Chapter 5 Chapter 3 Reflection and Change

When I was a child in Tibet, I heard the story of Krisha Gotami. She was a young woman who grew up in the time of the Buddha; her first son died of illness when she was about one year old. The dead body was running through the streets, asking everyone if there was any medicine that could bring her son back to life.Some ignored her, some laughed at her, some thought she was crazy.Finally, she met a wise man who told her that only the Buddha in the world could perform miracles for her. So she went to the Buddha, put her son's body in front of the Buddha, and told the whole process.The Buddha listened with infinite compassion, and then said softly, "There is only one cure for your suffering. Go to the city and ask for a mustard seed from any house where no relative has died."

Gautami was delighted and immediately set off for the city.She said to the first family, "The Buddha asked me to bring back mustard seeds from a family that had never died." "Many people in our family have passed away," the man replied.She then went to the second house and got the answer: "Innumerable people in our family have passed away." She went to the third house and the fourth house, asking for mustard seeds from all the houses in the city, and finally understood the Buddha. requirements cannot be fulfilled. She had no choice but to carry her son's body to the cemetery, say her last farewell, and then return to the Buddha. "Did you bring back the mustard seeds?" he asked.

"No!" she said, "I began to understand the teaching you gave me. I was blinded by grief, and I thought I was the only one suffering from death." Buddha asked, "Why did you come back again?" She replied, "Please reveal the truth about death and the afterlife. Is there anything in me that is immortal?" The Buddha began to teach her: "If you want to understand the true meaning of life and death, you must often reflect like this: There is only one unchanging law in the universe, that is, everything is changing and everything is impermanent. The death of your son, help You understand that the samsara world we live in is an unbearable sea of ​​suffering. There is only one way out of the cycle of life and death, and that is the way of liberation. Because of the pain, you are ready to learn, and your heart has opened the door to the truth. I will Teach you the way of liberation."

Gotami bowed at the Buddha's feet and followed the Buddha all his life.It is said that she became enlightened on her deathbed. accept death In Gotami's story, there is one thing worth noting again and again: approaching death can bring about real awakening and a change in outlook on life. For example, the most important predictor of a near-death experience is that it completely changes the lives of those who have had it.The researchers noticed that the impact and changes are quite large: the fear of death is reduced, and death is more acceptable; the care for others is increased, and the importance of love is more affirmed; meaning; of course, it is also more acceptable to believe in the afterlife.One man said to Kenneth Ringling:

In the past, I was a walking dead, with no purpose in life other than greed for material comforts.Now I am completely changed. I have a strong motivation, a purpose in life, a clear direction, and a strong belief in taking control of this life. My interest and greed for wealth have disappeared, replaced by a desire to understand the spiritual level, and hope to see A passion for making a difference in the world. A woman told Margot Gray, a British scholar who studies near-death experiences: I gradually felt that I had a strong love, the ability to convey love to others, and the ability to be in the most insignificant around me. Find joy and joy in things.I have great compassion for the sick and dying, and I wish they could somehow understand that the process of dying is just an extension of life.

We all know that a life-threatening crisis like a serious illness can make an equally dramatic difference.Dr. Freda Naylor, who died of cancer, bravely wrote in her diary before she died: I have to thank cancer for giving me some experiences I never had.Knowing that I have to die has humbled me, made me realize my amazing psychological strength, and rediscovered myself, because I had to stop on the runway of life, reassess it, and move on. If we can indeed humbly and openly "reassess and move forward" and truly accept our mortality, we will find it easy to accept spiritual teachings and practices.And that acceptance could very well lead to another astonishing outcome: real healing.

I remember that in 1976, a middle-aged American woman had an audience with Dudjom Rinpoche in New York.She was not very keen on Buddhism, but she heard that a master had come to New York.At that time, she was very sick and in despair she wanted to try everything, even seeing a Tibetan master!I was her translator at the time. She entered the room and sat in front of Dudjom Rinpoche.She was moved to tears because of her situation and seeing Rinpoche, she blurted out: "My doctor said I only have a few months to live, can you help me? I am dying. " To her surprise, Dudjom Rinpoche chuckled gently and compassionately, and then said quietly, "Look, we are all dying! It's just a matter of time, some people die sooner than others With these few words, he helped her understand that everyone is mortal, and that she is not the only one who is mortal, and relieved her anxiety.He then talked about the process of dying and the acceptance of it, and about the hope of liberation in death.In the end, he taught her the healing practices, which she followed devoutly.

Not only did she accept death, but she was healed by devoting herself wholeheartedly to the practice.I have heard many similar examples of people who have been diagnosed terminally ill with only a few months to live.When they retreated quietly and faced the truth of themselves and death, they were healed.What does this tell us?Accepting death can change our attitudes towards life and discover the fundamental relationship between life and death, which, in doing so, is likely to have a dramatic therapeutic effect. Tibetan Buddhists believe that diseases such as cancer are actually warning signs, reminding us of the deeper parts of our lives that we have been ignoring, such as spiritual needs.If we can take this warning seriously and change the direction of our lives holistically, we can not only heal our body and mind, but even our whole life.

deep heart change Reflecting deeply on impermanence like Gotami can allow you to appreciate the true meaning of impermanence from the depths of your heart. Nyoshul Khenpo, a contemporary master, wrote a poem full of meaning: All things are illusory and short-lived, people with a discerning mind are like licking honey on a knife, taking pleasure in suffering.What a pitiful person who insists on the existence of all things! Fellow practitioners, look within. Yet how difficult it is to look within!How easy it is for us to be dominated by old habits!As Nyoshul Khenpo's poem tells us, even though they cause pain, we accept them almost resignedly, because we are used to yielding.We think we advocate freedom, but as soon as we encounter our habits, we become their slaves completely.

Even so, introspection can slowly bring us wisdom.We notice ourselves falling into that repetitive pattern over and over again, and we begin to want to get out of it.Of course, we may fall into it again, but slowly, we can jump out and change.This poem entitled "Five Chapters of Life" has the whole message: 1. I went to the street, There's a deep hole in the sidewalk, I fell in. I'm lost...I'm hopeless. This is not my fault, It took a lot of effort to get out. 2. I walk down the same street. There's a deep hole in the sidewalk, I pretended not to see, Still fell in.

I can't believe I ended up in the same place. But it's not my fault. It still took a long time to climb out. 3. I walk down the same street. There's a deep hole in the sidewalk, I see it there, But still fell in... This is a habit. my eyes are open, I know I'm there. it's my fault. I climbed out immediately. 4. I walk down the same street, There's a deep hole in the sidewalk, I bypassed it. 5. I go up another street. To reflect on death is to make a real change deep within you and begin to learn how to avoid the "hole in the sidewalk" and how to "take the other street."Usually this requires a period of retreat and deep observation, only in this way can we really open our eyes and recognize how we approach life. Observing death is not necessarily something horrible or morbid.When you're truly inspired to relax, get comfortable, lie in bed, or listen to good music on holiday, why not do some soul-searching about death?When you are happy, healthy, confident and filled with feelings of well-being, why not do some soul-searching about death?Haven't you noticed that there are moments when you are naturally led to introspection?Take advantage of these moments, as they can be an intense experience that quickly changes your worldview.In these moments, past beliefs crumble on their own, and you can discover your transformation. Contemplating death can deepen your sense of "disgust," which is called ng?jung in Tibetan. . means "coming out", "coming out" or "born".Constantly contemplating death deeply can allow you to find yourself "stepping out" of your habitual tendencies, often with a feeling of disgust.You will find yourself more and more ready to let go of them, and eventually you will be able to free yourself from your habitual tendencies as easily as the masters say, "like picking a hair out of cheese." The distaste you will experience is both sadness and joy: the sadness that you know the ways of the past are useless, and the joy that when you are able to let go of them, your perspective will expand.This joy can generate powerful new strength, confidence and eternal enlightenment, because you are no longer at the mercy of habits, because you have truly come out of old habits, because you have been able to change and become more and more at ease. heartbeat of death If death occurs only once, we have no chance to recognize it.But fortunately, life is a dance of life and death, the rhythm of impermanence.Whenever I hear the rushing of the mountain stream, the lapping of the waves, or the beating of my own heart, it is like hearing the sound of impermanence.These changes, these small deaths, are our living contact with death.They are the pulse of death, the heartbeat of death, urging us to let go of all attachments. So let's face these changes right now in our lives!This is the real recipe for preparing for death.Life may be full of pain and problems, but these are opportunities for growth that help us accept death emotionally.Once we believe that everything is constant, we cannot learn from change. If we cannot learn, we become closed and attached.Attachment is the root of all problems.Because impermanence hurts us, we cling desperately even when everything is about to change.We are afraid to let go, in fact we are afraid to live, because learning to live is learning to let go.This is the tragedy and irony of our desperate pursuit of attachment: attachment not only makes it impossible, but brings us the pain we most want to avoid. The motivation behind attachment may not be bad; there is nothing wrong with wishing for happiness, but what we are attached to is inherently unattachable.Tibetans say, "It is impossible to wash the same dirty hand twice in the same running water", and they also say, "No matter how hard you try, the oil cannot be squeezed out of the sand." Realizing impermanence can allow us to gradually get rid of persistent concepts, wrong views of permanence, and blind pursuit.Slowly, it dawns on us that all the pain we experience by attaching to the impossible is, in the deepest sense, unnecessary.It may be painful to begin to experience impermanence because the experience is so unfamiliar.But as long as we keep introspecting, our hearts will gradually change. "Let go" becomes more and more natural and easier.It may take a while for our stupidity to sink in, but the more we reflect, the more we develop a perspective of letting go; at that point, the way we see everything changes. Contemplating impermanence itself is not enough, you must practice it in your life, just as medical research must take into account both theory and practice, so is life.The practical training for life is here and now, in the laboratory of impermanence.As changes occur, we learn to see them with a new wisdom; while old habits still occur, we are a little different ourselves.The whole situation will become more relaxed, less tense, less painful, and even the old habits will not affect us as much as before.With each change, we gain a little insight, and our perspective on life grows deeper and wider. Dealing with "changes" Let's do an experiment.Pick up a copper coin and imagine it represents what you are attaching to.Grab it in a clenched fist and extend your arms, palms down.Now if you open or relax the palm, you will lose what you are clinging to.That's why you hold it. But there's another possibility: You can let go of your palm, but the copper plate will still be in your hand.With your arms still outstretched, just turn your palms up, even if you let go of your palms, the copper plate remains in your hands.You put it down, and the coin is still yours, even the space around it is yours. So there is a way for us to accept impermanence and at the same time enjoy life without attachment. Now let's think about what often happens between people.It is often when people suddenly feel that they have lost their partner that they realize that they love them.Then people become more attached.When one party is more persistent, the other party is more evasive, and the relationship between each other becomes weaker. We want to be happy all the time, but we pursue it in such a clumsy way that it brings more sorrow.We tend to think that we have to seize in order to have the guarantee of happiness.We ask ourselves: if we don't own, how can we enjoy?We always mistake attachment for love!Even in a good relationship, love is destroyed by attachment due to insecurities, possessiveness, and pride; once love is lost, all you are left with are the "souvenirs" of love and the scars of attachment. That being the case, what can we do to overcome attachment?The only way is to understand its impermanence; this understanding can slowly release its grip on us.We will understand the correct attitude towards change taught by the master: imagine that we are the sky and watch the dark clouds drift by; imagine that we are as free as quicksilver.When mercury falls to the ground, it is still intact and never mixed with dust.When we try to do according to the teachings of our masters and gradually release our attachments, great compassion will emerge from us.The dark clouds of attachment drifted away one after another, and true compassion was like the sun shining.Then, deep in our hearts, we can realize the true meaning of this poem by William Blake: He who binds joy to himself, Instead, destroys winged life; Whoever kisses it goodbye when joy flies away, Will live in the eternal sun. warrior spirit Although we always think that if we let go, we will have nothing, but life itself has repeatedly revealed the opposite message: letting go is the path to true freedom. As the waves do no harm, rocks are sculpted into beautiful shapes when the waves crash against the shore; so change can shape our character or wear away our edges.Through the trials of change, we can learn to develop a gentle but unshakable composure.Our confidence in ourselves grows, and kindness and compassion begin to reflect naturally from ourselves and bring joy to others.This kindness can transcend death, and each of us has a basic kindness.The whole of life is teaching us how to discover that strong heart and training us to realize it. Therefore, the adversity in life is to teach us the principle of impermanence and bring us closer to the truth.When you fall from a high place, you will only fall to the ground, the ground of truth; if you have learned something through practice, then falling from a high place will never be a disaster, but a discovery of inner refuge. Difficulties and obstacles, if properly understood and harnessed, can often become unexpected sources of strength.In the biographies of the masters, you will find that if they did not encounter difficulties and obstacles, they would not find the strength to transcend.Take, for example, the great Tibetan warrior King Gesar, whose exile is the greatest epic in Tibetan literature.Gesar means "invincible", no one can defeat him.From the moment Gesar was born, he had an evil uncle named Luodong who tried every means to kill him, but each time made Gesar stronger and stronger.In fact, Gesar became so great because of Luodong's efforts.Therefore, a Tibetan proverb says: Gesar could not have climbed so high if Luodong hadn't been so evil and cunning. For Tibetans, Gesar is not only a martial arts fighter, but also a spiritual fighter.To be a spiritual warrior one must develop special courage, endowed with wisdom, gentleness and fearlessness.Spiritual warriors still have their moments of fear, but nonetheless they are brave enough to face pain, recognize their fears, and learn from them without escaping them.As Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche tells us, to be a warrior is to "exchange the narrow mindedness of security for a very broad vision that is fearless, open and truly heroic." mind....." Entering that broad field of vision is to learn how to be at ease in change, how to make impermanence our friend. The Message of Impermanence: What Hope Is There in Death? Go deeper into impermanence, and you will discover that it has another message, another face, that will bring you great hope, that will open your eyes to the fundamental nature of the universe, and the extraordinary relationship between us and it. relation. If everything is impermanent, then everything is what we call "emptiness", that is, nothing has any lasting, stable and self-sufficient existence; all things, if they can see their true relationship, must not be independent. , but are interdependent.The Buddha compared the universe to a vast net, woven by countless pearls of various kinds, and each pearl has countless aspects.Each pearl itself reflects other pearls on the net, in fact, each pearl contains the shadow of other pearls. Take ocean waves as an example!From a certain perspective, the waves seem to have distinct independent entities, beginning and ending, life and death.On the other hand, the wave itself does not really exist, it is just the behavior of water, "empty" without any entity, but "filled" with water.So, when you really think about an ocean wave, you'll see that it's temporarily formed by wind and water, depending on a constantly changing set of conditions.You will also discover that each wave is related. When you observe carefully, you can find that everything itself does not really exist. This non-independent existence is what we call "emptiness".Let's visualize a tree.When you think of a tree, you think of a definite object; on a certain level, like ocean waves, trees are indeed definite objects.But when you look carefully, you will find that the tree has no independent existence after all.If you think about it carefully, you will find that the tree can be resolved into countless fine relationship networks, extending to the entire universe.The rain that falls on the leaves, the wind that shakes the tree, the soil that nourishes the tree, the seasons and climate, and even the sun and moon, all constitute a part of the tree.When you continue to think about it, you can find that everything in the universe is making this tree. At any moment, the tree cannot be independent of other things; at any moment, the nature of the tree is changing slightly.This is what we mean when everything is empty and nothing can exist independently. Modern science tells us that the interaction between all things is very extensive and far-reaching.Ecologists know that burning a tree in the Amazon rainforest will somehow change the quality of air a Parisian breathes, and that a fluttering butterfly in the Yucatan will affect the life of a Hebrides fern. .Biologists are beginning to discover the amazing and complex role of genes in creating personality and individuality, which will stretch far into the past, showing that each so-called "individual" is composed of a chain of different influences.Physicists have introduced us to the world of the quantum, which is very much like the Indra's web (the luminous web that permeates the entire universe) described by the Buddha.Just like the Mani orbs on the Internet, the existence of all particles is actually different combinations of other particles. So when we take a hard look at ourselves and the things around us, we realize that what we thought was so solid, stable and long-lasting is just a dream.Buddha said: Know everything: like a phantom, like a floating cloud castle, like a dream, like a charm, without substance, only the quality that can be seen.Know everything: like the moon hanging in the clear sky, reflected on the clear lake, although the moon has never come to the lake.Know everything: echoes in music, sounds of nature, and weeping, but no melody in echoes.Know everything: if a magician conjures up phantoms of horses, oxen, carts, etc., everything is not what it appears to be. Seeing the illusory nature of all things never leaves us feeling cold, hopeless, or miserable.On the contrary, it awakens our warm sense of humor and our inherent compassion, so that we become more and more willing to give to all things and sentient beings.The great Tibetan sage Milarepa said, "See emptiness and be compassionate." When we actually see all things and our emptiness and interdependence through meditation, the world appears brighter, The fresh and bright light is like the endless pearl nets that the Buddha said.We no longer have to protect or disguise ourselves, and we can easily do as one Tibetan master taught: Always recognize that life is like a dream, reduce attachment and resentment.Have compassion for all beings.Be compassionate no matter how others treat you.Whatever they do, as long as you treat it as a dream, it becomes less important.The key to practice is to maintain positive aspirations in dreams, which is the most important point.This is the real practice. True practice also requires knowing that if we are interdependent with everything and everyone, then even our tiniest, most insignificant thought, word, and action will have an impact on the entire universe.Throw a small stone into a pond, and it creates ripples on the surface of the water; the ripples merge into another ripple, and new ripples are created.Everything is connected: we should be able to understand that we are responsible for everything we do, say, think, in fact, we are responsible for ourselves, everyone and everything, and even the entire universe Responsible. Guru Lama said: In today's highly interdependent world, neither individuals nor nations can solve it on their own.We need each other, therefore, we must develop a sense of worldwide responsibility.It is our collective and individual responsibility to protect and nourish our world family, support vulnerable members, and preserve and care for the environment in which we live. Unchanged Impermanence has revealed many truths to us, but it also hides a final treasure, a truth that most of us have never discovered, never doubted, never known, but are most our own. Western poet Rainer Maria Rilke said that our deepest fear is like a dragon, guarding the deepest treasure in our hearts.We will discover that impermanence speaks to the fact that nothing is real and does not last, and that it awakens our fears because it drives us to ask these questions: If everything dies and changes, what is exactly real?Behind the appearance, what infinite and broad things are hidden to accommodate these impermanent and changing occurrences?What is there that we can actually rely on that continues to exist after death? If we urgently keep these questions in our hearts and think about them, we will slowly find that our views on everything will change significantly.As we continue to visualize and practice letting go, we will discover that within ourselves there is "something" that cannot be named, described or imagined, hidden behind all change and death.Our strong attachment to "permanence" will thus begin to dissolve and fade away, and we will no longer be narrow-minded and distracted. When this happens, we will catch glimpses again and again of the vast implications behind impermanence.Our past life was like flying in an airplane through dark clouds and turbulence, and suddenly the airplane climbed up into the clear and boundless sky.This newfound freedom inspires and inspires us to discover within ourselves a profound sense of peace, joy and confidence that amazes us and allows us to come to believe that we do have something indestructible and indestructible. The "something" of death.Milarepa wrote: In the fear of death, I laboriously climbed up the mountain and pondered over and over again the irreversibility of the moment of death, and I conquered the castle of immortality and eternal mind.All fear of death is now gone. As a result, we will gradually become aware of what Milarepa calls within us an "immortal, permanent nature of mind," as calm as a clear sky.When this new awakening begins to become clear and sustained, there occurs what the Upanishads call a "Great Turn of Consciousness" about who we are, why we are here, and what we should be doing. , a personal, purely non-conceptual revelation, the end result of which is a new life, a new birth, almost a resurrection. Fearlessly ruminating upon the truths of change and impermanence, we will slowly discover that we face with gratitude and joy the truth of the unchanging: the truth of the immortal, everlasting nature of mind.What a wonderful and therapeutic mystical experience this is!