The Santa Sutra

Just in time for Christmas, I have composed my own sutra in the same way as Gary Snyder's 'Smokey the Bear Sutra' (http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/bear.htm). I began and ended writing it with right intention and right mindfulness, and hopefully that has followed through to the text itself.

(In other news - Hi! I'm back! Yes, I know I can't update regularly to save my life...)

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Santa Sutra

Thus I have heard:

Once, long ago, the Supreme Buddha was travelling alone to all corners of the world, until his feet had touched every part of the surface of the Earth. He walked in the deserts, the valleys, the mountains and over the molten rocks. On every atom lay his footprint, and on every tiny grain of being lay his gaze. He started in the very south, and ended in the very north.

When his feet touched the most northern point and the last of the Earth's particles, The One That Has Come and the Earth herself formed a new Buddha nature between them. The newborn had the eternal heart of a child, and the long white beard of the wise. His form is as an old man, in red clothes bordered with the nurturing fur of the female Snow Lion.

In his left hand he holds the Sack of the Perfection of Generosity, which he uses to bring charity all who invoke his name; the charity of coal to teach non-attachment, and the charity of wrapped presents to those who seek the perfection of the holiday spirit.

His right hand remains open in the mudra to Dispel Fear, indicating that no-one should have to be afraid of the cold and fruitless winter months, of hunger and need. All hibernating creatures, all creatures who fly to the south, and all who brave the winter chill all have the right to live without fear.

And his name is SANTA CLAUS. Or, Saint Nicholas, Father Christmas, Kris Kringle and many more. His mount is the reindeer Rudolf who pulls his chariot across the skies and teaches understanding of the world by breaking the laws of physics.

He is followed by, and led by, the emanations of the Noble Eightfold Path. Dasher and Dancer of Right View and Right Intention. Prancer and Vixen of Right Speech and Right Action. Comet and Cupid of Right Livelihood and Right Effort. Donner and Blitzen of Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration. Together these thought forms are what drives him forward.

The Buddha, Perfect in Illumination and Conduct, saw this and was pleased. He put up a marker at the site at the end of the world, a giant pole in the north to show all that at the end of all paths is goodness and enlightenment.

Thus the great mantra of Santa is:

Ho ho ho Namas Puraana Pitraaya svargasya rathe gaganam gacchati

“Ho ho ho, Homage to the Ancient Father of Heaven, in his chariot he goes across the sky”

And he will give charity freely to all, and the gift of charity he will bestow on any who spend time with his mantra. He has no wrathful form, and all those who recite this sutra will gain merit as boundless as snowflakes.

All who recite this sutra, in its full or its sort form of “Ho ho ho”, will have safe eggnog, fruity puddings, and a pine tree to leave presents under.

And in the end will attain the perfection of wisdom and highest enlightenment.

Encountering Buddhism in Second Life: Part 1

When I started this previous term I took the opportunity to begin a course entitled Encountering Buddhism. Not “Understanding” Buddhism or “Introduction” to Buddhism. Encountering. And this is exactly what the class ended up doing. We encountered everything, from rituals from around the world to complex philosophy. As a result a lot of people in my class told me that they felt like they hadn’t learnt anything at all, in fact they came out more confused than when they went in! But they said it fondly, and held a more matured view of Buddhism and Buddhists than when they went in.
This approach definitely affected me as well, and not more noticeably than in the Second Life project. A group of about 5-7 of us agreed to do our presentations in a different way to the rest, spending lots of extracurricular time engaging in the virtual reality project Second Life.
Luckily I was already familiar with Second Life, and didn’t have to make a new avatar for the class. Our HQ was Emptiness Hall, virtual Buddhist monastery and resource centre. The group was given time to explore SL, tasks to do, building instructions and were generally left to themselves for a while. Then, halfway through the term we took part in an ordination ceremony and completed our time around Second Life as a virtual monk/nun/nunk, before being un-ordained at the end of term.
I initially had some misgivings about this, as a practising Buddhist myself. Surely, there’s no real difference between me and my avatar? Don’t the vows apply to me in my “real life” too? I talked to my lecturer about it and realised I wasn’t the only one taking it so seriously, others in the class who were religious didn’t like the idea of ordaining in another religion. Though, the real world and Second Life are basically incompatible. It’s impossible to move physically between the two, and for all intents and purposes it is a “second life” in a world inaccessible physically by us humans. Instead, the idea of the human/avatar relationship is like the two headed terrapin - They both do different things, they have to do different things because their world is entirely different. Many ordination vows govern the body, and as such when an avatar takes the vows, it could only apply to them. I’m still not fully convinced that there can be such a clear distinction, and certainly for many SLers introducing myself as a nun made them question my first life with the assumption that if it was a purely SL thing then I was just pretending. But, my avatar Tenzing Ansar took the vows and was most definitely as close to a real nun in SL as you can get.
This wasn’t as easy as you’d think. We were given a few tasks, such as to try traditional begging for alms in popular places. That resulted in:

[2009/04/21 9:01] ****** Boyau: Hi, Iam on the ****** Staff, we do not alow any soliciting or begging here
[2009/04/21 9:02] ****** Boyau: could you please remove you red tag or leave the sim
[2009/04/21 9:02] ****** Boyau: thank you
[2009/04/21 9:02] Tenzing Ansar: Yes, of course. :)
-- Instant message logging enabled --
[9:02] ****** Boyau: thank you very much
[9:03] ****** Boyau: here is one of our behavior cards for you to review when you have a chance

Begging, regardless of your reasons, is a huge no-no in the libertarian capitalist paradise of Second Life.

This experience was an amazing one and taught me many things about Buddhism and the nature of social interaction in virtual communities, I even learnt how to build in Second Life to a more adequate degree. Even though the term has finished and the monastery is empty, I decided to stay on as a lay resident.. Perhaps even to help next years crop of students encountering Buddhism.

Part 2 coming soon: Ritual objects in Second Life!

Visit the Potala Palace instantly: No need to get up.

As I float over lush Tibetan mountainside in my flying clamshell, I enjoy the sights on my way to the Potala Palace: A fountain shooting rainbows in the air, a temple to sacred geometry housing enourmous spinning platonic solids, the Dalai Lama outside a temple giving teachings. Wait a minute, you say, how is any of this realistic?

Welcome to the Tibet region of Second Life.

Second Life is a virtual reality based world which prides itself on being the forerunner of Web 3.0. It attracts a range of people, from Roleplayers leading literal second lives, to online students studying in virtual universities. One thing I learnt since joining was that most residents dislike SL being labelled a "game", or being called "players". "For most people, SL isn't a game, but an extension to your RL [Real life]... You get to do things you always wanted to, or bring your own skills into the metaverse." said one of my new virtual friends. I learnt that the hard way on my first day when I was exploring someone's house, and found an adult (The main SL server is for over 18s only) pretending to be a child, and got in trouble with its "mother" for not knocking before I entered, and so had to pay her a 50L$ (SL currency, bought with real money) fine for breaking and entering. Despite the strangeness of seeing real world laws upheld in a virtual world (I couldn't have stolen anything from the house), many other aspects were intriguing from day one. For instance, the Potala Palace Virtual World. A real life Taiwanese monk called Bhikkhu Maitreya (Known as Bhikkhu Kamachi on SL) started the project to recreate the entire Potala palace in life-size accuracy as a gift of love to the Dalai Lamas and people of Tibet. So far, the project will require a few more years to complete and at least four sims (Virtual space, basically). And so, dressed as Vajrayogini (And at some points, Green Tara), I set off to explore the land and bring you back some pictures. If ever you are in Second Life, do search for the Tibet region and have a look for yourself. You can also contact me there, I go by the name of Tenzing Ansar (I wanted "Ten" for Tenitachi, but it was taken. Such is life.) Bhikkhu was also kind enough to host some of the drawings made by Tibetan children in exile that I was able to upload back in December (http://chasuma.blogspot.com/2007/12/tibetan-refugees-paint-life-in-exile.html).

Detailed information on the project and how to donate can be found on the official webpage: http://www.potalapalacevirtualworld.org/

No-self and Morality: Ethics for those who don't exist

Within the Buddhist tradition lies the belief in “no-self”, anatman/anatta. Nagasena gives the example of the chariot to explain this concept. He explains that people are like chariots, in that both are made of many different components which cannot be defined per se as “a chariot” or “a person”, and so the inherent existence of the overall self or chariot is found in none of them, yet we still insist that a self or chariot exists. He concludes that the true nature of the self lies in dependence of all these aspects. If you remove a hand, or a leg, or a heart, or anything else, people would still say that what was left was “you”. What they do not realise is that this is not in fact the case, that what makes you “you” is ever-changing and dependent on not only the amalgamation of your components, the thirty-two parts of the body and the five skandhas, but also time, space and karma. This leads to a second example Nagasena gives us, of the lamp and the flame. He states that a flame is never the same from one moment to the next, just as a person changes with each second. You are a different person from the one who went to school, just as you are different from the one who will one day retire. The nature of the flame is shown well in Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche’s question: “Why does death seem such a threat when the present disappears every moment, scarcely having had a chance to arise?” Our lives, like the present, are fleeting and filled with change, making us impermanent, yet we cling to the idea that we are always the same being, thus creating suffering when the true nature of the world is revealed to us. This shows us a key concept in the Buddhist concept of anatta, that the world is an illusion, ever changing, misleading us into thinking that things really exist as we perceive them, such as ourselves.

Through these two examples it is evident that the Abrahamic notion of an everlasting human soul doesn’t fit with the Buddhist concept of anatta, and yet that is not what is meant by “self” in this context. Self and soul are fundamentally opposite ideas. Self here refers to a false sense that certain impermanent aggregates constitute an unchanging, real whole. The soul is seen as unchanging and real, your true essence which could not give you suffering, but only certain beings are given a soul. In Buddhism, even animals have a sense of self. Rather, the soul corresponds more to the notion of every sentient being having an inner Buddha nature, the only truly real immortal essence which allows them to awaken. The self and the Buddha nature are two of the four inverted views in the Mahaparinirvana Sutra, meaning that either people can recognise the true nature of them, but not recognise the reality, or not see the true nature of them but see the reality: “Thinking that the self is the selfless or thinking that the selfless is the self.” This is relevant, as is shows that an apparent contradiction can arise in the understanding of “no-self”. In it the Buddha states that “Saying that the Tathagata (The Buddha, “One who is gone”) is Eternal is a Self-centred view. From this Self-centred view arise innumerable sins. Thus, one should say that the Tathagata is non-Eternal…The Tathagata's being non-Eternal would entail suffering. If [there is] suffering, how could one expect [to find] Bliss therein?” Thus a paradox over the existence of the Buddha nature arises, though most schools get around this by saying that Buddha nature is completely empty, not of it’s own reality, but of the reality of karma and suffering. This shows that “No-self” is a rather misleading term to use, it might be best appropriate to understand the concept purely in terms of the interdependence of reality than use “no-self” at all.

The Tibetan Book of the Dead states that “There are no phenomena extraneous to those that originate from the mind, so there are no modes of conduct to be undertaken extraneous to those…from the mind.” Here, the mind is the ability all sentient beings have to understand and experience both samsara and Nirvana, the self here is extraneous from the mind and therefore is not a good source for modes of conduct, including ethics. Buddhist ethics focus on how to act morally so that your accumulated karma has a positive effect on your present and future lives. Karma literally means “action”, and is the driving force behind samsara, the cycle of rebirth. This leads on to the fundamental teachings of Buddhist ethics; the Four Noble Truths. These being: All existence is suffering, suffering is caused by craving, suffering can have an end, the way to the end of suffering is the Noble Eightfold Path. Holding on to a view of the self is seen as a form of craving and attachment, which generates bad karma. The nature of the world, as we have said before, is ever-changing, so to cling onto one aspect of it is bound to bring on suffering when the inevitable happens. In this sense, the concept of anatta has a very little role to play in Buddhist ethics. Rather than an idea to inspire them, it is merely the negation of an idea, that shouldn’t inspire them. Just as if you said, “You cannot find morality in this apple”, it may be true in context, but it is self-evident and irrelevant to what you should and shouldn’t do ethically. It does however raise a good question: Why have ethics when people as individuals do not exist? The Buddha himself said that even good karma trapped you in the cycle of rebirth, so why is it so important to attain when it keeps you in suffering? There are many varied answers to this question. One is that karma can be donated to others. After meditation a Buddhist may dedicate their good karma attained in that particular sitting to helping all other sentient beings to awaken, or for all lesser beings to be born in a higher state. This means that they have helped others reach a higher understanding, and have gained no karmic effects in the process, a win-win situation. Another answer is that without compassion (wanting all beings to be free of suffering) and loving-kindness (love for everyone equally) you cannot possibly enlighten, as it shows that you are being selfish, grasping after your own release without care for others. This too leads to suffering as, also with the paradox of the four inverted views earlier, to grasp even after no-self, enlightenment, or any other truth, is to defeat the point. However, a criticism of this outlook is that Buddhist ethics is no more than a set of rules to keep your mind on the right path, and though the individual might feel real compassion, the concept itself is empty of meaning. If it were the case that nastiness caused people to become non-selfish and unattached to desires, then logically Buddhism should endorse it. This is also supported in the Buddhist belief that there are many different methods of teaching to different people, as even “[The Buddha] taught what was suitable according to the disposition of his listeners.” This lack of inherent moral value, or at least the low position of the good karma it attains, is limited more to doctrine than to practise. For a layperson, attaining as much good karma as possible is fundamental to offsetting all the bad karma they attain just by doing daily tasks, such as slaughtering the family goat, getting married or going to battle. They might do these things in the name of Buddhism, despite the fact that it goes against it’s teachings, such as Ani Pachen, a Tibetan nun who supposedly was prepared to kill in order to support her cause. This, however, is nothing new in religion. For instance, the Christian view of ‘love thy neighbour’ often doesn’t extend to enemies, or even “irreligious” folk, even if this irreligious behaviour is still Christianity.

Overall, the influence of the concept of anatta on the ethical nature of Buddhist tradition is very limited. It is perhaps cultural that we as westerners expect the self, or even the soul, to play a major part in it. Christianity focuses heavily on the intrinsic good of God’s commands, and how you will be given eternal life in heaven for your goodness, and also be blessed in your life with worldly goods and spiritual insights. All of these things are things to be desired, which Buddhism says cannot exist in this world, and so disagrees with the claim that your self should be given rewards. They do not disagree with the idea of your self attaining rewards through good deeds, only that overall, the cessation of all attachments is best. Buddhist ethics focuses instead on how to generate compassion to all beings, regardless of self, centring on the inner Buddha nature inside everyone. Indra’s web is the idea that the universe is like an infinite net, with a jewel in each gap, we are the jewel and as such, in our facets we reflect every other jewel on the web and they reflect us. Everyone is connected through Buddha nature, and so to cultivate an ethical approach to others helps every other living being as well. It is with this idea that Buddhism accepts morality without the need for a self.

Further Reading
Chamberland, S., Mahaparinirvana Sutra, 1st Edn, 2000, London, Nirvana Publications.
Coleman, G., Ed., The Tibetan Book Of The Dead, 1st Edn, 2006, London, Penguin.
Dalai Lama, The Four Noble Truths, 1st Edn, 1997, Thorsons.
Donnelly, A., Pachen, A., Sorrow Mountain, 1st Edn, 2000, Doubleday.
Gyamtso, K., T., Progressive Stages of Meditation on Emptiness, 2001, Zhyisil Chokyi Ghatsal Trust.
Keown, D., Buddhist Ethics: A Very Short Introduction, 1st Edn, 2005, New York, Oxford University Press.

Images
1. Nagasena - Often depicted cleaning his ear with a stick to symbolise the purification of the sense of hearing. "An adherent of Buddhism should avoid listening to gossip and other nonsense so that they are always prepared to hear the truth." - Wikipedia.
2. The death of the Buddha Sakyamuni, his (Maha)parinirvana. The Mahaparinirvana Sutra is said to be the last teachings of the Buddha before his death.
3. The Wheel of Life.
4. Ani Pachen.

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Apologies for some of the terminology in this post not being explained, I wrote this a while ago and found it difficult to change. Please, leave a comment if you need any further clarification. I thought I'd put up some in-depth philosophy while I plan my next post, which focuses on the life of Milarepa.