Amoghasiddhi

On most retreats, I forge deeper connections to archetypal Bodhisattva. Last year I got into Ksitigarbha, which was appropriate because I was working in a prison at the time. I've had a lovely retreat on the historical Buddha, Gautama Buddha. My first connection was to Avalokitesvara. Then to balance that out I got into Manjushri, the two are seen as going together, wisdom and compassion. I've talked to people about various jinas. And of course the extensive work on the prostration practice to the WBO refuge tree, has us exploring these grounds over again. I have read Vessantara's Meeting The Buddhas, and I want to reread it all again, though mostly it's a reference book to look into. It's hard to digest it all. I suppose some people can swim in these kinds of waters, and I'm getting better at that. Some people don't respond to the archetypal Bodhisattva, and that's OK. There are many tools on the path, it's up to you to try and check them out. Of course it's also worthwhile to try some, maybe more than once, because others before on the path have used them.

Amoghasiddhi represents fearlessness, unobstructed success. We had a really cool mantra on the retreat about him, and I sang it all the way home. I've been chanting it a lot, and thinking about him. So I just wanted to remember when I first got my connection to Amoghasiddhi. I think I've heard a talk about him before, an order member had a sadhana of Amoghasiddhi. So maybe I was introduced to it then, but I did not feel so much of a connection. It was through mantra, in the midst of a retreat, during a puja, that I forged this connection I'm feeling strongly.

(All links to Wikipedia, the amazing on-line, open source encyclopedia, which you can improve!)

In an endnote, there is an order member in the WBO that is named Amoghasiddhi, and you can read his story by clicking on this sentence.

Retreat

So in a way a retreat experience is inexpressible to people outside the spiritual community. Of course I talked a lot on retreat to my spiritual friends. I suppose what I'm doing is to try and think about he retreat now, as a kind of way to keep it alive. Of course I write in my journal and to friends.

In fact, spiritual friendship is one of the keys to retreat experience. I get into a kind of tender and soft place, and that makes me more open and receptive. That's what the retreat was about--receptivity. We focused on the acceptance verse in the public ordination, "with loyalty to my teachers." One aid in that is the Cetokhila Sutta. This translation is a little different, in ours it talked about "ardor", which is a lovely word. I'm not going to go into the sutta, except to say that I have to kind of map it out on a sheet of paper to make sense of it. Because it's from an oral tradition it has all these mnemonic devices to help the monks memorize it, and that makes it actually hard to me to hear it. My mind wants a kind of outline or a story. The other thing I would say is that I uncovered personal reasons why, in my mind, there is subtle doubt about companions in the spiritual life, and I worked hard to understand the barriers I put up. My isolation is becoming less and less tenable.

How do I become more soft, tender. Lots of meditation. I have to say, compared to most of my brothers, I'm too wiggly of a meditator. I'm not so flexible, and I quickly scratch myself, put my legs up to make them comfortable. Compared to my rock like peers. But this retreat I was trying to appreciate and explore my body, with the influence of old Reggie Ray and his last book on somatic meditation, and Paramananda's book The Body. So, when my knees began to hurt, I investigated, tried to bring a sense of play instead of feeling trapped. I get twisty knee pain when I sit in a modified half lotus, and straight on knee pain when I used my bench. There's a kind of princess and the pea situation where I pile up a bunch of mats to try and not feel hardness on my knees. I would modify my posture to put more pressure on my butt, but then I would be hunched. I was trying to keep my body aligned, the hips at the right angle, my head at the right angle, my arms just so, and my shoulders not hunched.

So the pain would lead to a panic attack, and the panic attack led to emotional pain. I cried a lot. Someone put a brownie on my pillow Wednesday. The cool thing was that I thought anyone on the retreat was capable of it. That kind of kindness kills me.

So in the company of men, we told our life stories, and met in small groups and heard talks, lots of discussion of the Dharma. I have to say, I love Dharma talk. We also went on walks with each other, I thoroughly enjoyed talking with everyone. I have to say it's a special group of men. The food was good. It was more nature than I'm used to in NYC, so I enjoyed looking at green, seeing trees sway in the wind, sitting outside.

Here's what google earth shows as the two domes:


View Larger Map

Looks pretty green around there. Here's where I live on Google earth:


View Larger Map

Not my real address by the way but my neighborhood. Anywho, to continue. We also listened to a good talk by Subhuti on just sitting meditation.

I also read David Smith's book, A Record of Awakening. Someone mentioned it, and I'd forgotten it, so since it's short, I read it again. I never got to read the letter as to why he decided not to try and join the order, and started his own sangha. It's funny, there are a lot of controversies going around the order, but out here you kind of miss them. Something to talk about I suppose.

So, that's all I want to say for now. I have to say, I'm not sure what my point about communicating this stuff is to the strangers, I question blogging. Am I some kind of exhibitionist? Am I really adding to the knowledge of the Dharma? I doubt it. I expect it's kind of like a public notebook record of my spiritual life, and that's not a horrible thing. I hope everyone is well.

we did well

Retreat

I'm off to a retreat tomorrow. I'm very excited. With work school and family, I don't do retreat as much as I would like, but then again I chose to have a family and work, I chose an intense profession. It's a great thing that my wife doesn't raise a stink about taking care of our 2 small boys while I'm gone. Not too much. I encourage her to go on retreat, but she doesn't want to be away from the family and thinks I'm a little crazy to do it.

I don't work at Aryaloka so it's fairly untainted for me. I have dreams where I'm trying to get there. The retreat will be 9 days, men only. I enjoy being with men. I like single sex activity. The retreat is also for men who have asked for ordination into the Western Buddhist Order.

My friend jokes, so you can marry people? People ask me if I'm going to open up a church? Here is what the F/WBO has to say about it. I don't think I'm getting ordained any time soon, but I feel impatient to join the order at times. I reported in, answering questions, in an e-mail. Ongoing work in trying to deepen my practice.

I'm looking forward to a retreat from electronic devices. I don't even really read much when I'm on retreat. It's going to be a lot of face to face conversations, meditation, healthy vegetarian grub, chanting, discussion, puja and confession. I hope to go for walks and look and appreciate trees and the river.

link

I'm not so into linking blogs, but I thought this post was very interesting.

My favorite restaurants in Queens and Manhattan

OK, so I'm no restaurant critic. But I want to notice the good vegetarian restaurants in NYC because it's not easy to be a vegetarian. I struggle, I have to call myself a semi-vegetarian at this point. I come home exhausted, and the food that's leftover has meat in it. I know I create demand when I eat it, so maybe I need to go firm again. Another strand is that I'm trying to respond more genuinely and not so pressured, so I want it to come from my heart, which might be a cop of but is what I'm going through in my struggles to evolve to a complete vegetarian. I do home to evolve to not even using eggs or milk.

Queens:

The first restaurant is a romantic favorite: Dani's. It's a special place for my wife and I. I had the pumpkin ravioli last night and I love it. They also have a very good beer selection, I get Three Philosophers. It's the one restaurant I don't mind waiting for a table. And you have to, we went there Monday at 5:15pm, and it was full up (though we got a table). Also it's a good date night place, because there's a cool movie theater there with independent films.

Next is Tierra Sana on Queens Blvd., up from Forest Hills near Rego Park. It has good healthy economical grub. A place that deserves your attention if you're in the area.

I love Buddha Bodai Vegetarian Restaurant. I usually get the fake chicken. I think my criticism of this place is that I don't want fake meat, I want vegetarian food, but that's a small matter. A plus to this place is that it has a parking lot! Also next door is an India grocery where you can get some good breads.

No vegetarian review of Queens is complete without a nod to the Sri Chimnoy restaurant. I like the Oneness Fountain Heart Restaurant best. Good vegetarian grub.

There are so many Indian Food restaurants. My friend who moved to Canada, used to like to go to Jackson Diner, which is often rated well. I liked it before it became so famous and remodeled, but maybe it was already famous then. It's a bit of a warehouse. You can go next door and get roughly the same meal, but somehow I go there.

Manhattan:

Next is Dojo's in Manhattan. I have spent so many good sangha meals there. Also it's very affordable. I get the Hijiki Tofu Dinner which is $4.95. I often substitute french fries for the more healthy rice. It is centrally located off Broadway on 4th Street in the NYU neighborhood, near where we have sangha night and practice days in Soho.

If you want variety, then the buffet at Temple in the Village, is for you. The Japanese-American family that runs this place is polite. I get a little of every green thing there. With the buffet you can get what ever you like. I used to go there when I went to NYU and I've met sangha there as well. Great place. Very healthy.

Uptown, near Columbia, where the highest concentration of NYC sangha resides (2 people makes a concentration) is this lovely cheap restaurant, Roti Roll. One guy I overheard, didn't like the cleanliness of the place, but I haven't seen anything dirty. Yummy roti rolls!

For more money, in the same neighborhood, and another favorite sangha hangout, where I've spent lovely times with visiting order members, is Awash. This Ethiopian restaurant serves you the food on bread that you rip off and grab the food with. A lovely tactile experience, you eat with your hands.

Finally near sangha is this crepe place.

No restaurant review of NYC is complete without Zen Palate. Their location off Union Square makes it good place to eat when you're there.

On 6th Street, between 1st and 2nd is a kind of Little India, but supposedly it's more Bangladeshi. I usually like Ghandi Indian Restaurant.

So these are the restaurants with vegetarian options which I really enjoy in my neck of the woods in Queens, upper west side near Columbia and around NYC. These restaurants make it easy to be a vegetarian. I wish there were more like them.

very unique Quan Yin figurine

very unique Quan Yin figurine
Originally uploaded by ~C4Chaos

another video from the European Convention

This video won't really appeal to anyone who isn't interested in the latest developments in the FWBO. There's something I really like about Dhammarati.

meditation takes gumption

"Meditation takes gumption." p.7 of Bhante Genepola Gunaranta's Mindfulness in Plain English.

I've taken a bit of a Dharma holiday, and by that I mean a holiday away from the Dharma. I often try to surround my life with the Dharma through meditation, listening to Dharma talks, reading, spending time with friends by various means.

What happens if I stopped that, and saw what suck, reminded myself of what I lose when I don't do those things?

What happens is I don't feel as healthy, aware, centered, honoring what is important to me. I feel like I've lost my vision, I'm adrift, unmoored.

It's a bit of a crisis for me. How do I get it back? I'm going to have a big powerful retreat in a month and I really want to build up to it. In part I'm exhausted from work and family life, but I'm also not doing the most nourishing things I could be doing.

Another strand, is that reading The Essential Sangharakshita, I wonder if I can whip up the requisite intensity. This landmark book carries the most intense bits of Sangharakshita's corpus. I felt like I had to wear oven mits to hold the book. Can I sustain that amidst my ambition to be a good father, to be a good therapist to my patients? I have divided my energies into three big projects. Maybe they have synergy between them.

So another strand is the question, can I infuse what feels nonspiritual with the spiritual? Can I get spiritual nourishment from work and family life? I think the answer is yes, but it really works most when I surround myself with the other supports, like meditation, friendship and study.

So reading this quote this morning from Bhante Genepola Gunaranta helped me. I got up and meditated. I realized that what I'm trying to do isn't the usual thing, but that it's the thing for me, and that I really need confidence in my path, that I'm learning even as I try experiments that fail.

I think also I've kind of thrown myself into the Dharma willy nilly. I want to target myself more, be more judicious, really cull the wisdom I have gained about what's truly nourishing.

I've notice sometimes in myself and others, they can take the insights and use them to feel dispirited, when they could easily be empowering. Maybe my little experiment has shown me what is really important to me. I must do the best I can under the circumstances and work to improve the circumstances.

"You can make a great deal of effort, but if it does not include an effort to create more favorable conditions, you are almost wasting your energy. On the other hand, you can be in the most favorable conditions imaginable, but if you are not making an effort, what use are those conditions? Both are necessary." THE ESSENTIAL SANGHARAKSHITA page 629

new talk on video sangha

I've read Vishvapani's work on FWBO Discussion. I'm removed from the order (not having been invited to join, and geographically) but I can get to know the order through these lovely videos on VideoSangha. Vishvapani has a new article out here. He's also a new father, always a joyous thing! Congratulations.

my other vehicle is the mahayana

my other vehicle is the mahayana
Originally uploaded by arimoore

cool bumpersticker

silly satirical video

One of my patient's once said to me, "yea, he feels no desire, let me tell you Buddhist men feel plenty of desire."

Check out this video link. The video is a satirical look at a posing Buddhist, not too subtle.

On the teaching side, we're seeing some videos of Chogyam Trungpa coming out. Try this one. Second part. Third part. There are some other videos of him here.

The Shin Buddhism of Unno

First I’d like to indicate what is for me simpatico, before I review.

"There is never going to be a kind of spiritual welfare state. The goal for everyone is to be oneself a creator of a Pure Land, not an endless consumer of spiritual goodies." (p112 Living Ethically by Sangharakshita).

From the Dhammapada (p.44 Gil Fronsdale edition):

“Purity and impurity depend on oneself;
No one can purify another”

River of Fire, River of Water by Taitetsu Unno is subtitled “An Introduction to the Pure Land tradition of Shin Buddhism”

My initial instinct is that I don’t want to chant a mantra to be reborn in Amitabha’s pure land, that feels too much like praying to get into heaven. But I like Blofeld’s quoting another in saying, “"All the sects are like beads on one rosary." (From Bodhisattva of Compassion: The Mystical Tradition of Kuan Yin). So my question is what can I learn about the devotional from this tradition?

One thing I don’t like about Pure Land is mappo (as posted earlier). Even if you could prove it, and I don’t think you can, I think it has a whiff of a self-defeating idea. We can create our own pure lands.

The idea that meditation is elitist is also suspect (p.3). To say one aspect of Buddhism is superior is restrictive, reductive. Pragmatically for a person, that’s fine, but to state categorically shows a little sense of objectivity about the Buddhist tradition and the path of others. It seems true that if you focus just on mantra recitation you will develop that ability more. But restricting one’s practice to only one item of practice when there are so many feels artificial. It was a development perhaps about the rigidity of the situation in Japan at the time.

The idea that garbage is good, that you can ease into reality by just dropping all the intellectual stuff, and just being devotional is appealing. But you have to be careful not to just rewrite bad as good.

I have to admit that I prefer confrontation to consolation in spirituality.

I don’t feel the connection between the mantra and all the powers he attributes to it—that you appreciate the negatives and accept them; That you raise above your small self with “other power”. He does talk about good things, and it is good to accept yourself fully and work to grow beyond your small self. In a way this book felt like Subhuti’s withdrawn book Women, Men and Angels; It’s exquisitely argued, but I wonder why. If Pure Land eschews the elitist intellectual, than why use their language? I feel like poetry would be more persuasive. Milarepa eschews the academic lamas of his time, and so he sings songs. Feels bizarre to have a well reasoned intellectual justification of devotion. In Sangharakshita’s Ritual and Devotion, I felt like the book wasn’t intellectual, it was just persuasive.

I have to say I do like it that Buddhism appreciates it’s rebels, it’s heretics. Shinran and Honen broke with a rigid tradition, so in a way I appreciate their innovative spirit.

Here’s a good link on devotional practice from someone in the FWBO tradition:
http://vidyavajra.blogspot.com/2009/07/practice-3-delving-into-devotion.html

quote on practice

THE ESSENTIAL SANGHARAKSHITA page 629

"You can make a great deal of effort, but if it does not include an effort to create more favorable conditions, you are almost wasting your energy. On the other hand, you can be in the most favorable conditions imaginable, but if you are not making an effort, what use are those conditions? Both are necessary."

tragedy

As FWBO/TBMSG News points out Sudarshan and Bodhisakhi passed away July 6th. There are 2 talks available, and there's an interesting interview in print. Sudarshan was born "untouchable" but luckily with prosperous and good parents. He says:

"I became conscious of caste system when I was about six years old. We couldn’t take water from the wells of high-caste people. We couldn’t go inside their houses. We couldn’t eat with them. It was our ‘caste duty’ to behave in a certain way. I was hating this. I often asked myself: ‘Why am I not allowed to go into temples? Why am I not allowed to take part in religious activities?’ I was feeling a lot of pain from that experience; some anger also. That was the usual feeling for us. Actually, most ‘untouchable’ people felt anger more strongly than me against high-caste Hindus and the caste system."

When I met him I got a really good vibe from him, and I really liked him. I'm sorry to hear he's gone. I'm going to listen to the two condolences speeches: One by Lokamitra. One by Subhuti.

Milarepa quote

From pp. 476-477, from chapter 41 of The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa:

"The Ultimate Practice is not to consider
Distractions and drowsiness as faults.
Doing so to stave them off is like
kindling a lamp in bright daylight."

I like this quote because I've recently been thinking about how Padmasambhava doesn't get rid of demons, but "pins them down," and stares at them. The evolution of a meditater might be about making friends with your weaknesses and problems.

John Blofeld

I just finished Bodhisattva of Compassion: The Mystical Tradition of Kuan Yin. Quite a lovely book for me. I'm considering Avalokita for my potential sadhana.

In the FWBO you get a sadhana when you join the order. You can of course visualize what ever you want, but to be given a sadhana, initiated, is a wonderful thing. I can also visualize the refuge tree, as part of the prostration practice, which is a maximal practice. Also in there have been other visualization practices done on retreat. So I wondered if Blofeld got the sadhana too quickly, without doing preliminary work, but with such a beautiful book, I think it worked out for him. This personal account is well worth reading.

I have a friend who has a tattoo on his left upper arm of Kuan Yin (Guan Yin on Wikipedia and I've also seen Quan Yin). I also have a friend who named her dog Kuan Yin.

I have a strong interest in Avalokitsvra. My first little talk in front of my sangha was about Avalokita. Avalokita is also in the Heart Sutra, which is an amazing text. The legend of wanting to save everyone in Enlightenment, and blowing up and being put back together by Amitabha, resonates with me. Amitabha's mantra is often chanted in Pure Land Buddhism, a sect of Buddhism which is more devotional. It turns out that Kuan Yin is also evoked and prayed to in a Pure Land tradition.

Blofeld write, "Do not fall into the trap of making distinctions that are meaningful only at a very superficial level. Ch'an, Pure Land and Vajrayana are not three paths to the same goal, but three gateways to the same path, or even one gateway seen in various lights." (p. 121).

He quotes someone saying, "All the sects are like beads on one rosary." (p. 84). He does come at it with a western rational mind, but comes to see Kuan Yin as something that really exists outside his mind, in the world. I appreciate his very personal struggle to make sense of the tradition he did not grow up in.

He gets a little polemical in the end:

"We must cease unctuously exposing children to boring sermons, to affirmations of belief in which we have little or no faith ourselves, to notions of vengeful deities befouled by the smoke of burnt offerings, to symbols of agonizing death quite opposite to a child's inborn conception of what is good and beautiful and joyous. Children's innate perceptions must not be smothered but set free!" (p.140).

I have had to live a lifetime under the dominance of Christianity. It did not fit with me. It wasn't until I found the dharma that I understood what everyone was going on about, I can imagine Christianity now.

To me Blofeld is persuasive about opening my mind to Pure Land, and to opening the mind to the richness of ideas outside our culture. I feel like he gets it, I feel sympatico. It makes me want to read the book on Pure Land that I got at Aryaloka.

I find it interesting the way he traces the origins of Kuan Yin to Avalokitesvra, and I wonder if there is not some American legendary figure that can be transformed into a Bodhisattva. Paul Bunyon? He might be more a manifestation of Manjushri, with his axe instead of a sword. Johnny Appleseed? He was a Christian missionary, so I won't appropriate him for Buddhism. The legendary figures of the west are too violent to be Bodhisattvas. I would say Casey Jones was too obsessed with work, he dies at the throttle. Likewise with John Henry. Roy Hobbs is too sports oriented. I can't find an American folk hero that can be an American manifestation of Avalokita.

Maybe that guy who laid down on the subway tracks to save a man, Wesley Autrey. I'm also inspired by the freedom fighters who died, like Viola Liuzzo.

Anyway, I'm not yet ready to chant their mantras to be reborn in their pure lands, but that brings to mind Bante's quote about pure lands:

"There is never going to be a kind of spiritual welfare state. The goal for everyone is to be oneself a creator of a Pure Land, not an endless consumer of spiritual goodies." (p112 Living Ethically).

I don't believe in mappo, Nichiren's idea that things have degenerated so much that we can't become enlightened. I just don't think it's a helpful idea. If it's proven true, I suppose I'd have to believe it, but I don't know how someone could prove it was true.

So to conclude, this book has many interesting angles from the slice of life in Asia, to the personal spiritual journey, to the thoughts about Pure Land Buddhism, not to mention a detailed meditation on Kaun Yin. I recommend it. It's published by Shambhala, a fine Buddhist publisher.

retreat

If you have not been on retreat I highly recommend it. My first week long retreat is the deep experience that made me want to be a mitra and ask for ordination into the FWBO. (btw here's a blog entry about becoming a mitra.)

So the retreat was lovely. Here is a brief post about the kalyana mitra ceremonies that were performed.

Here's a video of Sangharakshita promoting Jai Bhim!. He's a bit cheeky. Sangharakshita clearly enjoys reading the book.

So Aryaloka is a lovely place, I always enjoy everything: food, green spaces, friendship, meditation, Dharma. It takes me 4.5 hours to drive there alone from Queens NYC. I listened to some lovely Dharma talk on Free Buddhist Audio on the way up and down. Going up I listened to What Is Enlightenment by Jinapriya. When he talked about a friend's feeling of concentration as he flew threw the air, being in the moment, I thought of my own recent skydiving adventure. (Photos on facebook.) Anyway, it's a lovely talk that I highly recommend. I first listened to it on a solitary retreat at Aryaloka and well, what a lovely thing to listen to.

One thing I did on this retreat was to process past retreat, especially my last solitary retreat. Since then I haven't been able to wake up and meditate when I don't have enough sleep. Hitherto I'd forced myself to. I think I tuned into myself in such a way that I was no longer going to not honor my experience of being tired. I'd heard the advice to push myself, but I wasn't quite honoring my experience. At times I see that as a step back, not meditating every day, but reflecting on it in the company of spiritual friends, I see it's a good thing.

I think I also invalidate myself by expecting more from my circumstances than are really possible. I had that mirrored back to me a few time. It's especially hard, as I noted when I was reporting out, that I am susceptible to Mahayana hyperbole. The first two days were on the first three chapters of Santideva's Bodhicaryavatara

The final day was, as noted above, on spiritual friendship. We can gossip, in a positive way about people we know. Among other things about this news.

So it was cool to be with just men. It's interesting to see how I feel as in comparison to being on a mixed retreat.

They have beautiful postings at Aryaloka and you can see this one which includes a friend's shrine on it.

And of course it's cool to dip into the library and read the latest periodicals. I read this article, about Harold Ramis.

So well done everyone, thank you for your hard work: Danakamala for his cooking, Steve Sloan for his organizational work, Steve Cardwell for his organizational support and the running of the book store. Thank you to Nagabodhi for coming across the pond. Thank you to Bodhi for dropping in to give a short talk. Thank you to Narrotama for his leadership and wonderful presence. Thank you to everyone who made the retreat so special.

I listened to a favorite talk of mine on the ride home. Manjuka talks about aping being a good Buddhist instead of being authentic. Buddhism isn't any specific content in the mind, it's an approach to that content. I'm not sure if emotions are givens that are exempt from asking of they are skillful or not. I think you can frame things in an unskillful way, and that that will lead to feelings, and you can change that dynamic, but I get his point that we really need to figure out what is going on before we work towards fixing it, and be careful not to pretend to be good while denying what is really going on. A lovely talk that I put at the top of my list of talks to listen to.

May you be happy, may you be well.

Milarepa quote

From p. 378 of Ten Thousand Songs of Milarepa:

"I attain all my knowledge through studying my mind within, thus all my thoughts become the teachings of Dharma. So long as I do not become separated from my own mind, I am always accompanied by sutras. I have realized that all manifestations are Mind, and the mind itself is the illumination. These are my Gurus."

Living Ethically: Advice from Nagarjuna's Precious Garland

Sangharakshita has a new book Living Ethically on Nagarjuna's Precious Garland.

At first I didn't want to write a review because I'm not an expert on the Precious Garland. I've read it, and had parts read to me on retreat, but in no way do I feel I can judge whether Sangharakshita is true to the text or not, whether I agree with his interpretation. But in the end it's Sangharakshita riffing off of Nagarjuna's Precious Garland, and updating it with his unique vision for modern Buddhists. Whether you like his vision or not, will inform whether you find this book useful.

I would categorize with book with his Mahayana commentaries, Tranforming Self and World, The Inconceivable Emancipation, and The Drama of Cosmic Enlightenment. I might add The Yogi's Joy.

I would also connect it with Sangharakshita's book Ten Pillars of Buddhism in that much of the book is also an exposition of the Ten Pillars:

1. I undertake to abstain from taking life.
2. I undertake to abstain from taking the not-given.
3. I undertake to abstain from sexual misconduct.
4. I undertake to abstain from false speech.
5. I undertake to abstain from harsh speech.
6. I undertake to abstain from useless speech.
7. I undertake to abstain from slanderous speech.
8. I undertake to abstain from covetousness.
9. I undertake to abstain from animosity.
10. I undertake to abstain from false views.

There are also positive ones of these (which I have modified a little):

1. With deeds of loving-kindness I purify my body.
2. With open-handed generosity I purify my body.
3. With simplicity, stillness and contentment, I purify my body.
4. With truthful communication I purify my speech.
5. With words kindly and gracious I purify my speech
6. With utterances helpful, I purify my speech.
7. With utterances harmonious, I purify my speech.
8. Abandoning covetousness for tranquility I purify my mind.
9. Changing hatred into compassion, I purify my mind.
10. Transforming ignorance into wisdom I purify my mind.

So the above ideas of how to move towards skillful actions play a large part in this book, and I feel the exploration is positive and helpful. He puts it this way:

"Ideally, we should act spontaneously, with ease and flexibility, rather than acting out of a sense of being hedged in on every side by self-recrimination or out of fear of transgressing some immutable moral law. Having said that, our wider aim should be to reach out beyond our personal happiness towards what is of profounder concern to us, namely, benefiting others. If you succeed in doing this, you are being a true friend to yourself." (p. 18)

There is also references in the book to monitoring mental states closely, so as to try and cultivate positive states, which makes me think of Know Your Mind, which is based on the Abhidharma, and it perhaps one of Sanghrakshita's most complex books.

So categorizing aside, this book has many strong messages. In my 7th year or reading Sangharakshita, I'm noticing the theme of intensity. Being a Buddhist is more than just reading books, more than just meditating, there has to be a real translation into action, and not just an ethical action, but also action that takes into account others, the boddhisattva ideal. Of course this book is less intense than The Essential Sangharakshita, because those are the edited highlights of his whole career, and Living Ethically is just one edited seminar. By the way you can find the seminar or seminars this book was based on at Free Buddhist Audio.

For a sample of the intensity and clarity, consider the following quote about vows:

"You might want to make a vow. A vow is a very simply a statement - usually a public statement - to the effect that you will do or not do, something either for a certain period of time, or for ever. Not that you'll try to, not that you promise to: you will. When you make a vow it is already accomplished, and there is no question of your breaking it. To make the vow is to keep it. Even if you don't say it in front of other people, you say it in front of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, and you call upon them to witness your vow. For example, you should know yourself well enough not to make a vow out of self-hatred, just as a way of making life difficult for yourself, although even if you did this, you would still have to keep the vow. Should you break a vow, it means you didn't really make it in the first place, and this wills how that you are not an emotionally integrated person." (p. 22)

I found this very helpful about vows.

Consider this quote:

A Buddhist should be a walking paradox in the eyes of the world: he or she should be obviously happy, even in the absence of financial security, social status, luxury consumer goods, or a sexual relationship - all of which are commonly regarded as being essential to human happiness. The sight of such a person would make people wonder, 'How can this be? Perhaps ideas about life are not the whole story.' It is what a Buddhist is that speaks to people, far more than clever presentations of Buddhist Doctrine." (p92)

And this:

There is never going to be a kind of spiritual welfare state. The goal for everyone is to be oneself a creator of a Pure Land, not an endless consumer of spiritual goodies." (p112)

The intensity is provocative. Am I a piker? I've got to get down to it!

There's a lot of really good stuff in this book, and I could have easily produced 3-4 longer quotes that meant a lot to me. I recommend reading this book. And may you be happy, may you be well.