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The Cream of Buddhist Teaching
The Buddha has spoken about Mother Earth as patience and equanimity, the two great virtues of the planet. Our society is very sick and many of us need healing; our body and mind contain many poisons. Mother Earth can heal herself and help us if we know how to take refuge in her. When we walk we can be aware that the earth is holding our steps; Mother Earth is also inside us. Walking meditation allows the earth to be in us and around us. We are the earth. Healing begins when you are not trying anything: the practice of non-practice.
There is a dimension of reality called the historical dimension, in which we see things as separate. Classical science, represented by Newton, operates here. A deeper science such as quantum physics reveals another truth that seems to contradict the historical dimension. In meditation there are also two kinds of truth: conventional truth and ultimate truth. The Buddha taught, “This is because that is.” Using a sheet of paper we can illustrate co-arising / inter-arising, the path that leads from the historical to the ultimate.
In the ultimate dimension we use words like Emptiness, the absence of notions and concepts, equivalent to God. The teaching of interbeing shows that nothing can exist by itself. Rebirth, karma, and retribution are possible without a self; believing a self is required is a deluded view influenced by pre-Buddhist teachings. The deep teaching is no-self.
The classical presentation of the Twelve Nidanas explains the chain of samsara:
Avidya (delusion); Sanskara (impulses, actions, dispositions); Vijñana (consciousness); Namarupa (body and mind); Sadayatana (six sense organs and objects); Sparsa (contact); Vedana (feelings); Trsna (craving, attachment); Upadana (grasping); Bhava (existence); Jati (birth); Jara-marana (old age and death). The first two links belong to the past, the next eight belong to this life, the present.
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