A Fistful of Sand

It is o ur mission is to awaken to our true nature, our Original Buddha Nature. We can do this by helping others who desire to awaken to their true nature and to serve people in our local communities, in prisons, and the grip of the illusion by sharing the teachings of Buddhism in its universal forms without creating barriers. My main emphasis in practice and training others might be called "attitude refining" or better yet, "refining the mind," a cognitive approach to fashioning the mind in such a way as to stimulate bodhicitta , the awakening mind. The intention of this practice is to lead to greater happiness and a genuine concern for others and not preoccupied with how the self might be in distress. The individual can clearly see how his or her thoughts are actually that which is tormenting us. It is not the whims of the universe that are or enemy, it is our many selves. When directed to the right training and guidance the average person...

There are many layers of self-deception. The more you investigate, the more you see things clearly, the less likely are you to feel the need to claim to know.  You’ll simply see the harm of your own many facetted ignorance and foolishness. Your examination of your mental viruses will become more and more subtle. Before you began to practice you simply did not know. In this ignorance you took you views to be knowledge. You thought you knew. Actually, these things aren’t real knowledge. They are understandings that come from labels. Still, we think they are knowledge and we think we know. This in and of itself is a very intricate self-deception. You have to keep watch for them, to keep contemplating them. Sometimes they fool us right before our eyes. This is particularly bad for us. We become entangled in the notions and opinions we take to be real and true. Most often our “knowledge is just the memories we have of labels. We take the label to be the things we a...