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Daily Buddhist Verses

  • sinweiy

    Are the Mind-only Pure Land and the Self-nature Amitabha the same as or different from the Western Pure Land and Amitabha in the Pure Land ?


    It is because the Mind-only Pure Land exists that we are reborn in the Pure Land of the West. If the mind is not pure, it is impossible to achieve rebirth in the Pure Land. Even when those who have committed cardinal transgressions achieve rebirth through ten recitations, such rebirth is due to their reciting the Buddha's name with a pure mind, thus eliciting a response from Amitabha Buddha. Ordinary people generally think that if the Pure Land is Mind-Only, then it does not exist. This is the understanding of demons and externalists. Such a deluded view, which appears correct but is in reality wrong, affects more than half of all people and causes practitioners to forfeit true benefits.
    It is precisely because of the Self-Nature Amitabha that the practitioner must recite the name of Buddha Amitabha of the West seeking rebirth in the Pure Land - so as to achieve the Self-Nature Amitabha through gradual cultivation. If he merely grasps at the Self-Nature Amitabha but does not recite the name of Buddha Amitabha of the West, he cannot achieve immediate escape from Birth and death - not even if he is truly awakened, much less if (like most people who ask this question) he is pretentious and just indulges in empty talk without engaging in practice.
    Thus the answer to your question [are the mind-Only Pure Land and the Self-Nature Amitabha the same as or different from the Western Pure Land and Amitabha in the Pure Land?] is that they are one yet two before Buddhahood is attained, two yet one after Buddhahood is attained.

    (From Pure-Land Zen ,Zen Pure-Land, Letters from Patriarch Yin Kuang. Page 108 - 111)

    http://www.amtbweb.org/tchet262.htm

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  • sinweiy

    The Buddha became enlightened through developing boundless compassion. Our path too, should be based on compassionate commitment to free all living beings from suffering. True compassion should be directed impartially to those close to us, those whom we perceive as strangers, and especially to those whom we think of as our enemies. These teachings allow us to achieve freedom from suffering and ignorance. In an absolute sense, compassion is the awakening nature of the mind.  - Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

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  • Almond Cookies
    Nagarjuna

    The Buddha taught some people the teachings of duality that help them avoid sin and acquire spiritual merit.
    To others he taught non-duality, that some find profoundly frightening.

    Even offering three hundred bowls of food three times a day does not match the spiritual merit gained in one moment of love.

    All philosophies are mental fabrications.
    There has never been a single doctrine by which one could enter the true essence of things
  • sinweiy

    These teachings allow us to achieve freedom from suffering and ignorance. In an absolute sense, compassion is the awakening nature of the mind.

     

    助人为快�之本 'helping other is the root of True happiness' might be a simple chinese saying, but i see a deep wisdom.

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  • An Eternal Now

    Samadhi Raja Sutra

    Know all things to be like this: A mirage, a cloud castle, A dream, an apparition, Without essence, but with qualities that can be seen.

    Know all things to be like this: As the moon in a bright sky In some clear lake reflected, Though to that lake the moon has never moved.

    Know all things to be like this: As an echo that derives From music, sounds, and weeping, Yet in that echo is no melody.

    Know all things to be like this: As a magician makes illusions Of horses, oxen, carts and other things, Nothing is as it appears.

  • Almond Cookies

    However innumerable all beings are,
           I Vow to save them all.
    However inexhaustible delusions are,
           I Vow to extinguish them all.
    However immeasurable Dharma teachings are,
           I Vow to master them all.
    However endless the Buddha's Way,
           I Vow to follow it.

                -     The Four Great Vows of Mahayana Buddhism

  • MiddleWay87

    Nice posts and good effort by all... keep it up

  • Almond Cookies
    In the sky, there is no distinction of east and west; people create distinctions out of their own minds and then believe them to be true.
    Buddha

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    To realize your true nature, you must wait for the right moment and the right conditions. When the time comes, you are awakened as if from a dream. You understand that what you have found is your own and doesn't come from anywhere outside.

    ~ Buddhist Sutra Quotes

  • Almond Cookies

     

    One Buddhist sutra states: "If you want to understand the causes that existed in the past, look at the results as they are manifested in the present. And if you want to understand what results will be manifested in the future, look at the causes that exist in the present."

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    “Work diligently. Component things are impermanent.”The Buddha « Maha Parinirvana Sutta »

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    Not thinking of good, not thinking of evil - tell me, what was your original face before your mother and father were born?....Zen Koan.

  • Almond Cookies
    No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.
    Buddha

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    A fool who recognises his own ignorance is thereby in fact a wise man, but a fool who considers himself wise -- that is what one really calls a fool. 63