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    Dharma Mind Worldly Mind
    Dharma Mind Worldly Mind
    Dharma Mind Worldly Mind
    Ebook101 pages1 hour

    Dharma Mind Worldly Mind

    By Aloka David Smith

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    this is not a book of lists and formulas like so many books on buddhist practice. instead, it begins by creating a practical framework for understanding the principles of the buddha’s teaching, and then goes much further, offering valuable advice on how to put those principles into practice. it focuses not just on sitting meditation but more crucially on our daily lives. if we do not carry our buddhist practice into daily life, the deep and permanent change that we all want will not be possible. aloka david smith offers his own personal insight, based on nearly 40 years of committed dharma practice, on how to cultivate this most subtle and deeply profound path of transformation.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAloka David Smith
    Release dateJul 31, 2012
    ISBN9780954247577
    Dharma Mind Worldly Mind
    Author

    Aloka David Smith

    I was born in Oxford, England, in 1946, and I've been a practicing Buddhist for nearly 40 years. I began training with Zen, practicing with the Venerable Myokyo-ni, a teacher from the Rinzai school, at the Buddhist Society in London. This was my practice for more than five years, before travelling to Sri Lanka in 1980. Here I lived for three years as a Theravada monk under the guidance of the Venerable Dhammaloka Maha Thera. It was while I was in Sri Lanka that my spiritual breakthrough took place in 1981, and it is this that forms the framework of my first book, A Record of Awakening, published in 1999.On my return from Sri Lanka I matured my practiced by essentially living on my own for a number of years in east London. At the time of my breakthrough in Sri Lanka my teacher told me I should travel and begin to teach, but it was to be around 20 years before I took that role by leading retreats at several retreat centres of the Triratna Community in the UK and abroad. My association with this movement came to an end in 2006.My second book, Dharma Mind Worldly Mind, was published in 2002.My third book, A Question of Dharma, was published in 2008.My fourth book, The Five Pillars of Transformation, was also published in 2008, with a second edition in 2009.My fifth book, Blue Sky, White Cloud. has now been published.DharmaMind Buddhist GroupAs well as being a guest leader of retreats at various Buddhist centres around the country and abroad, I have also been leading my own Dharma group for several years, whose practice framework is within the all-embracing spirit of Mahayana Buddhism, and focuses primarily on the formless approach to practice known as "silent illumination" of the immanent model. This independent Western Mahayana Buddhist group first started in London in 1997, and is now located in Birmingham, where I have lived since 2001. We moved to our current meeting venue located at the Friends Meeting House in Kings Heath, in January 2007. A superb facility ideally suited to our needs.The name 'DharmaMind' is my term to denote the type of mind that it is crucial to cultivate in order to aspire to freedom from self and enjoy happiness of heart. The heart and spirit of our training is closely allied to Chan, Zen and Dzogchen - a practice of 'no-practice' that embraces all of life, which is practiced in the body through direct experience, before thinking. It is a practice whose spirit nurtures the ability to live life without the burden of spiritual ambition and goals, and which has the delicious taste of freedom from attachment.The group has now grown beyond the weekly and monthly meetings that had been its limits over the early years. Retreats are now scheduled at various locations and local groups are being set up as an ongoing development. For more information on these activities go to the Group page.Āloka David Smith.

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      Book preview

      Dharma Mind Worldly Mind - Aloka David Smith

      Dharma Mind Worldly Mind

      A Buddhist Handbook on Complete Meditation

      By

      Aloka David Smith

      Smashwords Edition

      Copyright David Smith 2012

      What others say about this book…

      Not an instructional book - more an inspiration! 4 March 2012

      I got this book after being directed towards David Smith's first book, which documents his life in Buddhism, his studies, and ultimately where it left him now. This book is very different - I bought it thinking it would be quite instructional (why is it that instead of just plonking ourselves down on our cushion, we have to read, read, read to find out how!!) but it's really not that kind of book. It deals with many of the issues we face trying to move towards that ever illusive enlightened mind, it's only a small short book, but it took me ages to read!! I kept just going back a couple of pages, then a couple more, trying to soak and re-soak up some of his messages. It's a little book that I'll read many many times over the years, I'm sure of that. I think it's so easy to get hung up on the self help style of Buddhism, spending more time reading than actually just practicing...... this book will change the way you approach your buddhist practice, for sure.

      If you're looking for a step by step guide to enlightenment, this is not it. If you want to have your mind widened and expanded by the meaning and relevance of everything around you, this is it. Buddhism is for every second of every day, not just for that 30 minute sit in the morning. Read it! - Mr I Baxter (UK)

      About the Author

      Published by

      Aloka Publications

      65 Linden Road

      Bearwood

      West Midlands

      B66 4DZ

      UK

      e-mail: dmbooks@dharmamind.net

      web: dharmamind.net

      © David Smith 2002

      Cover photo: Jill Fermanovsky

      British Library Cataloguing in Publications Data:

      A catalogue record of this book is available

      From the British Library

      Ebook: ISBN 97809542475 7 7

      Paperback: ISBN 09542475 0 7

      The right of David Smith to be identified as the author of this

      work has been asserted by him in accordance with the

      Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Table of Contents

      Acknowledgements

      Dharma Mind Worldly Mind

      Introduction

      THE BASICS OF PRACTICE

      the eightfold path

      the three jewels

      the bodhisattva

      the framework of practice

      eightfold practice

      PRACTICE IN EVERYDAY LIFE

      dharma mind

      staying at home

      practice in lay life

      containment in everyday life

      karma and rebirth

      Publications

      Acknowledgements

      I would like to express my gratitude to both Jnanasiddhi and Shantavira for their efforts with their editorial skills in helping put this book together, and to Vessantara who helped with the editing also but in addition gave me the support throughout that has made it possible for my manuscript to finally be published. And my gratitude goes also to Mike Leonard for creating the website that is important in making this work known.

      Top

      Dharma Mind Worldly Mind

      Dharma Mind

      ‘Mind’ is used as the translation of the Pali and Sanskrit word Citta. Citta means both the mind that is the thinking faculty in the head, but more especially, mind that is the intuitive, emotional ‘heart’ of our being, and located in our body. It is here ‘beyond the thinking mind’ in the body that the Dharma Mind is to be nurtured, for it is here that Truth waits to be discovered. The thinking mind has its part to play in the discovering of the Dharma, but is to be used only as a skilful means to help sift and understand the verbal and written Dharma that we all take in on our spiritual pilgrimage of discovery.

      Worldly Mind

      I use this term to denote our normal everyday mind and state of being that is goal oriented and saturated in ego and self-interest. This ego and self-interest, in its conceit, turns away from the Citta as a whole thus making it impossible for it ever to know the Truth.

      Top

      Introduction

      One of the great joys I experienced shortly after the publication of my book A Record of Awakening was engagement in the question-and-answer sessions at various Buddhist centres around the British Isles that followed the launch.

      This first book was an attempt to express the deep spiritual understanding that arose in me in Sri Lanka in 1981, though I only wrote the first draft some eight years later, in 1989, while living in London. On completion, I put the draft in my desk drawer and forgot about it for quite some years. One day, however, just out of curiosity, I searched it out and read it over again, and I was surprised how much I liked what I had written. In the intervening years I had learned how to use a computer and gained experience in word-processing so I decided to clean up my rather poor first draft and improve the general presentation. This took some time but eventually I had a presentable copy, which I then had ambitions to get published.

      The preface, written by the founder of the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order, Urgyen Sangharakshita, picks up the story of how it was finally published by Windhorse Publications in November 1999. For me this was quite an achievement; to write a manuscript that finally reached publication was something beyond my dreams. Publishing a book didn’t somehow seem to fit the sort of upbringing I had - a very ordinary working class background in Oxford, England. I am the son of a car worker, and at the age of 25 I decided to travel the world just for the sake of it. It was while leading a quite hedonistic existence in Sydney, Australia, that I found Buddhism - through books. Reading the Dharma – the teaching of the Buddha - transformed my whole life, and the reason for living it.

      I returned to my native England to seek out a Zen teacher, as this was the form of Buddhism that interested me most at the time. I trained with that teacher for nearly six years before becoming a Theravada monk in Sri Lanka. It is my experiences there in the subtropics that are the main focus of the first book. After three years in Sri Lanka I disrobed and returned to the UK, where, despite retaining my Theravada links in this country, I have on the whole been practising on my own ever since. The major change since the launch of that book has been the opportunity to transmit some of my understanding of the Dharma to fellow practitioners through Dharma groups that I lead.

      At the book launches I was struck very strongly by the interest and enthusiasm shown by the audience in the book itself, but also by their enthusiasm and desire for knowledge about how to practise the Buddha's Path. So whilst there were a few predictable questions on metaphysics, and a few even more predictable questions expressing curiosity about my own practice, the great majority of queries were about their own practice: how they should approach it and how they should deal with the difficulties they encountered.

      It has been this experience above all else that has motivated me to put together this second book. I consider it to be really a continuation from the first publication, committing to paper the answers to most of the questions I was asked at the book launches. It also allows me to air several questions put to me during the many personal meetings I've had, and from the numerous letters and emails I have received following the book's publication. I have also included one or two extra pointers and suggestions which the reader may find useful.

      I hope you will discover whilst reading that this really isn’t a book of lists and formulas but rather an expression of a living experience. Because of this flavour you will often come across words that try to convey that living experience – which is an emotional one. We are sensitive, warm-blooded mammals, and our feelings and emotions are

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