Mahayana Buddhism

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It is now possible to get all of Dharmamitra's translations in pdf format for Free. Yes, there is mention of "considering" a donation, but that can be ignored by the poor or thrifty. Just click on the title in Blue type. Some are English Only, some have Chinese on facing pages:

Kalavinka Press Books

 

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Many years of Master Hsuan Hua's Dharma talks:

VM. Hua's Talks on Dharma

 

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With the full moon this evening, we mark the celebration of the Buddha's birth, awakening, and parinirvāṇa, known in Tibetan as Saga Dawa Düchen. This offers us all a wonderful opportunity to remember the Buddha with joyful practice!

We consider 84000’s vision and work to be a unique celebration of the Buddha’s awakening, and on this auspicious day, we are very pleased to release our newest publication: The Perfection of Wisdom in Twenty-Five Thousand Lines.

https://read.84000.co/translation/toh9.html#toc

Summary:

The Perfection of Wisdom in Twenty-Five Thousand Lines is among the most important scriptures underlying both the “vast” and the “profound” approaches to Buddhist thought and practice. Known as the “middle-length” version, being the second longest of the three long Perfection of Wisdom sūtras, it fills three volumes of the Kangyur. Like the two other long sūtras, it records the major teaching on the perfection of wisdom given by the Buddha Śākyamuni on Vulture Peak, detailing all aspects of the path to enlightenment while at the same time emphasizing how bodhisattvas must put them into practice without taking them‍—or any aspects of enlightenment itself‍—as having even the slightest true existence.

 

[ScorpioRising007]

If I had to pick one Mahayana text that covers every aspect of doctrine, path & results, I would suggest this one - in Sanskrit titled Mahayanasutralamkara. There are two excellent English translations, with commentaries. It is a large book with the commentaries, but those comments are needed to clarify these many altruistic verses

One came out in 2014 done by the Dharmachakra translation group and the other from the Padmakara translators just came out late in 2018.

The root text was taught to Asanga (a bodhisattva of the 5th century) by Maitreya a 10th stage bodhisattva, who will become in the distant future our next Buddha.

Ornament of the Great Vehicle Sutras is the title of the Dharmachakra version.

The Padmakara version is called A Feast of the Nectar of the Supreme Vehicle.

Both are in epub versions also.

I have tried meditation and buddism on/off through the years. I have had better success with it while I was an active smoker. It's helped me with my Bipolar, PTSD, Depression, Anxiety, OCD issues.

While meditating and letting go I think I sometimes have experienced strange things. Like almost like I could feal spirits contacting me. I heard voices, saw what I thought were ghosts, traveled to some very strange places while I meditated. Became so detached from myself that I felt I was slipping into another dimension.... I don't know it was wierd. If I concentrate and meditate for like 4 hours straight or longer I feel reality slipping and going into a different place. The longest I been to medidate for was 8 hours straight one time. These long sessions is when I hear voices, experience ghosts, feel my body in some other dimension, see darkness/ light. I would be called to walk to a light to travel somewhere, walk through mirrors into a different dimension. I even had visions of somethings that happened later to me in life.

I

 

[zaangalewa]

I have tried meditation and buddism on/off through the years. I have had better success with it while I was an active smoker. It's helped me with my Bipolar, PTSD, Depression, Anxiety, OCD issues.

To use mind manipulating drugs is not in harmony with the teachings of Shakyamuni. It's something else to use medicine. But you need a doctor who helps you with your medicine in such a case. No one is the own doctor. I doubt a lot all medical myths around Marihuana. It is a mind manipulaing drug. Same is alcohol. Alcohol is for sure always only bad. Who thinks alcohol is good for anything suffers only a delusion. I don't know Marihuana from my own exprience - but I fear this is the same.

While meditating and letting go I think I sometimes have experienced strange things. Like almost like I could feal spirits contacting me. I heard voices, saw what I thought were ghosts, traveled to some very strange places while I meditated. Became so detached from myself that I felt I was slipping into another dimension.... I don't know it was wierd.

I guess you liked to say in this last sentence "I know this was weird"

If I concentrate and meditate for like 4 hours straight or longer I feel reality slipping and going into a different place. The longest I been to medidate for was 8 hours straight one time. These long sessions is when I hear voices, experience ghosts, feel my body in some other dimension, see darkness/ light. I would be called to walk to a light to travel somewhere, walk through mirrors into a different dimension. I even had visions of somethings that happened later to me in life.

Such things happen - hopefully without drugs - what will help you to find your own way. The problem is to find the difference between delusion, illusion, [self-]manipulation and real enlightenment. I am by the way no Buddhist - I'm a Christian.

 

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Happy Chokhor Duchen, the Festival of Turning the Wheel of Dharma! Today, July 21, i2023 s the Buddhist holy day of Chokhor Duchen, the day on which Guru Shakyamuni Buddha gave his first teaching on the Four Noble Truths at Sarnath, India.

On these holy days, the power of any meritorious action is multiplied by 100 million, as taught in the vinaya text Treasure of Quotations and Logic.

 

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Where to download PDFs of any Kalavinka Press translation for Free. Of course printed volumes can be bought also:

Dharma Jewels Directory Page

 

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Following vows is central to bodhisattvas. Here are the ten major & 48 minor vows as given in the Brahma Net Sutra:

https://kukaimikkyo.files.wordpress.com/2007/10/the-brahma-net-sutra.pdf

 

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Section 12 of 42 Sections Sutra
A List of Difficulties and an Exhortation to Cultivate

The Buddha said, "People encounter twenty different kinds of difficulties: It is difficult to give when one is poor. It is difficult to study the Way when one has wealth and status. It is difficult to abandon life and face the certainty of death. It is difficult to encounter the Buddhist sutras. It is difficult to be born at the time of a Buddha. It is difficult to be patient with lust and desire. It is difficult to see fine things and not seek them. It is difficult to be insulted and not become angry. It is difficult to have power and not abuse it.

"It is difficult to come in contact with things and have no thought of them. It is difficult to be vastly learned and well-read. It is difficult to get rid of pride. It is difficult not to slight those who have not yet studied. It is difficult to practice equanimity of mind. It is difficult not to gossip. It is difficult to meet a Good and Wise Advisor. It is difficult to see one's own nature and study the Way. It is difficult to teach and save people according to their potentials. It is difficult to see a state and not be moved by it. It is difficult to have a good understanding of skill-in-means."

 

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Celebrating over 50 years of publishing buddhadharma! Many monthly issues are online as this main Index of Vajra Bodhi Sea reveals:

萬佛城金剛菩提海 Vajra Bodhi Sea

 

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Recitation of Sutras is a common practice, here is the story of one who seemed to gain nothing from such - but eventually...

There once was a Dharma Master named Eloquence. Where was he from? No one knew. His practice was reciting the Avatamsaka Sutra. He had been reciting it for sixteen years and had not experienced any benefits; he was still very foolish and did not understand the principles. Later on, he thought to himself, “Oh! Even though I have been reciting the Avatamsaka Sutra for so long, I haven’t become enlightened, and I haven’t experienced any benefits. It must be that I haven’t treated the sutra with enough reverence; that is why I still do not understand the meanings in the sutra.”

Therefore, he came up with a way to protect the sutra and kept it very clean. He used all kinds of incense wood to make a box, and placed the sutra in the box. When walking, he would carry the box on top of his head; when he was not walking, he would place the box in front of him and prostrate before it. It was in this way that he paid reverence to the Avatamsaka Sutra at all times: prostrating to and contemplating the sutra in every moment.

Three years later, he had a dream in which Samantabhadra Bodhisattva explained the wonderful meanings of the Avatamsaka Sutra to him, and instructed him on how to practice. Samantabhadra Bodhisattva gave him Dharma instructions in the dream, and he suddenly became enlightened. Before this, he had recited the Avatamsaka Sutra for sixteen years and could not remember even one line. After this dream, reading the sutra was like looking in a mirror: each word of the sutra was crystal clear as if reflected in a mirror. And after reading the sutra he did not forget any of it—he was able to remember it forever.

From Vajra Bodhi Sea, Jan. 2023 issue

 

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Because this sutra is so large only one third is being released now by 84000 Project:

https://read.84000.co/translation/toh8.html

"SUMMARY

The Perfection of Wisdom in One Hundred Thousand Lines is the longest of all the Prajñāpāramitā sūtras and fills no fewer than twelve volumes of the Degé Kangyur. Like the other two long sūtras, it is a detailed record of the teaching on the perfection of wisdom that the Buddha Śākyamuni gave on Vulture Peak in Rājagṛha, setting out all aspects of the path to enlightenment that bodhisattvas must know and put into practice, yet without taking them as having even the slightest true existence. Each point is emphasized by the exhaustive way that, in this version of the teaching, the Buddha repeats each of his many profound statements for every one of the items in the sets of dharmas that comprise deluded experience, the path, and the qualities of enlightenment.

The provisional version published here currently contains only the first thirteen chapters of the sūtra. Subsequent batches of chapters will be added as their translation and editing is completed."

 

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The Secrets of the Realized Ones / 84000 Reading Room

From the Introduction:

"The Secrets of the Realized Ones (Tathāgataguhya) can be called, without exaggeration, a great work of Mahāyāna Buddhist literature. It deserves to be considered a work of literature in the narrower sense of a form of verbal expression of enduring artistic merit, a work of the creative imagination that may elicit pleasure, wonder, and many other responses from an audience, and not simply in the broader sense of literature as a body of written (or oral) works in general. In that narrower sense, it is comparable to better known works of Mahāyāna Buddhist literature, such as The Teaching of Vimalakīrti(Vimalakīrtinirdeśa, Toh 176), the literary merits of which are already well established, and The Play in Full (Lalitavistara, Toh 95), which deserves more recognition in this regard. Both of these latter works would seem to bear a close relationship to The Secrets of the Realized Ones in other respects as well, and it to them."

 

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37 Bodhisattva Practices by Tokme Zangmo (d. 1369):

http://media.dalailama.com/English/texts/37-practices_english.pdf

How it begins:

"Homage to Lokeshwara

I pay constant homage through my three doors,
To my supreme teacher and protector Chenrezig,
Who while seeing all phenomena lack coming and going,
Makes single-minded effort for the good of living beings.

Perfect Buddhas, source of all well-being and happiness,
Arise from accomplishing the excellent teachings,
And this depends on knowing the practices.
So I will explain the practices of Bodhisattvas."

 

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The latest Sutra from 84000 project:

The Accomplishment of the Sets of Four Qualities: The Bodhisattvas’ Prātimokṣa / 84000 Reading Room

SUMMARY In The Accomplishment of the Sets of Four Qualities: The Bodhisattvas’ Prātimokṣa, Venerable Śāriputra requests the Buddha Śākyamuni to explain the conduct of bodhisattvas. The Buddha responds by describing how bodhisattvas train in many practices and in the cultivation of many qualities, here presented in sets of four, related to generosity and diligence in particular, and more broadly to their attitude, conduct, learning, insight, and teaching. In this way bodhisattvas swiftly progress along the path to buddhahood.

 

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Extensive comments on Vajrasattva Mantra:

http://prajnaquest.fr/blog/wp-content/uploads/Vajrasattva-Mantra-Skt.-Eng.pdf

 

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A site with many teachings & practices, also with videos on YouTube:

Five Buddhas, 5 Wisdoms, 5 Mantras: Their Practices, Symbols, Seed Syllables, and Visualizations - Buddha Weekly: Buddhist Practices, Mindfulness, Meditation

 

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A famous Hymn to Buddha of about 150 verses written around first century:

https://www.bps.lk/olib/wh/wh360_Dhammika_Matricetas-Hymn-to-the-Buddha.pdf

 

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This series is available ifrom BDK in free PDF format or book form. Here is a link to all six volumes that have been done so far.

"A Forest of Pearls from the Dharma Garden (Fayuan zhulin, T. 2122) is a large anthology of excerpts from Buddhist canonical sources and historical records, arranged by theme. The scriptural passages, with some exceptions, were taken from Indian Buddhist scriptures translated into Chinese; the settings of the narratives they offer are for the most part Indian. The historical records excerpted in the collection are of Chinese origin, and their settings are Chinese.
The collection is attributed to Daoshi, a seventh-century monk based at Xi-mingsi Monastery in the capital city, Chang’an."

Search Results for “forest of pearls” – BDK America

 

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Vasubandhu Bodhisattva shows the altruistic vows & practices that lead toward buddhahood:

http://kalavinka.org/ebooks_NEW/Vasubandhu Bodhi Resolve_Bilingual_ebk_08-19-23.pdf