Attachment

In the Four Noble truths, Buddha Shakyamuni taught that attachment to self is the root cause of suffering:

• From craving (attachment) springs grief,
• from craving springs fear;
• For him who is wholly free from craving, there is no grief, much less fear. (Dhammapada Sutra. In Narada Maha Thera, The Buddha and His Teachings.)

If you don't have attachments, naturally you're liberated ... In ancient times, there was an old cultivator who asked for instructions from a monk,

"Great Monk, let me ask you, how can I attain liberation?" The Great monk said, "Who tied you up?" This old cultivator answered, "Nobody tied me up." The monk said, "Then why do you seek liberation?"

 (Hsuan Hua, tr., Flower Adornment Sutra, "Pure Conduct," chap. 11.)

For the seasoned practitioner, even the Dharma must not become an attachment. As an analogy, to clean one's shirt, it is necessary to use soap. However, if the soap is not then rinsed out, the garment will not be truly clean. Similarly, the practitioner's mind will not be fully liberated until he severs attachment to everything, including the Dharma itself.

 (See also: Attachment , Buddhism, Body Mind and Soul)

Buddhism:

Buddhism. Religion founded by Buddha, which holds that life is full of suffering caused by desire and that the way to end the suffering is to end the birth-death cycle through enlightenment.

(See also: Buddhism , Hinduism, Hinduism Dictionary, Sanskrit Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)

Buddhism

World religion based on the spiritual teachings of Siddhartha Gautama Buddha. There are a number of versions or sects of Buddhism generally teaching paths to Nirvana (enlightenment or bliss) though the four noble truths (recognizing existence and source of suffering) and the eightfold path (correct understanding, behavior and meditation).

Some variations of Buddhism include traditional Theravada schools of India, Mahayana Buddhism, which became very popular in China and Japan, and Tibetan Buddhism (Lamaism) in Tibet.

Two more recent forms that have had great influence in America are Zen and Nichiren Shoshu Buddhism.

(See also: Buddhism , New Age Spirituality, Body Mind and Soul)

Paramita:

Refers to the six practices, the perfection of which ferries one beyond the sea of suffering and mortality to Nirvana.

The six Paramitas are the following:

(1)  Dana, charity or giving, including the bestowing of truth on others;

(2)  Sila, keeping the discipline;

(3)  Ksanti, patience under suffering and insult;

(4)  Virya, zeal and progress;

(5)  Dhyana, meditation or contemplation;

(6)  Prajna, wisdom, the power to discern reality or truth. It is the perfection of the last one -- Prajna -- that ferries sentient beings across the ocean of Samsara (the sea of incarnate life) to the shores of Nirvana.

 (See also: Paramita , Buddhism, Body Mind and Soul)

Panchkarma Bloodletting

Toxins absorbed into the bloodstream through the gastro-intestinal tract get circulated throughout the body, manifesting under the skin or in the joint-spaces making rooms for disease. Their elimination and purification of the blood then becomes necessary. Thus his therapy is very good in case of all imbalance of blood and pitta disorders as stubborn skin diseases, tumours, gout, excessive drowsiness, alopecia, hallucinations and enlarged liver & spleen.

A sharp scalpel is usually used to make superficial, parallel or vertical incisions with extreme care after a soothing and antiseptic paste has been applied to the location. The amount of blood let out should not be more than 350ml. At such times a needle should be used to puncture a vein. It is however not to be used for people suffering from general swelling of limbs, debility, severe anemia, piles, fever, thirst, alcoholism.

The real objective of Panchakarma is to eliminate the cause of disease, since in itself the absence of symptoms does not always indicate a complete cure. Symptoms can often be quickly eliminated. But cure usually takes more time. Since it is based on the individual constitution, it is obvious that in very chronic diseases there may be more sittings required to eliminate the toxins from the body.

(See also: Bloodletting , Ayurveda, Ayurvedic Dictionary, Alternative Health, Body Mind and Soul)

Nirvana

The deathless; the cessation of all suffering. The very opposite of the Wheel of Birthand- Death; it is what those in the Buddhist tradition aspire to experience. The Absolute, which transcends designation and mundane characterization.

 (See also: Nirvana , Buddhism, Body Mind and Soul)

penance: Prayashchitta. Atonement, expiation.

An act of devotion (bhakti), austerity (tapas) or discipline (sukritya) undertaken to soften or nullify the anticipated reaction to a past action.

Penance is uncomfortable karma inflicted upon oneself to mitigate one's karmic burden caused by wrongful actions (kukarma). It includes such acts as prostrating 108 times, fasting, self-denial, or carrying kavadi (public penance), as well as more extreme austerities, or tapas. Penance is often suggested by spiritual leaders and elders. Penitence or repentance, suffering regret for misdeeds, is called anutapa, meaning "to heat."

See: evil, kavadi, papa, prayashchitta, sin, tapas.

(See also: Penance , Hinduism, Body Mind and Soul)

tapas: (Sanskrit) "Warmth, heat," hence psychic energy, spiritual fervor or ardor.

1)    Purificatory spiritual disciplines, severe austerity, penance and sacrifice. The endurance of pain, suffering, through the performance of extreme penance, religious austerity and mortification. By comparison, sadhana is austerity of a simple, sustained kind, while tapas is austerity of a severe, psychetransforming nature. Tapas is extreme bodily mortification, long term sadhanas, such as meditating under a tree in one place for 12 years, taking a lifetime vow of silence and never speaking or writing, or standing on one leg for a prescribed number of years. Scriptures warn against extreme asceticism that harm the body.

2)    On a deeper level, tapas is the intense inner state of kundalini "fire" which stimulates mental anguish and separates the individual from society. Life does not go on as usual when this condition occurs. The association with a satguru, Sadasiva, brings the devotee into tapas; and it brings him out of it. The fire of tapas burns on the dross of sanchita karmas. This is the source of heat, dismay, depression and striving until final and total surrender, prapatti. The individual can mollify this heated condition by continuing his regular sadhana as outlined by the guru. The fires of self-transformation may be stimulated by the practice of tapas, or come unbidden. One can "do" tapas, but the true tapas is a condition of being and consciousness which is a state of grace, bringing positive change, transformation and purification of one's nature. Guru bhakti is the only force that can cool the fires of tapas.

See: kundalini, penance, sadhana.

(See also: Tapas , Hinduism, Body Mind and Soul)

idappaccayata: (idappaccayataa) This/that conditionality. This name for the causal principle the Buddha discovered on the night of his Awakening stresses the point that, for the purposes of ending suffering and stress, the processes of causality can be understood entirely in terms of forces and conditions that are experienced in the realm of direct experience, with no need to refer to forces operating outside of that realm.

 (See also: Idappaccayata , Buddhism, Body Mind and Soul)

Aryasatyani (Sanskrit). The four truths or the four dogmas, which are

(1) Dukha, or that misery and pain are the unavoidable concomitants of sentient (esoterically, physical) existence;

(2) Samudaya, the truism that suffering is intensified by human passions;

(3) Nirodha, that the crushing out and extinction of all such feelings are possible for a man "on the path";

(4) Marga, the narrow way, or that path which leads to such a blessed result.

(See also: Aryasatyani , Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary,)

Theodice, Theodicy [coined from Greek theos god + dike justice]

A vindication of divine justice; a system or method of intellectual theorizing about the nature of so-called divine justice, having in view vindication of the justice and holiness of God, in connection with evil. Ancient philosophers all taught that the heart of things was divine harmony and that whatever evil, distortion, and obliquity might exist in the world is ultimately traceable back to the imperfect intelligence of evolving beings, who by their manifold conflicts of thought and will thus produce disharmony, relative confusion, and hence evil, in the scheme of things.

This view was replaced during Christian ages by the attempt of many writers to rescue the reputation of the Christian God, who on the one hand is said to be the creator of everything and who yet is supposed to be the fountain of love, mercy, harmony, and goodness.

In view of the evils and suffering in the world, such Christian attempts have been futile, for it is obvious that if God is the creator of all that is, He must have been either directly or indirectly the creator of all the disharmony, wickedness, and misery in the world, as was indeed alleged by many Jewish rabbis, following statements in the Hebrew scriptures. But this thought has been denied by Christians who refuse to accept their God of love and justice as the creator of evil, and thus they had recourse to the Devil, who himself must have been created by their omniscient God.

(See also: Theodice, Theodicy , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body mind and Soul)

Heaven and Hell In Christian theology, the abodes of Deity and the celestial hierarchy on the one hand, and of Satan and his fallen angels on the other hand; the final goal of those who are saved and of those who are damned. The origin of the doctrine is founded in the ancient Mystery teachings concerning the human afterdeath experiences and the corresponding experiences passed through by the candidate for initiation.

Hell may be likened to kama-loka and also avichi, though neither is eternal. Kama-loka is better represented, however, by purgatory. Heaven is a reflection of devachan, blended also with ideas of nirvanic states. Thus heaven and hell should both be used in the plural, as is commonly the case in their non-Christian equivalents: Elysium, nirvana, Paradise, Valhalla, Olympus, and many other names for heaven; and Tartarus, Gehenna, She'ol, Niflheim, etc., for hell.

Heaven and hell may denote states of consciousness experienced in daily life on earth. A rough division of cosmic spheres makes heaven the highest, hell or Tartarus the lowest, with the earth beneath heaven, and the underworld beneath it and preceding Tartarus. The crystalline spheres of medieval astronomy are called heavens surrounding the earth concentrically. Far from being adjudicated by a deity to happiness or torment, after death a person goes to that region to which he is attracted by the affinities which he has set up during his life.

Thus theosophy teaches the existence of almost endless and widely varying spheres or regions, all inhabited by peregrinating entities; and of these regions the higher can be dubbed the heavens and the lowest the hells, and the intermediate can be called the regions of experiences and purgation. All spheres possessing sufficient materialized substance to be called imbodied spheres are hells by contrast with the ethereal and spiritual globes of the heavens. Therefore in a sense and on a smaller scale, the lower globes of a planetary chain may be called hells, and the higher globes of the chain, by contrast, heavens.

All evolving entities go to both the heavens and the hells of our solar system in accordance with their evolutionary necessities, and for the purpose of purgation through the suffering of material experience; but in all cases such peregrinating egos are attracted at the different times of their long evolutionary schooling to those spheres by sympathy or psychomagnetic pull. The immense justice of this idea, from which the heavens and hells of the different religions have come, is readily apparent.

See also LOKAS

(See also: Heaven and Hell , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Meaning of Dreams in Islam

Few Western dream researchers have any familiarity with the rich dream traditions of Islam. The Muslim faith first emerged in seventh century B.C.E. Arabia as a profound revisioning of early Jewish and Christian beliefs and practices. One theme the Prophet Muhammed (pbuh) drew from the scriptures of those two religions was a reverence for dreaming. In the Quran, as in the Jewish Torah and the Christian New Testament, dreams serve as a vital medium by which God communicates with humans. Dreams offer divine guidance and comfort, warn people of impending danger, and offer prophetic glimpses of the future. Although the three religions drastically differ on many other topics, they find substantial agreement on this particular point: dreaming is a valuable source of wisdom, understanding, and inspiration. Indeed, as I will propose in this brief essay, Islam has historically shown greater interest in dreams than either of the other two traditions, and has done more to weave dreaming into the daily lives of its members. From the first revelatory visions of Muhammed to the myriad dream practices of present-day Muslims, Islam has developed and sustained a complex, multifaceted tradition of active engagement with the dreaming imagination.

Read more here: » Meaning of Dreams in Islam: Reflections on the Dream Traditions of Islam

Compassion: Cultivating Positive Emotions

All major traditions in the world agree that negative emotions cause both physical and mental suffering. To be happy and free of suffering we need to cultivate positive attributes like compassion, generosity and loving-kindness. Buddhism acknowledges that outer circumstances are often beyond our control.

Read more here: » Compassion: Cultivating Positive Emotions

Emotional Sensitivity

Empathic people do have observable traits that are easily identified. Interestingly, the traits are a set of characteristics that have always had their own air of mystery. I'm referring to a set of psychological traits that has never been adequately explained before. These characteristics are commonly referred to as emotional sensitivity.

Read more here: » Highly Sensitive People: Emotional Sensitivity

Suffering seems to be one of those fundamental human experiences that we all have in common, and is perhaps the one we would all gladly give up. We often feel oppressed and frustrated by suffering because we do not understand it. It can pierce the heart of our being and our identity, and shake every assumption we hold about ourselves and the world. It often seems to destroy our will-power and overthrow our commitments, to our dismay.

Read more here: » Personal Growth: Understanding Suffering

Rituals in Buddhism: Buddhist Funeral Rites

Theravadins Buddhist follow the Indian custom of burning the body at death. The BuddhaÕs body was cremated and this set the example for many Buddhists, even in the West. When someone is dying in a Burmese home, monks come to comfort them. They chant verses to them, such as:

Read more here: » Rituals in Buddhism: Buddhist Funeral Rites

We are here to learn. We have created all our experiences for that purpose only: to learn, understand, and recognize ourselves in all that is. This is our sole/soul purpose in this entire existence. To learn a lesson never requires eternity; it is only our own unconscious choice to resist and avoid the learning that perpetuates the lesson.

Read more here: » Personal Growth: On Lessons, Creating our Reality, Limitation, and Eternal Suffering

Indigo Children, Super-Psychic Children, Violet Children, Children of OZ and Chrystal Children are all refering to children born with a new level of consciousness. Kiara Windrider explains.

Read more here: » Indigo Children: Children of the New Dawn

In this articles, famous Astrologer Dr Turi expose his beliefs and vision from an astrological point of view regarding the release of Mel Gibson's new movie, "The Passion." As expected when religions are involved, controversial news will be hitting fast and furious causing emotional turmoil. Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" is unleashing this conflict according to Dr Turi.

Read more here: » Astrology: Astrological perspective on Mel Gibson's movie Passion

Buddha Day: The Significance of Vesak - Buddha Day

The significance of Vesak lies with the Buddha and his universal peace message to mankind.

As we recall the Buddha and his Enlightenment, we are immediately reminded of the unique and most profound knowledge and insight which arose in him on the night of his Enlightenment. This coincided with three important events which took place, corresponding to the three watches or periods of the night.

Read more here: » Buddha Day: The Significance of Vesak - Buddha Day