NEKKHAMMA

Nekkhamma is a Pali word translated as "renunciation," or "the pleasure of renunciation." It conveys specifically "giving up the world and leading a holy life," and "freedom from lust, craving and desires."

Nekkhamma is the first practice associated with "Right Intention," in Buddhism's Noble Eightfold Path.  In the Theravada list of ten perfections, nekkhamma is the third practice of "perfection," and involves non-attachment (detachment).

Worldly desires based on craving, cruelty to living beings based on anger, and the misdirection of one's own path through ignorance, are all destroyed by real renunciation.

Bhikkhu Bodhi is an American Theravada Buddhist monk who was appointed the second president of the Buddhist Publication Society and who has edited and authored several publications concerning Theravada Buddhism.  He describes the various and ultimate benefits of nekkhamma:

"Contemplating the dukkha (suffering) inherent in desire is one way to incline the mind to renunciation. Another way is to contemplate directly the benefits flowing from renunciation. To move from desire to renunciation is not, as might be imagined, to move from happiness to grief, from abundance to destitution. It is to pass from gross, entangling pleasures to an exalted happiness and peace, from a condition of servitude to one of self-mastery. Desire ultimately breeds fear and sorrow, but renunciation gives fearlessness and joy."

BHIKKU BODHI

Born Jeffrey Block in Brooklyn, New York in 1944, Bhikkhu Bodhi is an American Theravada Buddhist monk.  In 1966, while still Jeffrey Block, he obtained a B.A. degree in philosophy from Brooklyn College, and then, in 1972, a Ph.D. degree in philosophy from Claremont Graduate School.

In 1967, while in graduate school, he was ordained as a novice monk in the Vietnamese Mahayana order. In 1972, after graduation, he traveled to Sri Lanka where, under Ven. Ananda Maitreya, he received novice ordination, and, in 1973, he received full ordination in a Theravada order.  He was now Bhikku Bodhi.

In 1984, succeeding co-founder Ven. Nyanaponika Thera, he was appointed English-language editor of the Buddhist Publication Society (BPS, Sri Lanka) and, in 1988, became its president.  In 2002, he retired from the society's editorship while still remaining its president.

In 2000, at the United Nations' first official Vesak celebration, he gave the keynote address.  He currently teaches at Bodhi Monastery in Lafayette, New Jersey, and at Chuang Yen Monastery in Carmel, New York, and is the chairman of the Yin Shun Foundation.

Bhikkhu Bodhi is founder of the organization "Buddhist Global Relief," which is fighting hunger across the world.

Bhikku Bodhi has authored many publications and teaches several online courses.  He recorded a well-regarded ten-part lecture series entitled Introduction to Buddhism that has become public domain and can be downloaded for free on the Internet.

SWAMIJI AND MAHARAJ

Vivekananda and Brahmananda, or "Swamiji" and "Maharaj," as they were known more familiarly, were the natural leaders of the Ramakrishna Order of Vedanta, the organization that formed soon after the death of Ramakrishna.  Both were at this time twenty-three years old and had been friends since early boyhood.

Vivekananda, handsome and athletic, embodied physical and intellectual energy.  He was impulsive, ardent, skeptical, and impatient of all hypocrisy, conservatism, or sloth.  Vedanta had not come to him easily.  Questioning Ramakrishna at every step, he accepted nothing on trust, without the test of personal experience. 

Vivekananda was well-read in western philosophy and science, and was inspired by the doctrines of Keshab Sen, a westernized Bengali reformer who lived between 1834 and 1884.  Vivekananda brought to his religious life that most valuable quality:  intellectual doubt.  If he had never visited Ramakrishna at the temples at Dakshineswar, he might well have become one of India's foremost national leaders.

Brahmananda was a more mysterious figure, whom few knew intimately, and those few confessed to how little they knew of him.  Still, he was a very great mystic and saint, whose wisdom and love seemed superhuman.

Indeed, Brahmananda's brother disciples did not hesitate comparing him to Ramakrishna himself.  "Whatever Maharaj tells you," one of them said, "comes directly from God."  In 1902, Brahmananda was elected head of the Ramakrishna Order, a position he held until his death in 1922.  An excellent biographical essay entitled "The Eternal Companion" was written by his disciple Swami Prabhavananda.

ALL WE EVER HAVE

All we ever have is Now, one breath, one heartbeat at a time.

There is not past. “Bring out the past and show it to me,” the Buddha said.  All there is, is memory.

There is no future. “Bring out the future and show it to me,” the Buddha said.  All there is, is anticipation, planning, expectation.

The present moment is all there is.  Remembering the past and planning for the future are done now, in the present.

“All we have is now,” Marcus Aurelius put it.

In his book The Power of Now, Eckhart Tolle writes, "Realize deeply that the present moment is all that you ever have.  Make the Now the primary focus of your life."

Alan Watts said, “There’s no place to be but here and now.  There’s no way to be anywhere else.”  Watts added, “Interestingly, time is moving, yet there is only now.”

TO BE OR NOT TO BE, THAT IS THE BUDDHIST QUESTION

Whether or not to be engaged in the world is the perennial question for Buddhists.

The approach in Hinayana Buddhism is to not be engaged, to be the lone rhino on the plain, so-called, to be a pratyeka-buddha, one who is in it for himself alone.  Seek out your own salvation with diligence, was the Buddha's message.  Hinayana, called the Lesser Way, the Lesser Vehicle, or the Little Raft, claims to be the only form that follows the original teachings of the Buddha.

 Since Hinayana is oriented solely toward the individual, it is viewed negatively by Buddhists of other schools, such as Mahayana Buddhism.  Hinayana these days is termed Theravada Buddhism, meaning the Teaching of the Elders, or the Old School of Wisdom. 

Called the Greater Vehicle, Mahayana Buddhism is other-oriented.  Their ideal is the Bodhisattva, the buddha who refuses final nirvana in order to return to the world to teach others how to become enlightened themselves.  Mahayana Buddhists offer the world salvation through knowledge, and by example.

A TALE OF TWO SITTERS

                                     Gautama Buddha
                                       

                                          Ramakrishna

SIGN OF THE TIMES

The University of Southern California has just reported that it has received a $3.24 million gift from the Dharma Civilization Foundation to create the first chairs of Hindu studies in the United States.  (Full disclosure, I am a graduate of USC. and live in Los Angeles).

The Los Angeles-based Dharma Civilization Foundation promotes study of the Dharmic religions of Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism.

The USC School of Religion will use the funds to establish two new positions, the Swami Vivekananda Visiting Faculty in Hindu Studies, and the Dharma Civilization Foundation Chair in Hindu Studies. 

Already, the USC Dean of Religious Life is the nation's first university chaplain from a Hindu background, and the Chair of USC School of Religion is an ordained Buddhist priest.

BRAHMAN AS PRESENCE

There is something else going on here, beyond the web of “seeming,” beyond appearances.  It is happening behind the scenes where we cannot see it. 

This something is a grand expansion, in the same way that the universe is expanding grandly, to a greater and greater presence.

Yet it is more than just presence.  It is Presence.

This Presence has a purpose, contrary to those who insist that nothing here has a purpose.

A microcosm of this is the journey of the Atman through many lifetimes to its destiny, which is to awaken into its source, which is this selfsame Presence. 

AFTEREFFECT

When you have fulfilled your destiny spiritually, when you have awakened, you find suddenly an increased awareness of time passing, which has an ominous feel to it.  Every sunrise feels now like the last one, every sunset the final one too. 

As well, time passes faster seemingly, in a time compression.  You feel like you are on a train that is speeding ever faster down the track, heading straight for a precipice, a drop off in the dark distance which looks to be upon you in another hour, or is it in another minute?  The train's fate is your fate.

Alas, though, you are not going to go over that edge because you are already over it.  

NATURE OF FOREVER

Immortality, according to Vedanta, is not a continuity of existence in time, since it is beyond time, space, and causation, but is a superconscious state that occurs when the individual soul, the Atman, awakens into its source, the Godhead, Brahman.

Nothing of the egoic, empirical self, of the "earth suit" as Aja Thomas, a Vedic priest, calls it, enters eternity.  We don't have to worry about "What will I do with all that time?" or "Will I see my aunt Tilly?" or even "Will I know God there?"  No "I" survives to face such matters.

It is the Atman that carries over, and the Atman is not an individual but consciousness, a consciousness that has no personality.  It is awareness only.  Watching, witnessing, is all the Atman does. 

At the same time, it is spirit, which is infinite bliss, joy, and peace, qualities which after all draw us to it, which make us want to meditate upon it and to help it realize its destiny, which is immortality.