AboutLaurie McLauglin Expertise I can answer certain questions about the Tibetan Mahayana path as well as many questions about basic Buddhism. If I do not know the answer chances are I can find out very quickly as I live in a Buddhist retreat center.
Experience I have been practicing Buddhism for over seven years and have had teachings from many very qualified Mahayana teachers such as Jon Landaw, Tubten Pende and Venerable Robina Courtin
Publications I have written articles on Buddhism for the on line magazine, Suite 101
Education/Credentials I have a BA in theatre from The Unversity of South Florida
Question Good afternoon. I'm writing a school paper about Buddhism and have a few questions.
1. What is Buddhism to you individually?
2. What are important holidays of this religion?
3. What are important traditions of this religion?
4. Do you believe in today's world that one can become truly enlightened?
5. How does one meditate and what is the main goal of doing so?
Thanks for you time.
Answer Thank you for letting me answer your questions.
Some of your questions are fairly easy to answer, the others are somewhat more difficult and I will explain as we go along.
The first question of course will be answered by each different practitioner uniquely. My answer will strictly be a personal answer not one that is necessarily true to all dharma students (dharma being the teachings of the Buddha). Buddha himself taught 84 thousand teachings because he tailored each of his teachings to the individual group or person to whom he was speaking. Buddha likened his teachings to medicine and likened himself to a doctor. Just as a doctor would prescribe medicines to people depending on their specific illness, so the same with Buddha’s teachings.
So, what I needed that the Buddhist teachings fulfilled was that I wanted to learn how to be a better person and needed a roadmap to figure out how to do so. Buddhism provided me that roadmap. First, it taught me how to meditate. This allowed me to understand how my thoughts were formed and I could still my mind and watch how it worked. As I stilled my mind, I could watch thoughts form in my mind and recognize them as positive or negative thoughts. Then I was able to embrace the positive thoughts and let go of the negative ones before they manifested into actions. As thought always precede actions.
So, I am now able to be happier because I have a bit more control over my mind and my mind is calmer, due to meditation and I choose now not to act on as many negative thoughts as I used to.
What else Buddhism has done to give me a road map to be a better person is teach me about how to help others and think of them first before myself. I study what is called Mahayana Buddhism. The people that practice this particular sect of Buddhism believe it is not enough just to reach enlightenment for ourselves but we commit ourselves to helping all sentient beings become enlightened no matter how long it takes. This is also called the Bodhisattva path. This path stresses learning how to help others and work at training our minds to put others first, and find joy in doing so and not grasp at our selfishness.
Things like grasping at negative emotions like selfishness, jealousy, anger and so forth seem normal to us and are even often encouraged in our normal lives. However, these emotions tend to produce unhappiness not only in ourselves but in others. Buddhism teaches to learn to see all sentient beings as just the same as ourselves, no better, no worse. After all, are we not similar all of us. When you come down to it, all of us simply want to be happy and no one wants to suffer. When we can learn to see ourselves as no different or worse than others then we do not need to label people as enemy and stranger but think of all as our friends and equal to us.
But often our emotions, anger, jealousy, pride and selfishness and the rest make us treat others in negative ways. So another thing that Buddhism teaches is how to look at the world in a way that does not grasp at things and hold on to them as if they, things outside ourselves, have the power to make us happy or sad. Buddhism teaches us to look at things and understand how nothing outside ourselves can bring us sadness or suffering. Sadness and suffering come from our minds alone. Once we can learn the true nature of things and how our minds work, then we will cease to suffer and cause others to suffer.
So, that is what Buddhism is to me personally. It is a way to find happiness within myself and to be a better person overall.
Your second question becomes a bit difficult. The reason this is, is that just in Christianity, there are different religions within Christianity, such as Baptist, Catholic and Mormon, all have different ways they practice the same religion, so do the different kinds of Buddhism. There are many, many different kinds of Buddhism in many, many different countries. Each of these practices Buddhism differently. So each of them has different holidays and sometimes has the same holidays but they take place on different days because I believe all the Buddhist sects go by lunar calendars. Therefore, the days that the holidays occur are on different days each year.
Since I practice the Mahayana Tibetan Gelugpa tradition of Buddhism, I can only speak for them in which holidays we celebrate. We have four main holidays. One is when Buddha passed into Parinirvana, this means that Buddha passed away from this life. It is celebrated around February 15th of each year. Losar is the Tibetan New Year which is celebrated around Easter time. Then there is Buddha’s birthday, called Saka Dawa, which we celebrate around the beginning of June. This year it was June 7th. The last holiday we traditionally celebrate is the one where Buddha comes back to earth from Heaven where he went to teach his mother, after she died. That is usually celebrated, if I am correct in September or October. There are many other Buddhist holidays, but those are the four main ones in the tradition that I follow.
Question three is a bit like question two. There are so many different forms of Buddhism based on the countries to which Buddhism spread that one could devote a whole year just to study the various traditions in each type of Buddhism. So, again, I will give you an overview of the Tibetan Mahayana Gelugpa tradition.
The traditions we have are doing much meditation, singularly and in groups in order to gain insight and realizations into the nature of reality; doing pujas, which are like religious ceremonies highlighting various Buddhas, for various beneficial purposes; tsogs, which are offering ceremonies to the Buddhas; we have the tradition of chanting mantras for various purposes; we have the tradition hanging prayer flags to send prayers on the wind to spread over the world; we have the tradition of studying the Buddhists texts and commentaries for the purpose of helping us gain wisdom; we have the tradition of circumambulating holy objects like stupas and the tradition of turning prayer wheels. We have the tradition of standing when a teacher enters the room. We have the tradition of prostrating to the Buddhas before teachings.
These are our main traditions.
As to question number four, yes, I do believe that in today’s world one can become truly enlightened. Although these are called degenerate times, the path to reach enlightenment has been clearly laid out for 2500 years or more. If one understands the path and practices it correctly and earnestly, there is no reason that one cannot reach enlightenment in this day and age.
Your last question is also somewhat difficult. It is kind of like asking how does one play the piano. There are basic techniques and these techniques are refined and change as one gets deeper in the practice of Buddhism. And again each different Buddhist tradition teaches meditation a bit differently; putting different emphasis on one thing over another.
But generally, from the point of view of a Mahayana Gelugpa practitioner, one generally sits on the floor or a chair in an eight point posture. One concentrates single pointedly on ones breath and quiets the mind to simply notice and not grasp at any thoughts that come into one’s mind. From that, one develops mindfulness. Then one gets fairly good at that, one can begin by quieting the mind, then doing what is called single pointed placement meditation, by taking a subject like compassion and examine it and feel it and hold it single pointedly for as long as possible. Then there is something called analytical mediation where one takes a concept such as the reality of things and dissects it until one gets a better understanding of it then one had before. These are the three common types of meditation – all if which are aimed at taming and bringing the mind under our control, instead of being at the mercy of our minds which try to get us to do all sorts of things and often gets us in trouble; So, instead of producing knee-jerk reactions like rage, jealousy and the like, one can choose what feelings and emotions to experience. One can develop compassion by meditations on loving kindness and holding it in our minds for as long as we wish, even after we stop our meditation session, and one can develop wisdom by meditating on reality and understanding the self.
Your questions cover much ground, so I gave you just the briefest overview of each question. Please don’t hesitate to ask any further questions.
