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Everything is impermanent, everything is selfless, and to experience this selflessness or emptiness is the experience the quiescence of Nirvana, Buddha nature and enlightenment.
New Delhi, India -- Across India this month, thousands of Hindus from the former Untouchable castes are converting to Buddhism in protest at the continuing discrimination they face. Mass conversion ceremonies are being held throughout the month, from Delhi in the north, to Hyderabad in the south. Organisers are claiming that more than 100,000 people have already converted.
Conversion is a highly charged political issue. Several states have passed laws this year making it harder to convert, and the mass ceremonies will infuriate Hindu nationalist parties that have been campaigning to stop lower caste Hindus changing their religion.
But for many Dalits, as Untouchables are now known, conversion is the only way to escape the oppression they still face in Hindu society. Untouchability has been illegal in India since independence, but it is still commonly practised. In many villages Dalits are not allowed to drink clean water from a well. In some areas, tea shops keep a different glass for Dalits to use, so higher-caste Hindus are not "polluted" by drinking from the same vessel, even after it has been washed. After the 2004 tsunami, Dalit survivors in Tamil Nadu were prevented from sharing water in relief camps.
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Compassion was the beginning of buddhism, and it is the essence of Buddhism.
Bodhidharma is considered the first Chinese Chan Patriarch. Current Chinese linage is about the 58th. Bodhidharma sat in a cave for 9 years until the Second Patriarch showed up. Only after the Sixth Patriarch, Chan flourished in China. The efficacy of the prayer lies in the pure sincerity of the praying, which comes from one's strength of mind, and the strength of one's vows
SENTIENT BEINGS WITHOUT NUMBER WE VOW TO ENLIGHTEN
For a Bodhisattva, the eradication of one's own suffering is joined with the desire to aid in the eradication of all others' suffering as well. The real Bodhisattva identifies the immeasurable distress of all sentient beings as his own. With this Immeasurable Compassion (Maha-karuna), one can take the second vow:
VEXATIONS WITHOUT NUMBER WE VOW TO ERADICATE
The desire to win Supreme Bodhi, convert and liberate sentient beings, aid in the eradication of their distress, etc., should not be an impulse based on idle sentimentality or romantic notions of spiritual life. This noble aspiration can only come to completion provided that there is a strong foundation of wisdom. With wisdom only, and not otherwise, can one spread the Dharma and assist living beings. This wisdom arises from a keen desire to learn and practice the Buddha-dharma. Therefore, the Buddha said, "All Buddhas in the three periods arise from learning and practice." One who is not willing to learn will remain eternally foolish, and what foolish man or woman ever completed the Bodhi Tao, spread Dharma and assisted sentient beings? See: THE BUDDHA: Five Qualities of a Dharma Teacher.
As there is immeasurable distress in the lives of sentient beings, there are innumerable methods of Dharma practice. Therefore, the third vow of great compassion is as follows:
LIMITLESS APPROACHES TO THE DHARMA WE VOW TO MASTER
When one perceives the suffering of sentient beings, one vows to Enlighten sentient beings without number when perceiving the distress in one's life and that of others, one vows to eradicate vexations without end. Perceiving the myriad Dharma doors to Enlightenment, one vows to master them all. Perceiving the truth of Nirvana, one vows to attain the Supreme Bodhi.
THE SUPREME ENLIGHTENMENT WE VOW TO ACHIEVE
Source http://www.angelfire.com/electronic/awakening101/four-vows.htmlEnlightenment is Bodhi; Supreme Enlightenment is the Anuttara Samyak Sambodhi or the Buddha Fruit. Determining the Bodhicitta means using the faith of our worldly minds to vow to complete this path. However, if one is to complete this vow, one should have the support of the other three Great Vows. To arrive at Anuttara-Samyak-Sambodhi, one should have the desire to spread the Buddha-dharma and effect the liberation of all sentient beings.
The Diamond Sūtra (Vajracchedika-prajñāpāramitā-sūtraspan>) has maintained a high degree of popularity in the Mahāyāna Buddhist tradition for over a millenium, especially in East Asia, and most importantly within the East Asian meditation (Chan/Seon/Zen/Thien) school, where it has been recited, taught, and commented on extensively up to the present day. One reason for its popularity is its brevity — it can be chanted in about forty minutes, which means that it is something that an average person can memorize without superhuman effort. More important, though, is the basic resonance of the text's message with a core aspect of Chan doctrine/practice — the theme of "non-abiding." Non-abiding, in a Buddhist, and especially a Chan context, refers to the continual practice (i.e., not just while one is sitting in zazen) of being aware of the stoppings and goings of the mind, and avoiding being tricked and ensnared by the web of mental constructs that one continually weaves for oneself. The ongoing proliferation of these deluded constructs has as its causes and conditions not only in the thought processes in which one is engaged at the present moment, but also the flowing river one's entire multi-lifetime load of previous karma. And not only one's own karma, but the linguistic/karmic flow of one's entire culture.
A vitally important message of the Diamond Sūtra is that non-abiding should not be misconstrued as a nihilistic sort of practice. On the other hand, it also does not imply simply giving free reign to one's thoughts, since then, one is certainly going to get further wrapped up in the dense web of one's own spinning. Non-abiding necessitates the kind of moment-to-moment attentiveness that is awesome in its required subtlety. Nonetheless, with just a modicum of experience in meditative practice, the new student of the Diamond Sutra will no doubt begin to get some sort of feel for what is going on in this text. In a sense, it is simple: the thoughts, labels, signs, characteristics, etc., that we associate with given things, are nothing more than labels, and should not be imputed as the reality of the thing in itself, thus becoming reified objects of our desire and dislike. Yet there is also such a thing as thinking and seeing correctly, and it is permissible, nay, necessary, to use these notions, signs, and labels to function in daily life, and especially to study Buddhism for the aim of attaining enlightenment. Thus, Buddhism (and any other responsible contemplative tradition) cannot condone any attitude that recommends negating, or running away from any of the experiences that impinge upon our consciousness. Nor can it maintain that there is any such thing as a fixed, or final truth. As the Daodejingan> says, "The Way that can be taught is not the true Way." Either of these extreme options are none other than another form of abiding, or appropriation.
Source http://www.hm.tyg.jp/~acmuller/bud-canon/diamond_sutra.html
