Meditation is easier than brushing your teeth

Shifu visited the dentist on Thursday to have his teeth cleaned.

While lying down on the dentist's chair, giving up his fate to the ultrasound drills, he thought that there must be a Dharma lesson here.

Shifu asked the experienced dentist, "A Buddhist can participate in a Zen-7 meditation retreat and possibly get enlightened, even if he doesn't meditate everyday. Can a person just brush his teeth diligently for seven days and slack off for the rest of the year?"

The answer was a resounding, "NO!"

To maintain good and healthy teeth we should brush our teeth after every meal. Which many people do. If we meditated after, or before, every meal, we'd be a lot closer to enlightenment, too. Being persistent in meditation is no harder than brushing your teeth.

Right?

Diamond Sutra (Ch.16)

Purgation of Bad Karma

Furthermore, Subhuti, if there are good men or women who recite, remember, comprehend, and follow this sutra, but are belittled by others, it is because of their previous evil karma, which would have caused them to be reborn in the realms of suffering. But now, by enduring the disparagement of others, this previous bad karma is eradicated, and they will eventually attain unsurpassed complete enlightenment.

Some points from last week's Diamond Sutra class (Ch.16: Purgation of Bad Karma):

• When a person tries to be virtuous and cultivates diligently, and something bad happens to him/her, view it as a good thing, because it is the result of reduced bad karma, which otherwise would be more serious.

• You choose your own reality. When something happens to you, an ordinary person views it as being good or bad; a wise person always sees it as a chance to grow spiritually. In this sense, good or bad is empty. Something bad can lead to something good.

Some points from the Diamond Sutra Study Class tonight (Ch. 16 also):

• What is the difference between detachment and indifference? (Think about it)

• Emptiness of the self is not a denial of your existence, but to see that you are not who you think you are. To empty oneself is to free oneself and to open oneself to infinite possibilities.

• Before we understand prajna paramita, good karma are just good karma--temporary, relative, dualistic. So its merits are impermanent and limited. After we understand prajna paramita, good karma has infinite, inconceivable merit.

Buddhist Halloween Party

We are hosting our first ever Halloween party at the Chung Tai Zen Center of Sunnyvale Friday night for our Dharma Youth Group. It'll be a Dharma blast.

Also check out our Facebook group: "Dharma Youth Group"

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Halloween, while associated with ghosts and other monstrous creatures, is also known as "All Saints Day."

Ghosts or saints?

From the Buddhist perspective, ghosts, saints, or humans, are of the same essence. When we cheat and take from others, we become hungry ghosts. When we always try to improve ourselves, we become saints. We become what we do.

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Last year, one of our young Shifus, Jian Nian Shifu, went trick-o-treating in order to learn about American culture.

Parent: Hey, that's a great costume! You look just like a Buddhist monk!
Jian Nian Shifu: I am a Buddhist monk.
Parent: ...!?!

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