Is it true that a meditator needs to be a vegetarian diet?
~ Dipa Ma answered:
The question of vegetarian or non-vegetarian does not matter. What matters is the mentality. Even if you take a vegetarian diet, with a mind polluted with greed or hatred or delusion, your vegetarian diet will become a non-vegetarian diet. This is what the Buddha taught. If your mind is free from greed and hatred, your non-vegetarian diet will become a vegetarian diet for you. For any action- physical, verbal, or mental- the Buddha gave the importance to intention.
~ Dipa Ma answered:
The question of vegetarian or non-vegetarian does not matter. What matters is the mentality. Even if you take a vegetarian diet, with a mind polluted with greed or hatred or delusion, your vegetarian diet will become a non-vegetarian diet. This is what the Buddha taught. If your mind is free from greed and hatred, your non-vegetarian diet will become a vegetarian diet for you. For any action- physical, verbal, or mental- the Buddha gave the importance to intention.
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What is the use of mindfulness? ~ Dipa Ma answered:
Let me tell you an example. If I told you there was some jewelry hidden somewhere and I asked you to go and collect it, you would leave your house and go to where it was hidden. On the way to find the jewelry, you might see a fight break out, and you would stop and watch. But after a while, you would proceed. You might see a marriage party going
Let me tell you an example. If I told you there was some jewelry hidden somewhere and I asked you to go and collect it, you would leave your house and go to where it was hidden. On the way to find the jewelry, you might see a fight break out, and you would stop and watch. But after a while, you would proceed. You might see a marriage party going
by with their drums, and you would stand there, but again, after a while you would proceed. You might see a street rally, and you would stop and later proceed. If you are not mindful, you cannot reach your destination to collect the jewelry I have asked you to get. But whenever there is mindfulness, even if there are interruptions, and obstacles you will not get lost, you will proceed. Mindfulness allows you to reach your goal. It is the " great vocation " in life which leads to the end of suffering.
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Greed, anger, ignorance, doubt and pride are formless and have been followed you all the time like shadows. Once you realise them and mindful about their non-forms, then they have no power to rise up in you. Due to your care-free manners, they take the opportunity to hunt you down and they become your masters and then will forever pull you down to the ocean of suffering without your knowing. The Buddha always says," Be aware of your mind, your speech and your actions. Once you overcome your five poisons, you will see your true self immediately."
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Now I fully understand why the buddhas and bodhisattvas need to come back to this samsara again and again. Even they have the full compassion and loving-kindness to share with the human race. I discover that most people choose to live in a distorted and illusive world. Only a very few of our beings would accept the teachings and fully committed themselves to move on to the path liberation. It is sad that nowadays, I could feel a special pain in my heart when I walk around in places where I used to go. Kwan Yin is crying in me.
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Does your body belong to us? We can't even control our heart beat. That means nothing belongs to us. So why are we so attach to things. Only our mindfulness and wisdom belong to us to handle all kinds of rough situation. So just cultivate on the wisdom by doing more merits and doing more reflections. Once we start to detach things one at a time, we will find that what remains in us is just peacefulness and happiness. Chant and recite just the name Kwan Yin. She is listening to us all the time and will come to our help if we cannot manage our problems.
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Is karma like an accounting record that is stored? If so, where it is stored? ~ Dipa Ma
Everyone has a wheel of karma. It is in your own hands; nobody can store it. As you act, it is stored. It flows on with the stream of consciousness. The day you take birth, this karma comes with you. Others can only show you the way; they cannot change your karma. No one can willfully take on the karma of anot
Everyone has a wheel of karma. It is in your own hands; nobody can store it. As you act, it is stored. It flows on with the stream of consciousness. The day you take birth, this karma comes with you. Others can only show you the way; they cannot change your karma. No one can willfully take on the karma of anot
her. You have to do the work. Because of karma, some people progress quickly, and some progress slowly in meditation. Some have a lot of pain and some don't.
( My master always advices me to do good and accumulate more merits to let the good karmic seed to ripen first before the bad karmic seed from surfacing. Should the bad karma emerges, try not to give it a secondary cause for it to be ripen, the seed of such bad karma will not be germinated and it will wilt. This requires your sensitive awareness to check the coming of the bad karmic seed. This needs you to do all lot of meditation.)
( My master always advices me to do good and accumulate more merits to let the good karmic seed to ripen first before the bad karmic seed from surfacing. Should the bad karma emerges, try not to give it a secondary cause for it to be ripen, the seed of such bad karma will not be germinated and it will wilt. This requires your sensitive awareness to check the coming of the bad karmic seed. This needs you to do all lot of meditation.)
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his talisman is designed by me. When my Tai Chi students who have some difficult problems or sickness or attacked by charms, they will write a small note requesting for help from the nine buddhas and bodhisattvas printed on this. Then they will burn it to ashes after chanting OM sound 108 times. They treasure the talisman a lot and it works for them
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" Let go of thinking, and your faith will come from within."
~ Dipa Ma
Dipa Ma thought that the mind is all stories, one after another, like nesting dolls. You open one, and another is inside. Open that one, and there is another story emerging. When you get to the last nesting doll, the smallest one, and open it, inside of it is- what? It's empty, nothing there, and all around you are the empty s
~ Dipa Ma
Dipa Ma thought that the mind is all stories, one after another, like nesting dolls. You open one, and another is inside. Open that one, and there is another story emerging. When you get to the last nesting doll, the smallest one, and open it, inside of it is- what? It's empty, nothing there, and all around you are the empty s
hells of the stories of your life.
Because Dipa Ma was able literally to see through the stories of the mind, she did not acknowledge personal dramas of any kind. She wanted her students to live from a deeper truth than their interpretations of, and identification with, the external events of their lives. Dipa Ma knew all about life's dramas. She had personally suffered chronic illness; grief at the deaths of her husband, and two children; and crushing despair. Only when she had gone beyond indentification with the stories and dramas in her life did she begin to live as a free person.
Because Dipa Ma was able literally to see through the stories of the mind, she did not acknowledge personal dramas of any kind. She wanted her students to live from a deeper truth than their interpretations of, and identification with, the external events of their lives. Dipa Ma knew all about life's dramas. She had personally suffered chronic illness; grief at the deaths of her husband, and two children; and crushing despair. Only when she had gone beyond indentification with the stories and dramas in her life did she begin to live as a free person.
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Dipa Ma developed her supernatural powers under Munindra's tutelage. Such powers are achieved not through insight meditation, but through concentration practices, in which the mind enters a deep state of absorption practices, in which the mind enters a jhana practice. In the deeper jhanas, bodily processes can sometimes slow almost to a standstill, so it is not necessary to drink, eat, sleep, move
, or urinate.
When she left Burma, Dipa Ma stopped practising these powers, insisting that they involve ego and are therefore a hindrance to liberation. Munindra concurred. " These powers are not important," he said," Enlightenment is important. You need wisdom to use these powers. You don't want to use these powers with ego, because they are not yours. You can't use them and think you're the one who is powerful. This is not wisdom."
When she left Burma, Dipa Ma stopped practising these powers, insisting that they involve ego and are therefore a hindrance to liberation. Munindra concurred. " These powers are not important," he said," Enlightenment is important. You need wisdom to use these powers. You don't want to use these powers with ego, because they are not yours. You can't use them and think you're the one who is powerful. This is not wisdom."
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