Welcome to

Its been almost 2 years since Bodhisim came to life. We’re getting ready for whole new island! Share your ideas on how to make one of the most peaceful spots on SL even better. Check out our forums and join the discussion.

Playing this week, starting Oct. 23:

The talk will be by Gil Fronsdal, “Seven Stages of Purification “.

And the video will be:
“Don’t Rush to Your Death” by Ajahn Brahm

Playing at the Rock Seating Area on Bodhi, 24/7 for your convenience.

Use the Music or Movie console on your screen.
( the screen will be black while it loads )

At the Kuti Hut area:
Chapter 5-8 of the Dhammapada

And at the Lake Area;:
“Essentials  of Ch’an Practice”

We now have audio and video playing at several sites on Bodhi in Second Life:

Playing this week, starting Oct. 2,
The talk will be by Gil Fronsdal, “Mindfulness of Thinking, Week 4 “.

And the video will be ;
“The Right to Believe” by Ajahn Brahm

These will be playing at the Rock Seating Area on Bodhi,
24/7 for your convenience.

Use the Music or Movie console on your screen.
( the screen will be black while it loads )

Also, Chapter 26 of the Dhammapada is playing in
the Kuti Hut Area

At the Lake Area: “Essentials of Ch’an Practice”

If anyone has any requests that can be streamed into Second Life please IM TaiChi Pontopiddan in-world.

Worldwatch Institute has posted “Tibetan Sacred Lands: A Values-Based Approach to Conservation,”  talking about the connections between  Tibetan traditions and  environmental protection.

From the article:

…Deghe, a middle-aged lama at the Tibetan Phags Mo Gling Lamasary in China’s western Sichuan Province, explains, “conservation is a monk’s work, it is in our religion.” Using the teachings of Tibetan Buddhism as guidance and supported by a multi-year project of the U.S.-based group Conservation International (CI), Deghe and his fellow lamas are transforming their lamasery into a hub of conservation and environmental education.

Well worth a read.

As just one of the team of builders responsible for Bodhi, I have to say it’s a real treat to find positive reviews about our efforts - a big mahalo to Richard and his blog at A Quiet Watercourse for his comments and pictures, and to MalBurns via Twitter for giving me a heads-up about it.

Some additions at Bodhi

In our sky-builds (there’s a TP box located on the hillside just below the bodhi tree, toward the junction of the two rivers):

– the Swayambhunath stupa is our new location for free dharma items - the growing collection includes a wrist mala, a Medicine Buddha kit, a low-prim stupa, bodhi leaves created from an RL bodhi leaf from Bodhgaya, and more. Items are housed inside the stupa. If you have something appropriate you’d like to have added to the collection, IM or give the object set to 0 $L and full permissions to Tara Yeats, Nate Maeterlink, or Tenzin Tuque.

– Work is progressing on the sky gompa, a Tibetan Buddhist build located above the Swayambhunatha stupa. There’s another TP box outside Swayambhunatha for reaching the gompa level.

At ground level:

We have a new streaming audio area around the beach-side Thereveda retreat shack, currently featuring readings from the Dhammapada. Info on this stream is also being posted on the signboard near the Bodhi landing lotus.

Waiting this evening in a near-sweltering Metro station for the commute home, I opened my book and started reading one of Thich Nhat Hanh’s teachings on “inter-being.” Using the example of a cloud that is able to look down on the Earth and see the flowing rivers that are formed from its rain, Thich Nhat Hanh encourages each of us to recognize the interconnectedness that exists within our own environments.

But as the train rolled into my home station, another thought occurred to me, and instead of heading above ground, I sat on a bench and wrote the following in my notebook:

We are “of” this world in every way, and just as the clouds in the sky eventually fall to the Earth before they are reborn again as clouds, doesn’t it make sense that we, too, would encounter this timeless cycle of birth, life, death, and rebirth — being recycled over and over again throughout the millennia?

For the first time in my life, the concept of interconnectedness made complete sense.

At the most fundamental level, my body — and everything that makes the concept of “me” that I grasp on to — is created from the same elements as everything else on our planet. When I die, my body will be recycled, returning to earth as those basic elements, and in my next life, my body will come about from those same building blocks that once belonged to another object or being.

It’s not unlike an example that I remember clearly from early elementary school. As we learned about dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures, I raised my hand. Anticipating another of my often wild questions, Mrs. Buddin took a deep breath.

“Yes, Sean?” she asked.

“When we drink water from the fountain,” I said, earnestly seeking an answer to what was an honest question, “did that water used to be dinosaur pee?”

The answer, of course, was yes, and even at the age of seven, I suppose I had a basic concept on interconnectedness. But I wasn’t able to see the complete picture until today.

Suddenly, letting go of my “I” seems a tiny bit easier, because this life that I grasp on to so dearly — this body which defines so much of who “I” am — isn’t really mine after all. “It” belongs to everyone — to you, to Mrs. Buddin, and to those dinosaurs that roamed the Earth so many millions of years ago.

There isn’t so much of an “I” as there is an “us.”

Can we truthfully say we did not exist before our birth? What will become of us after death? Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh addresses our ideas about life and death and how we can release these debilitating notions and get in touch with our true nature, the nature of no birth and no death. We have the tendency to think dualistically: coming and going, birth and death, same and different, being and non-being. Such opposing ideas are merely mental constructions that do not reflect the true nature of reality. Life arises when conditions are sufficient and fades when conditions are no longer sufficient. But we cannot say life and death oppose one another—they “inter-are.” “The teaching of no birth, no death,” says Thich Nhat Hanh, “is the cream of the Buddha’s teachings.” 

Play time: 83:35

Play time: 90:52