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[…] the rich heritage of classical texts, monastic institutions and traditional rituals that have been practiced for centuries, one must add the exploration of ways to teach and practice in the context of contemporary society, the re- interpretation of traditional texts for modern contexts with modern analytical tools, the questioning of traditional philosophical, institutional or […]
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[…] journey into the unknown or inflate one’s sense of self and reinforce delusion. The experience of mind nature is, for almost everyone, a turning point in their practice. The utter groundlessness of experience, when you know it directly not conceptually, is profoundly meaningful, and it affects people in different ways. For most people, there is […]
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[…] is one of the most misunderstood concepts in Buddhism. The misunderstandings are unfortunate because the principle of karma is crucially important for our understanding of why we practice and what happens when we practice. The aim of this article is to correct a number of these misconceptions. The first misconception is the notion that […]
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Understanding Refuge The aim of Buddhist practice is be at peace in a life shaped by old age, illness, and death. In other words, it is to find a way to live that is free from struggles with the vicissitudes of life. A refuge is a place where one goes to be free from […]
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[…] us pray, my brothers.”) Straight out of a Catholic monastery! It was an amusing and simple reminder that prayer was and is an essential part of contemplative practice, regardless of tradition. Every meditation we practiced involved prayers—prayers to the lineage, prayers of refuge, prayers for bodhicitta [the wish to attain enlightenment for the sake […]
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[…] I feel that current interpretations of forgiveness in the Buddhist community undermine the teachings of karma, encourage the cult of victimhood, weaken human relationships, and obfuscate the practice of purification. In contemporary Buddhist settings, forgiveness is interpreted in several ways. One is as a way of letting go of our expectations and disappointments in […]
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[…] locked by necessity or by choice into a materialistic approach to life. In all probability, no more than a few million have even a possibility of spiritual practice, and of those, probably only a few thousand may actually touch the mystical experience we call buddha nature. We are deeply conditioned to think and feel […]
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[…] in the three-year retreat, I had only two sets of clothes. The aim was the same: to reduce choice so that I could focus attention on meditation practice. Many people deliberately eliminate choice and the need for decisions by adopting set schedules. They conserve energy for important rather than routine decisions (see this article […]
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[…] to learn or develop. A short list would probably include motivation, skills in meditation and prayer, contemplation, etc. Like music and painting, most of us learn spiritual practice better with someone, rather, than, for instance, by reading a book. When we interact with an actual person, we have to give expression to what we […]
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[…] about those kinds of matters. I guess I feel that Buddhism doesn’t have anything to say about anything, really. For me, Buddhism is a path of spiritual practice that is about letting go of identity and experiencing life free from the limitations of the conceptual mind. This shift may well lead to stands on […]
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[…] in democracy are dropping in all industrialized nations) Yes, the world we have known is changing in very fundamental ways, and those changes do evoke unsettling feelings. Practice tip: working with difficult feelings For me, the real value of Buddhist practice is that, whatever I may be experiencing, however difficult or painful, it gives […]
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[…] forget about being Buddhist and focus instead on being human. In particular, I wrote that our responsibility is to use the skills and capabilities we develop through practice to step out of our own reactivity. Then we have the possibility of seeing clearly and and responding appropriately, whatever that may mean in the particular […]
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[…] kept in touch with world news, which invariably depressed him. Donna plugged away at prostrations, nursing sore knees and sore arms. And I . . . My practice was Chenrezi, meditation on the embodiment of awakened compassion, a deity visualization and mantra practice in the Tibetan tradition. And I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t […]
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[…] the world or the demands of reactive processes. It consists of a set of power-based methods for presence. Presence, of course, is the aim of all spiritual practice. But two problems consistently show up: Passivity in developing the level of attention that makes insight, compassion, and intention possible. Passivity in cutting through internal and […]
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[…] you see clearly, you are more likely to notice what is out of balance. And you understand the connections between imbalances and suffering in the world. Buddhist practice is not an effort to confirm or validate a sense of what we are. It is about seeing and experiencing what is. We let go of […]
