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Legacies I Would Leave With You

Legacies Spiritual & Intellectual (continued)

Legacy 63:

Dhamma is difficult to explain because human languages are insufficient. We don’t have words to express the things that people have never known before. Thus, we must strive to speak and try to listen until we understand the Dhamma expressed in both people language and Dhamma Language simultaneously.

Dhamma is neither the letters in books nor the voices preaching; rather, Dhamma is the correct fulfillment of Duty, of each practitioner, in every movement, every moment, and every place, appropriate to the humanity of both oneself and all others involved. This is the only way for it to be the Dhamma that is correct regarding Buddhist standards and able to bring genuinely peaceful bliss.

Siladhamma (moral behavior) must return for a peaceful world; Paramathadhamma (Supreme Dhamma) must return for an enlightened world. If virtue and moral behavior don’t return, the world will go to hell. If Supreme Dhamma doesn’t return, the world will go blind. Thus, everyone must help bring them back, as they are absolutely necessary for the world.

Don’t long after the past and don’t worry about the future, just do your own duty correctly in the present. That’s enough to avoid dukkha and won’t be the basis for sassataditthi, a lasting self that spins around within the vattas (cycles of birth and death).

The ABCs of Buddhism don’t start off with the Triple Gem, but begin with studying the stimulation of eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind and how this causes the arising of consciousness, sense-contact, and feeling  in such a way that craving, clinging, and then dukkha occur. Control these births and you can quench dukkha. Then Buddha, Dhamma, and Sangha will appear by themselves.

The world is accomplished through the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind. Because we have eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind, there is a world. Various troublesome situations happen just because of misunderstanding the truth of the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind, in other words, the world.

The dukkha concocting aspect of dependent origination happens every time the mind craves, that is, when it is stupid at sense-contact; and when there is stupid contact, feeling is foolish. Then, due to the influence of ignorance, craving is born and defilement takes over. So be careful. Don’t be stupid at any contact and let the dukkha side of dependent origination happen.

A spin of paticca-samuppada occurs every time a sense object is contacted through ignorance, or, we may say, every time the mind is defiled by the concocting of ignorance (avijja). This doesn’t happen over lifetimes, in the sense that one cycle of paticca-samuppada covers three lives, as is generally taught in a way amounting to eternalism (sassataditthi, belief in a lasting self).

The practice that looks like not practicing anything is the inner practice of being content in one's own lack of self, doing every duty in harmony with the Law of Nature, and working for duty’s sake rather than for the benefit of "me" and "mine."

The higher Dhamma language is made up solely of words borrowed from the language of ordinary people, so try to stick to that ordinary meaning of these terms as far as possible in order that an understanding of each word can be found correctly and easily. For example: Nibbana is coolness, magga is path, phala is fruit, kilesa are dirty things, sanyojana is to bind up, asava is what squeezes out from fermentation, Buddha is awakening from sleep, Dhamma is duty, and Sangha is the community of worthy things.

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