*Practices and teachings in bold are also incorporated
in HÜMÜH Buddhism.
Sakyamuni: The Original
Thread
 The original thread begins with
Sakyamuni, who was born in India in
approximately 566 B.C.E and is considered the founder of
Buddhism. Sakyamuni dedicated his life, first to the
pursuit and attainment of his own enlightenment, and
then to showing others the way to awaken to the oneness
of all life. He taught the Four Noble Truths
(on the right),
which reveal the cause of suffering, and the
Eightfold Path,
which shows the way out of suffering
.
Through years of dedicated spiritual practice, he
learned that austerity was not the way to enlightenment,
nor was indulging the senses. He found that the
middle way—not going to one extreme or the other—was
the only way to awaken spiritually. This and the many
other Teachings of Sakyamuni formed the basis of the
Buddhist Path (See Panel
3 for more details).
The Spread of Buddhism: A
Complicated Tapestry
After Sakyamuni’s death, philosophical
and interpretational differences arose, which, over the
years, splintered the once-unified Buddhist Teachings
into various schools or sects. These different schools
are usually organized into three categories:
Theravada,
Mahayana, and
Vajrayana (See
Panels 4-6 for more details).
As these
different schools spread into other countries, from
India, they often
interweaved with local customs and indigenous religions
to give each country its unique flavor of Buddhism. This
is a natural occurrence, and also, in some ways,
essential. In order for people of a different culture to
understand the Teachings, the Teachings have to be
presented within a context people can understand.
However, it takes a
 Wisdom Master or Awakened
consciousness to be able to do this in such a way that
the purity of the Teachings is not lost.
China
When Buddhism was first introduced
into China by monks
from Central Asia, who
translated several Buddhist texts into Chinese, it was
considered by most to be a foreign version of Taoism.
Taoism was a Chinese religion introduced by Lao-tzu,
which taught ‘nondoing,’ refraining from interfering
with the natural course of things, and instead,
responding naturally, without premeditation, to each
moment. Part of this initial confusion resulted from the
fact that the Chinese language did not have terms for
many of the Buddhist concepts, so translators used
Taoist terminology to convey these ideas. Later, this
was stopped, but the intertwining of Buddhist and Taoist
thought, which this practice enabled, had already
occurred.
In fact, Ch’an (Zen in
Japan), one of the more prominent schools of Chinese
Buddhism, which was founded during the 6th
and 7th centuries by an Indian Buddhist named
Bodhidharma, is considered to be a combination of
Bodhidharma’s
Dhyana*
Buddhism, which
emphasized the practice of
meditation*
as the way to enlightenment, and Chinese
Taoism.*
This is seen in the fact that the Taoist concept of
‘nondoing’*
is a central feature in Ch’an/Zen. It is also important
to note that when a Teaching is translated from one
language to another, the accuracy of that Teaching
depends upon the translator’s level of consciousness.
Unless the individual is enlightened, the translation
will be incomplete; it will miss the fluidity that the
translator was unable to see because of the obstructions
created by the unconscious karma he still carries.
In addition to Taoism,
Confucianism was the other main school of thought in
China
at that time. Initially, many Chinese, especially the
ruling class, whose power was to some extent based on
the Confucian system of government, perceived Buddhism
to be in conflict with the Confucian focus on service
and responsibility to country and family. As a result,
many of the sutras and Teachings that became prominent
in Chinese Buddhism were ones that centered on
addressing this concern,
teaching that an individual’s enlightenment uplifted the whole,*
and therefore, one’s
country and family. This illustrates how a country’s
culture and political structure influenced the
development and form that Buddhism took.
Tibet
Prior to the infusion of
Tantric Buddhism into
Tibet, around the mid-8th
century C.E., its people mainly practiced the
Bon
religion, which was a superstitious and ritualistic form
of Animism.
Bon was mainly focused on protecting oneself from
demons, making offerings to the gods, and using
divination systems. Later, many of the demons in Bon
were incorporated into Buddhism as deities who protected
the Path and are represented in Tibetan Buddhist
artwork. Probably as a result of Bon’s influence,
Tibetan Buddhism placed great emphasis on meditating
upon various natural energies and aspects of
consciousness, symbolized as
deities. Over
time, this led to these deities being seen as powers
outside of oneself, resulting in a strong focus on
evoking these deities through prayer, chanting mantras,
and especially visualization.
Many traditional Buddhist practitioners and
lay-followers now have ceremonies where they make food
offerings to deity statues, praying for things like
health, happiness, long life, and money.
Although this is a common practice in many
religions, it does not actually have anything to do with
Buddhism. It is a direct result of native cultural
beliefs becoming entwined with the Buddhist Teachings.
However, the
contributions of Padmasambhava, who first brought
Buddhism to
Tibet, cannot be
overlooked. This highly realized master was responsible
for bringing the powerful Tantric teaching of
Dzogchen,*
as well as transferring the great wealth of Indian
Tantric and Sutra texts to Tibet, with the aid of
translators whom he sent to India.
Japan
Japan’s native religion was Shinto, an animistic
religion that
taught a
respect for nature*
and a belief that plants, animals, rivers, mountains,
and certain sites had deities associated with them.
These deities were called kami. Over time,
Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines came to share the
same location, with people practicing both, blending the
two into one religion. Eventually, philosophers
postulated that the kami were “transformations of
Buddha manifested in Japan to save all sentient beings.”
However, it was not only during Buddhism’s initial entry
into a country that it was altered. Over the years,
changes took place in both the form of the Teachings and
people’s understanding of them.
For example, the statues of Buddha with a wide
smile and a big round belly like Santa Claus, often seen
displayed in stores, are called
Hotei. Many
people believe that rubbing the statue’s belly will
bring good luck. But, originally, in the Japanese and
Chinese Buddhist tradition, Hotei was a monk who
traveled around carrying a sack full of treats to give
to children. After awhile, people began to associate
this story with the idea that Hotei will give you what
you want and bring you good fortune, when originally, he
represented the happiness that giving brings.
Still, the inevitable misinterpretations of the
Teachings that arose over the years are not the only
things that influenced Buddhism’s evolution. The
governments and politics of many countries exerted
control over the form and practices of Buddhism, which
was not necessarily in keeping with the original thread
of the Teachings. For example, in Japan during the 17th
century, in an attempt by the government to stamp out
Christianity, everyone was forced to register at a
Buddhist temple, and Buddhism, as an organization, was
put in control of funeral rites since they were an
important Christian sacrament. As a result, today, most
people in Japan associate Buddhism with funerals and
ancestor worship, even though originally, Buddhism did
not attach much importance to such things.
Nevertheless, Japanese Buddhism did maintain some
threads of Sakyamuni’s original Teachings. For example,
Zen Buddhism, in its purest form, teaches
meditative absorption*
as the most direct path to spiritual awakening,
de-emphasizing ritual and the intellectual study of
texts, though it does draw from some sutras, such as the
Lankavatara Sutra* and
Heart Sutra.* But, the importance of
one’s own experience with meditation and mindful
living in the present moment is the main focus.
Sri Lanka
In Sri Lanka, formerly known as Ceylon, Buddhism is said
to have been introduced around 250 B.C.E by children of
King Ashoka, who was the first real patron of Buddhism
in India. Initially, Theravada was the dominant form of
Buddhism, but over time, many different schools arose,
some closely associated with Mahayana and Vajrayana
Buddhism. Eventually, rivalries developed between the
schools. After many failed attempts to end the disputes
by his predecessors, King Parakkambahu I, in the 12th
century, forced all the different sects to adopt the
Theravada Buddhism of Mahavihara, the first monastery
that had been built in Sri Lanka. To this day, Theravada
is still the Buddhism practiced in Sri Lanka.
Theravada is the school most heavily focused on
monasticism and renunciation as a means for
self-liberation. Because of the focus on renunciation,
Sri Lankan Buddhists have historically relied heavily
upon the support of householders and government. As a
result, Sri Lankan Buddhism is very involved with
politics and government.
So what is Buddhism? Finding the Original Thread
With all the various ritual, cultural, and
politically-influenced additions that were interlaced
with the Buddhist teachings over the years, it is
important to keep in mind that outward uniqueness or
individual expressions of the Teachings is ultimately
beside the point. The original thread of the Teachings
that began with Sakyamuni is to guide the practitioner
to spiritual wakefulness. Sometimes, people see a
spiritual path with elaborate costumes, foreign
practices, and a long, colorful history, and these very
elements appeal to them because they seem new and
unusual. However, to become
hung-up in outward expressions or to use Buddhism
just to make one’s life more interesting is to not
understand the Teachings at all.
Attaining enlightenment is not about adhering to
religious systems, even a Buddhist religious system.
One cannot gain freedom while being
attached
to form.
Sakyamuni made a point of warning his students against
being blindly subservient to tradition and common belief
with the following statement:
“‘Do not believe in
anything simply because you have heard it. Do not
believe in anything simply because it is spoken and
rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply
because it is found written in your religious books. Do
not believe in anything merely on the authority of your
teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions
because they have been handed down for many generations.
But after observation and…[ penetration through direct
perception], when you find that anything agrees with…[
logic]and is conducive to the good and benefit of one
and all, then accept it and live up to it.’” (pg
388. Awakening the Buddha
Within)
HÜMÜH: Weaving the Dharma
Threads
 HÜMÜH Buddhism, rooted in the Teachings of Sakyamuni,
takes the original threads of the Teachings spun into
the fabric of the three traditional Buddhist
schools—Theravada , Mahayana, and Vajrayana—and weaves
them together to create a unique picture of the Buddhist
Path. As such, HÜMÜH is considered a Rime or ‘unbiased,’
nontraditional school, which, as articulated in the
Shambhala
Dictionary of Buddhism and Zen, ‘…reviv[es]
transmissions of teachings that had been thought lost
and provid[es] them with fresh commentary,’ but which
also ‘…embrace[s] the traditions of the other schools.’
HÜMÜH teaches that
all conditions are contained in the mind, or in other words, we
are the creators of everything in our lives, which also
is a thread found in the Mahayana and Vajrayana schools.
All circumstances come about as a result of where
we have placed our attention and the feelings we have
infused with our attention, in this life and previous
lives. The resultant situations and inclinations from
this are called karma. All karma, both
limiting/unfavorable and non-limiting/favorable, is
manifested and expanded upon through the continued focus
of our attention.
Therefore, if we
don’t want something in our lives, we must become
disinterested in it and shift our attention off of it.
It is disinterest, not resistance, that dissolves
unwanted situations. This is an important distinction.
We can never truly let go of anything unless we stop
dwelling on it. In light of this, we learn that in order
to make our lives what we
truly want, we
must not see ourselves as victims of some external,
controlling force. Instead, we must accept
total responsibility for
everything we think, feel, and do.
In order to accept that we are the creators of our
lives, we need to recognize the full extent of our
responsibility. That is why the Teachings of HÜMÜH are
focused on overlapping awareness, being aware that we
are aware, which brings us knowledge of how we create
our lives. Through developing this non-thinking but
all-pervasive awareness of the inherent divinity that
animates all sentient life, the student learns to become
aware of limiting ego-karma (likes, dislikes, attitudes,
opinions, fears) which manifests first, as
unconscious
images passing through mind, and then is expressed
outwardly as unwanted life situations. Recognition of
this principle is what allows the student to transcend
the illusionary obstacles that stem from living as ego.
This opens the door to experiencing life from the divine
overview, which is a stance of pure logic that views
life with unattached clarity and can respond naturally
to all situations for the good of the whole, rather than
unconsciously acting self-centeredly from habitual
mindsets.
HÜMÜH teaches that one of the first methods for
developing awareness of how we shape our lives is to
recognize the body feelings and emotions that we carry
with us. Many times, we are so used to them that we are
completely unaware of how they affect our perception and
choices. In the Theravada school of Buddhism, this is
called vipassana (vih-PAH-suh-nah), the
meditative discipline of the
Eightfold Path.
It can be described as the development of the body as an
environment, whereby we learn to discern the connection
between ourselves and our environment through detached
observation of our body senses. It is as if our body is
a radar unit picking up information from our
surroundings. If we maintain our awareness as the
detached observer and do not get lost in the body
sensations and emotions, then we can use the information
the body gives us to make clearer choices in the moment.
However, the purpose of the Path of HÜMÜH, or any true
Buddhist path, is to awaken to the fact that
we are
all divinity wearing a body. So even though HÜMÜH
incorporates karmic refinement and the development of
awareness of our body senses, which are aspects
especially reverenced by the Theravada school, HÜMÜH’s
main focus is on viewing life from the overview of
divinity, which is non-dual and beyond karma, so that
limiting karma is negated entirely.
This direct path is a thread of the Vajrayana
school, which means
diamond vehicle,
because of its focus on the indestructible, pure
nature of true reality.
The two practices of
Vajrayana that HÜMÜH embraces are
Dzogchen
and
Mahamudra.
Dzogchen is the ‘overtone awareness’ or the overlapping
of awarenesses of divinity, where one learns to
cultivate
awareness
that they
are
aware, an overlap in awareness, and live from that state
without interruption. HÜMÜH refers to this as Third Eye
Vision or extended awareness. The other practice,
Mahamudra, is unification with the emptiness of divinity
that is beyond the realm of manifestation, or physical
life. In
HÜMÜH, this emptiness is often referred to as the inner
light, the clear light, or the light of divinity.
Through the practice of
Living Meditation, one develops an overlapping
awareness of the light and learns to maintain that
awareness at all times, bringing it into every activity
and interaction throughout the day. Out of the
experiences that result, one eventually comes to the
realization that everything
is
light and that they are
one
with it.
HÜMÜH teaches that viewing each
person as separate from all other sentient life is a
delusion, which arises when we strongly identify with
our karma. This false view is the result of attachment
to ideas of who we are. Ultimately, all sentient beings
are karmic expressions of the oneness of divinity, which
cannot be divided or separated. It is the birthright of
every sentient form to realize this oneness, to attain
enlightenment; but, it takes a human body to be able to
do it, because humans are the only sentient life form
that are able not only to be aware, but to be aware that
they are aware.
Nevertheless, because of
the oneness of all sentient life, logically, what each
of us does affects the whole of sentient life. That is
why HÜMÜH is a path of the
bodhisattva,
which is also one
of the key components of the Mahayana and Vajrayana
schools that distinguishes them from Theravada. Simply
put, a bodhisattva is a dedicated practitioner who seeks
to attain enlightenment for the upliftment of all
sentient life, one who consciously acts for the benefit
of others as an essential part of pursuing one’s own
enlightenment. It is a path of service and compassion.
It is
through living as a bodhisattva that we come to realize
the oneness of all life that is the essence of divine
love that Buddhism teaches. For students of HÜMÜH who
have deepened their commitment through taking the
bodhisattva vow, one of the primary spiritual practices
is the study and application of the
Transcendental
Awareness Key Formulas. These are based on the ‘six
perfections’ of generosity, ethics, patience, effort,
concentration/meditation, and wisdom, which are also
aspects of higher awareness found in Mahayana. Through
the application of these formulas in daily life
situations, students are able to discern logical courses
of action from their own experiences. This way, deeper
levels of insight are gained that would not be possible
with only intellectual study or debate, because the
Teachings can only be truly validated through direct
experience. Analyzation is a dissection of accumulated
ideas from the analyzer’s current point of view, not the
enlightened view, which is perceived directly through a
fusion of subject to object of one’s attention. That is
why analyzation is inherently limited. Realization
cannot come about through mulling over words in one’s
mind. To truly
know the Teachings is to
live the
Teachings.
Furthermore, students learn to deepen their awareness of
their connection with everything they do. This is a
thread from Zen Buddhism, which places great importance
on being wholeheartedly one with every movement so that
subject and object become one. In this state, without a
split in our attention, we are one with the present
moment, which is inseparable from the past and the
future. At Skycliffe, HÜMÜH’s monastery and retreat
centre, this is practiced in the form of Karma Yoga, a
union with what we are doing in the moment. This
often takes the form of work service and moving
meditations.
The Living Teacher: The Weaver
All Teachings, as presented in
HÜMÜH, are expounded by its living founder, Wisdom
Master Maticintin, for the sole purpose of guiding each
student to spiritual awakening.
As such, the Teachings
themselves are primordially pure, without ego taint or
bias, the original threads of Sakyamuni. The Wisdom
Master weaves these Teachings together to create a
vehicle free of limitations that can serve to guide
others to enlightenment.
The importance of a living,
enlightened Teacher cannot be over-emphasized. In the
absence of a living Teacher, the spiritual Path,
any
spiritual Path, becomes filled with ritual and cluttered
by interpretations and misconceptions. The original
dharma thread becomes snarled in the consciousness of
the Path’s unenlightened followers or intellectual
teachers, who begin to mold the Path according to their
own likes and dislikes. Without an enlightened Teacher,
the Path becomes intellectual and ritualistic instead of
open, pure, and experiential.
In HÜMÜH Buddhism, guided by the
Wisdom Master, students cultivate compassion, a
heart-connection with all life, living in a manner that
takes the attention off of oneself, seeking to act
impeccably in all situations, and developing a quiet
mind and an awareness of the light, so that eventually
they become one with the light. They become
en-lightened.
Send Comments On This Article To:
TAnews@HUMUH.org
http://www.humuhbuddhistjournal.org/Editions/June08/dharma-threads-printable.htm
Back to Dharma Threads
article
© HÜMÜH 2008
|
