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Sutras

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The Great Heart of Wisdom Sutra

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August 24, 2023 | Categories: Sutras, Wisdom, Zen | Leave a comment

Zen Master Yuan-Wu said:

 

Many people like to cite the sayings of the Buddhist sages or a phrase from the sutras such as “ordinary speech, subtle speech—it all comes from the same ultimate source,” persuaded that they really understand the meaning!

If any of you here is operating under such an assumption, he’d be well advised to give up Zen altogether. He can devote his life to scholarship and become a celebrated exegete.

Nowadays you often hear people say, “There’s essentially no such thing as satori. The gate or teaching of satori was established as a way of making this fact known to people. If that’s the way you think, you’re like a flea attached to the body of a lion, sustaining itself by drinking its lifeblood.

Don’t you know what the ancient worthy said: “If the source is not deep, the stream will not be long; if the wisdom is not great, the discernment will not be far-reaching”? If the Buddha’s Dharma was a teaching that had been created or fabricated as they say, how could it have survived to the present day?

Quoted by Zen Master Hakuin in Essential Teachings

Zen Master Kusan Sunim

June 2, 2023 | Categories: Sutras | Leave a comment

The Buddha said, “There are twenty difficult things which are hard for human beings.”

It is hard to practice charity when one is poor.
It is hard to study the Way when occupying a position of great authority.
It is hard to surrender life at the approach of inevitable death.
It is hard to get an opportunity of reading the sutras.
It is hard to be born directly into Buddhist surroundings.
It is hard to bear lust and desire without yielding to them.
It is hard to see something attractive without desiring it.
It is hard to bear insult without making an angry reply.
It is hard to have power and not pay regard to it.
It is hard to come in contact with things and yet remain unaffected by them.
It is hard to study widely and investigate everything thoroughly.
It is hard to overcome selfishness and sloth.
It is hard to avoid making light without having studied the Way enough.
It is hard to keep the mind evenly balanced.
It is hard to refrain from defining things as being something or not being something.
It is hard to come into contact with clear perception of the Way.
It is hard to perceive one’s own nature and through such perception to study the Way.
It is hard to help others towards Enlightenment according to their various needs.
It is hard to see the end of the Way without being moved.
It is hard to discard successfully the shackles that bind us to the wheel of life and death as opportunities present themselves.”
(From: The Sutra of 42 Sections)

The Sūtra of Forty-two Sections – PDF Link –
https://urbandharma.org/pdf16/THE_SUTRA_IN_42.pdf

This Sutra is composed of Dharma spoken by the Buddha. When the Buddha disciples were compiling the Sutra Treasury , they selected individual passages and combined them into one work.

You could also say it a Buddha-anthology . The Buddha’s sayings were put together to make one sutra. The forty-two sections are the forty-two selections of the Sutra. This was the first sutra to be transmitted to China.

The two Honorable Elders Kashyapa-matanga and Gobharana brought this Sutra to China from India on a white horse (around a.d. 67). White Horse Monastery was established in Loyang by Han Ming Di , the emperor of that time.

Kusala Bhikshu

May 22, 2023 | Categories: Dharma, Human behavior, Practice, Samsara, Sutras, Zen | Leave a comment

Heart Sutra Live Looping Remix

May 16, 2020 | Categories: Music, Sutras, Video, Zen | Leave a comment

Radiating kindness over the entire world

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This is what should be done, by one who is skilled in goodness, And who knows the path of peace:

Let them be able and upright, straightforward and gentle in speech.

Humble and not conceited, contented and easily satisfied.

Unburdened with duties and frugal in their ways.

Peaceful and calm, and wise and skillful, not proud and demanding in nature.

Let them not do the slightest thing, that the wise would later reprove.

Wishing: In gladness and in safety, may all beings be at ease.

Whatever living beings there may be; whether they are weak or strong, omitting none,
the great or the mighty, medium, short or small, the seen and the unseen, those living near and far away, those born and to-be-born,
May all beings be at ease!

Let none deceive another, or despise any being in any state.

Let none through anger or ill-will, wish harm upon another.

Even as a mother protects with her life
Her child, her only child, so with a boundless heart, should one cherish all living beings:

Radiating kindness over the entire world.

Spreading upwards to the skies, And downwards to the depths; outwards and unbounded, freed from hatred and ill-will.

Whether standing or walking, seated or lying down, Free from drowsiness, one should sustain this recollection.

This is said to be the sublime abiding.

By not holding to fixed views, the pure-hearted one, having clarity of vision, being freed from all sense desires, Is not born again into this world.

The Metta Sutra

July 16, 2018 | Categories: Buddhism, Peace, Sutras | Leave a comment

Buddhist Chant Monks of Kanzeonji Recitation of Ancient Sutras

Disciples, Students, and Practitioners of Kanzeonji Non-Sectarian Buddhist Temple Chant The Ancient Lotus Sutras.

1. SANGEMON – Chant of Repentance 2. SANKIE – Pledge Faith to the Three Treasures: Buddha, Dharma, Sangha 3. KAI KYO GE – Opening Prayer 4. MAKA HANNYA HARAMITA SHIN GYO – The Great Heart of of Wisdom Sutra 5. MYO HO RENGE KYO, KANZEON BOSATSU FU MON BON DAI NI JU GO – Lotus Sutra, Ch.25, Sutra in praise of Kanzeon Bosatsu the Bodhisattva of Compassion 6. DAI HI SHIN DARANI – Mantra of Eternal Mercy 7. SHO SAI MYO KICHIJO DARANI – Mantra of Purification 8. EN MEI JU KU KANNON GYO – Mantra of Kanzeon: Ten phrases to prolong your life 9. EKOMON – Final Prayer

April 6, 2018 | Categories: Buddhism, Music, Sutras, Video | Leave a comment

The void

Learned audience, when you hear me talk about the void, do not at once fall into the idea of vacuity [because this involves the heresy of the doctrine of annihilation]. It is of the utmost importance that we should not fall into this idea, because when a man sits quietly and keeps his mind blank he will abide in the state of voidness of indifference.

Learned Audience, the illimitable void of the universe is capable of holding myriads of things of various shapes and forms, such as the sun, the moon, stars, mountains, rivers, worlds, springs, rivulets, bushes, woods, good men, bad men, dharma pertaining to goodness or badness, deva planes, great oceans, and all the mountains of Mahameru. Space takes in all of these, and so does the voidness of our nature. We say that the essence of mind is great because it embraces all things, since all things are within our nature. When we see the goodness for the badness of other people we are not attracted by it, no repelled by it, nor attached to it; so that is our attitude of mind is as void of space. In this way, we say the mind is great. Therefore we call it Maha.

Learned audience, what the ignorant merely talk about, wise men put into actual practice with their minds. There is also a class of foolish people who sit quietly and try to keep their minds blank. They refrain from thinking of anything and call themselves great. On account of their heretical view we can hardly talk to them.

(The Diamond Sutra & Sutra of Hui-Neng,
Chap. 2, On Prajña, p. 80, translated by A.F. Price & Wong Mou-lam).

March 10, 2018 | Categories: Buddhism, Sutras | 1 Comment

Without Fear

Source: Without Fear | Great Middle Way

greatmiddleway.wordpress.com 

 by
June 28, 2017

18193749_10213066202997589_6855640167846761649_nRevering and trusting in the Buddha, we will wear the armor of patient endurance.

We will cherish neither our bodies nor our lives, but care only for the unexcelled Way.

Repeatedly we will be driven out and exiled from our monasteries and stupas.

Remembering the words of the Buddha, we will endure all harms.

We will go everywhere to share the Dharma entrusted to us by the Buddha.

We are the messengers of the World-Honored One.

Facing multitudes without fear, we will teach His Dharma well.

—Lotus Sutra, Ch. 13

July 5, 2017 | Categories: Buddhism, Fear, Sutras | Leave a comment

The Perfection of Wisdom

The Perfection of Wisdom | Great Middle Way.

https://greatmiddleway.wordpress.com

July 20, 2015

by

prajnaparamitaForm is emptiness; emptiness is form.

Emptiness is not other than form; form also is not other than emptiness.

Sensation, perception, volition, and consciousness are empty.

All phenomena are merely empty, having no characteristics.

They are not produced and do not cease.

They have no defilement and no separation from defilement.

They have no decrease and no increase.
In suchness there is no form, no sensation,

no perception, no volition, no consciousness.

There is no eye, no ear, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind, no form,

no sound, no smell, no taste, no tactile sensation, and no phenomenon.

There are no sense consciousnesses, no mental consciousness,

no afflicted consciousness, and no ground consciousness.

There are no causal links of dependent origination

and no exhaustion of causal links of dependent origination.

There is no suffering, origin, cessation, or path;

no exalted wisdom, no attainment, and no non-attainment.

Because there is no striving for attainment,

all Bodhisattvas rely on and abide in the perfection of wisdom;

their minds have no obstructions and no fear.

Passing utterly beyond deception, the great beings on the path to perfection attain the final state beyond sorrow.

All the Buddhas who perfectly reside in the three times,

relying upon the perfection of wisdom,

become manifest and complete Buddhas

in the state of unsurpassed, perfect, and complete enlightenment.

–Sutra of the Perfection of Wisdom

 

July 20, 2015 | Categories: Suffering, Sutras | 3 Comments

The Heart Mantra Medicine Buddha (9:43)

By BMC the studious.

▶ The Heart Mantra Medicine Buddha – YouTube.

November 1, 2014 | Categories: Sutras, Video | Leave a comment

Heart Sutra Prajñāpāramitā Hṛdaya: Buddhist Chant (8:49)

▶ Heart Sutra Prajñāpāramitā Hṛdaya: Buddhist Chant – YouTube.

 

 

The Heart Sutra- Prajñāpāramitā Hṛdaya-here in a rare, original Sanskrit rendering by classical Indian singer-Vidya Rao. The Heart Sutra was composed in the 1st century CE in India and was later transmitted and translated into Chinese and Tibetan. It is unusual to find a recording sung by a native Sanskrit speaker from India; Vidya Rao’s is perhaps the only such recording available. This chant is part of a collection recorded by Siddhartha’s Intent, an organization dedicated to reviving the wisdom traditions of India. http://www.siddharthasintent.org/

Set to pictures from the places in the Buddha Sakyamuni’s life from the birth place in Lumbini, enlightenment in Bodhgaya and the Bodhi tree, sermons at Vulture’s peak in Rajgir and Sarnath Stupa and death in Kushinagar. There are also views of Nalanda, Sanchi and Ajanta-Ellora.

July 12, 2014 | Categories: Sutras | Tags: , , | Leave a comment