Hello All
Happy Friday to you!
The greatest achievement is selflessness.
The greatest worth is self-mastery.
The greatest quality is seeking to serve others.
The greatest precept is continual awareness.
The greatest medicine is the emptiness of everything.
The greatest action is not conforming with the worlds ways.
The greatest magic is transmuting the passions.
The greatest generosity is non-attachment.
The greatest goodness is a peaceful mind.
The greatest patience is humility.
The greatest effort is not concerned with results.
The greatest meditation is a mind that lets go.
The greatest wisdom is seeing through appearances.
by Atisha (11th century Tibetan Buddhist master)
The power of 8 as Godsign can be huge – like the concept of ‘the infinite’. In this year’s 8th month there will be a powerful occurrence on the 21st – a full solar eclipse that many in the US will be able to see. We will explore that in another Godsign message later this month. But right now, with everything else going on in our country and world – I can appreciate Spirit wanting to do this Godsign message on the power of infinite possibilities and which ones are ‘right’ for YOU. All of that can be shown to you as Godsign in your life in just a few of the meanings found in the number 8.
In the West, the symbol we use to represent eight is the infinity symbol turned on its head.
You can draw this symbol of two circles touching in the middle without ever lifting the pen from the paper….this symbol represents the line that goes on and on and on…..the path that goes on and on and on…..time that goes on and on….
The area in the middle of the 8 represents the bridge in the middle between the two circles that holds the 8 together….it can be used as Godsign to ask you to explore the Bridge between the Seen and Unseen in your life.
Eight can also be used to represent Buddha’s Eightfold Path and the Middle Way. It is profound Godsign to me that Buddha taught the Eightfold Path – a number of the Infinite – as an integral part of his Sacred teachings.
The Eightfold Path speaks to the wisdom of right thought, right speech, right action. Eight maybe used as Godsign to ask us about the Path we are on in our lives. Is it the correct one for us? Eights may keep showing Up for what seems like no particular reason in February, or November, or on some Tuesday not in the 8th month and you wonder why. Perhaps you are being asked to explore not only where you are walking, where you are headed – but how? How are you thinking, how are you speaking, how are you acting, how are you helping?
Buddha did not speak in terms of a God or a Godhead but rather of the Universal Mind that is there for all of us to reach out to, listen for and attain. Buddha understood that there is an INNER power that is inherent in all people to reach ‘Nirvana’.
Yours is an infinite Spirit . . . how are you traveling through this life….happy, sad, joyful, in-tune? Buddha has something to say about what might be bringing you the ‘sad’ part in your life and how to ‘right’ that for you.
With the current ‘state of affairs’ in our political world – I can fully understand why Spirit showed me Godsign about Buddha’s Path of 8 Ways of Being – which we need a great deal more of in our world!
The Eightfold Path describes a way to the end of a person’s suffering, as it was laid out by Siddhartha Gautama – the Buddha.
The word ‘Right’ is used in English translations of Buddha’s Eightfold Path to denote the meaning of CORRECT. In today’s language it is NOT referring to political ‘left’ vs ‘right’ beliefs but rather what you consider ‘correct’ as opposed to what you consider ‘wrong’.
It may take a person a lifetime to study, use and understand a few of the Paths much less all eight. Please know that this does not begin to do justice in this small format to Buddha’s Eightfold Path of Enlightenment. I am only attempting below to state the ‘high Lights’. The Eightfold Path can take hundreds of pages and decades of time to describe its depth, breadth and beauty.
The Eightfold Path is divided into 3 areas of life:
Wisdom – Right View & Right Intention
Ethical Conduct – Right speech, Right action,
Right Livelihood
Mental Development – Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, Right Concentration
The Eightfold Path is a practical guideline to ethical and mental development with the goal of freeing yourself from attachments and delusions; and Buddhism teaches that walking this Path finally leads to understanding the truth about all things. Together with the Four Noble Truths this constitutes the gist of Buddhism.
1. Right View – the first principle in Wisdom is the beginning and the end of the Path and simply means to see and to understand things as they really are around you. It is the cognitive aspect of wisdom. Right view is not necessarily an intellectual capacity, just as wisdom is not just a matter of intelligence but rather right view is attained, sustained, and enhanced through all capacities of mind. Since our view of the world forms our thoughts and our actions, right view of the world yields right thoughts and right actions.
2. Right Intention – refers to the kind of mental energy that controls our actions. Right intention can be described best as commitment to ethical and mental self-improvement.
3. Right Speech – is the first principle of ethical conduct in the eightfold path. The importance of speech in the context of Buddhist ethics is obvious: words can break or save lives, make enemies or friends, start war or create peace. Buddha explained right speech was to tell the truth, to speak friendly, warm, and gently and to talk only when necessary.
4. Right Action – The second ethical principle involves the body as natural means of expression, as it refers to deeds that involve bodily actions. Unwholesome actions lead to unsound states of mind, while wholesome actions lead to sound states of mind.
5. Right Livelihood – The third ethical principle states that one should earn ones living in a righteous way and that wealth should be gained legally and peacefully.
6. Right Effort – This can be seen as a prerequisite for the other principles of the path. Without effort, nothing can be achieved, whereas misguided effort distracts the mind from its task, and confusion will be the consequence. Mental energy is the force behind right effort and it can occur in either wholesome or unwholesome states. The same type of energy that fuels desire, envy, aggression, and violence can on the other side fuel self-discipline, honesty, benevolence, and kindness. The choice is ours.
7. Right Mindfulness – is the controlled and perfected faculty of cognition. It is the mental ability to see things as they are, with clear consciousness. Usually, the cognitive process begins with an impression induced by perception, or by a thought, but then it does not stay with the mere impression. We label and make judgments which can obscure any situation. Right mindfulness is anchored in clear perception and it penetrates impressions without getting carried away. It allows us to be better in control of the way our thoughts go.
8. Right Concentration – refers to the development of a mental force that occurs in natural consciousness, namely concentration. A one-pointedness of mind, meaning a state where all mental faculties are unified and directed onto one particular object. Right concentration for the purpose of the eightfold path means wholesome concentration, i.e. concentration on wholesome thoughts and actions. The Buddhist method of choice to develop right concentration is through the practice of meditation. The meditating mind focuses on a selected object. It first directs itself onto it, then sustains concentration, and finally intensifies concentration step by step. Through this practice it becomes natural to apply elevated levels of concentration in everyday situations.
Will our Creator and Source use the Light of Buddha, the Eightfold Path, Buddhism and the number 8 as Godsign to speak with you?
The Divine already does……
(So do the Beatles . . . and you know this one)
Oh, I need your love, babe
Guess you know it’s true
Hope you need my love babe
Just like I need you
Hold me, love me, hold me, love me
I ain’t got nothing but love, babe
Eight days a week . . .
That may keep you right thinking, humming and smiling for 8 days in a row . . . with Love!
Happy 8th month to you . . .
The Light of Asia
by Sir Edwin Arnold
Thus came he to be born again for men.
Below the highest sphere four Regents sit
Who rule our world, and under them are zones
Nearer, but high, where saintliest spirits dead
Wait thrice ten thousand years, then Eve again;
And on Lord Buddha, waiting in that sky,
Came for our sakes the five sure signs of birth
So that the Devas knew the signs, and said
“Buddha will go again to help the World.”
“Yea!” spake He, “now I go to help the World
This last of many times; for birth and death
End hence for me and those who learn my Law.
I will go down among the Sâkyas,
Under the southward snows of Himalay,
Where pious people live and a just King.”
That night the wife of King Suddhôdana,
Maya the Queen, asleep beside her Lord,
Dreamed a strange dream;
dreamed that a star from heaven —
Splendid, six-rayed, in color rosy-pearl,
Whereof the token was an Elephant
Six-tusked and whiter than Vahuka’s milk —
Shot through the void and, shining into her,
Entered her womb upon the right. Awaked,
Bliss beyond mortal mother’s filled her breast,
And over half the earth a lovely light
Forewent the morn.
The strong hills shook; the waves
Sank lulled; all flowers that blow
by day came forth
As ’twere high noon; down to the farthest hells
Passed the Queen’s joy,
as when warm sunshine thrills
Wood-glooms to gold, and into all the deeps
A tender whisper pierced. “Oh ye,” it said,
“The dead that are to live, the live who die,
Uprise, and hear, and hope! Buddha is come!”
Whereat in Limbos numberless much peace
Spread, and the world’s heart throbbed,
and a wind blew
With unknown freshness over lands and seas.
And when the morning dawned,
and this was told,
The grey dream-readers said
“The dream is good!
The Crab is in conjunction with the Sun
The Queen shall bear a boy, a holy child
Of wondrous wisdom, profiting all flesh,
Who shall deliver men from ignorance,
Or rule the world, if he will deign to rule.”
In this wise was the holy Buddha born.
. . . . . . . . .
From Wikipedia – The Light of Asia, subtitled The Great Renunciation, is a book by Sir Edwin Arnold. (1832-1904)The first edition of the book was published in London in July 1879.
A few decades before the book’s publication, very little was known outside Asia about the Buddha and Buddhism, the religion which he founded, and which had existed for about twenty-five centuries.
In the form of poem, the book endeavors to describe the life and time of Prince Gautama Buddha, who after attaining enlightenment became the Buddha, the learned one. The book presents his life, character, and philosophy, in a series of verses. It is a free adaptation of the Lalitavistara.