Miscellany and Trivia

Sunita Maithreya – India

A truly Buddhist life is an expression of the “Buddhi” and includes mindfulness, true knowledge, meditation, service, and compassion to all life.

When asked to explain the Path in simple words, the Buddha said, “Abstain from all unwholesome deeds perform wholesome ones, purify your mind.” Further, when asked what is “wholesome” and what is “unwholesome,” the Buddha offered a universal definition:  Any action that harms others, that disturbs their peace and harmony, is a sinful action; an unwholesome action.  Any action that helps others, that contributes to their peace and harmony, is a pious action; a wholesome action.

The Buddha also taught us the Four Noble Truths:

First Truth -- In every person’s life misery is greater than happiness

Second Truth -- All misery arises from the hunger and thirst for life

Third Truth -- Each person, without help of priest or scripture, can by their own efforts put an end to the “craving” which causes misery

Fourth Truth -- The Way or the Noble Eightfold Path: Right Belief, Right Thought, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Means of Livelihood, Right Energy, Right Contemplation, and Right Realization, leads to the ending of misery

In his book, The Art of Living: Vipassana Meditation As Taught by Shri S.N.Goenka, William Hart says, “The Noble Eightfold Path can be divided into three stages of training, sila, samadhi and panna.  Sila is moral practice, abstention from all unwholesome actions of body and speech.  Samadhi is the practice of concentration, developing the ability to consciously direct and control one’s own mental processes. Panna is wisdom, the development of purifying insight into one’s own nature.”

Returning to sila, we learn that three parts of the Noble Eightfold Path fall within the training of sila.  These are Right Speech, Right Action, and Right Means of Livelihood.

Hart says that Right Speech would imply abstinence from telling lies, carrying tales that see friends at odds, backbiting and slander, speaking harsh words that disturb others and have no beneficial effect, and idle gossip, meaningless chatter that wastes one’s own time and the time of others.  The Buddha extolled the virtues of Right Speech.

Right Action is summarized by the pansil of Buddhism. The Buddha is said to have spoken thus: “Laying aside the rod and sword he is careful to harm none, full of kindness, seeking the good of all living creatures. Free of stealth, he himself lives like a pure being.” The pansil may seem like a religious precept alone to some, but some of the practical aspects we are asked to abstain from are killing, theft, sexual misconduct, false speech, and intoxicants.

After developing an intense interest in paranormal phenomena, Shirley MacLaine produced several bestselling books on psychic experiences, alternate dimensions, and the past lives which she claimed to have led. Not surprisingly, MacLaine had several scoffing skeptics, chief among them Yves Montand. "Shirley MacLaine," he once remarked. "Who does she think she isn't!?"

While boarding a moving train one day, one of Mohandas Gandhi's shoes slipped off and fell upon the track. As he was unable to retrieve it, Gandhi - to the astonishment of his fellow travelers - calmly removed his other shoe and threw it down the track to where the first had landed. "The poor man who finds the shoe lying on the track," Gandhi explained, "will now have a pair he can use."

As told by Neal Ascherson, journalist.

I was standing next to him [during one of his trips to Poland] and he was moving along the fence--people, lots of mothers, children, pushing over the fence. And there was one little girl about six. She was quite a weight, and a young mother sort of holding her up and the Pope stopped and--he looked her straight in the eye--and he said, "Where is Poland?" The little girl was completely baffled by the question. She sort of looked at him, giggled slightly, and then he put out his finger and he touched her. And he said "Poland is here."

Charlie Chaplin was visited on his deathbed by a priest. "May the Lord have mercy on your soul," the man declared. "Why not?" Chaplin quickly replied. "After all, it belongs to him."

One of the main functions of humor in Zen is in trying to allow one to understand the absurdity in attempting to classify reality into categories. Thus, the boundaries formed between logical issues are broken down, revealing the frustration that Zen has with logic and reasoning.

An example of this can be seen in a Zen anecdote about a Zen master who lay dying. His monks are all gathered around his deathbed, and the senior monk leans over and asks the master for any final words of wisdom for his monks. The old master weakly says, "Tell them Truth is like a river." The senior monk relays this message on to the other monks. The youngest monk in the group is confused, and asks, "What does he mean that Truth is like a river?" The senior monk relays this question to the master, and the master replies, "O.K., Truth is not like a river."

We see here a serious message wrapped up in a humorous package. The absurdity of classifying things into little boxes is revealed here: Truth is and is not like a river; it transcends classification.

An atheist was taking a walk through the woods, admiring all that the “accident of evolution” had created. “What majestic trees!  What powerful rivers! What beautiful animals!” he said to himself. As he was walking alongside the river he heard a rustling in the bushes behind him. He turned to look. He saw a seven-foot grizzly charge towards him. He ran as fast as he could up the path. He looked over his shoulder and saw that the bear was closing. He ran even faster, so scared that tears were coming to his eyes. He looked over his shoulder again, and the bear was even closer. His heart was pumping frantically and he tried to run even faster.

He tripped and fell to the ground. He rolled over to pick himself up but saw the bear, right on top of him: reaching for him with his left paw and raising his right paw to strike him. At that instant the atheist cried out “Oh my God! ....” Time stopped. The bear froze. The forest was silent. Even the river stopped moving. As a bright light shone upon the man, a voice came out of the sky: “You deny my existence for all of these years; teach others I don’t exist; and, even credit creation to a cosmic accident. Do you expect me to help you out of this predicament? Am I to count you as a believer?” The atheist looked directly into the light: “It would be hypocritical of me to suddenly ask you to treat me as a Christian now, but perhaps could you make the bear a Christian?”

“Very well,” the voice said. The light went out. The river ran again. And the sounds of the forest resumed. And then the bear dropped its right paw . . . brought both paws together . . . bowed its head and spoke: “Lord, for this food which I am about to receive, I am truly thankful.”

Halldór Haraldsson – Iceland

The author as concert pianist

During my career as a pianist, both as a teacher and a performer, I have often noticed how much music has in common with Vedanta philosophy. Those who have pursued one branch of art or another for some time soon notice how many things are similar to other branches – only the outer form of expression is different. Whether or not we find such correspondences, there is no doubt that finding them can deepen our understanding of our particular art and open our eyes to various important things that would otherwise have been hidden from us.