~~~~~~ an incomplete summary ~~~~~~
~ dedicated to Catrien ~
~ and Mark ~
~
'Green Tara'
... helps to overcome fear and anxiety,
grants wishes, eliminates suffering of all kinds and brings happiness.
~ Siddhartha Gautama - Buddha Sakyamuni (450 BC - 370 BC) ~
Siddhartha Gautama, known as the Buddha, was born in the sixth century B.C. in what is now modern Nepal.
His father, Suddhodana, was the ruler of the Sakya people and Siddhartha grew up living the extravagant life
of a young prince. According to custom, he married at the young age of sixteen to a girl named Yasodhara.
His father had ordered that he live a life of total seclusion, but one day Siddhartha ventured out into
the world and was confronted with the reality of the inevitable suffering of life. The next day, at
the age of twenty-nine, he left his kingdom and newborn son to lead an ascetic life and determine
a way to relieve universal suffering.
For six years, Siddhartha submitted himself to rigorous ascetic practices, studying and following different
methods of meditation with various religious teachers. But he was never fully satisfied. One day, however,
he was offered a bowl of rice from a young girl and he accepted it. In that moment, he realised that
physical austerities were not the means to achieve liberation. From then on, he encouraged people
to follow a path of balance rather than extremism. He called this The Middle Way.
That night Siddhartha sat under the Bodhi tree, and meditated until dawn.
He purified his mind of all defilements and attained enlightenment
at the age of thirty-five, thus earning the title Buddha, or
"Enlightened One".
For the remainder of his eighty years, the Buddha preached the Dharma
in an effort to help other sentient beings reach enlightenment.
...
~ H.H. the 14th Dalai Lama ~
His Holiness the 14th the Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso, is the head of state and spiritual leader of the
Tibetan people. He was born Lhamo Dhondrub on 6 July 1935, in a small village called Taktser in
northeastern Tibet. Born to a peasant family, His Holiness was recognized at the age of two,
in accordance with Tibetan tradition, as the reincarnation of his predecessor the 13th Dalai Lama,
and thus an incarnation Avalokitesvara, the Buddha of Compassion.
His Holiness often says,
"I am just a simple Buddhist monk - no more, nor less."
He follows the life of Buddhist monk. Living in a small cottage in Dharamsala, he rises at 4 A.M.
to meditate, pursues an ongoing schedule of administrative meetings, private audiences and religious
teachings and ceremonies. He concludes each day with further prayer before retiring.
In explaining his greatest sources of inspiration, he often cites a favorite verse,
found in the writings of the renowned eighth century Buddhist saint Shantideva:
For as long as space endures
And for as long as living beings remain,
Until then may I too abide
To dispel the misery of the world.
...
~ Venerable Lama Thubten Zopa Rinpoche ~
Spiritual leader of the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition.
(FPMT)
...
~ Venerable Kaye Miner ~
In (Tibetan) Buddhism, the relationship between teacher and student is a very special one.
Venerable Kaye Miner is both teacher and student. At the request of her teacher Lama Zopa Rinpoche,
she left her native Australia in 1999 to start teaching in the Maitreya Institute, situated in the heart
of the historic quarters of Amsterdam. The Maitreya Institute is one of the many centres all over the world
where Buddhism is taught according to the Mahayana tradition. Kaye Miner became Spiritual Programme Coordinator
and is now also the managing director of the Maitreya Center in Emst, The Netherlands.
Lama Zopa is the international spiritual head of the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition.
Kaye’s work as teacher and manager is diverse, contemporary and dynamic.
Picture (Maitreya Magazine 2/2006) is taken in the Tara-garden, Maitreya Institute, Emst.
...
~ He Hua (Lotus) Temple Amsterdam ~
Surrounded by bustling restaurants, coffee shops and red light windows, two young Chinese nuns
quietly go about their daily routines inside the He Hua (Lotus) Temple standing at Amsterdam’s
(in)famous Zeedijk street. A giant temple run by two small nuns, Venerable Man Jung and
Venerable Chueh Hai, is changing the dynamics of life on the Zeedijk, Amsterdam.
A bridge, an oasis, a "source of light" these are metaphors the nuns use in describing their temple.
Trained in the "Fo Guang" Buddhist order in Taiwan, which advocates socially-engaged Buddhism,
the nuns offer a range of service to both the Chinese and the Dutch: meditation and study
programs, family visits, funeral services, and dance lessons. Socially engaged or alone,
the nuns seize every moment to cultivate a power to transform the inner and outer world.
They practice both the Pure Land and Ch'an tradition of meditation. The two nuns join
hands with the Buddhist Union of the Netherlands to create for the first time a
pan-Buddhist celebration of the Buddha’s birthday. The collective effort of
Chinese and Dutch, Buddhists and non-Buddhists, resulted in a
large festival in Amsterdam on May 21 2005.
...
~ Sogyal Rinpoche ~
Born in Kham in Eastern Tibet, Sogyal Rinpoche was recognized as the incarnation of Lerab Lingpa Tertön Sogyal,
a teacher to the thirteenth Dalai Lama, by Jamyang Khyentse Chökyi Lodrö, one of the most outstanding
spiritual masters of the twentieth century. Jamyang Khyentse supervised Rinpoche's training and
raised him like his own son. In 1971, Rinpoche went to England where he received a Western education,
studying Comparative Religion at Cambridge University. He went on to study with many other great masters,
of all schools of Tibetan Buddhism, serving as their translator and aide.
With his remarkable gift for presenting the essence of Tibetan Buddhism in a way that is both
authentic and profoundly relevant to the modern mind, Sogyal Rinpoche is one of the most renowned
teachers of our time. He is also the author of the highly-acclaimed and ground breaking book,
The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying.
Two million copies of this spiritual classic have been sold in 30 languages and 59 countries.
It has been adopted by colleges, groups and institutions, both medical and religious, and is
used extensively by nurses, doctors and health care professionals. Rinpoche is also the
founder and spiritual director of Rigpa, an international network of 106 Buddhist centres
and groups in 23 countries around the world. He has been teaching for over 30 years
and continues to travel widely in Europe, America, Australia, and Asia, addressing
thousands of people on his retreats and teaching tours.
...
~ Venerable Tenzin Palmo ~
Tenzin Palmo grew up the daughter of a fishmonger in London. Hers was an ordinary adolescence.
She had a boyfriend, a job, a crush on Elvis Presley. But at age 20, she traded in her
life of convention for one of contemplation. She bought a one-way ticket to India
and became one of the first Western women to be ordained a Tibetan Buddhist nun.
Then she went into a cave in the high Himalayas and meditated for 12 years.
Since she's come down, she's been a saffron-clothed globetrotter, teaching Buddhism
and trying to build a nunnery in a religion where women are often overlooked.
"I had planned to stay in my cave," she said. "But life has a way of serving
you up with what you need rather than what you think you want."
...
~ Bodhidharma ~
Bodhidharma (6th century) was the Buddhist monk traditionally credited as the founder of Chán (Zen)
Buddhism in China. Very little contemporary biographical information on Bodhidharma is extant,
and subsequent accounts became layered with legend, but most accounts agree that he was a
South Indian monk who journeyed to southern China and subsequently relocated northwards.
...
~Janwillem v.d. Wetering ~
Janwillem van de Wetering (February 12 1931 - July 4 2008) is the author of a number of works in English and Dutch.
He is particularly noted for his detective fiction. His most popular creations are Grijpstra and de Gier,
a pair of Amsterdam police officers who figure in a lengthy series of novels and short stories.
He has also written stories for children and nonfiction works. He usually writes in Dutch
and then in English; the two versions often differ considerably.
Van de Wetering was born and raised in Rotterdam, but in later years he lived in South Africa, Japan,
London, Colombia, Peru, Australia, Amsterdam and most recently in Maine (USA), the setting of two
of his Grijpstra and de Gier novels and his children's series about the porcupine Hugh Pine.
His many travels and his experiences in a Zen Buddhist monastery and as a member of the Amsterdam
Special Constabulary end authenticity to his works of fiction and nonfiction.
About his ZEN experiences he wrote a trilogie:
- The Empty Mirror: Experiences in a Japanese Zen Monastery, 1971
- A Glimpse of Nothingness: Experiences in an American Zen Community, 1975
- Afterzen: Experiences of a Zen Student out on His Ear, 1999
The documentary "To Infinity and Beyond" is a portrait of the artist and author Janwillem,
broadcasted by the the Dutch Buddhist Broadcast Foundation (B.O.S.) in 2004.
...
~ Maura (Soshin) O'Halloran ~
Maura O'Halloran (1955-1982) left a waitressing job in Harvard Square, Dublin, at age twenty-three to begin an
apprenticeship as a Buddhist monk at a zendo in Japan. There too she showed uncommon gifts early on: she glimpsed
enlightenment almost immediately and solved koans with the aplomb of a veteran Zen master. She stayed at
the zendo for most of two years, resolved to "not stop until I reach complete enlightenment." In 1982,
intending to return to her family in Dublin, she had set out on a trip through Asia when she was
killed in a bus accident in Thailand. Since then "Maura-san," or "Soshin" (celebrated during
her lifetime in the Japanese media as an anomaly of anomalies, a female Irish Zen monk)
has come to be regarded as a Buddhist bodhisattva or saint of compassion.
...
~ Osho ~
Rajneesh Chandra Mohan Jain (December 11, 1931 - January 19, 1990), better known during the 1970s as
Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and later taking the name Osho, was an Indian spiritual teacher. He lived in India
and in other countries including, for a period the United States, and was held centrally by the Osho-Rajneesh
movement, a controversial spiritual and philosophical movement. The name Osho means "the friend"
Osho claimed that the greatest values in life are (in no specific order) awareness, love, meditation
and laughter, and that the highest grace in life was in experiencing spiritual enlightenment.
He said this enlightenment is the normal state of being for all that makes up the cosmos,
but one is distracted from realizing that one is experiencing it - particularly by the
human activity of thought, as well as by emotional ties to societal expectations,
and consequent fears and inhibitions.
He said his philosophies arose from various spiritual sources. He was a prolific speaker
(both in Hindi and English) on various spiritual traditions including those of Buddha, Krishna,
Guru Nanak, Jesus, Socrates, Zen masters, Hassidism, Sufism and many others. He attempted to ensure
that no "system of thought" would define him, since he believed that no philosophy can fully express
the truth. He said that his was a "philosophy of no philosophy".
An experienced orator, he said he spoke to convey his message, but that his only reason
was to convince his listeners to start on a path of meditation.
...
~ Maarten ~
Maitreya Institute, Emst
a.o. Project 'Stupa of Enlightenment'
...
~ Peter ~
~ Anjori ~
~ Sylva ~
~ Siddhartha Gautama - The Buddha ~ Bodhidharma (Daruma) ~ H.H. the 14th Dalai Lama ~ Shunryu Suzuki ~
~ Janwillem van de Wetering ~ Maura (Soshin) O'Halloran ~ Ton Lathouwers (Hui Yu) ~ Sogyal Rinpoche ~
~ Lama Zopa Rinpoche ~ Venerable Kaye Miner ~ Venerable Tenzin Palmo ~ Alexandra David-Néel ~
~ Lama Anagarika Govinda ~ Peter ~ Anjori ~ Sylva ~ Thich Nhat Hanh ~ John Blofeld ~ Krishnamurti ~
~ Osho ~ Maitreya Instituut Emst/Amsterdam ~ Boeddhistische Omroep Stichting ~
~ He Hua (Lotus) Temple Amsterdam ~ Maitreya Magazine ~ Mandala Magazine ~
~ Vorm & Leegte and many more ... ~
I think, the brain can never know anything absolutely,
or know something is absolutely true. It is like our own eyes.
You can see with your eyes, but your eyes cannot see themselves.
A fish can not see the water it swims in. It has to go out of the water
to know what water is. That's why I am so attracted to Buddhism. It let you
think about such questions. It is also about compassion and respect and is more
a philosophy than a religion. It has no dogma's, no God to obey without thinking for
yourself. The Buddha himself said: "Don't believe what I tell you, don't have
blind faith, go and discover it for yourself". It is about who am I, about
nature, about all living creatures, in this world, in this universe,
beyond this universe, the unknown. The connection between this
all. Where do I go after death, were was I before my birth ...
Johan