Buddha - Is he inside or outside you?

:o

Ah, this is the question I have been longing to ask for a long time and please bear with me for being ignorant.

Who am I?  A Buddha or a Skin full of Shit??

Please advice

??? ??? ???

;)

Buddha is inside, outside, everywhere!!!!!

Who are you?.......You are a "buddha" yourself who has not attain enlightenment yet. Until you have attain enlightenment then you are name buddha.

;D

i would say this:

Buddha is juz a name given to someone who has realised that: hey, everyone is like me. We are all equals. There is no difference between me and other people. That is the start of buddhahood. ::)

You're buddha! However, correct and literal answer often doesn't help one to find the true root of such meanings...

Buddha isn't inside nor outside nor in-between you if you plainly try to reason things out.

Getting nowhere?

The fact: You're buddha. But who is/are you? Where is the buddha nature of you which "shines"?

Try examine yourself in deep focused thoughts (meditation) about what you and the rest of the world thought would be the composition of the notion "I / you". After a long duration of such "Zen" cultivation, you may start to realise the fact that what appears to be "you" for ages are actually not completely true (only partially true). And you're then on the first step to realise who you are,  rather than asking people to tell you which doesn't really help.

There's a great book I may recommend you on this. But it's in Chinese. Let me know if you're interested (noescaper@yahoo.com).

YOU ARE A BUDDHA, AND A BUDDHA YOU ARE
Dharma Talk by Living Buddha Lian Sheng on 31/8/90
(page 146-149 Achievement of Rainbow Light Body volume one)
Translated by Yuan Zheng Tang


Tantrayana Buddhism stresses a lot on the performance of rituals. Among them includes the way to "do" and "persevere".

Unfortunately, they are many learned scholars who are interested only in the theoretical aspects; they never practice what they know, just like the chefs who can cook many delicious dishes but never taste them. Although the chefs know the nutritional contents of the ingredients used, such as vitamin A, and vitamin C, they never really eat the food. As a result, they are always hungry . Likewise, if we know the theory and never practice them , we will never be full !

Putting the theory into practice is therefore tantamount to eating the cooked food. Thus, Tantrayana Buddhism always emphasizes the actual practice. Theory is only relevant if you put it into practice.

What are rituals ? They are the steps we have to follow when we do spiritual cultivation. Outwardly, they appear to be just shows of blind faith, but the truth is that there are many spiritual secrets hidden in the rites.

The process of controlling our inner self is an integral part of the rituals, commonly known as "Shi Fa" in Chinese. These are the rites that we must follow even if we are not cultivating. Among them are the four activities of walking, standing, sitting and sleeping.

In Tantrayana Buddhism, the most important thought is "You and your personal deity are one and the same person !",  therefore a cultivator must think of his personal deity all the time - albeit not many cultivators can comply with this rite.

I always remember that I am my personal deity, and my personal deity is me. I have never forgotten that I am a (future) Buddha. Visualizing that you are a Buddha is part and parcel of these rituals, although many cultivators do not know this secret.

Instead they doubt that they are (future) Buddhas. To them, the gap between a human and a Buddha is so great. First of all, Buddha is an enlightened person who is omnipotent and omnipresent, while a human being is unwise, not enlightened, and most of the time disgruntled. Tantrayana Buddhism advocates that cultivators must always visualize their personal deities, as all human beings have Buddha nature. Many cultivators do not realize that this visualization is very important, for they just ignore the theory that Buddha, mind and sentient beings are one and the same. They fail to put the theory into practice.

Tantrayana contains a lot of secrets. One of them is "You are a (future)Buddha." And this calls for constant visualization .

Secondly, it is not easy to visualize Buddha while we are not cultivating. We do not have the dignity of a Buddha when we eat or worse still perform natural actvities like emptying our bowels. Not many people will be able to visualize a Buddha emptying his bowels . To them it is unimaginable how a dignified Buddha would look when he is squatting on a toilet seat . They consider it disrespectful to have visualized the smell, the posture, etc.--in short it is not the right time to visualize.

Dharma master Guo Xian was right in pointing out that we are sitting on a lotus flower. When we are in the toilet, we can visualize that we are Buddhas sitting on lotus flowers. When we sit, our looks and our postures are very perfect. Moreover, we must visualize spirits from the lower realms come to eat what we discharge.

Fragrance or stink are one and the same. Change what you have just released from the few into many and fill the universe. This is one way of giving alms - what is discarded by you are badly needed by others in the different worlds. Thus, you must visualize you are a Buddha while you are walking , standing, sitting and eating , sleeping as well as emptying your bowels.

"You are a Buddha , and a Buddha you are" is the most important doctrine of Tantrayana Buddhism. You must always carry out visualization to this end. If you behave like a Buddha when you are walking, standing, sitting and sleeping , you are following the rituals, and very soon you will be enlightened !

Visualize the earth cracking open, and your droppings falling into it. There, many ghosts from the hells underneath rush to eat your alms. Remember You are a Buddha, so even your droppings are very useful for some other sentient beings.

Om Mani Padme Hum

TRUE MEANING OF CULTIVATION (1)
Dharma Talk by Living Buddha on 18/08/96
(Page 124-128)


Today we shall talk about the True Meaning of cultivation. The Chinese term Xing Zhe means a person who is doing spiritual cultivation. Sun Wu Kong, the main character in the Journey to the West, is also known as Sun Xing Zhe as he is a cultivator whose surname is Sun.

As a cultivator, do you know the true meaning of cultivation? Unfortunately, many Buddhists’ behaviour and thoughts leave much to be desired. In my view, they will not have any spiritual attainment.

Today’s talk is to ensure that all of you know the profound meaning of cultivation.

As you know, the four main types of rituals in Tantrayana are calamity eradication, merit accumulation, loving kindness (magnetism) and evil subjugation. Out of the four, the last one is the most important. Do not assume that by evil subjugation, I am encouraging you to subdue others so that whatever you do will be plain sailing.

"We are the biggest enemy of ourselves", once a philosopher said. We have to subdue ourselves. In short, the main purpose of cultivation is to subdue our self-ego.

Let me put it another way. We have accumulated lots of unwholesome karma over our umpteen lives in this Samsara world. As we are full of karmic hindrance, we must subdue all our bad habits.

As cultivators, we must subdue our "greed, hatred, and ignorance," and our senses of "sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch and mental". The former is called "three poisons", and the latter "six cauras (robbers)" by Sakyamuni Buddha.

These six organs from our body create all kinds of greed. For instance, our eyes like to see beautiful things, our ears like to listen to decadent music, our noses like to smell sweet fragrance, and our tongues like to taste sumptuous food. Hence our bodies and minds are full of impurity. All these defilements must be cleansed

We must use a very subtle way to subdue our six senses. We must learn to maintain meditative stabilization. Only the wisdom we derive from our deep meditation can be used to subdue the three poisons and six senses. In order to enter into meditative stabilization, we must subdue our six senses at the outset.

The other point to note is that we must take refuge in a teacher who really understands Buddhadharma. This may seem simple, but it is not really that easy. Eventually we have to take refuge in ourselves. In other words, we must subdue and take refuge in ourselves.

In the deepest meditation, we will come into contact with the ninth sense known as Amala. What is it? It is the Buddha nature. We will realize all human beings have Buddha nature in them.

We are actually taking refuge in our own Buddha nature when we take refuge in Buddha. Hence if there is anything to be subdued, it must be our own self. If we have to take refuge, it must be our Buddha nature.

In the deepest consciousness, Buddha nature and cosmos-consciousness are interconnected. Thus when Sakyamuni Buddha attained Buddhahood he exclaimed, "All human beings have Buddha nature". Our Buddha nature is hidden in our deepest consciousness.

Eventually we are not taking refuge in our teacher; we are taking refuge in our Buddha nature that exists in us. These two points are very important.  

Zen Buddhism values "direct teachings", with the implication that we must always think of the Buddha nature in us, light the lamp in our mind and awake our Buddha nature.

Tantrayana school always tells its believers: "You are a Buddha." Why? We are not talking about the Buddha per se; we are talking about the Buddha nature that exists in our deepest consciousness.

Therefore when I bow to all other living beings, it should be construed that I am actually paying my respect to their Buddha nature.

We must respect the Buddha nature and ourselves in our deepest consciousness. We must subdue the three poisons accumulated since time immemorial; we must subdue the six senses. This is the true meaning of spiritual cultivation.

That is all for today.

Om Mani Padme Hum