When listening to the rain drops and roaring thunder, feeling the intimacy:
    听时全是耳,
    受时全是身,
    应时全是缘,
    笑时万法乐。
    Not translating. More poetic. 😁

    5 Comments


    Yin Ling
    What is 应?


    John Tan
    Yin Ling "meeting". When conditions meet.


  • Yin Ling
    John Tan ok got it 谢谢。


  • John Tan
    Yin Ling Just capturing the 意境... First when hearing the rain and thundering, then the intimacy in feeling. Then the thought of seamlessness of the "meeting" conditions, then the joy.🤪

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  • Yin Ling
    John Tan oh I thought it was 4 separate 意境.. ok now it is completely different haha

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    • Stian Gudmundsen Høiland
      "Not translating. More poetic. 😁"
      I’m sure your translation would be more poetic than the automatic one I got:
      "All ears while listening,
      It's all over the body,
      It's all about hatred when it comes to time,
      Laughter makes your body happy."




    • Stian Gudmundsen Høiland
      The FB Koan Collection


    • John Tan
      When hearing, all manifest as ears.
      When feeling, all manifest as body.
      When engaging, all manifest as conditions.
      When laughing, all dharma are in joy.


    • Stian Gudmundsen Høiland
      Nice. Reminds me of something Mason said once, but which I can’t find right now.
      Also reminds me of something Nyananada said:
      *
      “The word tajjo comes from tat + ja. Tat means ‘that [itself]’. It is the root of
      such important words as tādī and tammaya. So tatja means ‘arisen out of that
      itself’. What is samannāhāra? You might remember that, in the Caṅkī Sutta,
      the Buddha happens to see the Kāpaṭhika Brahmin youth. There we find the
      word upasaṃharati along with samannāhāra,[2] referring to a sort of focusing
      that may have not been planned – a chance meeting of eye to eye.
      Samannāhāra (āharati = brings) refers to a certain ‘bringing together’.
      “So tajjo samannāhāra points to the fact that this ‘bringing together’ of the
      necessary factors for the arising of consciousness is inherent to the situation
      itself. It is unique to the situation, and does not come from within a person or
      from the outside. It is not exerted by oneself or an external agent: some
      thought that there is an ātman inside who is in charge, while others said that it
      is a God that injects consciousness into the man. Letting go of all these
      extremes, Ven. Sāriputta Thera pointed out the crucial role of tajjo
      samannāhāra with his analysis of the three possibilities.”
      And then Bhante falls silent, and looks on with a smile.
      After a few moments, he asks: “What do you hear?”
      There is a bird singing in the distance.
      “Did it start singing only now?”
      It probably had started earlier (and now that I am listening to the tapes as I
      transcribe this, I know that it had started many minutes earlier).
      “It must have been singing all this while, but only now...” I say.
      “Only now...?”
      “Only now did the attention went there.”
      “There you have tajjo samannāhāra! So is it only because of the sound of the bird that you heard it? Didn’t you hear it only after I stopped talking? There
      could be other reasons too: had there been louder noises, you may not have
      heard it. So we see that it is circumstantial. That is why we mentioned in our
      writings: everything is circumstantial; nothing is substantial.”
      Please allow me to interject here and add that the last sentence would remain
      something that I’ll always cherish from these interviews. Not only because of
      the simple profundity of the statement or the nice little practical experiment
      that led up to it, but also because of the gentle kindness in the way it was
      uttered.
      “The attention that is present in a situation is to be understood as having
      arisen out of the circumstances. If there is anything of value in the Paṭṭḥāna,
      that would be here, in its analysis of the 24 causes. I can’t say for certain, but
      it may well be an attempt at systematising the general concept mentioned in
      this sutta: how a thought is connected to another. Since it is impossible to
      explain this mechanism by breaking it apart with words, Ven. Sāriputta Thera
      says it is circumstantial – unique to the situation itself.


    • Stian Gudmundsen Høiland
      Here is what Mason wrote:
      > We think our smile or our frown has some kind of metaphysical significance.
      But it's all bullshit.
      > When the conditions for smiling are there, then smiling is there.
      > When the conditions for frowning are there, then frowning.
      And:
      > When the conditions for seeing the world as a joke are there, the world is
      joke.
      > When the conditions for seeing the world as a horrible cycle of suffering are
      there, then the world is a horrible cycle of suffering

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    • John Tan
      "Smiling" and "frowning" should also not be taken as a "then" consequence of conditions as presented in the sevenfold reasoning of Chandra, hence, orignating dependently without establishment.

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 Thank you Yin Ling for answering to my request.


    Finally sit down and go through my libraries and listed down the books I personally love, both dharma and dharma related.
    I won’t categorise them bec I really do not think in category when I buy or read. All of them contributed to my insight and learning in its own way. If I feel it’s too much for me I put it aside and come back to it again when I have new insight, things usually open up. That’s how I read.
    A lot of theravada books I didn’t list, coz I read them early in the path say before 2019-2020.. I don’t remember clearly so I won’t list them.
    Pls also recommend me some books if not in the list. Much appreciated 🙂.
    ***
    Book recommendations (Dharma)
    1. Awakening to reality e-book guide written by Soh Wei Yu in his blog awakeningtoreality.com
    2. seeing that frees Rob Burbea
    2. How to see yourself as you truly are HHDL
    3. Clarifying the natural state DTN
    4. Awake Angelo DiLullo MD
    5. The method of no method Chan master Sheng Yen
    6. The sun my heart TNH
    7. Buddhahood without meditation
    8. Death Joan tollifson
    9. Royal seal of Mahamudra 1 and 2
    10. Enjoying the ultimate TNH
    11. Awakening the heart (sutra commentary) by TNH
    12. Hakuin on Kensho commentary by Albert low
    13. The end of your world Adyashanti
    14. Emptiness dancing Adyashanti
    15. Practical insight meditation Mahasi Sayadaw
    16. Mastering the core teaching of the Buddha Daniel Ingram
    17. No death no fear TNH
    18. Tsongkhapa praise for dependent relativity
    19. Mindfulness in plain English Bhante G
    20. The supreme source CNN
    21. Grist for the mill Ram Dass
    22. How to realize emptiness Gen and Wallace Lamrimpa
    23. Emptiness Greg Goode
    24. Being time shinshu Roberts
    25. Realizing genjokoan by shohaku okumura
    26. The practise of Dzogchen Translated by tulku thondup
    27. Natural liberation Padmasambhava
    28. Finding rest in meditation/ nature of mind/ illusion by longchenpa - illusion is my fav
    29. Insight into emptiness Tegchok
    30. The other shore TNH (heart sutra commentary)
    31. Call me by my true names TNH’s poetry collection
    32. Mindfulness Joseph Goldstein - core Buddhist teachings like textbook
    33. Introduction to emptiness Guy Newland
    34. Under the bodhi tree and heart wood of the Bodhi tree Buddhadhasa Bikkhu
    35. The grand delusion Steve Hagen
    36. A path with heart Jack kornfield
    37. Bringing home the dharma Jack kornfield
    38. Food for the heart ajahn Chah
    39. The mind illuminated culadasa
    40. The power of now ET
    41. 洪文亮法师writings (link can be found on ATR blog)
    MMK
    1. the sun of wisdom
    2. Jan westerhoff
    3. Nargajuna mark siderits
    4. The feast for the fortunate
    5. Nargajuna vigraharyavartani
    ATR related
    1) free ebook
    2) all the recommended post in the blog
    On the right panel
    3) thusness old forum posts back in circa 2005-2008
    4) all the transcripts - 4 of them I think
    Others (indirectly to dharma)
    1. the body keeps the score Bassel van der kolk (trauma)
    2. Drugs and alcohol book by prof David nutt
    3. Dopamine nation
    4. The noonday demon Andrew Solomon (an anatomy of depression)
    5. When breath becomes air Paul kalanithi
    6. Attached amir Levine (attachment theory for relationships)
    7. Dying to be me Anita moorjani
    8. Atomic habits James clear
    9. Tiny habits BJ fogg
    awakeningtoreality.com
    Awakening to Reality

    1 Comment


    Soh Wei Yu
    Nice! Thanks for the effort Yin Ling

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    *This is for anyone going through dark night or difficulties in life or practice
    When I first discovered Buddhism I found the first noble truth to be pessimistic. Later of course I understood it in full. When I was 10 years old I was detained for shoplifting. I thought my Dad would disown me. He embraced me and said “Son I’ll always love you no matter what you do… but you’re also grounded until further notice” lol. I remember that moment so clearly. The smell of marlboro reds, his green eyes. His kindness.
    As a teenager I was so angry at him. So full of rage. He had drug problems and over the next several years I watched his slow decay. I was angry that he couldn’t be there for me. I was angry at myself for not being able to tell him that. When I was 18 I did my first 10-day Vipassana retreat and a year later did a 90-day retreat in Thailand. During our last phone call he told me how proud he was of me for finding something I loved and was committed to. How lucky was I that the last words I ever said to him were I love you.
    Just a few weeks later my father fell into a coma his lungs collapsed from a lifetime of smoking and a decade of meth. He was almost entirely brain dead from asphyxiation, but had minor activity remaining in the brain stem, enough to keep his body alive. The night we got the news my Grandmother was sitting on a couch and my mother, aunt and I were kneeling on the floor around her. Crying she patted our heads and she put her hands in prayer and all she could say was “we have to be strong…” In that moment I saw how powerless and helpless we were. In times like that all you can do is kneel.
    He took his last breath, the blood drained from his face and I understood the meaning of the word dukkha. My doubts about the Buddha’s first truth were cleared. All my hopes and dreams that my father would get better one day, along with the boy who held to them… died with him. In the years that followed my family suffered financial hardships, we nearly lost our home to foreclosure. I had no idea what to do with my life anymore.
    Only very recently have I gained some success and stability. For 7 years after he passed everything I touched failed. I flunked out of college, couldn’t hold down a job for longer than a year and a half. Got a new girlfriend every year or two. No one was there to teach me how to become a man so I sought that fatherly figure in spiritual teachers and bosses ultimately to be sorely disappointed.
    There were times when I had no one. No one believed in me anymore. Even my best friend had abandoned me. I quit my job with special needs children in my early 20’s to be a rideshare driver at night because I couldn’t get out of bed in the morning. I ate a lot of fried sweet potatoes because I was broke from being too lazy to drive as much as I should have lol. I had nothing not even myself to rely on.
    On those hopeless nights I still crossed my legs, straightened my back and meditated. I still read and sat day after day and even though every area of my life had fallen apart… I still had this dharma. One day after so many long years of being lost, all those retreats, the thousands of hours I sat, the teachers I lived with and left, all my wandering and seeking… it was all worth it when Presence and non-duality dawned and I was forever changed.
    I realized then just as I know now that no sit is wasted. No hour spent reading is worthless. No moment of seeking is in vain. I’m still no enlightened man, but compared to what I used to be… this path killed so much unwholesomeness that was in me. I’m always amazed to see so many awakened people be so functional— doctors, lawyers, bankers, programmers. I could barely tie my shoes until just a couple years ago.
    Tomorrow is my father’s birthday on the side of the world most of you are reading this from. I thought I’d take it as a time to share what some people say is a good story 🙏. Here's my old man below. Happy Birthday Dad!
     

     

    15 Comments


  • Yin Ling
    Admin
    Your dad would be so proud of you ❤️


    Ryan Burton
    Author
    aw thank you yin 🙏❤️


  • Erik Thulin
    Heartfelt sharing Ryan Burton 🙏🏻


  • James Liaw
    Do the path whether u feel good or otherwise.. As it leads to end of suffering.. As what ajahn achalo says..


  • Judy Sehling
    Amazing where you are today, healed from your past, and now inspiring and making positive impacts on many lives. 🙏🏻💖




  • Damian Hardy
    Thank you 🙏❤


  • Emma Smith
    So much love here ❤. I just went on a journey with you. Thank you so much for sharing ❤🙏


  • Rakesh Sandhu
    Thank you for sharing that Ryan Burton your dad would be proud.


  • Kornelia Heidegger
    "Be your own light", thanx for sharing! ❤


  • Joseph Kippen
    Beautiful ❤️


  • Mohammed Danny
    Thanks for sharing, beautiful read


  • Soh Wei Yu
    Admin
    Shared with john tan, he said
    “Wow... thks for sharing this soh. 👍🙏


  • CJ Ro
    I feel your amazing energy 🙏


  • Dhruba Chapain
    Beautiful 🥰❤️

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