens Recorded at the San Francisco Dharma Collective March 17, 2019 Part 1 of 3

Our FBA Podcast this week is a talk by Padmavajra entitled The Motive. This is the first talk in an eight part series by Padmavajra exploring a great classic of Tibetan Buddhism – Gampopa’s ‘Jewel Ornament of Liberation’. The work, inspired by devotion to Manjusri, is one of the key texts in the development of the Tibetan Lam Rim teachings. And Gampopa, being one of the two principle disciples of the yogi Milarepa, presents both the monastic Lam Rim approach of Atisha and the Mahamudra meditation teachings of Milarepa himself. Talk given at Padmaloka Retreat Centre, Winter 2008 This talk is part of the series Themes from Gampopa’s Jewel Ornament of Liberation.

Todayand#8217;s FBA Dharmabyte, is called The Horse and the Rider, an excerpt from the talk entitled Cutting the Bonds by Vadanya, the introduction to a Sangha Night Series at Sheffield Buddhist Centre. and#8216;Total Transformation and#8211; Head, Heart and Gutsand#8217;. Using an analogy of a rider on a horse, he notes that we often act as if our head (the rider) is the most important aspect of our experience and overlook our emotions and our volition (the horse). However all aspects of our experience need to be addressed if we want to truly transform. Vandanya explores this theme of total transformation by looking at the figure of Manjusri, the Bodhisattva of Wisdom, who embodies the and#8216;headand#8217; aspect of Enlightenment.

Enlightenment must be within our reach! Todayand#8217;s FBA Dharmabyte, is called The Seed of the Thus Gone, an excerpt from the talk simply titled The Motive by Padmavajra. This is the first talk in an eight part series by Padmavajra exploring a great classic of Tibetan Buddhism – Gampopaand#8217;s and#8216;Jewel Ornament of Liberationand#8217;. The work, inspired by devotion to Manjusri, is one of the key texts in the development of the Tibetan Lam Rim teachings. And Gampopa, being one of the two principle disciples of the yogi Milarepa, presents both the monastic Lam Rim approach of Atisha and the Mahamudra meditation teachings of Milarepa himself. Talk given at Padmaloka Retreat Centre, Winter 2008 This talk is part of the series Themes from Gampopaand#8217;s Jewel Ornament of Liberation.

Our FBA Dharmabyte today is called One Understands, an excerpt from the talk on Manjusri by Amaraghosha one of a series of talks about archetypal Bodhisattvas. In this excerpt Amaraghosha explores the importance of wisdom in the Buddhist tradition through teachings including the Noble eightfold Path and the Four Noble Truths. This talk was given at the Croydon Buddhist Centre in 2016 as part of their regular Saturday morning sangha class.

MU42 - Die junge Frau kommt aus dem Samadhi Eines der wenigen Koans, in dem eine Frau vorkommt. Eine ungewöhnliche Situation für die geistige Welt des damaligen asiatischen Verständnisses. Hier treffen verschiedene Welten aufeinander, die Welt der allumfassenden Weisheit, die Welt der Unterscheidung, die Welt der Männer und die Welt der Frauen. Christoph behandelt diese verschiedenen Perspektiven mit der Frage: Warum kommt die Frau für den Anfänger aus ihrem kostbaren Samadhi und nicht für den weisen Manjusri, der sich konstant in der Welt der Einheit bewegt? Er spricht über die Unterscheidung mit der sich unterschiedliche Wesen aufeinander beziehen und die Schönheit die darin liegt. Es hat etwas Besonderes und aktiviert Lebenskräfte. In unserer geschäftigen und gemeinsamen Welt können wir uns mit dem Zengeist frei bewegen, uns für den Samadhi entscheiden oder auf das Lebendige eingehen. Dieses Koan kann uns unterstützen, die chronische Abwertung der Welt der Fülle neu zu bedenken und damit anders umzugehen. Wir sind von einer Welt der Fülle in eine Welt des Mangels geraten, nicht des tatsächlichen Mangels, sondern des geistigen Mangels mit der Vorstellung: Was wir brauchen ist knapp! Das, was für alle da ist, wird in einer abwertenden Art behandelt. Um in die Wahrnehmung der uns umgebenden Fülle zurück zu finden, braucht es die Freude an den Unterschieden. Es braucht eine Verständigung der Geschlechter und ein Betrauern der Mangelwelt. Der wichtigste Punkt an diesem Koan ist: "Augen auf für das Schöne, freut euch an den Unterschieden!" Wir freuen uns sehr über eine Spende, um die Kosten für die Erstellung dieses Podcast zu decken. Sie finden die Kontodaten/Paypal auf unserer Website https://choka-sangha.de/kontakt/spenden/ Herzlichen Dank

Day 3 of the 2016 Triratna International Council and we summarize for you by going for a walk with our friend Jnanadhara around the grounds of lovely Adhisthana. Where, amongst other beings, we meet a tiny toad... We hear about meditating on Manjusri, the Bodhisattva of Wisdom in the Sangharakshita Library; and about the Sikkha Project, an ambitious and exciting look at renewing and re-envisioning the system of Buddhist training in Triratna around the world by listening to and learning from each other. For much more, see www.thebuddhistcentre.com/internationalcouncil #Buddhism #Buddhist #Dharma #community #Triratna #sangha #training #countryside #Herefordshire

This is an invitation from Stanashraddha and Satyalila at Adhisthana to join us in spirit for a special ritual that will take place there on Tuesday January 12th at 1900 GMT. This ritual is to consecrate and dedicate a two-foot tall Manjusri rupa that will be especially associated with Urgyen Sangharakshita's Complete Works. (Eventually the rupa will sit on a shrine in the Library, there amongst the precious collection of Bhante's rupas, thangkas, and Dharma and other books at the heart of Adhisthana.) During the ritual, which will take place in the Library, various objects will be placed inside the rupa, after which the rupa will be sealed up. For information on how to join in where you live - including how to view a live video stream! - see https://thebuddhistcentre.com/news/dedication-manjusri-rupa-adhisthana #Buddhism #Buddhist #Dharma #ritual #Manjusri #Triratna #Sangharakshita #community #sangha

Our FBA Dharmabyte today drops us into the realm of ritual with a Manjusri Mantra with Harmonies. From a special Sevenfold Puja recorded on at Jikoji Retreat Center, California, 2008 on a Triratna Buddhist Order Convention. This excerpt is lovely harmonic chanting of the Manjushri (Manjugosha) mantra. Listen to the full puja and#8211; itand#8217;s unusual to hear these rituals performed in Sanskrit and English, so a real treat for all ritual lovers courtesy of Satyadhana, the puja leader. Thereand#8217;s also a special section of chanting at the end, wishing long life for Punya, a much-loved member of the Order who was seriously ill at the time of recording.

This week’s FBA Podcast, “Yidams” is a talk given at Sheffield Buddhist Centre in 2007 by Padmavajra. As we approach the full moon of July, Buddhists around the world will be celebrating Dharma Day, the marking of the Buddha’s first teaching. We decided to fast forward several hundred years after the Buddha’s lifetime to introduce a host of Bodhisattva’s who emerged to help spread the Dharma throughout the world. Beginning with this full talk, we will follow over the next few weeks with talks, mantras and more in our Dharmabytes Podcast to introduce Tara, Manjusri, Vajrapani, Ksitigarbha, Avalokitesvara and Padmasambhava.

In our FBA Podcast today, “The Motive (Remixed),”, Padmavajra explores a great classic of Tibetan Buddhism – Gampopa’s ‘Jewel Ornament of Liberation’. The work, inspired by devotion to Manjusri, is one of the key texts in the development of the Tibetan Lam Rim teachings. And Gampopa, being one of the two principle disciples of the yogi Milarepa, presents both the monastic Lam Rim approach of Atisha and the Mahamudra meditation teachings of Milarepa himself. Talk given at Padmaloka Retreat Centre, Winter 2008 This talk is part of the series Themes from Gampopa’s Jewel Ornament of Liberation.

How do the Bodhisattvas enter the Dharma door of non-duality?Today’s FBA Podcast, “The Way of Non-Duality” explores this as one of the main themes in the Vimalakirti Nirdesha Sutra. Sangharakshita explains some of the dualities listed in the Sutra, gives some examples of his own (with tips on how to transcend them), and concludes with Vimalakirti’s ‘thunder-like silence’. Talk given in 1979 as part of the series “The Inconceivable Emancipation – Themes from the Vimalakirti Nirdesha.“

On the second talk of the weekend, Dharma Teacher Eileen Kiera shares about the practice, presence, body, and  great vows of three powerful bodhisattvas-- Avalokiteshvara, Manjusri, and  Samanthabhadra.  We learn that if we can cultivate the energy and practice of compassionate listening, looking deeply, and responding with appropriate action we can embody these bodhisattvas in our lives.  When they are embodied in us, it can be said that they live in the world. We hope you enjoy these talks.  Please explore other talks by Dharma teacher Eileen Kiera at the Mountain Lamp website at http://mountainlamp.org/audio/eenkiera.html                                                         

Over the next few weeks, we'll be looking at several of the famous "Greats" among the Bodhisattvas. The "Greats" include Kannon, Maitreya, Manjusri, Jizo, Samantabhadra and many others. We'll look at a few Buddhas too ... Especially in Mahayana Buddhism, a "Bodhisattva" is an enlightened being, or one bound for enlightenment, who ... motivated by great compassion, and even postponing her own attainment of ultimate Buddhahood ... vows to use her wisdom to aid other human beings to attain liberation. But, ya know, that may be YOU on both the receiving and giving end of that.