Introduction to Buddhism class: What is Buddhism and why do we learn it?

 

Simply only 2 reasons

 

One is to get rid of pain and suffering in our life

 

The other one is to find the potential for unlimited joy in our life.

 

Without these 2 reasons in fact there is no motivation in life.

 

We are not one or the other, but through Buddhism we are trying to develop both.

 

And our group here, in understanding those two subjects, we learn many other subjects:

 

• Qi Gong, Taiji
• Massage
• Stretching
• Functional muscle development
• Yoga
• Acupuncture
• Healing massage
• Posture development – include ligaments, tendons muscles, bone structure
• Yi Jing jin (if you keep your ligaments and tendons remaining free and open your energy will run really well, remain  very lively and healthy
• We learn bone marrow development which is through a movement, and breathing in a  meditation way to stimulate your blood circulation and nerve system to make your hormones change to develop more bone marrow and then your bones will become stronger and then your life force will become stronger
• Also we develop Qian Kun which is different from Taiji
• Tai Chi develop Yin and Yang energy – there are many kinds but you can divide into opposite directions, still one energy but when there are opposite direction it become two.
• Example – you use water to make steam steam is hot and soft and fast, abstract, but then can make it cold, then become ice, not moving in fact the atoms are still moving but human eyes can’t see
• So opposite energies are still one – energy – so Yin and Yang are one.
• And this energy in human style training is called Tai Chi
• But when this energy system is learning how to connect to the whole universe it is called Qian Kun

 

Fu Shi (伏羲) The first Emperor of China

 

 

• Legend has it he was half-man, half-dragon

• Creates I-Ching (Book of changing)

• Creates the bagua –

• Creates Qian Kun

• Creates Chinese written language

• Creates Meridian lines and acupuncture points

• Creates Yin Yang

 

 

Beginner foundation of creating Qian Kun is first creator of Chinese culture, Chinese people call him first emperor Fu Shi, he is a legend emperor, not like a normal human emperor, he is kind of like, half energy god, half human, in fact his parents are both earth goddess and father is dragon, turn into a human, so dragon-human.

 

Fu Shi in a chinese legend where is is top half human and bottom half like snake dragon look

 

Then he create I Ching – book of changes – power of changing – I Ching is to use that to calculate how the change works

 

And I’m not so strong / involved with that – so not in our course / category – some of the philosophy is really cool so I put it in as well.

 

Energy Control systems – Qi Gong, Qian Kun, Tai Chi and Wuji

 

Tai Chi and Qian Kun talk about how to develop your energy in harmony but in an extreme direction – fast/slow, powerful/light/easy – and Chi Gong is a foundation to build that so we learn all of this energy control as well.

 

Tai Chi is more suitable for humans because it is all about how to control your energy but if you understand Qian Kun (3 levels) and train well you can connect to the universe energy. 

 

Plus we learn breathing technique (baby breathe, dragon breathe, many kinds of breathing meditation) 

 

We also learn how to connect to the philosophy of Daoism, through this we learn what does it mean being harmony and inner peace with ourselves and share that with others and that actually are all linked together to help us build the foundation to learn Buddhism.

 

Wuji is the final result of Tai Chi – Wuji have two types. As a human that means you can move your energy the lightest way and explode to everywhere (Sifu has reached this.) Sifu is Wuji Master. Use every angle in, back, add speed charge more energy and reduce tense and whole body work with it, more like human style. Control abstract energy, where your release tension faster than your charge power into every direction, waterman and airman, aware their power and then into meditation No-I so strongly so you can finish them before they dare move. Empty their move before they move. Your move have no limitation with energy style explosion to every angle. Earth style Wuji is the final result of Taiji.

 

Qian Kun style of Wuji means finally to become empty god. Empty is a feeling over eternity.

Over eternity because empty don’t have a feeling of time so you dont have feeling limited by time, how long is something. In meditation I experienced a Big Bang,m the birth of a universe, my body became the space and the matter in that big bang, shooting out into space in all directions, and because it keeps going and going, no border, my body feel it has no border, and that is a feeling of eternity.

 

So eternity to humans is just a word. Or perhaps you go into nature and feel, ah, nature seems ot have this power of eternity, eternity nature. So when you are in nature you connect to that natural power of eternity. And when it is empty space, there is no beginning, there is no end, but something that exist as a form, at the beginning – the explosion, once that happens then you can start to count how long. But something not have a beginning form so won’t change into another form, there is no process, so time, totally not exist. 

 

Wuji is a pure consciousness stage. So the consciousness not limited by physical materials anymore, not even energy anymore, beyond every energy. Your consciousness is free to feel any space you want.

 

And of course if you do not have a body anymore you don’t need smell, eating/taste, no need to breathe, no need to touch, but you can see and hear. In that zone my intention is so free if I want to feel any space. If I want to see a space I will appear in that space. If I no longer want to see that space, boom, I’m out of that space. Universe becomes a blinking tiny light. Then you feel bigger than the universe. It’s an incredible free feeling, almost indescribable experience.

 

At that time, when I was connected to empty space, that kind of Wuji level, I dont remember Earth, its not important then, universe was small, totally forgot Earth! Humans not even exist for me anymore.

 

But every consciousness have this power. Whatever you connect to, you will use that connection to receive information and you are limited in that information. But if you connect to a power that is unlimited then right away you are unlimited.

 

That is why BUddhism teach us our lives are temporary and that is why it is illusion because that is not the true power our limitation, in fact our true power our consciousness has no limitation. Limitation means we are connected to this body as a human, then we seems to have limitation. 

 

One side they teach this lifetime is temporary as illusion, one side talk about there is an essence that is unlimited its always eternal no beginning no end.

 

Buddha was a martial artist

 

A long time ago when Buddha was a Prince he was number one in Martial Arts. In order to get married he had to win number one in the competition. So that prove already he is the highest level of martial arts.

 

He also went to learn meditation and those meditation training is from yoga systems of development – so breathing, yoga, stretching and posture control all together. 

 

I’m not sure why slowly over time nowadays Buddhism is more a religion direction which is still good for the society because it brings beautiful ideas of equal heart, care for every life, being generous and kind and care towards every other life. So still good for bringing harmony and peace in a kindness way and direction towards society.

 

Buddha’s student: Bodhidharma

 

But the self-training part became lost and those training parts in history a monk called Bodhidharma bring to Shaolin from India. He was the 14th* generation of Zen Master from India. Each generation of students starting from Buddhas direct students select the best student to pass all of their knowledge onto, and so.

 

Bodhidharma comes to China

 

When he came to Shaolin Temple in China he created a new style of Zen Buddhism. 

 

Bodhidharma meets the emperor

 

When Bodhidharma came to China, the Emperor of China at that time was a Buddhist and asked him – “What do you think about all the Buddhist temples I have built, how much spiritual karma have I developed?” Bodhidharma replied, you have none. The Emperor is upset but already learning Buddhism so doesn’t want to show anger, just tells him to go away. So Bodhidharma left, he didn’t care, he didn’t want money, famous. He went to Shaolin to teach all of this.

 

The Prime Minister comes back to the city and meets with the Emperor and asks him how was his meeting with Bodhidharma.

 

“Oh you met him, the highest Buddhism Zen master, what did you learn from him?”

 

The emperor replied: “I learned nothing, he knows nothing, he said even though I have built all of these temples I have developed no spiritual karma.”

 

The Prime Minister replied: “No he is the one who knows everything about Buddhism. You see everyone knows you’re the emperor and wants to say nice things to you, but he does not care about that at all. He told you you the truth. Because building all of the temples is called good karma, but not spiritual karma. Spiritual karma is to develop your own spirits. And he surely know how to develop spiritual karma and he sees you haven’t developed it. And now you have a chance to learn from him but you order him away?”

 

So the Emperor orders the Prime Minister to go and fetch Bodhidharma to bring him back. But Bodhidharma refuses to move, instead he is in meditation in a cave for 9 years. Eventually the Emperor himself goes to see Bodhidharma but Bodhidharma will not speak with him. The emperor instead puts part of his army to defend Shaolin and supports the finances of Shaolin temple. That is why Shaolin later becomes the leader of martial art development, Qigong development and buddhism religion united together because of Bodhidharma.

 

So Bodhidharma we know those training are important. 

 

True Spiritual Development

 

The true spiritual development is actually to train yourself. And you want to have lucky karma then it is to be generous towards helping others. And together is Buddhism. You can’t miss either one. Miss one and you are out of it. 

 

Train yourself and be generous to others.

 

Good karma and spiritual development together to create spiritual karma.

 

And good karma together with spiritual karma becomes Buddhism karma.

 

And our group together for years have been developing all of this, sharing in a very joyful and friendly loving way to help each other. Everybody has had a massive change and progress since I first met them.

 

Training karma can go in many directions – Daoism style karma they train a lot. But they didn’t have Buddhism open heart, don’t have ego anymore to help every life. 

 

That kind of no I which means no ego-I and then develop spiritual-I with spiritual ability and share and help everybody and that is Buddhism.

 

—–

So how can we do that? How can we get out of suffering and into development of unlimited joy.

 

What kinds of suffering do we need to clean out?

 

From INTENTION view to  judge 

 

4 Devils 

 

(3 Poison consciousness (greed, hate, stupidity), worry, fear and all of these from others.)

 

 

• Why is greed suffering? 

 

• • • Greed = You never have enough! So you will be a slave try hard to get something and never feel content

 

• Why is hate suffering? 

 

• • • You create hate, you feel hate, you become hate then you receive back hate. So hate you are stuck in your own creation.

 

• Why is stupidity suffering? 

 

• • • Stupidity make you create the first two and keep creating greed and hate!

 

• Why is worry suffering? 

 

• • • You can always get more worried! Worry is a useless habit, worry never gets a result, actually calm, care, in a wise way how to take care of something creates a solution, answer, good result.

 

• Why is fear suffering?

 

• • Fear means fear of death. And death will surely happen. So fear about something surely going to happen is a waste of power, useless. In fact, if you understand your true self there is no death. And that is why we are learning – to understand our true eternal-self. 
  • And if you have eternal self why are you afraid of death? So you waste power, instead use that power to find eternal self.

 

No matter how blind we are our spirits never die, we just don’t learn how to discover it. And if you can understand meditation and discover your eternal spirits then all these sufferings will be gone.

 

—

 

Another way is to talk about the cycle of life: birth, aging, illness, death

 

Another way to talk about suffering is from this is the more modern view: Physical, mental, psychological

 

Physical pain – so easy to create suffering. You don’t train? Get weaker and sick. Suffering. You train too much? Damage it, not carefully, over use power, imbalance training?Suffering.

Only when you train in a wise wisdom, system then you are out of suffering.

Mental worry – send yourself crazy

Psychological fear – stressed out

 

And that is why we learn so many systems out of suffering.

 

And how do we discover unlimited joy and happiness? 

 

Few categories

 

First stage of unlimited joy – don’t let ego control you – keep your heart out of ego, because ego is suffering. And when you are out of suffering then joy already there. And if you stay pure heart, pure essence, pure intention then you will stay in a pure joy zone.

 

When we are out of ego zone, we can use the calm awareness to reorganise our lives according to where the true value is. And many training systems to do this, and in each training system brings a different joy.

 

For example: 

 

• Through Yoga and stretching experience kindness to yourself and take time to relearn our own bodies – how to strengthen and stay flexible and how we create tension.
• Through Tai Chi experience harmony and flow and different extremes, Yin and Yang.
• Through reading / listening to philosophy the moment you really forget about yourself, your own problems, hear how all the logic connects together, you can understand life much more deeply. 
• Into meditation and Amitabha Buddha System

 

Enjoying to live in these disciplines can help us to fill our hearts with joy of development.

 

So is a wise way to develop body, mind and spirit.

 

Through that you will discover your spiritual essence, your True I, your True Heart, your eternal force. Which is like a seed ready to grow. And can grow so beautiful and pure like a lotus. And even has lights shooting become unlimited brightness. And each brightness have a clear view of beautiful art and wisdom to bring the joy to share with every life.

 

And this lifetime I have been teaching over 5000 students over 26 countries.