Q&A Session
Around age 19, I started having panic attacks, the bouts come and go but recently I’ve had a series of especially terrifying ones. I’ve tried to use my sitting practice for help, but they keep coming. When they hit, I’m powerless to the terror and afterward it lingers, and I’m always scared for its return. How do I deal with my panic attacks?
Article
Let me say, right at the start, that I am not going to be diplomatic. The extent to which 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 […]
Article
One of the fundamental teachings of Mahayana Buddhism is that every being has the potential for awakening—buddha nature. Yet out of the billions of people on this planet, the overwhelming majority are locked by necessity or by choice into a materialistic approach to life. In all probability, no more than a few million have even […]
Practice Material
When someone close to us dies, our connection with that person is broken and cannot be restored. Yet the web of connections does not disintegrate right away. It gradually unravels — strands release one by one. Each strand is a memory, a recollection, or an association. The purpose of this ceremony is to complete our relationship with the person who has died and, in doing so, to allow the process of letting go to begin.
Article
A few years ago, I was teaching a workshop on the Heart Sutra. We had just finished that long list of negations and everyone was a bit off balance, having had the rug pulled out from under them four or five different ways. The next lines were, “Because for bodhisattvas there is no attainment, they […]
Article
Teacher, guru, or spiritual friend, what are you looking for? The spiritual path has many challenges. There are many things we need 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, […]
Article
Over the last few weeks, I’ve received a few emails with questions about a Buddhist response to the 2016 election. Here is one: What does Buddhism have to say about how to respond to the behavior and rhetoric of Donald Trump? And just as important, what does it say about how to respond to his […]
Article
I’ve spoken to more than a few people who say that the results of the 2016 election have brought up difficult feelings of a kind they have not encountered before. That’s understandable. It’s not every day that we experience the world we have known crumbling and collapsing around us. After the election, it became very […]
Article
Before the 2016 election, I posted a short piece about a Buddhist response to Trump, namely, to 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 […]
Article
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. We […]
Practice Material
May we acquire all the abilities of the ground, path, and fruition. And clear away all disruptions in outlook, practice, and behavior. In the infinite expanse of the wonderful mind of Ever-present Good,
May we take hold of eternal being in the youthful vase body.
Practice Material
When you open and relax,
There is an emptiness that goes beyond true or false.
Here, if you know arising release, natural release and direct release,
You are no different from all the awakened ones.
You are awake and no different from me.
Practice Material
As you grow accustomed to this exchange, and that may take a while, you come to rest in a different way, in a profound acceptance of the pain of the world and the struggles that comprise most people’s lives. In that acceptance, there is a quiet joy, a joy in the wonder of life itself.
Article
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.
Article
Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Martin Luther King, Jr. Freedom is not a state; it is a process. It is something you are, not something you have. In freedom, there is a continual releasing of reactive material as it arises in each moment of experience. […]
