Studies in Buddhist Dharma - Mahayana - August 24 - Not I, not me, Not mine

I am not sure if these notes will make sense.  Much of this lecture was over my head.

The Mahayana emerged around the 1st century (at this point we are already 600 years into Buddhism).

Again Chris did a lot of talking about morality.  He talked about when 7 year old boys go to the monastery

they are taught
1) don't hurt things
2) don't tell lies
3) don't steal
4) no inappropriate sexual behavior
5) no intoxicants

Human nature tends toward the good and the beautiful but hatred, delusion and greed are lurking.

sila (morality)
hri (heart)

true sila and hri arise from the heart

There is a moral inventory to be taken everyday

naham nasmi na me

I am not a subject
I am not a predicate
Nothing belongs to me

1st paramita/parami is dana (the giving of self)

na me = I will not own anything

The job of the sangha is the physical provision of material gifts

Vimalakirti said "The quality of my meditation is not diminished by the lifestyle that I lead>"

Vilmalakirti

Our reality is inseparable from our structuring of reality through language.

Nagarjuna

Nagarjuna
- grasper
- grasping
- grasped

Tapas are austerities that reconfigure the relationship of I (such as fasting and silent retreat)

Try to not use I or Me.


Asat_ nonexistence,

?  What was before Chaos?
? What was there before water covered all things

14,000 years ago there was an incredible flood and we lost memory

Joan Halifax book The Fruitful Darkness

Dualism in religion

CC asserts Zoastrianism a dualism religion greatly influences the Hebrews during the Babylonian Exile

.  CC mentions Nieztche and his work Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

Zarathustra

 Ideas of good and evil, heaven and will and a final apocalypse or dualism ideas

Indian religions are not binary - things exists in triplets and quadranaries


asti nasti
nasti nasti
asti nasti nasti
asti nasti

That which we think exists is not
to say that things do not exist is not the case
Existence and no existence is not
Yet there is nothing other than existence and non existence

Then red meditated on red

I saw my mothers's lipstick

, a bathing suit I use to love and imagined swimming at Beachcombers

, the red under the nose

painting by Richard Schmidt

and in the ear

Painting by Sargeant

, the burnt sienna of the buildings in sienna