Tag Archives: nirvana

The Mind is a Beautiful Thing

Posted on April 7, 2023 by Vajragoni

No ritual, no sound, no form, no prayer, no scripture, can ultimately free the mind from ignorance and suffering. Only the Unborn Mind recognizes its own becomings (divisions of self) and re-attunes to its true self nature, like an ocean swallowing its own waves. It is not for your present state of divided awareness power to ponder this paradox, but more to cease the resistance towards the truth body continuously striving to realign with itself. Without this act of complete surrendering to the noble wisdom of the supreme body (Buddha), nibanna cannot be known. read more

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Advanced Maxims

Posted on April 16, 2021 by Vajragoni
  1. Advanced Maxims

Maxim 1: There is no separate, independent self apart from the Unborn

Thoughts, memories, feelings, associations, and attachments are “perceptions” abstracted from the condensed body consciousness AFTER the movements of fluidic activity have occurred in the brain. The apparent “independent self” is in actuality an “after image” produced by neurotransmitters—a process that in itself is an abstraction of emptiness. Hence, the apparent independent self is a delusional episode, a symbol, chemically “created”. When thoughts, memories, feelings, associations, and attachments are subtracted (devoid of perception), what independent and “separate” self is even there? read more

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The Lanka’s Nirvana

Posted on November 11, 2020 by Vajragoni

As a quick reference, the abridged version of the Lankavatara Sutra as found in the Buddhist Bible, Chapter XIII, offers a general overview of the Lanka’s take on Nirvana. Our Study will offer here a more extensive treatment as covered throughout the sutra. This is largely a compilation from the Complete Lanka and Discussion as found in our library. read more

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Nirvana: Early Foundations

Posted on November 2, 2020 by Vajragoni

The early formulations of Nirvana hinges upon primary ideations of what constitutes life after death. Materialists would not even consider notions of what happens to the corporeal frame after the life cycle ended. For them all life simply ceases to exist in any form since the “Material Substance” is hereafter disbanded altogether. Eternalists emphasized the notion that the “individual soul” lingers on after death into some form of heavenly paradise. This idea continues today in Christianity and other mainline religions. Other spiritual schools insist that the “person” dissolves away after the earthly sojourn and now merges with and enjoys some impersonal embrace of an all-encompassing Absolute. Others, like Hinduism, believed that the individual soul would return to its earliest primal state after many rebirths. read more

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Coming in November: Nirvana

Posted on October 31, 2020 by Vajragoni

Nirvana is more often than not misconstrued within Buddhist circles. It is merely discernable as “marking the end of rebirth by stilling the fires that keep the process of rebirth going.” This has much to do with the early Prakrit language translation as: ṇivvāṇa, literally “blown out”, as in an oil lamp. Hence the ongoing connotation of coming to a point of extinction. It needs to be stated unequivocally that the Mahayanists deny the reality of Nirvana as a separate element that transcends the living world. More specifically, a Lankavatarian would state that one does not vanish in Nirvana, nor is Nirvana abiding in you; for it transcends the duality of knowing and known and of being and non-being. In other words, the Nirvanic Mind is not in a symbiotic-relationship with the apparent you. No, IT is not in you but transcends all categorical imperatives of here or there, being and non-being. IT is a Transcendent Kingdom unto Itself. This series will explore the ongoing evolution of the term within various Buddhist schools as expertly articulated by the renowned Russian Indologist Fyodor Shcherbatskoy (1866-1942) in his seminal work, The Conception of Buddhist Nirvana. We will then consider the definition as presented in the Lankavatara Sutra, Tozen’s Dharmakaya Sutra, and then through the lens of Nāgārjuna. read more

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The foreverness of Zen

Posted on February 5, 2019 by Tozen

Nothing in this life is Zen. Not your assumed birth, nor an inevitable cessation of your present biological matrix. read more

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Like an Ethereal Flower

Posted on December 2, 2018 by Vajragoni

[* It needs to be stated at the outset that the Sagathakam as translated by Suzuki oftentimes just stated “Chapter/Verse”, in which the reader was forced to go back into the main text to discover the full verses. What follows for this series is taken from the Complete Lanka and Discussion which can be found in our library. At the time in 2002, each chapter of the Lanka had to be copied down in its entirety since no such translation of Suzuki’s Lanka was available on the net. I copied the main body of the text, while the Sagathakam was copied by two other students at the time from Tozen’s Zen School of the Unborn Mind, courtesy of Orphea and Atimaya who copied the actual chapter and verse without the reader having to backtrack time and time again into the text. Their efforts are to be commended.] read more

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The Desecration of Nirvana

Posted on November 6, 2016 by Vajragoni

“Once again, Śāriputra, on the basis of the view that there is decrease, these beings further entertain three types of views. These three types of views and that view that there is decrease are inseparable, like [the threads of] a gauze net. What are the three views? 1. The view of annihilation, that is, that there is absolute exhaustion. 2. The view that there is extinction, that is, precisely nirvāṇa. 3.The view that there is no nirvāṇa, that is, that this nirvāṇa is absolute quiescence. These three types of views, Śāriputra, fetter [beings] in this way, grasp [beings] in this way, and cling [to beings] in this way. read more

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The mind of 84,000 hooks.

Posted on March 14, 2015 by Tozen

This is the sole gospel of Mara, the Evil One, so pay careful attention;

Within each seed granted your self,
there is a promise of a beautiful flower. read more

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The Tathagata’s Womb

Posted on December 16, 2014 by Vajragoni


Carl Van Brunt

(Hakeda)

CHAPTER TWO

The Correction of Evil Attachments

I.THE BIASED VIEWS HELD BY ORDINARY MEN read more

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