Wat Lao Siriwathanaram, has service for meditator to practice meditation on November 15 to 16, 2008 start at 6:30 pm. On that day we celibrate BOUNTHATLUANG ceremony too. On these days we invited Monks from Kansas and Columbus, One monk from Kansas and two monks from Columbus and two monks from MON Monastery.
So, we welcome all of you to joince our ceremony.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Water festival 2551
Lao New Year, Water Festival At watlao Siriwathanaram Buddhist Temple Inc.
77 W. Crosier Street
Akron, Ohio 44311
Tel: 330 434-0341
After finished Ceremony
August 24, 2008. The Prison Of Life Part ThreeWhat stands in the way of us realising our minds? The true nature of our mind is obscured like a thick cloud that covers the blue sky. That cloud is made up of our negative emotions, like our clinging greedy minds, our anger and aversion, our pride and arrogance, our jealousy and envy, and especially our ignorance of not realising our true nature. And this acts as a screen.
Do we realise how much we live our lives through our minds? Everything we see, everything we say, everything we do, is directed by our minds, our thoughts, our feelings, our memories, our concepts, our judgements.
We hardly see anything as it is. We see our opinion. It is very hard to see things nakedly without the many sheaths of our conceptual opinions and ideas about that thing. We come here and we look at this ceiling. Either we think it is magnificent art, or we think it is absolute kitsch. We think it is wonderful, or we think, "Oh my God, how could anybody have done this?"
It makes no difference; the ceiling is just a ceiling and the painting is just paint. How we react to it depends on our mental framework, our background, our education, our aesthetic taste.
Everything is like that. We never see things as they really are; we only see our version. Everything we experience, we experience through our mind. Everything we see, we hear, we taste, touch or feel, is interpreted through our mind. Yet we do not know the mind itself.
We say, "I think that, I feel that, in my opinion it is that." But what is a thought? What is a feeling? What is an opinion? We are always streaming outside through our senses, but we never turn that awareness, which sees and thinks and tastes and touches, inward onto the mind itself.
Friday, August 22, 2008
Path of the Buddha's Teaching
Verse 1. All mental phenomena have mind as their fore-runnere; they have mind as their chief; they are mind-made. If one speaks or acts with an evil mind, suffering follows him/ her just as the wheel follows the hoof-print of the ox that draws the cart.
The Prison Of Life Part Two
The Prison Of life Part two
We experience a level of awareness behind the coming and going of thoughts and feelings, and concepts. It is a wordless, timeless, non-dualistic perception. If we can remain always in that higher level of total awareness, we are Buddha.
It is simple. This awareness is not something up there, and it is not actually something that is difficult to realise. Awareness is just awareness. The Tibetans compare it to the sky. The sky has no centre, and it has no circumference. It is endless. The sky is not just up there. It is within and around us. It is space. In Tibetan, the word for space and the word for sky is the same word. So where is space not? Where is this awareness not?
The word "Buddha" means to awaken. We are all asleep, we are all dreaming, and we believe our dreams. This is the problem.
When we awaken for a moment, then we see that what we cling to is really our own projection. Then our minds are so sharp, so clear, and so awake, and we realise that our true nature is something completely beyond the conceptual thinking mind. The important thing is that externally nothing changes, but inwardly everything changes. Everything becomes alive and clear and vivid, but there is no ego driving it. Then everything spontaneously happens, whatever one needs to do is spontaneously accomplished, without the ego getting in the way. It is accomplished skilfully.
What stands in the way of our liberated mind? This is what we have to deal with and what is happening in our society nowadays.
We experience a level of awareness behind the coming and going of thoughts and feelings, and concepts. It is a wordless, timeless, non-dualistic perception. If we can remain always in that higher level of total awareness, we are Buddha.
It is simple. This awareness is not something up there, and it is not actually something that is difficult to realise. Awareness is just awareness. The Tibetans compare it to the sky. The sky has no centre, and it has no circumference. It is endless. The sky is not just up there. It is within and around us. It is space. In Tibetan, the word for space and the word for sky is the same word. So where is space not? Where is this awareness not?
The word "Buddha" means to awaken. We are all asleep, we are all dreaming, and we believe our dreams. This is the problem.
When we awaken for a moment, then we see that what we cling to is really our own projection. Then our minds are so sharp, so clear, and so awake, and we realise that our true nature is something completely beyond the conceptual thinking mind. The important thing is that externally nothing changes, but inwardly everything changes. Everything becomes alive and clear and vivid, but there is no ego driving it. Then everything spontaneously happens, whatever one needs to do is spontaneously accomplished, without the ego getting in the way. It is accomplished skilfully.
What stands in the way of our liberated mind? This is what we have to deal with and what is happening in our society nowadays.
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