The Human Mind, Suffering, and Reality

The human mind includes:

1/ Mind awareness/primary mind (6 of them: the first five of which have to do with/are connected with the 5 senses, such as visual, auditory..., direct perception; the last one is mental conscience/awareness).
and

2/ Mental factors (79 or 51 ? of these, including attitudes, moods, emotions...).

The omniscient mind (Buddhahood) is a continuum  with no beginning, no end, and the afflicted mind (conceptual, duality mind that is full of mental factors) exists in all beings.

The mind has many levels of consciousness: gross (conceptual, duality), subtle, and most subtle (non-conceptual; there are 8 or 4 of the most subtle mind).  The luminosity/clear light mind (the most subtle):  Experienced Buddhist meditators meditate and dwell on this mind at their physical/clinical death.

Physically, there are the inner energy channels, which may be connected with the energy of the subtle mind levels.

8 stages of the most subtle mind at near death:

1/ Mirage-like vision

2/ Pillowing smoke (like smoke coming from stacks of smoke)

3/ Spark-like vision (like fire-flies)

4/ Flames

5/ White Appearance (the person is like moonlight)

6/ Red Increase (like the sunset)

7/ Complete blackness near Attainment

8/ Luminosity or clear light (clarity/ reflection).  This can be sustained (post-humous meditation) for two weeks or 21 days or more.

51 (? the number varies depending on the Buddhist schools/traditions) mental factors:

always present (intention, attention, recognition, contact, feeling), determining (engaging, aspiration, belief, mindfulness, concentration, wisdom),wholesome (no attachment, faith, shame, fear of blame, non-attached, positive effort, conscientiousness, no harm), afflictive (attachment, hatred, arrogance,ignorance, doubt, wrong view), secondary afflictive, changeable (sleep, neutral, regret, gross investigation, subtle investigation, depending on motivation)

Single-pointed meditation/Samatha: Awarenes and clarity

Suffering/Dukkha  (Duhkha)

Three levels of suffering: evident suffering (acute suffering, only this life), suffering of change (bigger horizon, many life times), suffering of conditioned existence.

Reality varies from person to person.  It is a construct of the (afflicted/duality/conceptual) mind.  There is no such thing as an actual reality which exists outside the observer's mind.  It is out of the interactions between the human mind and the environment over the course of evolution that reality is constructed.  Your reality is different from mine.  A human's world is different from a dog's.  What we view as reality is just formations and designations or names and constructs.  Nothing else.

Sources:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1xPY4QsA7M

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYrfhieXue0&list=PLOafJ4rP1PHwlqiOnVXZ-QJkeUSn1KVKj&index=3

Berry Kerzin http://altruismmedicine.org/about/founder-dr-barry-kerzin/
David Eagleman.  
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Eagleman

Buddhist Sutras and the Profound View of the Madhyamaka-Prasangika

It is necessary to distinguish various sutras.  Some are definitive; others require further interpretation. 

Definitive sutras are the wisdom sutras, such as the Heart of Wisdom Sutra, in which the Buddha spoke of the ultimate nature of all phenomena, and the Tathagata Essence Sutra from the third turning of the wheel.  This is the scriptural source for Maitreya's Uttaratantra and Nagarjuna's collection of praises.

Interpretable sutras cannot be taken literally or at face value.  An example is the Guhyasamaja Tantra, wherein the Buddha says that the Tathagata (the Buddha) is to be killed, and that by killing the Buddha, you will be able to achieve supreme enlightenment.  Similarly, in certain sutras, it is said that one must kill one's "parents".  "Parents" here refers to contaminated actions and attachment, which result in future rebirth.

Madhyamaka-Prasangika proponents speak of phenomena as being empty (having an empty nature).  This does not mean phenomena do not exist at all.  They just do not exist by themselves, in and of themselves, inherently.  Because phenomena possess the characteristics of existing and occurring and are dependent on other factors..., they are devoid of an inherent independent nature.  When Madhyamaka-Prasangika proponents speak of emptiness, they speak of  the empty nature of phenomena in terms of dependent origination.  This view of emptiness through reasoning of dependent origination is very profound:  it dispels misconceptions of the two extremes, nihilism and existential eternalism.  In Nagarjuna's Mulamadhyamakakarika (Fundamentals of the Middle Way), he says that in a system where emptiness is not possible, nothing is possible. "Since there is no phenomenon that does not arise through dependence, there is no phenomenon that is not empty."

Source:
The 14th Dalai Lama.  The World of Tibetan Buddhism:  An Overview of Its Philosophy and Practice  (Boston, MA:  Wisdom Publications, 1995). pp.41-46.

Anapannasati

Examine your senses (eyes/seeing, ears/hearing, nose/smelling, tongue/tasting, body/touching) and the processes in which they interact with external factors (sight, sound,taste, smell, tangible objects), and how your perceptions/mental formations arise from these interactions.  

Focus on your breathing in and out, so that your mind becomes clear and calm, and not disturbed by torpor, sleepiness, agitations, or doubt.  

Gradually, in calmness, you can realize the formation and the disappearance of the concepts of "self" and " phenomena."  You'll come to realize their true nature: impermanence and emptiness, without any substance.  With this realization, you know the cause of life and death, and the cycle of samsara---all sources of suffering arise from your tangled and unclear mind.  Once the cloud of ignorance has been lifted or unveiled, you know that this is the Truth or the Path, the only way that leads to liberation from the cycle of birth and death.

Sources:
http://www.buddhistdoor.com/OldWeb/bdoor/archive/nutshell/teach11.htm

"...quán chiếu, minh sát sự duyên khởi của căn-trần-thức, không có trong, không có ngoài, vì cả trong cả ngoài đều cùng duyên khởi, tương sanh. Đấy là cách nói khác của thiền Tứ Niệm Xứ thân, thọ, tâm, pháp. Người hành thiền định là cốt để cho tâm yên lặng, là cốt làm cho 5 triền cái lắng dịu. Khi 5 triền cái lắng dịu rồi, ta mới ngắm nhìn sắc thân, cảm thọ, tâm và pháp rõ ràng, chân thực hơn. Chúng đều vô thường, vô ngã; và vì chúng sanh không thấy rõ sự thật duyên khởi ấy, vô thường, vô ngã ấy nên mới đưa đến khổ. Chính chúng tạo tác lăng xăng khi lạc, khi khổ, khi vui, khi buồn, khi ghét, khi yêu, khi thương, khi hận, khi đố kỵ, khi ganh tỵ... mới là vấn đề, là nguyên nhân của sinh tử và luân hồi. Sinh tử và luân hồi từ tâm niệm của chúng ta! Luân hồi, sinh tử ấy có gốc từ vô minh, vô minh sinh hành, hành sinh thức, rồi lục nhập, xúc, thọ, ái thủ hữu, sinh, lão tử, sầu bi ưu não... Phải minh sát rốt ráo, tận căn sự vận hành duyên khởi luân hồi vô tận nầy mới chấm dứt, diệt tận tất cả khổ được. Cắt lìa được một khoen thì toàn bộ 12 khoen không kết dính với nhau được.

Đây mới là chánh pháp. Đây mới là con đường duy nhất, độc lộ, độc đạo đưa đến chánh trí, giác ngộ, Niết-bàn."

“Tự do là ung dung trong ràng buộc. Hạnh phúc là tự tại giữa khổ đau.”
Viên Minh 
from NHỮNG BÀI PHÁP THOẠI TRONG BA THÁNG AN CƯ by Most Ven.Giới Đức (Minh Đức Triều Tâm Ảnh)

http://thuvienhoasen.org/a23749/nhung-bai-phap-thoai-trong-ba-thang-an-cu-11

Obama on Mass Shootings

"We are not the only country on Earth that has people with mental illnesses or want to do harm to other people.

"But we are the only advanced country on Earth that sees these mass shootings every few months."

Obama (Oct. 1, 2015)

My Hometown

I have visited  my hometown several times,
though not in person (what a shame!).

I am unable to smell or taste it,
only watching and listening
from afar.
I shared the eyes and ears with others
whom I know not.

My virtual hometown
has a special place
in my mind and heart.
My beloved hometown,
where I was born and grew up,
learned to love and to hate,
and finally became indignant
at what I saw and experienced.

My beloved hometown
I once left behind
together with all past memories
both sweet and bitter,
both enriching and impoverishing,
always has a special place
in my mind and heart.

I saw unrolling before my eyes:
streets after streets,
almost no trees,
bicycles, buses and cars,
and streams of people,
worried parents with innocent children,
carefree youths on motorbikes,
a few poor vendors pushing their carts--

some old, some middle aged,
and all types of foreigners with backpacks on,
wearing shorts, flip flops or sandals.

I noticed occasional odd hairstyles and attires,
risky behaviors, reckless pedestrians,
impatient motorcycles and honking cars,
magnificent, luxurious hotels, crowded sidewalk restaurants,
and flashy boutiques in empty malls,
decorated with white Roman Venus replicas
or red-yellow Chinese lanterns.


In the downpours I saw
streams of people,
face covered to avoid the polluted air,
wearing black helmets and colorful rain ponchos,
waddling with their legs in grey waters
on unruly motorbikes.
I saw water splashing everywhere
as the jammed traffic of humans and vehicles tried to move on
inch by inch along the narrow winding river streets.

They have learned to live with water
years after years,
so I heard.
They are silent and resilient,
for nobody can do a thing!
So they have learned to live with water
up to their chest,
only trying to block water from the streets
with whatever they have
against the currents--
their household objects
all piled up, barely above the undulating water level.

Stagnant waters.

Frustrating.
Hopeless.

I turned off the screen.
The unbearable scenes
of my fast-expanding hometown
are still haunting my mind and heart.

Every day and night,
and even right now,
I am still seeing
my beloved hometown drowning itself
in the spinning currents of stagnant grey water.


    

  

Refugees

The little child’s lying motionless on a Turkish beach.

Waves after waves come to ask him

why he does not respond.

His red shirt, blue shorts and black sneakers,
all soaked wet, still on
his limbs dangling from the rescuer's arms.

Somewhere along the same beach

lying the bodies of his mother and his brother

waiting for him.

Another journey home
The whole family
ready to return to Kobani,
where war and deprivation is still ravaging.

Refugees in overloaded small rubber boats,

seeking a better life,
found tragic deaths.

A blurry line lies

between the good and the bad,

blocking the refugees’ blurry tearful eyes.

A blurry line lies
between the good and the bad;

Life and Death,

so intertwined.

Thursday Sept. 03, 2015
In memory of all refugees lost at sea

-----

The body of 3-year-old Syrian Alan Kurdi was found on a Turkish beach after the small rubber boat he, his 5-year old brother Galib and their mother, Rehan, were in capsized during a desperate voyage from Turkey to Greece.  They were among 12 migrants who drowned off the Turkish coast of Bodrum that day.  Alan's body was discovered on a Turkish beach in sneakers, blue shorts and a red shirt on Wednesday.

Related Links:
http://www.bbc.com/vietnamese/world/2015/09/150903_china_military_parade_socialmedia

https://www.youtube.com/embed/YURQY9xCJ8c