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David McGavock

Buddhism in a Nutshell: The Four Seals of Dharma - 0 views

www.lionsroar.com/ism-nutshell-four-seals-dharma

Buddhism meditation mindfulness seals

shared by David McGavock on 04 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • So what is the particular view that Buddhists try to get used to? Buddhism is distinguished by four characteristics, or “seals.” Actually, if all these four seals are found in a path or a philosophy, it doesn’t matter whether you call it Buddhist or not.
  • Therefore, these four characteristics are called “the Four Seals of Dharma.” They are: All compounded things are impermanent. All emotions are painful. This is something that only Buddhists would talk about. Many religions worship things like love with celebration and songs. Buddhists think, “This is all suffering.” All phenomena are empty; they are without inherent existence. This is actually the ultimate view of Buddhism; the other three are grounded on this third seal. The fourth seal is that nirvana is beyond extremes.
  • The First Seal: All Compounded Things are Impermanent
  • ...19 more annotations...
  • Delusion arises when we don’t acknowledge that all compounded things are impermanent.
  • realize this truth, deep down and not just intellectually
  • The Second Seal: All Emotions are Painful The Tibetan word for emotion in this context is zagche, which means “contaminated” or “stained,” in the sense of being permeated by confusion or duality.
  • how are we to understand duality?
  • It is subject and object: ourselves on the one hand and our experience on the other.
  • The dualistic mind creates a lot of expectations—a lot of hope, a lot of fear.
  • Another Buddhist way of explaining this is to say that when a big pain becomes smaller, we call it pleasure.
  • This is why Buddhists conclude that all emotions are painful. It is because they are impermanent and dualistic that they are uncertain and always accompanied by hopes and fears.
  • The Fourth Seal: Nirvana is Beyond Extremes
  • To hold that an object is something external is ignorance
  • Put very simply, when we talk about emptiness, we mean that the way things appear is not the way they actually are.
  • The Three Turnings of the Wheel
  • can be summed up in a single phrase: “Mind; there is no mind; mind is luminosity.”
  • A correct understanding of emptiness leads us to see how things are related, and how we are responsible for our world.
  • When I’m talking about emptiness, everything that I’m saying has to do with this “image” emptiness. I can’t show you real emptiness but I can tell you why things don’t exist inherently.
  • Buddhists define a phenomenon as something with characteristics, and as an object that is conceived by a subject.
  • In many philosophies or religions, the final goal is something that you can hold on to and keep. The final goal is the only thing that truly exists. But nirvana is not fabricated, so it is not something to be held on to. It is referred to as “beyond extremes.”
  • If, when you try to abandon or transform attachment to your own experiences, you don’t understand these four seals, you end up regarding the contents of your mind as the manifestations of something evil, diabolical and bad.
  • When you have a clear understanding of these four seals as the ground of your practice, you will feel comfortable no matter what happens to you. As long as you have these four as your view, nothing can go wrong. Whoever holds these four, in their heart, or in their head, and contemplates them, is a Buddhist. There is no need for such a person even to be called a Buddhist. He or she is by definition a follower of the Buddha.
  • David McGavock on 04 Mar 16
     
    ""Buddhism is distinguished by four characteristics, or 'seals.' If all these four seals are found in a path or a philosophy, it can be considered the path of the Buddha.""
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