Documentary Buddhist Videos
• “Angry Monk – reflections on Tibet” by Luc Schaedler
A documentary film about Gendun Choephel born in 1903 and who some considered to be a reincarnation of a famous Lama of Tibet. He died in 1951 at age 49 after being imprisoned and tortured by the government of Tibet for subversive activities. He was a talented painter in addition to being famous for his scholastic achievements as a Buddhist monk. In 1934 he left the monastery and traveled to Lhasa where he entered into a life of sex, alcohol and revolution. The documentary contains never before seen photos and video of early Tibet including the young 14th Dalai Lama. It includes interviews with friends and relatives who describe his slow brilliance as a Buddhist monk and his slow self destruction. The documentary tells how a famous Buddhist monk with great promise renounced his beliefs. A friend in one story tells of a time when he was in a class waiting for a teacher when he accidently broke a cup. To cover up his accident he went out and found a cat and brought it in the class so that when the teacher arrived, he blamed the broken cup on the cat.
• “The knowledge of Healing” by Franz Reichle
A documentary film about the ancient healing powers of Tibetan medicine using natural substances. It traces the writings of the Gyuschi written in the 11th century through the writings of Desi Rinpoche of the 17th Century who wrote a medical journal covering 1600 illnesses. The documentary follows the treatment of patients including the 14th Dalai Lama using ancient natural substances including Gawa, Khyunga and Gyaltsen. It includes interviews with the Dalai Lama and his personal Tibetan physician on the use of these drugs as well as interviews with western scientist who offer explanations concerning the healing powers of these drugs. The documentary also follows the case of one 65 year old individual who was diagnosed with inoperable kidney cancer and who later improved with the use of these ancient drugs. The documentary also includes an interview with a Buddhist nun who had been imprisoned and tortured by the Chinese and was seeking medical attention for her horrific injuries.
More Research Notes
• Today, there are still 10 distinct sects of Jodo Shinshu Buddhist
More Notes
Key Points: Jodo Shinshu
• Jodo Shinshu (True pure Land School) is also known as Shin Buddhism
• Shin Buddhism is the most widely practice branch of Buddhism in Japan
• Jodo Shinshu was founded by Shinran Shonin (1173-1263)
• Today, there are still 10 distinct sects of Jodo Shinshu Buddhist
• Shinran said Shin Buddhism is considered the “Easy Path” because one is not compelled to perform many difficult and often esoteric practices in order to attain higher and higher mental states.
• Shin Buddhist express gratitude to Buddha (Amida) simply by reciting the “Nembutsu”
• The Nembutsu (Namu Amida Butsu) essentially means I take refuge in the Buddha (Amida)
• The Nembutsu is not considered a practice, nor does it generate any Karmic merit. It is simply an affirmation of one’s gratitude for the teachings of Buddha
• Shinran taught that birth in the Pure Land was settled in the midst of life rather than at death and did not require accumulation of any Karmic merit points
• Jodo Shinshu separated from the Shinto religion and practices including accepting donations for special blessings and prayers etc.
• Jodo Shinshu churches in the United States are part of the Buddhist Churches of American and services including Dharma messages are given in English
More Notes
• Two types of meditation include Shamatha and Vipassana.
• Shamatha is single pointed meditation. Vipassana is analytic form of meditation.
• Shamatha meditation helps to free the mind from disturbing emotions and conceptual thinking processes. It brings the mind under control, under discipline, with some degree of single pointed focus with full alertness of mind. It lets you suppress disturbing emotions and gain inner peace, harmony and balance.
• Vipassana meditation directly helps to pull out the seeds or imprints that are left in our psyche by these manifest emotional defilements and distorted thoughts so that disturbing emotions and thoughts will never reoccur. It brings unchanging and everlasting inner peace, joy and harmony.
• The very purpose of Shamatha meditation is not just to feel good for a period of time but to give birth to deeper levels of understanding of wisdom.
• When sitting in meditation one is sitting in motionless body and motionless mind.
• If one forgets the object of meditation the mind will be influenced by drowsiness, excitement and wandering.
• Shamatha meditation is the state of single pointed mind, characterized by perfect mental stability and mental clarity having some degree of freshness within the mind.
• Mental clarity can only come when the mind becomes free from sluggishness, drowsiness, haziness, cloudiness, numbness and blankness. Mental stability will only come when the mind becomes free from excitement, agitation, manic thoughts and addiction to wandering aimlessly with no definite destination.
• The starting point of changing what we do is to change the way we think.
• What is troubling the mind can be removed with meditation so our mind can exist in its purity.
• When meditating it is important to keep the body as straight as an arrow with the throat slightly bent downwards.
• When you meditate do it for a short period of time but do it again and again. The whole point is to develop a habit of meditation. If one meditates at first too long the mind just becomes more and more agitated and difficult to control. So meditate again and again until the habit grows stronger.
• Awareness is knowing exactly what we are doing while we are doing it. Mindfulness is having control of our mind and not letting it run out of control.
• When meditating we should not follow a thought about the past we should not anticipate the future and we should not be involved with thoughts of the present. We should not follow any of these thoughts. If we manage to do this we will find that the mind calms down quite naturally by itself.
• Relax and just let the mind go and think. Whatever comes it just comes and goes without us dwelling on any of the thoughts. If we sit there very relaxed and let it all happen we wont have very much trouble meditation.
• In meditating you do not want to be too relaxed or too tense. You have to find just the right balance between being too relaxed and too tense.
• There are three main techniques of meditation: concentrating on an outer object, concentrating on an inner object and concentrating on no object. The goal of meditation is to reach a point of not needing any object in meditation.
• In the beginning, it is useful to meditate on an outer object such as a statue. Meditating on an outer object is not to examine or think about its shape or composition or color but to simply remain aware of the statue in front of us and not become distracted by other thoughts. As thoughts arise we simply return to our “awareness” of the outer object. We must relax letting our eyes rest on the outer object merely registering an “awareness” of the image.
• The mind determines the quality of our physical and verbal activity.
• We must develop an understanding of the nonexistence of “self”
• A second aspect of meditation that can clear the defilements away is insight meditation (Vipashyana). But to develop insight meditation we must first develop strong tranquility meditation. Once we develop tranquility meditation we are able to use the mind in a controlled way.
• The ideal way to develop tranquility meditation is to just let the mind rest naturally without any thoughts.
• In meditation there are two main obstacles to actual tranquility meditation. The first obstacle is “thinking” which means that when the mind starts thinking it becomes heavy and lethargic and we start feeling sleepy. It’s a feeling of apathy and wanting to sleep but we cant so there’s no clarity in the meditation. The other obstacle is agitation in which the mind becomes wild and one has many thoughts and follows these thoughts in all directions into the future the present or the past so that the mind cannot rest at all.
• If we start thinking I want this or I need this our mind will expect these things and there will be a constant tension from this wanting. Then if we can’t have or achieve what we want there will be the constant pain and frustration of being trapped.
• Meditation has the short tem effect of creating tranquility and the long term effect of making one free from the defilements that cause of all unhappiness.
• Once we start feeling anger it brings about a lot of mental discomfort and if that feeling remains for a long time it can actually make us feel physically and mentally ill.
• By developing concentration through our meditation we can attain tranquility. It is taught that once one reaches a certain degree of mastery in meditation it automatically brings great physical and mental comfort.
• If we had to depend on other people to modify our state of mind it might be a very involved process. Controlling our mind is entirely up to us.
• Normally we are not very concerned about others. Because of this we have developed this very strong belief in the “I”. From this arises all of our emotional negativity.
• What is important in dealing with others is to have “Pure Motivation”.
• We find that if we try to help others when we are not ready we will regret it afterwards.
• When doing the “Sending and Taking” practice we shouldn’t fear that we will receive the difficulties of others because we are “imagining” that we are taking the troubles of everyone. We are not really taking on any real suffering or sending any real happiness. We are simply training our mind to change our very selfish attitude to a more open and loving relationship to others so we can develop the true disposition of enlightenment.
• One practice of inner meditation is using breathing as a focus such as counting the breath, following the breath and a combination of counting and following the breath. As soon as we finish counting the breath up to 21 we begin doing the following the breath meditation in which we focus on the inhalations and exhalations. This will help us achieve a “balance” by not being too agitated or drowsy.
• “Shamatha” / Tranquility Meditation uses following the breath while observing the workings of the mind while “Vipashyana” Meditation develops insight into the nature of mind.
• The Sanskrit word Karuna means our ability to relate to another in so intense a measure that the plight of the other affects us as much as if it had been our own.
• So dominant is the theistic understanding of god that if one rejects theism, one is thought to be an “a-theist”. An atheist is defined as one who dismisses the theistic concept of God and, since theism exhausts most people’s definition of God, an atheist by definition is one who rejects the concept that God might be real.
• Mantras may constitute a single syllable or an entire hymn; they may convey a clear semantic meaning or they may appear entirely nonsensical.
• The Noble Eightfold Path consist of:
Right View - Wisdom
Right Intention - Wisdom
Right Speech – Ethical Conduct
Right Action – Ethical Conduct
Right Livelihood – Ethical Conduct
Right Effort – Mental Development
Right Mindfulness – Mental Development
Right Concentration – Mental Development
• The Four Nobel Truths
All existence is “dukkha” – suffering, anguish, pain, un-satisfactoriness
The cause of dukkha is craving – Our tendency to grasp at things or alternatively push them away places us fundamentally at odds with the way life really is
The cessation of dukkha comes with the cessation of craving. We can not change the things that happen to us, but we can change our responses
• Twelve Nidanas – Twelvefold Dependent Origination
Two Effects Of Future – Birth, Old Age and Death
Two Causes of Past – Ignorance, Motivation
Five Effects of Present – Consciousness, Name and Form, Six Sense of Organs, Contact, Feeling
Three Causes of Present – Thirst, Taking, Gestation
• Many schools of Buddhism initially developed in India. Mahayana Buddhist moved from India to China in the 1st century where Pure Land was formed and later moved to Japan as taught by Honen and then by Shinran who developed True Pure Land Buddhism which is the basis for Jodo Shinshu today in Japan and the U.S
• Siddhartha Gautama abandoned his wife and child at the age of 29. Years later, after attaining enlightenment, he eventually returned home. His wife Yashodara, his son Rahula and Siddhartha’s father, King Suddhodana all became the Buddha’s disciples.
• Someone who is arrogant could never look at their spouse as a Bodhisattva of compassion. Someone who is humble, however stands at the very bottom, and is able to look up to all people in admiration especially one’s spouse.
• In Buddhism, the most important things is not for your spouse to get awakened, but it is for you yourself to get awakened. The person who must realize and awaken to their ego self is you yourself.
• Human beings are most fully human when free to create spontaneously from the heart. The hearts creations are what allow people to connect.
• The strongest indicators of human happiness are meaningful intimate relationships with others, along with a sense of purpose in our work and feeling like part of a community.
• Dhammapada: “All that we are is the result of what we have thought: it is founded on our thoughts, it is made up of our thoughts. If a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows him, as the wheel follows the foot of the ox that draws the a carriage. If a man speaks or acts with pure thought, happiness follows him like a shadow that never leaves him.
• In Buddhism, we are karmically conditioned both individually and collectively by our past choices and behavior.
• Contemporary poem by Mary Fry in the 1920s:
Do not stand at my grave and weep;
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am he diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn’s rain.
When you awaken in the morning’s hush,
I am the swift uplifting rush of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there. I did not die.
• Amida Buddha is a symbolic representation of the realization of Infinite Life and Light (Wisdom)
• Dana is pure and unconditional sharing of materials or wisdom. One of the six Perfections (Paramitas)
• Dharma is the teaching of Buddha that expresses the universal truth.
• Ekoku is the Verse of merit transference chanted at the end of Jodo Shinshu rituals
• Gassho means putting the palms of hand together, left hand representing our unenlightened side and right hand our enlightened potential
• Kansho is a medium size bell rung before the start of a ritual or service to call the members of the Sangha
More notes and comments are in process of being posted..............................
