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Someone said:"pursuit of merit is the Buddhist way to develop a wise sense of self"

Soh replied:

I would say it should be the other way round. Truly practicing without sense of self gives rise to the highest merit.

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Sariputra: What is the worldly, and what is the supramundane perfection of giving?

Subhuti: The worldly perfection of giving consists in this: The Bodhisattva gives liberally to all those who ask, all the while thinking in terms of real things [that are unchanging and substantial]. It occurs to him: "I [who is unchanging and substantial give, that one [who is unchanging and substantial] receives, this is the gift [that is unchanging and substantial]. I renounce all my possessions without stint. I act as one who knows the Buddha. I practice the perfection of giving. I, having made this gift into the common property of all beings, dedicate it to supreme enlightenment, and that without apprehending anything [that is unchanging and substantial]. By means of this gift, and its fruits may all beings in this very life be at ease, and may they one day enter Nirvana!" Tied by three ties he gives a gift. Which three? A perception of self, a perception of others, a perception of the gift.

The supramundane perfection of giving, on the other hand, consists in the threefold purity. What is the threefold purity? Here a Bodhisattva gives a gift, and he does not apprehend a self [who is unchanging and substantial, nor a recipient [who is unchanging and substantial], nor a gift [that is unchanging and substantial]; also no reward of his giving [that is unchanging and substantial]. He surrenders that gift to all beings, but he apprehends neither beings nor self [who are unchanging and substantial]. He dedicates that gift to supreme enlightenment, but he does not apprehend any enlightenment [due t non-attachment to it, thus truly attaining it]. This is called the supramundane perfection of giving.

Pañcavimsatisahasrika, 263-64

Buddhist Texts Through The Ages

Translated & Edited By Edward Conze, I.B. Horner, David Snellgrove & Arthur Waley

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https://www.wisdomlib.org/buddhism/book/maha-prajnaparamita-sastra/d/doc225233.html

There is also mundane generosity (laukikadāna) and supramundane generosity (lokottaradāna), the generosity approved of by the āryas (āryavarṇitadāna) and the generosity disapproved of by the āryas (āryāvarṇitadāna), the generosity of the buddhas and bodhisattvas (buddhabodhisattvadāna) and the generosity of the śrāvakas (śrāvakadāna).

1) What is mundane generosity (laukikadāna)? Mundane generosity is the generosity of ordinary people (pṛthagjanadāna) and also the generosity used by the āryas with an impure mind (sāsravacitta). Some say that [only] the generosity of worldly people constitutes mundane generosity, whereas the generosity of the āryas, even though carried out with impure mind, is supramundane because their fetters (saṃyojana) are cut (chinna). Why? Because these āryas have obtained the concentration of non-thought (apraṇihitasamādhi).[1]

Furthermore, mundane generosity is impure (aviśuddha), whereas supramundane generosity is pure (viśuddha).[2] There are two kinds of fetters (saṃyojana): i) those that depend on craving (tṛṣṇāpekṣa); ii) those that depend on wrong views (dṛṣṭyapekṣa).[3] When these two kinds of fetters are present, the generosity is mundane; when they are absent, the generosity is supramundane.

When the three obstacles (āvaraṇa)[4] fetter the mind, the generosity is mundane. Why? Dharmas, resulting from causes and conditions (hetupratyaya) are truly without substantial self (anātmaka); nevertheless, we say: “I am giving and someone is receiving”; this is what is called mundane generosity. Besides, [the notion] of self (ātman) has no precise attribution (aniyatasthāna): sometimes it is the self that is taken as ātman and not as other; sometimes it is other that is taken as ātman and not as self.[5] As a result of this imprecision, there is no true ātman. Moreover, the thing given (deyadravya) exists solely as a result of the complex of causes and conditions (hetupratyayasāmagrī) and all the dharmas are in themselves nonexistent (anupalabdha). They are like a cloth (paṭa) that results from a collection of causes and conditions but which ceases to exist as soon as one pulls out the silken thread or threads of which it is composed. In the same way the dharmas have as sole characteristic the absence of own-characteristic [142b] (animittalakṣaṇa); they are eternally empty of self nature (svabhāvalakṣaṇa). But people have hallucinations (abhiprāya) and take them to be existent. This mistake (viparyāsa) and this error characterize the mundane generosity. – But when the mind is free of the three obstacles (āvaraṇa), the characteristic of dharmas (lakṣaṇadharma) is truly cognized and the mind is free of error (viparyāsa): then generosity is supramundane.

2) Supramundane generosity is the generosity approved of by the āryas (āryavarṇitadāna); mundane generosity is the generosity disapproved of by the āryas (āryāvarṇitadāna).

Moreover, pure (viśuddha) generosity free of stains (vimala) and conforming to the true nature (bhūtalakṣaṇa) of dharmas is the generosity approved of by the āryas; the impure (aviśuddha) generosity, mixed with fetters (saṃyojana), errors (viparyāsa) and obstinacy (cittasaṅga) is the generosity disapproved of by the āryas.

Finally, the generosity associated with the knowledge of the true nature (bhūtalakṣaṇaprajñā) is the generosity approved of by the āryas; in the contrary case, it is disapproved of by the āryas.

3) When one gives without seeking [the welfare] of beings or without wanting to know the true nature (bhūtalakṣaṇa) of dharmas, but only for the purpose of escaping from birth (jāti), old age (jarā), sickness (vyādhi) and death (maraṇa), this is the generosity of the śrāvakas. When one gives for all beings or again in order to know the true nature of dharmas, this is the generosity of the Buddhas or bodhisattvas.

When one is incapable of fulfilling (paripūrṇa) all the qualities (guṇa) [required for true generosity] but one is seeking to obtain a small portion of them, this is generosity of the śrāvakas. When one wishes to fulfill all the qualities, this is generosity of the Buddhas or bodhisattvas.

When one gives out of fear of old age, sickness and death, this is generosity of the śrāvakas; when one gives to acquire buddhahood, to convert beings and without fear of old age, sickness and death, this is generosity of the Buddhas or bodhisattvas.[6] At this point, the story of the P’ou sa pen cheng king (Bodhisattvajātakasūtra) should be told.

Good video that John Tan shared with me. The video points out progression from I AMness to Anatta and discusses psychedelics. John Tan however cautioned, “ To me, any meddling with the mind is dangerous.”

Someone said: "This has been my realization as well. I have been having a hard time finding many who espouse emptiness teachings. Obviously Buddha, but the only major practitioner I can find any info on or videos by is Greg Goode. "

He continues to lead sesshins (intensive meditation retreats) and genzo-e (Shobogenzo study) retreats at Sanshin-ji (Sanshin Zen Community) and at various other centers in the US and around the world. Shohaku Okumura's bio on Sanshin Zen Community.

• See our livestream web site and audio page for dharma talks and other events.” - https://www.sfzc.org/teachers/shohaku-okumura

Chanting Da Bei Zhou - Great Compassion Dharani

Journey Through Enlightenment: A Visual and Insightful Guide to Buddhas and Bodhisattvas

I sent this to someone recently:

Regarding manifestation, I wrote some time before:

Soh Wei Yu

My experience with manifestation has got to do with praying to Green Tara and it has got to do with some of my personal life situations in the past which I do not want to discuss. I did not try other methods of manifestation (including new age ones like 'The Secret').

But suffice to say, I had some miraculous encounters where Green Tara's presence appeared (not visually but I could feel the presence and it spoke mentally to me) to me and informed me that my wish will be "granted" that day, and then truly it was “granted” that day after many months. Months before that, tara also communicated to me that my wish will come true, not to worry but “focus on helping others”. Without that encounter I would have no idea. At the same time there was a strange pleasant smell when I felt 'her Presence', and the last time that happened was when I did Garab Dorje guru yoga for the first time in 2012 after ChNN's transmission (and my bunk mates also smelled that pleasant thing, and by the way burning incense is not allowed in army so I have no ideas how that came about).

Maybe that may sound superstitious but after that event I was convinced there is something to this promise in this sutra:

https://read.84000.co/translation/toh438.html - Praise to Tārā with Twenty-One Verses of Homage

Excerpt: 

1.­28

Those who want children will come to have them,

Those who seek wealth will come to have that,

**Each and every wish will be fulfilled,

And obstacles, entirely vanquished, will be no more.** (emphasis by Soh)

(Update: Also, I should mention that I knew I had a close connection with Tara from 2012. When Dzogchen teacher Chogyal Namkhai Norbu was holding a 5 day Dzogchen teaching retreat in Singapore, I had a dream one day before he gave the Tara empowerment. I did not know he was giving Tara empowerment the next day, but the night before I had a very peculiar dream where many dakinis were singing the mantra of green Tara in a very unique tune I have not heard before. I woke up right after the dream. It left me an impression and I knew I must have had some kind of connection with tara).

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• Aditya Prasad

• Soh Wei Yu Was it just the Green Tara prayer (Om Tare Tuttare Ture Soha) you were reciting? I've been drawn to that one lately for some reason.

• Soh Wei Yu

• Aditya Prasad

• I did a lot of green tara mantra (Om Tare Tuttare Ture Soha) over months but i think that day i was doing 21 praises to tara - https://read.84000.co/translation/toh438.html - Praise to Tārā with Twenty-One Verses of Homage

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.....

Also, I wrote:

i've a strong affinity with guan yin since a young age and i started going to my mom's dharma center at age of 13 and since then i also received teachings from other teachers

but more recent years i started chanting dabeizhou, and also the tara mantra on a daily basisxabir Snoovatar

Guan yin has told me to be compassionate in my visions.. also the last time i saw her in a dream i entered a blissful samadhi state and guan yin pointed me to rest in my true nature and then i had instant samadhi and intense presence and blissfulness of my true nature in sleep

Tara also appeared to me before, told me my wishes will come true six months and day before it happened otherwise i wouldnt have known. And told me to focus on helping others. When she appeared there was a fragrance from another world. I was not burning any incense in my air conditioned room

......

Also, this thread is very important on how cultivating merits are absolutely crucial for any successful 'manifestation': https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2021/11/on-importance-of-merits.html



——

that being said, manifestation is not the main point of dharma practice for me, liberation and awakening is far more vital and important in my path

the concerns of this life is not so important in the long run, and you may or may not believe in past lives but plenty of people in my community, and those practitioners/yogis starting from Buddha can and do recall past lives.. so liberation concerns not only the well-being of this life, let alone the material side only, but it is also liberation from cyclic existences in samsara

in the 'importance of merits' link above, i mentioned why merits is also important.. both in spiritual life and worldly life and success. my mentor, who [info redacted], attributes his success to that

—-

In short, the main purpose of dharma practice and awakening from the perspective of buddhism and especially mahayana buddhism is to be free from all suffering, cyclic rebirth of samsara, attain omniscience and the ability to not turn away from samsara but endlessly help sentient beings attain the same liberation and awakening

——

check out this post i created using chatgpt, the descriptions and images generated explains who tara and the other buddhas and bodhisattvas and masters are:

https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2023/12/journey-through-enlightenment-visual.html

i am particularly connected with avalokitesvara and green tara, who in my visions and encounters with them, they told me to be compassionate and to focus on helping others

—

Told John Tan recently,

“Just now i was searching for my airpod casing for quite some time like half an hour, searched here and there and could not find. Then i prayed to bodhisattva.. i suddenly heard an inner voice tell me with confidence like “why are you searching everywhere when its with you right there all along?” Then i tried to search my pockets again the hundredth time, cannot find. Then after half an hour later, the airpod casing dropped down from my jeans.. think dropped into my pants when i was in toilet 🤣

I hear inner voices like that sometimes that i believe is from bodhisattva when i pray sincerely

I patted my jeans also when i heard that voice but somehow didnt find it then”

John tan replied me, “U must be something wrong, why bother bodhisattva for such a matter?”

“That said, over the years, I have come to realize and believe despite my overly logical and pragmatic mind 🤣 that such "phenomena" are not uncommon in practice, it is hard to sweep all under the carpet in the name of "science" and "coincidence".”

Soh said, “Oic.. ya.. especially since my encounter with tara and the otherworldly fragrance when she “came” and previously when i receive dzogchen transmission from chnn and practice guru yoga of garab dorje for the first time also had that otherworldly fragrance, hard to deny and attribute it to coincidence. My mom also knew very well the otherworldly fragrance.. think when she chant dabeizhou last time”

----

Besides me, countless others have miraculous encounters with Tara. 

For example: 

https://buddhaweekly.com/mama-buddha-tara-compassionate-action/ - Mama Buddha Tara: Compassionate Action; Stories of Green Tara the Rescuer — How She Can Help You

https://buddhaweekly.com/how-tara-buddha-saved-my-life-appearing-beside-my-hospital-bed/ - How Tara Buddha saved my life — appearing beside my hospital bed

https://garchen.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/How-Tara-Saved-Me-from-Dangers-Narratives-by-H.E.-Garchen-Rinpoche.pdf  - How Tara Saved Me from Great Dangers
Narratives by H.E. Garchen Rinpoche

Also recently, someone on Reddit shared: 

https://www.reddit.com/r/Buddhism/s/oatD01j3ik

I did Tara practice religiously for many many months and finally one night in a dream she revealed herself to me. She came with a retinue of dozen of monks and they gave me spiritual teachings in a dream for what seemed like a long time. They told me that tenderness was one of the highest spiritual qualities. I was also visited by Yeshe Tsogyal after a retreat where we had been doing Yeshe Tsogyal prayers. She briefly put my mind into samadhi as she merged her mind with mine, and I felt the most unfathomable bliss, peace, joy, and love I had ever felt. Then she told me: "on the path to enlightenment, there will always be obstacles, but suffering is optional"

----

It should be emphasized however that tara practice goes beyond just praying to some external beings. It is important to keep in mind and receive the appropriate instructions from a qualified Vajrayana master:

Dzogchen teacher Acarya Malcolm Smith:

Tara, as a deity, is just a name for our own state. As ChNN puts it, "Tara is the state of Dzogchen."

...

When we practice deity yoga, we are realizing our own state, not the state of some other being, buddha or not.

…

There is also the fact that in kriya tantra people practice by addressing the deity as external, like Tāra, for example, for common siddhis; a kind of practice that is enjoyed by brahmins, which also depends heavily on ritual purity and so on. So, because Vajrayāna is a path of skillful means, it employs people's theistic tendencies. But this vanishes in carya tantra, where the deity is understood as a symbol of the nature of the mind and one visualizes oneself as the deity. By the time we get to HYT, this is all completely abandoned, since now we are to understand, at the time of the result, that all phenomena we experience—aggregates, sense bases, and sense elements—are the display of our own gnosis.

…

But generally, if you want mundane siddhis, then you need to practice some creation stage practice, like Tara, Kilaya, Amitayus, etc. depending on one needs.

Krodha / Kyle Dixon:

You are the deity in Vajrayāna.

Mahamudra teacher Thrangu Rinpoche:

The practice of deity meditation consists fundamentally of three elements: clear appearance of the deity’s form, stable pride or confidence, that you are the deity, and recollection of purity by recalling the deeper meaning of the various aspects of the deity. It is difficult to cultivate clear appearance and the recollection of purity in post- meditation. Therefore, the principal post-meditation practice is to maintain the stable confidence that we are actually the deity. We try to maintain the confidence that the true nature of our body, speech, and mind is the body, speech, and mind of the deity being practiced. The commentaries on deity meditation commonly state, “In post-meditation, never part from the confidence of believing you are the deity.”

Here's a document I wrote many years ago comparing Actual Freedom teachings and the teachings of Buddhism.

https://app.box.com/shared/sbyi64jrms

ChatGPT generated synopsis:

 Ananda, all illusory sense organs and every illusory form arise and perish exactly where they manifest. These are falsely named and conceived, yet their true nature is the luminous essence of marvelous awakening. So it is with everything, from the five skandhas to the six entrances, from the twelve bases to the eighteen realms. The union of causes and conditions gives rise to their illusory arising; their separation bestows the illusory name of extinction. It is profoundly elusive to discern that the arising and ceasing, the coming and going, are fundamentally the ever-present, wondrous clarity of the Tathagatagarbha. The unmoved, perfect, all-encompassing nature of true suchness — within this constant and true nature, seeking the coming and going, delusion and enlightenment, birth and death, one will never find them.

- Shurangama Sutra

《首楞严经》卷第二说：“一切浮尘，诸幻化相，当处出生，随处灭尽，幻妄称相，其性真为妙觉明体。如是乃至五阴六入，从十二处至十八界，因缘和合虚妄有生，因缘别离虚妄名灭。殊不能知生灭去来，本如来藏常住妙明，不动周圆妙真如性，性真常中求于去来，迷悟死生了无所得。”

source of translation:

From my translation of this article with the help of ChatGPT with some personal amendments 

“Heretical Views Outside the Path - Xiao Pingshi's "God-Making Movement"” by Venerable Da Zhao 

邪因外道——萧平实的“造神运动” (达照）

https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2024/01/heretical-views-outside-path-xiao.html

Soh Wei Yu

Nice explanation and citations by Krodha/Kyle Dixon:

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krodha

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2 yr. ago

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edited 2 yr. ago

For Buddhas the field of phenomena does not appear as external but as their own display. Essentially meaning that knowing and what is known are not different. What is known is itself the activity of knowing.

Rongzom:

Buddhas and bodhisattvas are the knowers, and unmistakable true reality is the object of knowledge. Therefore, it is stated that there is no difference between knowledge and the object of knowledge.

Kūkai:

Although mind is distinguished from form, they share the same nature. Form is mind, mind is forms. They interfuse with one another without difficulty. Therefore, knowing is the objects of knowledge, and the objects, knowing. Knowing is reality, reality knowing.

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Soh Wei Yu

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krodha

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3 yr. ago

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edited 3 yr. ago

"Would it be valid to say that when it is said "there is no object to apprehend nor anyone to apprehend it, just apprehension" is incomplete in assuming there even such a thing as apprehension?"

This statement is like saying there is seeing but no one who sees and nothing that is seen. But you are right saying there is even “seeing” is only a pointer. The Heart sūtra addressee even the activity of seeing:

So, in emptiness, there is no body, no feeling, no thought, no will, no consciousness. There are no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind. There is no seeing, no hearing, no smelling, no tasting, no touching, no imagining. There is nothing seen, nor heard, nor smelled, nor tasted, nor touched, nor imagined.

Some adepts do their best with descriptions. Sometimes using terms like “knowing” or “seeing” to capture the nature of awakened mind. Like this statement from Kūkai:

Form is mind, mind is forms. They interfuse with one another without difficulty. Therefore, knowing is the objects of knowledge, and the objects, knowing. Knowing is reality, reality knowing.

Or Milarepa:

This fundamental consciousness in itself is nothing at all. In the voidness [emptiness] of reality, lack of realizer and realized is realized, lack of seer and seen is seen, lack of knower and known is known, lack of perceiver and perceived is perceived.

All of these pointers are doing their best to describe the awakened state.

Buddha Śākyamuni makes the same assertions in the Kalakarama sutta and the Bāhiya sutta.

The idea is that visual appearances are precisely the activity of seeing and precisely “knowing.” Knowing or consciousness in general, is only what appears. And then through our ignorance we bifurcate this experiential dimension into subject-object duality. We must actually awaken through a cessation of delusion to recognize the true nature of reality.

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The myriad forms of the entire universe are the seal of the single Dharma. Whatever forms are seen are but the perception of mind. But mind is not independently existent. It is co-dependent with form.

- Zen Master Mazu

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