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April 2023
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Today is 14 May, 2021. Day seven of the prostrations to the Merit Field. In the morning session, Vanessa Anne Walsh did 42 more prostrations. The total count of prostrations to the merit field is 252. All phenomena lack inherent existence, whilst cause and effect and dependent arising are unfailing.
Friday 14 May, 2021 is a favourable day. Tibetan Buddhist Month of Saka Dawa
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Account Name: VANESSAANNEWALSH
BSB: 062948
Account Number: 27641400
Donations to Emptiness Mind
Support this Buddhist service by giving generously. Emptiness Mind works with the honour system. If you are reading this blog, and therefore benefitting from this compassion and wisdom, please pay. I could always ask for a subscription, but that would not be fun. Be honest and contribute and help out. We appreciate your interest in virtue.
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April 2023
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Today is 13 May, 2021. Day six of the prostrations to the Merit Field. In the morning session, Vanessa Anne Walsh completed 30 more prostrations. The total count of prostrations to the merit field is 210.
Donations to Emptiness Mind can be made to the following Commonwealth Bank Account
Account Name: VANESSAANNEWALSH
BSB: 062948 Account Number: 27641400
Donations to Emptiness Mind
Support this Buddhist service by giving generously. Emptiness Mind works with the honour system. If you are reading this blog, and therefore benefitting from this compassion and wisdom, please pay. I could always ask for a subscription, but that would not be fun. Be honest and contribute and help out. We appreciate your interest in virtue.
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April 2023
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Today is 12 May, 2021. Day five of the prostrations to the Merit Field. In the morning session, Vanessa Anne Walsh completed 30 more prostrations. The total count of prostrations to the merit field is 180.
Evening Session.
Getting bored? Here’s something funny and worthwhile.
You Beverly Hills cops. You think you’re so in the know, but you never check for evidence. Just like Alan Molloy.
Donations to Emptiness Mind can be made to the following Commonwealth Bank Account
Account Name: VANESSAANNEWALSH
BSB: 062948
Account Number: 27641400
April 2023
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Today is Saturday 8 May, 2021. So, Vanessa has done two more morning sessions of 30 prostrations each day to the Buddha’s and Bodhisattvas of the ten directions, the Buddha Field and the Merit Field. Total prostrations to date are 90 prostrations. We started on May 5, 2021. So we are going to try and do two sessions daily, of thirty prostrations each session. Vanessa is inviting others to join her, in their own residence to accumulate merit and practice ethical discipline. One needs to rely upon one’s own store of merit and wisdom, to accumulate the causes for Buddhahood. Buddha’s are beings that appear to help sentient beings fully purify black seeds and negative instincts, which cause suffering to the body, speech and mind. One needs to accumulate merit and wisdom, by practicing the three higher trainings of ethical discipline, single pointed mental quiescence, calm abiding and concentration, and wisdom.
Afternoon Session.
Phew! We reached Happy Hour. What did you say, would you like a Whiskey with Coke Zero Vanessa?
Gorgeous, the Buddha replied.
2 point one quarter hours til lift off.
Hilarious, huh!
Evening Session Saturday 8 May, 2021.
Gosh, Vanessa turned into a funny bugger didn’t she. ‘This is really what happened after 30 more prostrations this evening. Total prostrations 120. See, this is the body. OM. This is the speech. AH This is the mind. HUM. So, we have to fully purify and fully perfect the OM AH HUM. The flesh is just clothing.
Donations to Emptiness Mind can be made to the following Commonwealth Bank Account
Account Name: VANESSAANNEWALSH
BSB: 062948
Account Number: 27641400
Vanessa Anne Walsh is inviting the community to join us in the practice of prostrating to the Merit Field. One can accumulate merit and wisdom.
You start the practice by reciting the refuge prayer and generating bodhicitta.
Repeat the taking refuge and generating bodhictta prayer three times.
I go for refuge until I’m enlightened to the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha
From the virtuous merit I collect from practicing generosity and the other perfections
May I attain the state of a Buddha for the sake of all sentient beings.
You think you are prostrating to the holy field of merit and you prostrate your body, speech and mind three times. You can have a rest, but you repeat this ten times. You do this practice morning and night. So we are prostrating in the morning with our body, speech and mind to the holy field of merit, the Buddha’s and Bodhisattvas of the ten directions, thirty times, ten times in rounds of three. Then at night, you repeat this practice again the same amount of times. So, twice daily.
We are hoping to do four hundred thousand prostrations, over the next twenty years. So we can document this practice.
You dedicate and seal the merit and wisdom at the end of the practice by reciting as follows:
May I quickly become Lord Buddha and lead each and every sentient being into his enlightened realm because of the merits. May the precious bodhi mind not yet born arise and grow. May that born have no decline but increase forever more.
Today is Wednesday 5 May, 2021. Day One: Evening practice 30 prostrations to the Buddha’s and Bodhisattvas of the ten directions complete.
No, I don’t like getting pretentious either. Luckily, we can all devote ourselves to practicing virtue, the three higher trainings of ethics, concentration and wisdom, and the six perfections.
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There are many, many pleasant and wonderful things about the country. One of them is that if you find yourself waking up very early in the morning, like at 2am, it is not a disturbing thing. What instantly strikes your awareness, warming your heart and calming your mind, is the blissful, peaceful serenity that pervades the air, fragrant with the sweet smell of eucalypt gums, the rich earth and the luminous, crystal clear, star studded sky all around you. Out here, there is no relentless drone of traffic humming endlessly through the night. No pollution to clog up your lungs and poison your airways, no trams, trains, buses or trucks to remind you of the frenetic pace of city life. As modern cities, lost in their directionless pursuit to become 24/7, sleepless buzz points on the globe, the country wisely says, no thanks, and continues on with its timeless embrace of the way mother earth has functioned for millions and millions of years. There is no rushing around to be found out here, just an empty, quiet road, and a people that know when the sun sets and the day is over, it is time to rest one’s weary bones and just be still.
As I sit here, sipping my soothing cup of tea, sitting in the dark next to gently crackling, golden, radiating fire, I listen to the gentle tumbling of water sliding and bubbling over river rocks, meandering it’s way slowly, gently, sometimes rapidly away from its pristine, mountain source, down through the valley, on its way through lush, green, and bountiful farmland pastures and beyond. And one can hear the blessed croaking of frogs, reminding you that out here things are still clean. When you find yourself short on sleep on a night out in the country, you are greeted instead with a harmonious and meditative zone of peace. This country is a tranquil haven that allows one to relax, reflect and to just stop thinking altogether. One is free to enjoy the expansiveness of one’s own consciousness, silent, without tension or stress, open, clear and free.
It’s been a while since I have kept a journal. I have considered blogging about being middle aged, although I wonder if I will live to see 100 years.
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We are in stage four restrictions of the covid 19 lockdown. I haven’t seen many friends for many months. Whatty whatty?
I am endeavouring to start a Jenny Craig diet and see if I can lose between 20 and 23 kilos. I weigh 87.45 kilos (weight taken in the morning was 86.60 kilos). At 2pm it was 87.45 kilos. I have reduced the amount of tea I drink, and I am choosing water instead. I don’t know if I want to publish this yet. I had two alcoholic drinks today, because I have suffered from a bad case of loong over the years.
I woke around 8am and had breakfast around 9am. I had a cheese and chive omelette, which I heated in the oven for about twenty minutes. It was really nice and one drink of gin with tonic. Not diet tonic, which I need to buy from the supermarket. I understand the diet is supposed to be without alcohol, but I was feeling stressed when I woke up, so I had a little drink. All the neurotics are going to curse me for doing that of course, which is why this journal will probably just stay private. There. How do you open up and just speak the truth in this society, without fear of a backlash?
You can just hear people say, too early to start and so forth. I meditated for the rest of the morning until 12:15pm, then heated a spaghetti bolognese, which I had at 12:45pm. It was very nice, and I had a whiskey with diet coke as well. Just a small glass. Now, apparently I’m just no good and not following the diet properly.
At 1:15pm, I went for a half hour walk just locally, and wore the face mask, which we all have to do these days. I was generally very puffed, and I know I am overweight. So here’s the awful set of statistics; blood pressure taken at 1:51pm, read 156 over 91, and a heart rate of 91 beats.
I can just imagine what people are saying. Things need to improve. Alright then. So I’ll blog about it, and see whether weight loss over time makes me look better physically. I have a shocking BMI as well. 29.1 and in the overweight range. What could be worse? Dementia?
As far as I’m concerned the compassion and emptiness meditations have been going well. We’ll just have to see how I climb out of this covid 19 crisis. See. This is the thing. I haven’t had covid 19 and I’m not going to get it either.
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The language of love does not, in any way, correspond with the language of desire[1].
When one person, or even one being, loves another, their primary concern always lies with how to remove the suffering and pain of another. It begins, continues and ends with thinking about ways to bring pleasure and happiness to another, and will even focus upon the needs and wishes of all beings. This is not because it is trying in any way to deceive another simply to fulfill its own selfish gratifications.
Love aims to avoid creating losses for another person or being. Simply, it aims to protect the integrity, morality and self-respect of another person. Desire attempts to do the opposite. Desire does not care if damage is created in the experience of another person. It cares nothing for the self-respect, morality or aims of another.
Love aims to protect and nurture the happiness, contentment and health of people and all beings. It has no interest in trampling on the needs of others in order to bring about some superficial, short-lived and impermanent experience of satisfaction.
In my experience, the Buddha will think, devise and perform limitless actions aimed at protecting, nurturing and sustaining the happiness and fulfillment of another person. He has no commonality whatsoever in the mundane, selfish and destructive motivations of ordinary, self-possessed beings. An ordinary being, on the other hand, has no thought or care about the consequences of his self-centred actions. An ordinary being with no insight or love will, without hesitation, create suffering and misery in the mind and
experience of another. True, deep, endless love, aims to transcend the boundaries of space, thought and time. It can move beyond the limitations of the human form and reach far into the realms of space to bring peace, contentment and joy.
May all beings identify, recognize and be conjoined with the supramundane love of a Buddha. May they transcend their sufferings and recognize without any shadow of a doubt, that a Buddha can and will free all beings from their limited, miserable lives and transport them to a state of never-ending happiness, peace and everlasting joy.
[1] Desire means thirst. Like drinking salt water. A taste that cannot be satisfied.
