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[…] the notion of forgiveness has insinuated itself into contemporary Buddhist thinking disturbs me deeply. Although many may disagree with me, 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, […]
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[…] choice you have, the more freedom you have. But it doesn’t work out that way. The more options you have, the more energy you have to invest in making decisions. Which shampoo? Which car? Which dress? Which restaurant? Which movie? Your energy and attention are consumed by these decisions and you have less left […]
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Winter, 1972. Ingrid and I, along with another couple, David and Donna, had rented a small house in the interior of British Columbia. We planned to do a month-long retreat while we waited for spring and for Kalu Rinpoche, our teacher, to visit Vancouver for the first time. It was the usual retreat mess. […]
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Who am I? In the world of social conventions, the answer is a story. Lots of things may go into this story: interests, history, quirks, talents, achievements, background, likes, dislikes, successes and failures. And the story we tell changes according to the circumstances.
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[…] (hungry ghost), focus on survival (animal), pursue pleasure as compensation (human), vie for superiority (titan), or protect status and position (god). Because we are less present to what is actually taking place, our actions are correspondingly less appropriate and less effective. We go to sleep in our beliefs and ignore the consequences of maintaining them.
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In the initial stages of practice, we are consumed by thoughts. As we continue, we gradually are able to experience thoughts as thoughts, and not be distracted by them. To be a little technical, when the level of energy in the attention is higher than the level of energy in what you are […]
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Many problems in meditation practice come from confusion about what we think should happen, what we want to happen, and what actually happens. One way to clear up this confusion is to be clear about the purpose, method, effects and results of meditation practice.
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Willingness means to let go of conventional concerns over happiness, wealth, status, and reputation, the agendas of life in society. As long as you limit your experience to what fits into the world of society, you will explore your spiritual potential only to the extent that it doesn’t impinge on your life in society.
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[…] we find that a whole realm of experience begins to open up to us: thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, sounds, images, memories. Our conditioned tendency is to regard some of these as good and some as bad. Through power, we have established a place for our attention to rest. Now we make an effort in ecstasy…
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[…] final challenge of habituated patterns is to question direct experience. How do we know? How can we trust this knowing, which is totally beyond the ordinary conditioned experience of life? Like Buddha Shakyamuni, we turn to no external reference and live in the knowing. We rest in presence, in the very mystery of being itself.
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Increasingly, money has become the only medium for exchange between people in our culture. The human part of us resists this as we feel that there is more than simply financial value in our interactions. But money is now used to determine the value of time, the value of any material article, the value […]
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In these notes I want to point out the relationship between the three marks of existence (the pointers), the three doors to freedom, and the three aspects of meditative experience (the openings). The three marks (change, suffering, and non-self) can be viewed as pointers, aspects of our experience that point to three doors […]
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From the Buddhist point of view the mind-body system with which we identify has the seed of attention within it already. We simply provide conditions for sustained active attention to develop. The practice of meditation is the practice of providing those conditions. This is how we cultivate attention, just as we would a plant […]
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In order to help clarify the nature and purpose of deity practice, I discuss it here in a way that gives one the actual flavor of this practice; that is, the sense of what might actually be happening experientially in deity practice. I also suggest an approach to deity practice that doesn’t depend […]
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[…] mind, too, is nothing itself. The intelligent know that these two understandings are not things. And then, not holding onto even this knowledge, they come to rest in the realm of totality. I can’t get away from it. Like it or not, there is this quality in me which wants to know. That much […]
