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The Five Pillars of Transformation
The Five Pillars of Transformation
The Five Pillars of Transformation
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The Five Pillars of Transformation

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this book specially written for the dharmamind group covers five vital principles that need to be addressed by those dharma practitioners interested in practicing the immanent model - often referred to as the "practice of no practice" - of chan or zen of mahayana buddhism. the principles are: familiarity with meditation, taming restlessness, living in the body, containing the emotions and recognising your true nature. these five principles for training are teachings from recordings made during a retreat in scotland, and convey the importance of becoming aware of habitual attachments to the self and ego, and the need to let them go so as to awaken to our own innate true nature, and realise the joy and freedom from suffering.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateAug 12, 2012
ISBN9780954247584
The Five Pillars of Transformation
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

    The Five Pillars of Transformation - Aloka David Smith

    The Five Pillars of Transformation

    the core practices of the dharmamind buddhist group

    Teachings By

    Aloka David Smith

    Smashwords Edition

    Copyright David Smith 2012

    Published by

    DharmaMind Books

    65 Linden Road

    Bearwood

    West Midlands

    B66 4DZ

    UK

    e-mail: dmbooks@dharmamind.net

    web: dharmamind.net

    © David Smith 2012

    Ebook: ISBN 978-0-9542475-7-7

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

    has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright,

    Design 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

    About the Author

    Acknowledgements

    Introduction

    PART ONE

    The Five Pillars of Transformation

    Overview

    Familiarity with Meditation

    Taming Restlessness

    Living in the Body

    Containing the Emotions

    Recognising Our True Nature

    PART TWO

    Supportive Teachings

    The Six Paramitas

    Going for Refuge

    Comments on the Heart Sutra

    Puja

    Publications

    About the Author

    Other eBooks by this Author on Smashwords that Reflect this Practice

    Acknowledgements

    My gratitude goes to both Sudana Wilkinson and Donal Quirke for their efforts in transcribing the audio talks and to Jonathan Apps who assisted in the final editing; all practitioners of the DharmaMind group. Also James Ferguson for helping with the cover, and to Keith Wilkinson, a friend of the group who contributed the bulk of the work with his editing skills. Without their collective labour of love this book wouldn’t have been possible.

    Introduction

    Welcome to this the second edition of the DharmaMind group's practice book.

    In part one we again include The Five Pillars of Transformation teachings which still remain the core focus of our practice. Part two includes The Six Paramitas, Going for Refuge and Comments on the Heart Sutra. These teachings have been included because they help support and broaden our main practice. This new edition concludes with the ceremonial Puja chanted and recited on our retreats and at our local meetings.

    Part One

    The main teachings* are known as The Five Pillars of Transformation and are the framework for realisation and freedom from samsara. They are practised within the all-embracing spirit sometimes referred to as the non-developmental or immanent model of the Mahayana. The name of each pillar indicates one aspect of a whole process of transformation that needs to be understood in order for the pillars to become a living practice, so enabling the transformation of our entrapment to self.

    The first pillar is 'Familiarity with Meditation'. Our meditation is non-conceptual and characterized by stillness and openness. Sitting meditation is our primary platform for insight but we also need to become ever more familiar with the experience of stillness and openness. Stillness and openness introduce us directly to our natural state of being (Buddha nature), but crucially we need also to develop trust of this state because at these times the self is not present, and this being so we can often feel vulnerable and insecure, even fearful.

    The second pillar is 'Taming Restlessness'. Restlessness is with us at all times. Whether in the body, mind or emotions there is always an experience of agitation, however subtle at times this may be. This is at the root of the existential unsatisfactoriness (dukkha) of the human condition. We need to bring commitment and discipline to harness and tame restlessness in all of its manifestations, whether it is during sitting meditation or any aspect of our daily life.

    The third pillar is 'Living in the Body', whereby we train ourselves to turn our attention and awareness away from the habit that most of us Westerners have of living in the head, where the self primarily obtains its identity, and towards living in the body. For it is in the body that wisdom is discovered, reintegration with the mind becomes possible, and true liberation is found.

    The fourth pillar is 'Transforming the Emotions'. We learn to contain the emotional forces which gather in the lower part of our body below the navel and become a powerful identity for the self. This driving force of the emotions provides the volition we need for the attachments that bind us to our world.

    The fifth pillar is 'Recognising our True Nature'. This takes place through the familiarity of stillness and cultivating the ability to go for refuge in this place of stillness away from the grasping self. It is here that we meet our true guide and teacher. By turning towards our true nature we also begin to open to our innate human qualities through the cultivation of the paramitas, thus opening the door to the non-dual and the mysteries of the spiritual path.

    Overview. In order to put each pillar into context it has become necessary to begin these teachings with a summary. By doing so I hope to create a framework in which each pillar will find its place, and by doing so play its part in creating the complete picture of transformation.

    Part Two

    The Six Paramitas. This comprehensive and succinct Tibetan version of the famous Mahayana teaching should be regarded as revealing the innate human qualities that enable us to work with our practice, brought to life through the cultivation of the Five Pillars of Transformation. The paramitas point to the transcendental qualities that reflect our true nature and present a challenge on how we allow these qualities to arise without them becoming yet another activity of the self, or simply a new conditioning to replace an old one. For this reason we must always have the sixth paramita of wisdom (in whatever degree of clarity it has reached for us) present with whichever paramita we're engaging. The wisdom paramita will allow us to reflect upon the importance of allowing the paramita to arise from within us rather than come from the habitual conceptual mind and self view. Be careful not just to engage with the idea of a particular paramita because you've read about it and think you should try to become a particular type of person; this may well have the effect of just enhancing your self image.

    Going for Refuge. Without going for refuge to the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, practice that leads to authentic change is not possible. There are many ways to express this most important of teachings and here we look at the Three Jewels from the perspective that best supports and expresses our way of the 'practice of no practice' brought to life through the Five Pillars of Transformation.

    Comments on the Heart Sutra. We chant this sutra at all of our meetings to gain some understanding of the importance of this teaching. This sutra can so easily be misunderstood as being negative and life-denying because of the misunderstanding of the concept of shunyata. This concept and its various levels of understanding is expressed throughout this sutra and points to the joy and release that shunyata reveals. The brief commentary made shows how life-enhancing and positive this truly great sutra really is.

    Puja. The entire ceremonial offering made by the group is included in this section. The puja we chant and recite is generally split in two: one part at the beginning of a retreat and the second at the close. Our puja has been compiled from the Mahayana tradition, Zen and various Tibetan sources, all of which support and reflect the spirit of our practice. In the Group page of the DharmaMind website you will be able to hear audio recordings of some of the puja.

    * The teachings are edited transcriptions of talks given at a week long retreat at Dhanakosa Meditation Centre in Scotland in November 2007. An unedited audio CD can be obtained from Aloka Publications.

    Top

    PART ONE

    The Five Pillars of Transformation

    Overview

    So we come to our last talk, and just for a few minutes I’d like to gather and summarise what I’ve offered you over these last few days concerning the practice that is at the heart of the DharmaMind Buddhist Group, namely 'The Five Pillars of Transformation'.

    We need to develop understanding towards each one of these five pillars and be willing to put each one in place for our practice to be complete and fulfil itself. We need to understand these very important features and I’ve spent the last few days reviewing them one by one.

    I’ve highlighted and brought to your attention features that could be completely new to you, or maybe you’ve heard of them before and thought of them as not being particularly important, or maybe saw them as just part of a landscape that goes to make up a much larger picture. But I’m very much of the conviction that if you are really interested in the type of practice we pursue in our group then these are the key features to be aware of and constantly bring to your attention and open up to. Turn them over within yourself and

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