All About the Buddha

 

The Book is All About the Buddha 

Buddhas have walked the earth for thousands of years. Their wisdom has reached us in many forms, yet its essence has always remained the same: to detach the mind from phenomena and realize the Buddha mind - a mind so utterly empty that the finite mind cannot grasp it. 

Through the ages, Buddhas have taught exactly this: how to realize detachment and become free from an attached mind. The challenge, however, is that language cannot itself be the liberator, for language is rooted in duality - the speaker and the object of speech. Likewise, taking action to free the mind is also caught in a trap - the doer and the object of action. All a Buddha can truly do is point toward liberation; they cannot, by words or blessings, release another’s mind from attachment. Practices such as meditation, fasting, prayer, worship, belief in god, rituals, or chanting may bring temporary peace, yet they do not dissolve the mind itself. These activities, too, can become traps, as the performer grows attached to the performance, defeating the purpose of the exercise. 

 

It is difficult to know exactly what led the Buddhas themselves from attachment to liberation, for freedom does not arise in isolation. Many lives and incarnations lie behind such realization. What is realized, however, is that all phenomena are illusions - empty, without permanence. All phenomena arise from causation: they have a beginning and an end, and thus exist in time and space. The Buddha mind, by contrast, does not exist in time; it has neither a beginning nor an end. It is the ever-present substratum beneath all phenomena. 

Since physical life carries consciousness, and consciousness clings tightly to the mind, it follows that the body must be treated with the utmost respect. The Buddha taught that a body free from extremes will inevitably influence the degree of mental attachment. In fact, Ramana Maharshi stated that among all spiritual practices, the best is to eat satvic food. This is because satvic food neither overstimulates the mind nor undernourishes the body - it provides the highest form of nutrition, fulfilling all bodily needs. A healthy, balanced body becomes the ideal platform to calm the mind's agitations. 

The purpose of Sacred Holistic Health is to gather and synthesize the Buddha teachings of millennia, providing a strong and practical foundation for realizing emptiness. The book does not claim to introduce anything new - the Buddhas have already spoken the truth. What is unique here is the recognition of satva as the fundamental substratum of the universe, from which all phenomena arise. Satva neither participates in nor is affected by phenomena, yet it is always present. The book also presents the original sattvic diet in a modern context, drawn from many authentic sources. This is not simply anecdotal - it is grounded in real, lived experience within the human frame. 

For the sincere seeker, the book offers clear, reliable guidance on understanding satva in all its depth, knowing that the source of this knowledge is the enduring wisdom of the Buddhas of history. 

You can read more in the book Sacred Holistic Health.