NY Monastery

Established by NYMONASTERY I INC and practicing in the Plum Village Tradition

We openly and warmly welcome the diversity of your experience to this place of refuge and healing – wherever you come from, however you look or identify, whomever you love

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Chan Meditation Roadmap

The Chan school often says that everyday activity—eating, cleaning, defecating, carrying water, chopping wood—is itself Chan. This point is quite profound and not something easily understood by persons who are new to the practice. If supplemented with a regular routine of seated and walking meditation, in time the ability to find meditative power in these activities will deepen.

Special Topics

Follow Dharma Teachers to Navigate through Doubts on the Path of Learning Buddhist Teachings

It is inevitable to have questions while learning Buddhist teachings. In this featured topic, we invite you to follow the guidance of Dharma teachers to establish correct views, strengthen your faith in Buddhist teachings, and aspire to walk on the Path to enlightenment with firm steps.

Be a Buddhist with Correct Beliefs

How can we choose the right Buddhist group with whom we take refuge in the Three Jewels? What can we do to dedicate ourselves to practicing Buddhist teachings diligently? Since the most important aspect of learning Buddhist teachings is to establish right views, joining a trustworthy Buddhist group with correct beliefs allows us to learn and practice together, avoid unnecessary detours, and become genuine and faithful Buddhists.

Happy Buddhists: Common Questions from Beginners Answered by Ven. Chang Yong

For many years, Ven. Chang Yong has been on the front line of introducing Buddhism to beginners. Through progressive curriculum design and diverse teaching strategies, Ven. Chang Yong helps those who are interested in learning Buddhist teachings to build correct views step by step. In this issue, we invite Ven. Chang Yong to answer beginners’ common questions about Buddhism, enabling everyone to embark on the Bodhi Path smoothly.

What does Pusa (Bodhisattva) Mean?

The Chinese word pusa is an abbreviated transliteration of the Sanskrit word bodhisattva. The complete transliteration should be putisadou. “Bodhi” means “awakened” or “enlightened” and “sattva “ means “sentient being refers to any form of life that can feel love and other emotions, mainly animals. Bodhisattvas are enlightened sentient beings who are aware of all sentient beings’ sufferings, feel sympathy for others’ plight, and act to succor them. Therefore, we often speak of a person who is altruistic and helps those in difficulties as “having the heart of a bodhisattva.”

The basic meaning of the word bodhisattva is very different from what most Chinese people understand. The clay or wooden statues of various spirits or gods such as the neighborhood locality god or city god are definitely not bodhisattvas. Rather, bodhisattvas are those who have faith in the Buddha’s teachings and seek to practice them, who then vow to liberate themselves and others, and who can even disregard themselves in order to save others.

To become a Buddha, a sentient being must pass through the stage of being a bodhisattva, and he or she must make and take to heart great vows, especially the Four Great Vows: “ To deliver innumerable sentient beings, to cut off endless vexations, to master limitless approaches to the Dharma, and to attain supreme Buddhahood.” We can see how difficult it is to be a real bodhisattva.

But in another sense of the word, anyone who aspires to become a Buddha, from the time the vow is first generated until the eventual attainment of Buddhahood, can be called a bodhisattva.
But in another sense of the word, anyone who aspires to become a Buddha, from the time the vow is ﬁrst generated until the eventual attainment of Buddhahood, can be called a bodhisattva. Hence, there is a diﬀerence between ordinary bodhisattvas and noble bodhisattvas. The bodhisattvas mentioned in the sūtras are mostly noble bodhisattvas. According to the Sūtra on the Deeds of Bodhisattvas as Necklaces of Gems, bodhisattvas can be classiﬁed into ﬁfty-two levels, and only the top twelve levels (from the ﬁrst ground to the tenth ground, plus the ground of equivalent enlightenment and the ground of wondrous enlightenment) are noble stages. Actually, a bodhisattva in the wondrous enlightenment stage is a Buddha, and a bodhisattva in the equivalent enlightenment stage will become a Buddha in his next life. The bodhisattvas we know of, such as Guanyin, Mahāsthāmaprāpta, Samantabhadra, Mañjuśrī, Maitreya, and Earth Treasury are bodhisattvas at the stage of equivalent enlightenment.

Resources

Orthodox Chinese Buddhism, What does Pusa (Bodhisattva) Mean? , p.95

April 10, 2025
What Do Mahāyāna and Hīnayāna Refer To?

During the Buddha’s time, there was no distinction between the Hīnayāna and Mahāyāna. The Dharma is of one ﬂavor; it’s just that diﬀerent listeners understand it diﬀerently and attain diﬀerent levels of realization. To listeners with shallow karmic capacity, the Buddha taught basic human ethics such as keeping the ﬁve precepts and practicing the ten good deeds, the so-called human and heavenly vehicles. To listeners who felt great repugnance for life, the Buddha taught the lesser vehicle of the śrāvaka, the means to liberate beings from cyclical existence. And to those with deep karmic capacity and the compassionate wish to transform the world, he taught the greater vehicle of the bodhisattva. In fact, there are a total of ﬁve vehicles in Buddhist practice: the human, heavenly, śrāvaka, pratyekabuddha, and bodhisattva vehicles. Those who practice the ﬁve precepts and ten good deeds in a superior manner ascend to the heavens, while those who practice them in an average manner are reborn as humans.

Together, these two vehicles are called the human and heavenly path. Śrāvakas are practitioners who have transcended life and death after hearing the Dharma and practicing it. Pratyekabuddhas are practitioners who have transcended life and death after practicing themselves, without having heard the Dharma from a teacher. The practices of these two, śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas, are collectively called the path of liberation. The bodhisattva path is a practice that seeks liberation without renouncing human and heavenly activities. Thus, the Mahāyāna bodhisattva path integrates both the liberation path and the human and heavenly path. Those who only practice the ﬁve precepts and the ten good deeds of the human and heavenly path are still ordinary people. In contrast, individuals who have attained liberation and are hence no longer subject to birth and death are called noble ones. Noble ones who are only interested in practicing the Dharma for liberation, with no intention to come back to liberate other sentient beings, are referred to as followers of the Hīnayāna, meaning “small or lesser vehicle.” Bodhisattvas aim to attain supreme Buddhahood and liberation on one hand, and to save numberless sentient beings from suﬀering on the other. Therefore, they are called followers of the Mahāyāna, or the “great vehicle.”

Buddhism can also be divided into the Northern and Southern traditions according to its geographic distribution. According to one system of classiﬁcation, the Northern tradition is based on Sanskrit scriptures and is Mahāyāna Buddhism; China is central to this tradition, which also spread to Japan, Korea, Mongolia, and Tibet. The Southern tradition is based on Pali scriptures and is Hīnayāna Buddhism; Sri Lanka is central to the tradition, which also spread to Thailand and Burma.

Actually though, this is just the Northern tradition’s classiﬁcation system, and the Southern tradition completely rejects it: as we can see in scroll 45 of the Monastic Code of the Mūlasarvāstivāda and in sūtra 769 in scroll 28 of the Za ahan sūtras, the term dasheng [meaning “great vehicle,” which could translate back into the Sanskrit word mahāyāna] is used to label the practice of the Eightfold Noble Path. Also, in sūtra 669 in scroll 26 of the Za ahan sūtras, the term dashi [meaning “great person,” which could translate back into the Sanskrit word mahāsattva] is used to describe practitioners who practice the four methods of inducement. Finally, in scrol9 of the Zengyi ahan sūtras, the six perfections (liudu) of the Mahāyāna are clearly mentioned.

In terms of theoretical development the Northern tradition is superior to the Southern tradition. But in terms of actual practice, people in the Northern tradition do not necessarily follow the Mahāyāna path, nor do those in the Southern tradition necessarily follow the Hīnayāna path. And except for vegetarianism, the Northern tradition in China has no practices superior to those of the Southern tradition. During the Wei-Jin period (220–420), the practice of pure talk, which was centered on the abstruse philosophy called dark learning or “studies of the abstruse” that developed from the Daoist thought of Laozi and Zhuangzi, was prevalent. Mahāyāna Buddhism was received in a similar vein: elite scholar-gentry during that period discussed Buddhist ideas as an idle pastime, as a part of their “pure talk.”

In fact, the theoretical underpinnings of the Chinese Tiantai and Huayan schools somewhat reﬂect this trend. Therefore, the modern Japanese scholar Kimura Taiken (1881–1930) has criticized Chinese Buddhism as the Buddhism of scholarship, not the Buddhism of practice. His critique is not totally unfounded. In fact, the philosophical structures of the Tiantai and Huayan schools largely emerged from the enlightenment experiences of eminent Chinese monks; these structures lack suﬃcient basis in Indian Buddhist thought. Therefore the true spirit of Chinese Mahāyāna Buddhism has not yet been disseminated among the people, much less become a refuge for the common Chinese people. Consequently, some have said that Chinese Buddhism is Mahāyāna Buddhism in philosophy, but Hīnayāna Buddhism in practice.

Resources

Orthodox Chinese Buddhism, What Do Mahāyāna and Hīnayāna Refer To? , p.96-98

April 10, 2025
Is Consciousness-Only the Same as Idealism?

No. Although Consciousness-only doctrine emphasizes mind, it does not deny the existence of either matter or objective phenomena. If these were negated, then everything should be negated, including consciousness, and there would be no consciousness to emphasize. In fact, philosophical idealism can be interpreted to encompass almost everything except materialism. For example, George Berkeley (1685–1753) can be considered a subjective idealist. Georg Hegel (1770–1831) may be regarded as an objective idealist, and Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) a volitional idealist. William James (1842–1910) may be considered an empirical idealist, and Henri-Louis Bergson (1859–1941) an intuitive idealist. And Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) can be classiﬁed as a skeptical idealist.

In brief, any form of idealism will require the speciﬁcation of some normative standard to serve as the basis for its theories. Once they select some adored criterion or ideal, philosophers inevitably make the mistake of over-generalizing from a partial truth. The skeptical idealists are more open-minded, but they cannot provide an ultimate answer for guidance, leaving people feeling anxious and paralyzed. The Consciousness-only school of Buddhism does say that “the three realms are merely consciousness,” meaning all phenomena within the three realms are manifested by the eighth consciousness. That is to say, all physical phenomena, everything in the non-sentient world (qijie), are the objective aspect (xiangfen), or active dharmas, of the eighth consciousness. The theory does not, however, deny the existence of sentient beings outside the individual self.

The claim that “the three realms are merely consciousness” only says that all phenomena within the three realms are jointly produced by the eighth consciousnesses of all sentient beings within the three realms; that is, phenomena are produced by sentient beings’ collective karma. The eighth consciousness mentioned here comprises not just the present mind, but is also that consciousness perfumed from beginningless time by karmic forces. From the active dharmas of karma-conditioned consciousness are formed the objective aspect of the eighth consciousness, the phenomena of the three realms, and the world in which we live.

Matter in our world is formed by the joint activities of each eighth consciousness of the sentient beings in our world. Likewise, sentient beings and their interactions are manifestations of the eighth consciousnesses of all the sentient beings in the same world.

The cosmology of the Consciousness-only school can be described as “conditioned arising from the ālaya-vijñāna” (laiye yuanqi). Ālayavijñāna is Sanskrit for “eighth consciousness” and means “storehouse consciousness.” It stores all karmic seeds [karmic impressions]. Considering things from a noumenal [benti, “fundamental embodiment or substance”] perspective, when karmic seeds become active they bring about karmic recompense; hence, we can say that everything is produced by consciousness. When viewed from the phenomenal (xianxiang) perspective, we can describe the process as “conditioned arising induced by karma,” because the karmic recompense (i.e., the phenomena) produced by the eighth consciousness results from the individual’s karma.

From a methodological viewpoint, both “conditioned arising from the ālaya-vijñāna” and “conditioned arising induced by karma” are in accordance with the principle of conditioned arising, which claims that phenomena come into existence only via the combination of multiple conditions. Accordingly, conditioned arising is the basic truth of Buddhism. The ultimate goal of Buddhist [inquiry] is [to understand or realize] emptiness. Because it is unnecessary to posit any metaphysical object of adoration, Buddhism does not fall into the quagmire of over-generalizing from partial truths. And because conditioned arising implies emptiness of nature—emptiness of both the self and dharmas—people are not left feeling anxious, rudderless, and paralyzed.

Most philosophers cannot realize the emptiness of self, not to mention the emptiness of dharmas (metaphysical standards or ideals which are adored). If they were to see the emptiness of the philosophical bases to which their egos cling, they would lose the foundation for their ideas and become lost, wandering souls. Therefore, philosophical idealism cannot measure up to the Buddhist doctrines of Consciousness-only.

Resources

Orthodox Chinese Buddhism, Is Consciousness-Only the Same as Idealism? , p.120~121

April 10, 2025
Do Buddhists Believe That Repentance Is Effective?

Yes, Buddhists definitely believe in the effectiveness of repentance. While completed acts of killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, and major deception (falsely claiming that one is a noble one) will definitely bring about retribution for the perpetrator, other misdeeds, such as attempted offences, unintentional breaking of the precepts, and failures to follow the rules of dignified conduct [for monastics] can all be repented with all retribution dissolved in accordance with the methods prescribed by the Buddha.

The function of repentance is to initiate a relentless process of self-reflection and self-discipline, to develop vigilance based on self-awareness, and to purify one’s mind with self-respect, so as to prevent the occurrence of the same mistake. As long as one has the determination to start afresh, and realizes that the past is gone and there is no point in dwelling on it, one’s mind will be relieved from the feeling of guilt and will regain serenity. This is the function of repentance. The wrongdoing has to be honestly revealed (to the community, or to several persons, or to one person, or to one’s own conscience, in accordance with the category and degree of wrongdoing, followed by genuine regret and a resolution not to repeat it). Otherwise the shadow of the misdeed will be hidden permanently in the mind, and will develop into karmic seeds that invite retribution later. Repentance immediately dissolves from one’s consciousness the seeds produced by the misdeed.

However, the purpose of repentance is to cleanse one’s mind to prevent reoccurrence of wrongdoing. If one repeatedly misbehaves, repents, and then misbehaves again, then the efficacy of repentance will be lost. Moreover, the repentance of Buddhists is quite different from that of Christians, who pray to God for absolution. Buddhists do not believe any god has the power to absolve sin. To Buddhists, the real meaning of repentance is to cleanse the contaminated mind in order to restore its purity.

Resources

Orthodox Chinese Buddhism, Do Buddhists Believe That Repentance Is Effective?, p.45-46

April 10, 2025
Do Buddhists Believe in the Existence of the Soul?

No, Buddhists do not believe in the existence of an eternal, unchanging soul.

Someone who believes in the reality of an eternal soul is not truly a Buddhist, but rather an outer-path adherent maintaining the existence of the self (shenwo waidao). Most people except materialists believe that everyone has an eternal, immutable soul.

In America and Europe, the recently popular Theosophical Society also investigates the soul. Such soul-belief is also more or less prevalent in Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Daoism. These religions claim that when one dies, one will be judged for his good or bad deeds by God or King Yama, and will be sent to heaven or hell based on his behavior. Belief in the soul is even more deeply rooted in popular Chinese culture. There is a grossly wrong belief that upon one’s death one’s soul becomes a ghost. “Soul” and “ghost” are inseparably entangled in Chinese folklore. More ridiculously, because some ghosts possess minor supernormal powers, some people think the soul is composed of three distinct “cloudsouls” (hun) and seven distinct “whitesouls” (po).

Actually, though, ghosts just constitute one of the six destinies in samsāra, as do humans. And just like humans, ghosts are born and also die. (Humans are born from a womb, whereas ghosts come to existence through spontaneous birth.) As discussed before, when someone dies, she does not automatically become a ghost. There are many ideas about the soul (linghun) in Chinese folk belief. The soul is often conceived as bridging one life and the next. In this view, “birth” occurs when the soul enters an embryo, and “death” occurs when the soul leaves behind a corporeal body. So the body and soul are analogous to a house and its owner: when the house gets old, the owner moves to a new one. The houses can be changed frequently, but the person living in them is the same. Put diﬀerently, a person is a soul plus an external body; the corporeal body is changeable, but the soul is immutable. In this view, the soul is the entity that experiences various births and deaths.

This concept of the soul is not an orthodox Buddhist concept because it contradicts the doctrine of dependent origination and extinction. From an understanding of impermanence, we know that phenomena are constantly arising and passing away, and that nothing, whether physical or mental, is everlasting. Observed with the naked eye, things present us with the illusion that they do not change. But if we examine them with precision instruments, we see that nothing remains still for even a split second. The process of “production and reproduction” discussed in the Classic of Changes also implies the phenomenon of “continual destruction,” which in essence means that everything is in a state of constant change and transformation.

While physical phenomena undergo an endless succession of change, it is even easier to observe the transience of mental states. Psychological changes engender mental states, which bring about good or bad actions. Actions, in turn, inﬂuence our mental inclinations. Our future is actually shaped by this circular interaction of mental states and behavior. If this is the case, is it possible for an eternal, never-changing soul to exist? Of course it is impossible. A ﬁxed soul doesn’t even exist when we are alive, not to mention after we die: our bodies and minds exist in a state of incessant change. So if Buddhists don’t believe in a soul, what is the fundamental substance that transmigrates among the six destinies and can transcend mundane existence? The answer to this question exempliﬁes the exquisite nature of Buddhist philosophy in de-emphasizing the value of a permanent self, but at the same time recognizing the value of self-improvement and self-transformation. Buddhists believe that “phenomena arise dependent on conditions” and “things inherently lack self-nature.”

In accordance with this view, the physical world exists dependent on causes and conditions, as does the spiritual [mental] domain. Things arise when the right causes and conditions are present, and they disintegrate and disappear when causes and conditions disperse. Something as large as a celestial body or even the whole universe, or as small as a blade of grass, a particle, or a single atom, all exist because of the right combination of an internal cause and external conditions. Without causes and conditions, nothing would exist. Thus, in a sense, we can say that nothing really exists.

Scientists studying physics and chemistry can easily support this observation. And what of the spiritual domain? Although Buddhists do not believe in a soul, they are by no means materialists. Buddhists describe the spiritual domain with the term “consciousness.” In Nikāya Buddhism, six consciousnesses are discussed, with the sixth consciousness serving as the entity that integrates the life process. In Mahāyāna Buddhism, two more consciousnesses are mentioned, for a total of eight consciousnesses. The eighth consciousness is the entity that integrates the life process [providing coherence and continuity within one life and between lives].

I will use the Mahāyāna tradition rather than the Nikāya tradition to describe consciousness, below.

The ﬁrst six consciousnesses in the Mahāyāna tradition have the same names as the six consciousnesses in the Nikāya tradition. In the Mahāyāna tradition, however, the functions of the sixth consciousness are further analyzed and broken into three parts which are labeled the sixth, seventh, and eighth consciousness. All the eight consciousnesses are actually one entity: they are given diﬀerent names in accordance with their eight diﬀerent functions.

Residue from all the activities of the ﬁrst seven consciousnesses, good or evil, is deposited and registered in the eighth consciousness, which serves as the depository of all karmic seeds. The supervisor of this warehouse is the seventh consciousness, and the sixth consciousness works like a warehouse clerk handling the in and out of inventory.

The ﬁrst ﬁve consciousnesses execute actions. So the function of the eighth consciousness is storage. But the storage is not that of a one-way depository. It takes deposits from outside and makes withdrawals from inside. What is deposited is the psychological residue of behavior, which is imprinted on the ﬁeld of consciousness and called karmic impressions or seeds; what is withdrawn are psychological impulses that later develop into behavior and the results of behavior, called karmic fruits or active dharmas.

In this manner, things move in and out, out and in, seeds becoming active dharmas, and active dharmas leaving behind more seeds. The same pattern is repeated throughout this life, the next life, and inﬁnite future lives. The ﬂow of cause and eﬀect from seed to active dharma and active dharma to seed goes on and on, from countless lives in the past until countless lives in the future. This ﬂow of causality comprises the coherence we experience in one life and the continuity between diﬀerent lives. Because seeds and active dharmas incessantly move in and out of consciousness, the eighth consciousness itself is ceaselessly changing. This consciousness is qualitatively diﬀerent not only between two lives, but even between two ﬂeeting thoughts. Exactly because thoughts arise and pass away moment to moment, and every thought is diﬀerent from all other thoughts, we are capable either of sinking and rising in the sea of samsāra or of going beyond it. The eighth consciousness, therefore, exists in the continuum of momentarily changing karmic seeds and fruits.

Besides this changing continuum of karmic seeds and fruits, there is no such thing as the eighth consciousness itself. An analogy to a current of water is illustrative. A current of water is nothing but water ﬂowing in continuous motion. Besides the ﬂowing water, there is no such thing as a current itself. The objective of Buddhist practice toward liberation is to disrupt this current of birth and death induced by karmic seeds and fruits. When the function of the eighth consciousness ceases, that is, when nothing is deposited and nothing is withdrawn, that is the complete realization of emptiness. In Buddhism, this process is called “transforming the (deﬁled) consciousness into (puriﬁed) wisdom,” after which one will not be dominated by birth and death and will be free within the domain of birth and death.

From the above discussion, we see that the eighth consciousness is not equivalent to an eternal soul. If an eternal soul did exist, then the transformation of an ordinary person into a noble one, that is, liberation from the cycle of birth and death, would be impossible. Buddhists reject the concept of an eternal soul, and their ultimate goal is to negate the eighth consciousness altogether. Only after the deﬁled, delusionridden, provisionally-manifest eighth consciousness is negated is complete liberation attained. After the negation of the eighth consciousness, however, it does not mean that nothing exists. Instead, one experiences the illuminating wisdom of “neither emptiness nor inherent existence” (feikong feiyou) rather than the entanglements of ignorance and vexations.

Resources

Orthodox Chinese Buddhism, Do Buddhists Believe in the Existence of the Soul?, p.34-38

April 10, 2025