Reading Religious Books(NRY)

(To commemorate the National Reading Year (NRY)

I have read books, a great many books, and most of the books I have read were English literature. The books of stories, novels, and verses. But these days I have been reading philosophical books; books of religion. As my age is drawing closer to death, and old age is nicking in. It’s time now to prepare and practice some good things before DreyNagchung summons me in his court. As a matter of fact, we don’t know when we kicking our bucket but kick the bucket we must. And the fact we all die is known to all.

To understand more about life and  death, I have read books beginning from (some) Thich Nhat Hanh’s books, Wentz’s ‘The Tibetan Book of the Dead,’ Sogyal Rinpoche’s  ‘The Tibetan Book of Living & Dying,’ the Dalai Lama’s book series, Dzongsar Jamyang khyentse’s two books, and other books of Buddhism. All these books are philosophies, theories, and stories. All these books teach us to be good, helpful, and be altruistic. And these come through lots of practice. Because of laxity, these theories have been remaining as theories; I am so weak to practice every day and thereby comprehend better.

Today I am almost done with ‘The Way to a Meaningful Life’ by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Like his other books, this book teaches the meaning of ‘I’ and the realization of the meaning of the mind. I am a layman to understand all these, but as a human, a dying human, I feel it is very important to understand it. I would like to write some extracts from the above-mentioned book: “When Buddha taught the four noble truths, first he identified true suffering, sources, cessations, and paths, and then said: Sufferings are to be recognized, but there is nothing to be recognized. The sources of suffering are to be abandoned, but there is nothing to be abandoned. Cessation is to be actualized, but there is nothing to be actualized. The path is to be meditated, but there is nothing to be meditated.”(pg 156-157)

His Holiness also talks in ‘The Way to a Meaningful Life’ about ‘form and emptiness.’ He takes out from the ‘Heart Sutra:’ “Form is emptiness, emptiness is formed; form is not other than emptiness; emptiness is not other than form.” (pg 164) It has a very deep meanings. And another profound statement about the nature of mind that Buddha made is: “In the mind, the mind is not to be found; the nature of the mind is clear light.”(pg 171) The explanation for this statement was made by the Dalai Lama.

And there is a concise-15minutes read book called ‘The Path to Dharma’ published by Commission for Religious Organizations, 2012, Bhutan.  It’s both in English and Dzongkha. The short book discusses about Karmic Cause and Effect, Different lives, Virtuous and non-virtuous, and different acts, and nemesis of each act. It’s worth knowing where we are going before our death.