Blue Lotus

Changing perceptions

no longer victims of our perceptions:

recognizing the energy-based reality

revealed in Quantum Physics.

  . . . consider the consequences of world changes that were brought about by civilization’s last paradigm upheaval.  This occurred around 1925 when physi­cists left behind the dated concept of a Newtonian material-based universe and recognized the energy-based reality revealed in Quantum Physics.

  Well, brace yourselves! for we are in for a wild ride.  Frantic research in cell biology has finally acknowledged the mechanisms by which perception controls behavior, selects genes, and can even lead to a rewriting of the genome.  Rather than being the victim of our genes we have been the victim of our perceptions. . .  We are on the verge of a most radical and most wonderful upheaval of human civiliza­tion. . .

  As we become more conscious and rely less on automated subconscious programs, we become the masters of our fates rather the victims of our programs.  Conscious awareness can actively transform the character of our lives into ones filled with love, health, and prosperity by its ability to rewrite limiting perceptions and beliefs.

– article written by Bruce H. Lipton, Ph.D. © 2003:  “Mind Over Genes: Nature and Nurture 

Revisited.

  Nothing could be more defining of the Buddha’s teachings and certainly encourages us to contemplate those teachings.  Meditating with Buddha-thought, following the path proclaimed by the Buddha, leads to trans­formation of our perceptions.  We remember who we really are, manifesting the great perfection and knowing that one of the most basic of the Buddha’s teachings is that we do not exist in isolation, motivating us to celebrate the wonders of existence.

  To deny ourselves these perceptions is to diminish ourselves.  The failure of civilization, in general, proceeds from disregarding this scientific verity and Buddhist doctrine:  that we are not separate from one another.  We and the whole “organism” of life—the earth and all that evolves with the earth—live in intercon­necting patterns and are interdependent.  Opening our hearts and minds to the clear light of the real, the ultimate in which we perceive that all things have a transcen­dental being and discovering the fundamental unity and interconnection of ourselves with all existence and becoming aware of our ability to transform ourselves according to circumstances—in the moment—responding to others free of ego and separate­ness.  “Now is the very time,” proclaims the Buddha in Chapter 2 of the Lotus Sutra.

  The ultimate goal of practice, no matter what path is followed, is to discover the essential unity pervading all differences and particulars of the world; to discover the great perfection (the buddha-nature) in ourselves and others.  As we follow the path of the Buddha, it is required that we abandon self-righteousness which causes us to lose feelings of kinship with people.  There is no greater heresy than the dark path of ego isolation.  We learn through practice to reach out spon­tane­ously to relationships, feeling the unity of ourselves with all life in the universe, no longer influenced by changes or circum­stances; to extinguish false discrimi­­na­tions, considering all things equally, unmoved by whatever hap­pens.

  Beginning each day in the world of The Threefold Lotus Sutra is to embrace all the Buddha’s teachings and leads to even more “new begin­nings”—to a discovery of  more intuitive methods of spiritual training, promising “enlighten­ment here and now,” as Zen Patriarch Hui-neng suggests in his Platform Sutra.  We are promised moments of deep understand­ing, feelings of compassion as we reach toward realizing our “original faces before birth”—that we are caused to live by the great life-force of the universe.  We are liberated, free of ego and conditioning, infused with all experience in moments of spontaneous awakening occurring at the root of consciousness.  We are linked with the entire manifold world.

  These moments of awareness are not stopping points.  They are fresh starts toward experiencing life at higher levels of consciousness and compassionate understand­ing.  The realm of becoming in the phenomenal world (samsara), unites every moment of being (nirvana) with the living process of becoming (samsara).  We are no longer separate from the world; our perceptions are clarified.  We are part of one insepar­able web of relationships, sponta­neously awaking to ever more inclusive realiza­tions of our humanity.  The dynamics of practicing this is found in Nikkyo Niwano’s Shakyamuni Buddha, A Narrative Biography, as he dares to define the “final profound truth” of our practice:

  What is the final, profound truth?  In brief, it is the finding of the infinite life of humankind within the eternal life-force of the universe.

  The true nature of humankind, in its union with the eternal life-force of the universe, is called the buddha-nature.  The Lotus Sutra teaches that all beings possess the buddha-nature  (or potential for enlightenment) equally, that we should respect this potential in one another and encourage one another to develop and fulfill this potential, and that the noblest form of Buddhist practice is the way of the bodhisattvas who devote themselves to attaining enlighten­ment not only for themselves but for all sentient beings.