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Sangharakshita

Sangharakshita Books

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“Tara is the spiritual daughter of Avalokitesvara. She is usually either white or green in colour, and according to another beautiful legend she was born from the tears of Avalokitesvara as he wept over the sorrows of existence. In the midst of a great pool of his tears there appeared a white lotus. The lotus opened, and there was Tara , the very essence, indeed the quintessence, of compassion.”

CompassionBuddhismThe Path Of The BodhisattvaTaraAvalokitesvara
Book:The Bodhisattva Ideal : Wisdom and Compassion in Buddhism
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“The Indian mystic Sri Ramakrishna likened this to going out in a rowing boat. At first one has to make a lot of effort; it’s quite a strain, especially if one is rowing against the stream. But when one finally manages to reach the middle of the river, one can hoist one’s sail and the breeze will carry the boat along. In the same way, a great deal of effort is necessary in the early stages of the spiritual life, but a time comes when one makes contact with forces that in a sense are beyond oneself – though in another sense they are part of one’s greater self – and these begin to carry one along.”

EffortBuddhismSpiritual LifeDivine GracePath Of The BodhisattvaSri Ramakrishna
Book:The Bodhisattva Ideal : Wisdom and Compassion in Buddhism
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“We believe in ourselves in this narrow, limited, egoistic sense, as identified with the body and the lower mind. We are blind to any higher vision, any more ultimate selfhood, any more universal mind or consciousness. This belief in self in this sense is a fetter that has to be broken before we can enter the Stream and break through into a higher, wider dimension of being and consciousness.”

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Book:The Bodhisattva Ideal : Wisdom and Compassion in Buddhism
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“We can help people a great deal by thinking about them positively and developing metta towards them. And sometimes we can help people just by keeping out of their way – or rather by not getting in their way. Sometimes people need space, and we help them most by giving it to them, or at least not taking it from them.”

BuddhismThe Path Of The Bodhisattva
Book:The Bodhisattva Ideal : Wisdom and Compassion in Buddhism
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“Still, the word hierarchy is very unpopular these days, and the dictionary definition – ‘a body of ecclesiastical rulers’ – does nothing to make the term more appealing. But in its original sense, hierarchy meant something like an embodiment, in a number of different people, of different degrees of manifestation of reality. So one can speak, for instance, of a hierarchy of living forms – some lower, expressing or manifesting less reality, others higher, expressing or manifesting more reality. There is a continuous hierarchy of living forms from amoebas right up to human beings – the higher the level, the greater the degree of reality. And there is another hierarchy of living forms: the hierarchy from the unenlightened human being right up to the Enlightened Buddha. This corresponds to what in other contexts I have described as the Higher Evolution. Just as the unenlightened human being embodies or manifests more reality, more truth, than the amoeba, in the same way the Enlightened human being embodies or manifests more reality in his or her life and work, and even speech, than does the unenlightened person. The Enlightened person is like a clear window through which the light of reality shines, through which that light can be seen almost as it is. Or one can say that he or she is like a crystal or diamond concentrating and reflecting that light. Between the unenlightened human being and the Enlightened one, the Buddha, there are a number of intermediate degrees, embodied in different people at different stages of spiritual development. Most people are still short of Enlightenment, to a greater or lesser extent, but at the same time they are not wholly unenlightened. They stand somewhere between the unenlightened state and the state of full Enlightenment, and thus make up the spiritual hierarchy, the higher reaches of which can be referred to as the Bodhisattva hierarchy. By now we know enough about Bodhisattvas to have an appreciation of the intensity of their aspiration and commitment to the spiritual life. But even among Bodhisattvas there are degrees of spiritual attainment. The principle of spiritual hierarchy is very important.”

BuddhismThe Path Of The BodhisattvaSpiritual Hierarchy
Book:The Bodhisattva Ideal : Wisdom and Compassion in Buddhism
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“It is of the utmost importance for us to be in contact with people who are at least a little more spiritually advanced than we are ourselves, through whom the light of reality shines a little more clearly than it shines through us. Such people are known traditionally in Buddhism as our spiritual friends, our kalyana mitras, and they are more important to us than even a Buddha would be. If we happened to have the opportunity to meet a Buddha, we probably wouldn’t be able to make much of the encounter, or even realize the nature of the person in front of us. We are likely to benefit much more from contact with those who are just a little more spiritually developed than we are.”

BuddhismThe Path Of The BodhisattvaSpiritual Friends
Book:The Bodhisattva Ideal : Wisdom and Compassion in Buddhism
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“Once you have entered the Stream, yon are irreversibly bound for Enlightenment, one could say; you have sufficient spiritual momentum to take you all the way. You may still have a long way to go, but you are now safe from any danger of losing what you have gained. It is therefore said of the Buddha’s ‘victory’, his attainment of Enlightenment, that it is irreversible. It cannot be undone. There is no outside power that can make a Buddha no longer a Buddha. This applies not only to the Buddha, but also to the Arhant, the Once-Returner, and the Stream Entrant – and of course the irreversible Bodhisattva. But until we have passed through that gate of irreversibility we are in a precarious position. This is why we need to make a constant effort in our spiritual life and also make sure that we are living and working in conditions that support our spiritual efforts. Until we have reached that point of no return, we need the most positive situation, the most helpful environment, we can possibly get.”

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Book:The Bodhisattva Ideal : Wisdom and Compassion in Buddhism
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“Many people become aware of the effect of positive conditions when they go on retreat for the first time. The degree to which one can change in the course of just a few days is remarkable. Just leaving the city and staying in the country, being undisturbed by the pull of trivial distractions, and doing a bit more meditation and Dharma study than you usually have time for, can transform you into quite a different person – much happier, much more positive. So it isn’t enough to try to change one’s mental state through meditation; one needs the co-operation of one’s environment. Without this it is very difficult, even impossible, to develop spiritually up to the point of irreversibility.”

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Book:The Bodhisattva Ideal : Wisdom and Compassion in Buddhism
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“The Enlightened mind sees truly – without distinction – anything that comes before it; it understands the true nature of everything, just as a mirror faithfully reflects all objects. If one looks into the depths of the Enlightened mind one sees everything. It is like the experience of Sudhana as described in the Gandavyuha-Sutra. Sudhana is a pilgrim wandering in search of truth, and at the crucial point of the sutra he reaches a magnificent tower in south India. Entering the tower he sees the whole cosmos mirrored, stretching out to infinity – but all contained within this magical tower. In fact, the tower is a symbol of the bodhicitta, or of the Enlightened mind itself.”

BuddhismThe Path Of The BodhisattvaThe Enlightened Mind
Book:The Bodhisattva Ideal : Wisdom and Compassion in Buddhism
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“Between the unenlightened human being and the Enlightened one, the Buddha, there are a number of intermediate degrees, embodied in different people at different stages of spiritual development. Most people are still short of Enlightenment, to a greater or lesser extent, but at the same time they are not wholly unenlightened. They stand somewhere between the unenlightened state and the state of full Enlightenment, and thus make up the spiritual hierarchy, the higher reaches of which can be referred to as the Bodhisattva hierarchy. By now we know enough about Bodhisattvas to have an appreciation of the intensity of their aspiration and commitment to the spiritual life. But even among Bodhisattvas there are degrees of spiritual attainment. The principle of spiritual hierarchy is very important.”

BuddhismPath Of The BodhisattvaSpiritual Hierarchy
Book:The Bodhisattva Ideal : Wisdom and Compassion in Buddhism
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“There is a real correspondence between biological and psychological masculinity and femininity on the one hand, and spiritual masculinity and femininity on the other. What one must bear in mind is that the Bodhisattva combines both. This may seem strange, but the Bodhisattva can be described as being psychologically and spiritually bisexual, integrating the masculine and the feminine at every level of his or her psychological and spiritual experience. This is reflected in Buddhist iconography. With some representations of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas it is hard to discern whether the figure is masculine or feminine. This iconographical convention reflects the psychological and spiritual bisexuality of the Bodhisattva, and indeed of any spiritually developed person. The idea, or even ideal, of psychological and spiritual bisexuality is unfamiliar to us in the West today, but it was known to the ancient Gnostics, one of the heretical sects of early Christianity. The teaching was quickly stamped out by the Church, but an interesting passage has been preserved in a work known as the Gospel of Thomas, which was discovered in Egypt as recently as 1945. It isn’t an orthodox Christian work, but it consists of 112 sayings attributed to Jesus after his resurrection. In the twenty-third of these sayings, Jesus is represented as saying: 'When you make the two one, and make the inside like the outside, and the outside like the inside, and the upperside like the underside, and (in such a way) that you make the man (with) the woman a single one, in order that the man is not the man and the woman is not the woman; when you make eyes in place of an eye, and a hand in place of a hand, and a foot in place of a foot, an image in place of an image; then you will go into the Kingdom.' This is not the sort of teaching one normally encounters in church, but it is obviously of profound significance. In the context of Buddhism the idea or concept, and even the practice, of spiritual bisexuality features most graphically in the Tantra, where it is represented not just by the androgynous appearance of the Bodhisattva, but by the symbol of sexual union. Here, ksanti, the feminine aspect of the spiritual life, becomes transcendental wisdom, while energy, the masculine aspect, becomes fully realized as compassion. Thus in Tantric Buddhist art one encounters representations of a mythical form of the Buddha in sexual union with a figure who is sometimes described as the female counterpart to his own masculine form. These images are called yab-yum, yab meaning ‘father’ and yum meaning ‘mother’. They are sometimes regarded in the West as being obscene or even blasphemous, but in Tibet such symbolism is regarded as extremely sacred. It has nothing to do with sexuality in the ordinary sense; it is a representation of the highest consummation, the perfect balance, of ‘femininity’ and ‘masculinity’, wisdom and compassion. Although there are two figures, there are not two persons. There is only one person, one Enlightened person, within whom are united reason and emotion, wisdom and compassion.”

BuddhismOnenessNondualityPath Of The BodhisattvaWisdom And CompassionYab Yum
Book:The Bodhisattva Ideal : Wisdom and Compassion in Buddhism
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“Receptivity is the first requisite of the disciple, and of anyone who wants to learn anything. We can be anything else we like: we can be wicked, we can be stupid, we can be full of faults, we can backslide. In a sense, it doesn’t matter. But we must be spiritually receptive; we have to be willing and ready to learn. When we know that we do not know, everything is possible.”

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Author:Sangharakshita
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