Greeting Everyone
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Grand Master's Birthday
June 28 IS OUR GRAND MASTER LU'S BIRTHDAY!
Our website will have a special "happy birthday" card that we invite everyone to sign!
http://www.padmakumara.org/cgibin/discussion/YaBB.pl?
This date is a very special date to recite the True Buddha Sutra. If good men or women, on the 18th day of the fifth month of each lunar year, make ablution, abstain from flesh, and wear new and clean clothes, or on the 18th day of each lunar month, on their own birthdays, call upon the Two Buddhas and eight Bodhisattvas before the shrine, and reverently recite this Sutra of Authentic Dharma that Removes Hindrances and Bestows Good Fortune, then their supplications will be answered. Moreover, if incense, flowers, lamps, tea and fruit are offered, along with sincere prayer, then all wishes will be granted.
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How can we help each other
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The Discussion Forum on the Padmakumara website is host to lively exchanges of questions, ideas, insights, and Dharmic rambling. This article is extracted from one string of responses pondering our ability to help anyone.
When we try to help someone, are we interfering with the natural course of their coincidence? Are we putting ourselves in danger of receiving the retributions that would rightfully go to them?
Answers to this question have to be divided into two parts. There is “ordinary” helping, and there is helping within the context of True Buddha School techniques.
Ordinary helping does not involve any circumvention of the laws of karma. No matter how undeserving someone may appear, if you help them, they must deserve that help (the law of karma is a law!). They must have planted the seed - done something good at some time in the past - and the karma from that past act has ripened and born fruit in the form of the arising of your desire to help. Whether you decide to ignore or act upon your impulse to help, you will bear the fruits of your decision. Generosity bears fruit
sooner or later, as does avarice.
Helping others in the form of chanting mantras for their benefit may have some other ramifications. What Masters can do safely and what the rest of us should do may differ! Forum participants shared stories of getting involved in situations beyond their depth of understanding and cultivation, and inadvertently taking on more of someone else’s karma than they bargained on. It may well be that if we try some chanting for someone else without being sure of the proper mantra, ceremony, etc., we could do more harm than good – either to the intended recipient of our help, or to ourselves. Spirits attached to someone else becoming attached to us, etc. Ouch!
Is the situation of trying to help someone, but causing suffering instead, something unique to “spiritual” helping? Maybe not – it just may be easier to fool ourselves into thinking we know what we are doing, that some intervention cannot have any negative consequences. But even in the ordinary world, this is not true – intentions count for something, but not for everything. If we think we are going to help someone with their car problem when we have no skill as a mechanic, our good intentions may or may
not make up for ruining their car! We get karmic retribution for good intentions, but also for general carelessness and egotistical assumptions about our own powers.
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Please always remember to Honor your Guru, Practice Diligently, and Treasure the Dharma.
Wishing you joy in cultivation.
Regards.
The Padmakumara Translation Team
Om Guru Lian Shen Siddhi Hum
OM MANI PADME HUM
*****************************
Grand Master's Birthday
June 28 IS OUR GRAND MASTER LU'S BIRTHDAY!
Our website will have a special "happy birthday" card that we invite everyone to sign!
http://www.padmakumara.org/cgibin/discussion/YaBB.pl?
This date is a very special date to recite the True Buddha Sutra. If good men or women, on the 18th day of the fifth month of each lunar year, make ablution, abstain from flesh, and wear new and clean clothes, or on the 18th day of each lunar month, on their own birthdays, call upon the Two Buddhas and eight Bodhisattvas before the shrine, and reverently recite this Sutra of Authentic Dharma that Removes Hindrances and Bestows Good Fortune, then their supplications will be answered. Moreover, if incense, flowers, lamps, tea and fruit are offered, along with sincere prayer, then all wishes will be granted.
***************************************
How can we help each other
**************************************
The Discussion Forum on the Padmakumara website is host to lively exchanges of questions, ideas, insights, and Dharmic rambling. This article is extracted from one string of responses pondering our ability to help anyone.
When we try to help someone, are we interfering with the natural course of their coincidence? Are we putting ourselves in danger of receiving the retributions that would rightfully go to them?
Answers to this question have to be divided into two parts. There is “ordinary” helping, and there is helping within the context of True Buddha School techniques.
Ordinary helping does not involve any circumvention of the laws of karma. No matter how undeserving someone may appear, if you help them, they must deserve that help (the law of karma is a law!). They must have planted the seed - done something good at some time in the past - and the karma from that past act has ripened and born fruit in the form of the arising of your desire to help. Whether you decide to ignore or act upon your impulse to help, you will bear the fruits of your decision. Generosity bears fruit
sooner or later, as does avarice.
Helping others in the form of chanting mantras for their benefit may have some other ramifications. What Masters can do safely and what the rest of us should do may differ! Forum participants shared stories of getting involved in situations beyond their depth of understanding and cultivation, and inadvertently taking on more of someone else’s karma than they bargained on. It may well be that if we try some chanting for someone else without being sure of the proper mantra, ceremony, etc., we could do more harm than good – either to the intended recipient of our help, or to ourselves. Spirits attached to someone else becoming attached to us, etc. Ouch!
Is the situation of trying to help someone, but causing suffering instead, something unique to “spiritual” helping? Maybe not – it just may be easier to fool ourselves into thinking we know what we are doing, that some intervention cannot have any negative consequences. But even in the ordinary world, this is not true – intentions count for something, but not for everything. If we think we are going to help someone with their car problem when we have no skill as a mechanic, our good intentions may or may
not make up for ruining their car! We get karmic retribution for good intentions, but also for general carelessness and egotistical assumptions about our own powers.
********************************
Please always remember to Honor your Guru, Practice Diligently, and Treasure the Dharma.
Wishing you joy in cultivation.
Regards.
The Padmakumara Translation Team
Om Guru Lian Shen Siddhi Hum
OM MANI PADME HUM
Last edited 08/01/02 at 17:53:21 by Buddhafly