Category Archives: shurangama

26Oct/17

4 Foundational Purifications for Enlightenment

10/26/2017buddhist, buddhist text, mantra peace prayer, meditation, shakyamuni buddha, shurangamabuddha, buddhist, buddhist text shurangama, mantra, meditation, precepts, teachingTCN

If you expect to evolve spiritually, you must exert yourself. If you expect miracle to strike simply because you willed it, it’s not likely to happen. You must cultivate the terra firma of your soul so it flowers fruits. You must cleanse the vessel that carries the messages of wisdom and compassion. You must polish the instrument that ignites and channels the transcendental. According to the Shurangama Sutra, a Mahayana Buddhist text that is revered for its teachings on meditation a long and powerful Buddhist mantra, here are four ways to dig deep into the soil of your soul, to bath your messenger, and to make your physical instrument for practice shine.

18Oct/17

7 Possible Places to Locate the Divine Source

10/18/2017buddhism, Buddhist teachings, buddhist text, dharma, meditation, sacred text, shakyamuni buddha, shurangamabuddha, buddhism, mind, shakyamuni, shurangama, source, teaching, wisdomTCN

Where is the divine Source? If the Source is a father figure God in the sky for you, you may resolutely proclaim that God is UP there. If you’ve been meditating to the point that you’re just blissed out and could careless about the world, you may lift your gaze from your navel and slowly utter the words, “In here.” If you’re a nature lover who is fond of hiking, the whistles of the leaves, and the sounds of the birds, you may claim that the Source is everywhere in nature, in creatures large and small. What’s the right answer? Is there a right answer? Well, let me recount seven incorrect answers for you first.

10Aug/17

8 Types of Sounds

08/10/2017buddhism, listening, shurangamabuddhism, listening, meditation, shurangama, silence, soundTCN

What types of sounds do you tend to notice? Pleasant sounds or unpleasant sounds? Music or noise? Loud sounds or white noise? A preeminent Chinese Buddhist teacher, Master Jiaoguang, developed some illuminating and useful categories of sounds for people who practice listening as a meditation. Check and see if you…

10Aug/17

8 Listening Exercises

08/10/2017buddhist, Buddhist teachings, listening, shurangama, spiritual, zenbuddhism, emptiness, listening, shurangama, sound of silence, zenTCN

1. Listen for the sounds around you now: people’s voices, TV, music, cars, chirps, breeze. . . Stop what you’re doing. For three seconds, still yourself and hear what’s around you. 2. Listen for the sound of silence. Turn off any noise in your control. At a time when all’s…

04Nov/14

Listening to Silence

11/04/2014avalokiteshvara, Avatamsaka, buddhism, Chengguan, dharma realm, guanyin, Huayan, huayen, listening, meditation, qingliang, shurangama, zenTCN

Part IV of Meditating on Sounds: Listening Your Way to Enlightenment An excerpt from Master Jiaoguang’s treatise on The Shurangama Sutra: As for the times when there is only stillness and silence, the nature of hearing feels even more boundless. Listening makes evident the entity that can hear. When we can…

26Oct/14

Meditating on Sounds: Listening Your Way to Enlightenment

10/26/2014avalokiteshvara, Avatamsaka, buddhism, Chengguan, dharma realm, guanyin, Huayan, huayen, listening, meditation, qingliang, shurangama, zenTCN

Part III Am I Listening Correctly? Sounds cannot be eliminated. No matter where you are or how quiet it is, there are sounds that cannot be eliminated. The “sound of silence” can therefore be acknowledged as an impossible-to-eliminate sound, the sensory object of quietude. Knowing the different types of sounds,…

14Oct/14

Part II of Meditating on Sounds: Listening Your Way to Enlightenment

10/14/2014avalokiteshvara, Avatamsaka, buddhism, Chengguan, dharma realm, guanyin, Huayan, huayen, listening, meditation, qingliang, shurangama, zenTCN

With What We Do Not Listen First of all, “the nature of hearing” is not in or with the physical ears. This nature of hearing is fundamentally the sea-like consciousness that stores all karmic interactions. It is the single entity with six functions, of which include the seeing of the eyes,…

03Oct/14

Meditating on Sounds: Listening Your Way to Enlightenment

10/03/2014avalokiteshvara, Avatamsaka, buddhism, Chengguan, dharma realm, guanyin, Huayan, huayen, listening, meditation, qingliang, shurangama, zenTCN

PART I According expert meditator and teacher Jiaoguang of China’s Ming dynasty, meditators must get to know our illusions well before we may experience bursts of insight.With regard to the types of sounds for those who practice hearing as a form of meditation, Jiaoguang elaborates: There are sound categories of…

08Aug/14

The Avatamsaka Four Dharma Realms and the Shurangama Meditation of Listening Intersect in Zen

08/08/2014avalokiteshvara, Avatamsaka, buddhism, Chengguan, dharma realm, guanyin, Huayan, huayen, listening, meditation, qingliang, shurangama, zenTCN

Preview of Upcoming Presentation Seen as stages of practice, Chinese preeminent monk Chengguan’s theory of the Four Dharma Realms and Guanyin’s perfected meditation method via one’s ears inevitably meet complementarily to enhance our understanding of meditation as a practice. More than mere philosophy, the teaching of the Four Dharma Realms…