The Way Things AreThe Way Things Are"Impressions arise and unfold in mind, are experienced by mind, and return to it again, like waves in the ocean. Are the waves the ocean, or are they something else?"
The Way Things Are is a living transmission of Buddha's deep wisdom, given by a Western Buddhist Master. Lama Ole Nydahl, who has so far started 180 Buddhist centers in the Western world, passes on the essential teachings he received during years spent in the Himalayas. His life experience and uncompromising style make these teachings readily comprehensible and meaningful today. Experience the liberating and powerful methods of Tibetan Buddhism.
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Reviews from Amazon |
Aaron Crook from La Crosse WI: "This book is the Bread and Butter of Buddhism. It contains the total essence of Buddhist thought and is a living transmission. It is possible for people to read this book, meet the author and become practitioners themselves. For this reason it is something quite special and rarely is it simply put back on the shelf. This book actually transforms many who meet with it. It is very refreshing to see that there is a spiritual path which is based completely on common sense and encourages friends to be critical and make sure that things match with their lives. ... I highly recommend this book to anyone who excited by Buddhist thought and also anyone who would like a practical method for bringing benefit into the world."
A reader from Florida: "In simple words, Lama Ole Nydahl shares his knowledge, gained as one of the first Western disciples, who for over 30 years studied Buddha's teachings from the highest Lamas of Tibet. This is truly a workbook for a living transmission of Buddha's deep wisdom, given by a Western Buddhist Master. Also through the four meditations included, the reader experiences the liberating and powerful methods of Tibetan Buddhism. I am immensely grateful for having found this book. After reading it, my whole point of view of 'my' Universe was transformed to a higher level of understanding. I consider it as a key to the rest of my life and highly recommend the book."
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Table of Contents |
Preface
Introduction
Buddha's Life
Buddha's Teaching in Its Totality
Width and Depth of the Teaching
Final Words
Buddhist Centers
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Excerpt |
BUDDHA'S ENLIGHTENMENT
After six anonymous years in the then still agreeable northern India, the young prince came to what is now called Bodhgaya. (Today it is a village full of local beggars and foreign temples situated two-thirds of the way from Delhi to Calcutta in the utterly overpopulated state of Bihar.) Upon arrival, this deep motivation to benefit beings awakened, and settling under a vast tree near a small river, he decided to meditate there and fully develop his mind. One week later, on the full moon of May, he reached his goal. The day he became a Buddha was his thirty-fifth birthday, and forty-five years later he died on that same full moon.
As enlightenment dissolved the last veils that covered his mind, the perceived separation between space and energy in and around him disappeared, and he became timeless, all-knowing awareness. Various traditions explain the process differently, but in the highest view, that of the Maha Anuttara Yoga Tantra, the all-pervading truth-nature manifesting as the Buddhas of past, present and future blessed him. They condensed their perfect wisdom into the form of Sarva Buddha Dakini, a white female Buddha, and through her union with him, their male and female energies merged into perfection as did all other dualities.
Through every atom of his body he knew everything and was all. Crossing the river from the place where he had reached his goal, the Buddha stayed for three weeks below the now famous tree at Bodhgaya. Then he gave refuge to several gods and trained his body to handle the intense flow of enlightened energies, but taught no human beings there.
His first teaching for humans was given four weeks later at the Deer Park near Sarnath, a village about halfway between Delhi and Calcutta. The neighboring town of Benares is very holy to the Hindus. They burn their dead at the banks of the Ganges and throw the remains into the river. A complete pilgrimage to the site includes such delicacies as bathing in the vast stream and drinking its water.
The five truth seekers who first came to him were not the most attractive of students. Being grumpy by nature, they had adored him while he practiced extreme austerities but were now disgusted at his radiant joy and health. Understanding such states to be "worldly" and thinking mainly of themselves, they were the very clients to quickly send somewhere else. When curiosity got the better of their fixed ideas, however, they could only ask: "Why do you shine like that? What happened to you?" His answer to them was the famous "Four Noble Truths" which today have slightly different wordings in various traditions. Buddha must have expressed them somewhat like this: Conditioned existence is suffering. Suffering has a cause. It has an end and there are ways leading to that end.
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