Happiness And Inner Peace, Where Are You?

Many of those that have come back to retreat at Guang Jue Temple are trying for happiness and inner peace. Interestingly enough several who come to Guang Jue have had recent personal relationship break downs and are looking for one thing deeper and additional meaningful. However, can they realize what they are trying for?

Several individuals in the West have turned to Buddhism wishing to search out the elixir to eternal happiness hoping that a life of silent meditation can be some type of anaesthetic for his or her pain. Many tell me that they have tried this religion or that faith, tried Yoga or this style of meditation or that approach of meditation as if attending a buffet restaurant hoping that their hunger for happiness and inner peace can eventually be satisfied. We have a tendency to hope for the right kind of person for a relationship and then we hope that we tend to can get out of that relationship some years later when the romance rubs off and the problems arise! What typically bring us what we assume is freedom usually leads us eventually into pain. Therefore the perpetual cycle of suffering continues.

How do we tend to end this cycle of suffering? Come in to a retreat? Retreats are wonderful and half of our practice. But, so long as we tend to want to return to our existence in the massive town we have a tendency to will be confronted by the identical demands and issues repeatedly again. Chant and perform rituals? Chanting is an important half of our Pure Land practise. However, it is a half and not the whole. Study and apply the bits of Buddhism that feel smart? This looks to be an ever increasing issue of taking the selective components of Buddhism that serve our immediate purposes without going deeper into ourselves.

Naikan meditation is a meditation that takes us deeper into ourselves by helping us see not only the giftedness of life however the obstruction to this gift by our own egos. Naikan is underpinned by three queries that guide out inner examination: (one) What have I received from X? (a pair of) What have I given to X? (3) What issues and difficulties have I caused X? You'll be able to nearly cut the atmosphere with a knife when students come back to the third question. The ego begins to stamp its feet, avoid, intellectualize and do everything below the sun to face its ground. So long as I am in there looking out at the rest of life then my practise is foiled and therefore the never-ending cycle of suffering continues.

Anatta, or no permanently abiding self or soul is at the terribly heart of the Buddhas teachings. However as Rodney Smith in The Undivided Mind puts it : With our Western stress on psychological health it's maybe inevitable that this essential facet of the teaching is downplayed or maybe avoided. Emptiness, once all, stands in opposition to many of our most vital values like self-reliance, individual initiative, and the pursuit of pleasure. We have a tendency to need the contentment, happiness and inner peace promised by the Buddha, but with me absolutely stabilized and intact.

I've got usually heard retreat participants say that they have come back into retreat to find their true selves. We have a tendency to often have a notion that lurking somewhere deep inside folks may be a true self which is somehow in opposition to the ego! A real practitioner of Buddhism understands that there is no such issue as a true, substantial, freelance self. This sort of self is the self of grasping. Because the Venerable Master Jen-Chun reminds us: The Bodhisattva makes offerings to all sentient beings with a pure selfless mind

To seek out true happiness and inner peace needs us to generate Nice Bodhi-Mind through the good Bodhi observe and this in flip needs us to make radical changes in our life. The Venerable Master Jen-Chun in his assortment of Dharma talks speaks of Great Change, Thorough Amendment and Immediate Change. The habits that we tend to have acquired throughout our life time that actively encourage and support the ego should change. We have a tendency to should make mental examination of these habits and with a determined mind make immediate changes. This is not regarding changing relationships like changing our socks. Buddhism is best practised in the thick of life in the midst of our relationships with one another. The amendment that must be created will solely be made deep at intervals ourselves.

Changes can not be created by watering down the dharma. It is only through the wisdom of the ageless Dharma given to us by the Buddha that we are in a position to use the teachings. Without dharma wisdom we tend to are like a sailing boat making an attempt to navigate the immense ocean while not sails or compass.

Pure Land Buddhism provides us the most expedient methodology to use to our changes. Through constant mindfulness of the Amitabha Buddha through the verbal and mental reciting of his name we have a tendency to begin to purify the mind cutting through all delusion. Through focused effort in our Pure Land practise we begin to create changes and develop the Bodhi-mind following the steps and example of the Bodhisattva Kuan Yin. During this are found true and lasting happiness and an abiding inner peace.