Tag Archives: Mahayana

Nāgāhvaya

Posted on December 27, 2018 by Vajragoni

159-161. (Cleary]: With five fives plus five, and nine flaws, covered with nails, teeth, and hair, one is born, quivering. Like a maggot when newborn, the human being is as if awakened from sleep; form becomes visible by means of the eye, development proceeds from performance. With a combination of the palate, lips, and oral cavity, conceived by mental construction, human speech issues like that of a parrot, by false imagination. read more

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The Queen’s Mahayana

Posted on January 9, 2015 by Vajragoni

The Buddha told Srīmālā, “You should now explain further the embracing of the true Dharma, which l have taught, and which is cherished by all Buddhas alike.”  read more

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The Illustrious Way

Posted on January 6, 2015 by Vajragoni

Then Queen Srīmālā made three more great vows before the Buddha, saying. 

“I will benefit an infinite number of sentient beings through the power of these vows: first, I will, by my good roots, attain the wisdom of the true Dharma in all my lifetimes; second, after I have attained the true wisdom, wherever I may be born I will explain it untiringly to all sentient beings; third, in whatever form I may be born, I will not spare life or limb in embracing, protecting, and upholding the true Dharma.”  read more

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Selections from the Mahāratnakūṭa Sūtra

Posted on December 30, 2014 by Vajragoni

The Mahāratnakūṭa Sūtra can be likened unto an ancient repository of forty-nine texts of Mahāyāna Buddhist Sūtras. As such it is also known in its abbreviated title, the Ratnakūṭa Sūtra, or a heap containing some precious jewels of the Mahāyāna. There are indeed some great Dharma-Jewels contained within it. Our primary resource that houses excellent translations of these texts is A Treasury of Mahāyāna Sūtras: Selections from the Mahāratnakūṭa Sūtra, Translated from the Chinese by The Buddhist Association of the United States—Garma C.C. Chang, General Editor. As it states in the introduction: read more

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Praxis: Part II

Posted on December 20, 2014 by Vajragoni

(Hakeda)

The Practice of Cessation

Should there be a man who desires to practice “cessation,” he should stay in a quiet place and sit erect in an even temper. [His attention should be focused] neither on breathing nor on any form or color, nor on empty space, earth, water, fire, wind, nor even on what has been seen, heard, remembered, or conceived. All thoughts, as soon as they are conjured up, are to be discarded, and even the thought of discarding them is to be put away, for all things are essentially [in the state of] transcending thoughts, and are not to be created from moment to moment nor to be extinguished from moment to moment; [thus one is to conform to the essential nature of Reality (dharmatā) through this practice of cessation]. And it is not that he should first meditate on the objects of the senses in the external world and then negate them with his mind, the mind that has meditated on them. If the mind wanders away, it should be brought back and fixed in “correct thought.” It should be understood that this “correct thought” is [the thought that] whatever is, is mind only and that there is no external world of objects [as conceived]; even this mind is devoid of any marks of its own [which would indicate its substantiality] and therefore is not substantially conceivable as such at any moment.  read more

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Mind As Absolute Suchness

Posted on December 2, 2014 by Vajragoni

(Hakeda)

The part on outline has been given; next the part on interpretation [of the principle of Mahayana] will be given. It consists of three chapters: read more

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Awakening of Faith: Preliminaries

Posted on December 1, 2014 by Vajragoni

INVOCATION

(Hakeda)

I take refuge in [the Buddha,] the greatly Compassionate One, the Savior of the world, omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, of most excellent deeds in all the ten directions;
And in [the Dharma,] the manifestation of his Essence, the Reality, the sea of Suchness, the boundless storehouse of excellencies;
[And in the Sangha, whose members] truly devote themselves to the practice,
May all sentient beings be made to discard their doubts, to cast aside
their evil attachments, and to give rise to the correct faith in the Mahāyāna, that the lineage of the Buddhas may not be broken off. read more

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The Mahāyāna-shraddhotpāda-shāstra

Posted on November 30, 2014 by Vajragoni

We next will be exploring perhaps the most significant document, alongside the Lankavatara Sutra, for adherents of Unborn Mind Zen as well as the best concise-systematic treatment of the Mahayana as a whole. This ‘Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana’ is attributed to the great early Buddhist philosopher and poet, Aśvaghosha: read more

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Illumination

Posted on February 24, 2014 by Vajragoni

At that time the Bhagavat was respectfully surrounded by the fourfold assembly (i.e., monks, nuns, laymen, laywomen), paid homage, honored, and praised. He then taught the bodhisattvas the Mahayana sutra called Immeasurable Meanings (Mahānirdeśa), the instruction for the bodhisattvas and the treasured lore of the buddhas. After having taught this sutra, the Buddha sat cross-legged, entered the samādhi called the “abode of immeasurable meanings” (ananta-nirdeśa-pratiṣṭhāna) and remained unmoving in both body and mind. Māndārava and great māndārava flowers, manjūṣaka and great manjūṣaka flowers then fell like rain from the sky, scattering upon the Buddha and all of his attendants; and the whole buddha world quaked in six ways. At that time, that whole assembly of such humans and nonhumans as monks, nuns, laymen, and laywomen, the devas, nāgas, yakṣas, gandharvas, asuras, garuḍas, kiṃnaras, mahoragas, kings, and noble emperors, having experienced something unprecedented, were filled with joy, and with their palms pressed together they gazed attentively at the Buddha. read more

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