Three Kinds of Training

Article

[…] human heritage (buddha nature), and all the various spiritual practices, meditation, contemplation on such themes as impermanence, suffering, non-self, compassion, emptiness, koan practice (in Zen), the four immeasurables, taking and sending, etc., are concerned, at least in part, with removing the blocks that prevent that direct knowing or with cultivating that direct knowing explicitly […]

Close-up of hands threading a needle.

Learned Helplessness

Article

[…] to wake up. So we have to separate from being concerned solely with our own welfare. The primary practice is taking and sending. It embodies the four immeasurables (loving kindness, compassion, joy and equanimity). “If you are attached to a position, you can’t see things as they are. When we hold anything as real, […]

Person sitting hunched in a concrete tunnel, light streaming in from the far end.

Imagine You're Enlightened

Article

[…] sense of being the deity and let the other aspects follow. While awake compassion is traditionally depicted as a white being with four arms (representing the four immeasurables of loving-kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity), in deity practice one has chosen to commit to being awake compassion, not simply to having a certain form. The […]

Illustration of a seated Tibetan deity in vibrant robes surrounded by a halo of light.