A Fistful of Sand

  One of the problems of teaching Dharma int the United States is that not many people here actually speak English. They speak something similar to but not precisely like English. Let’s look at the word “meaning,” for example. As a noun it ought to have the definition of what is meant by a word, text, concept, or action. But as an adjective it refers to intended to communicate something that is not directly expressed. To say something has meaning is to say it has importance, consequence, moment, weight, significance mean a quality or aspect having great worth or significance. Importance may also imply a value judgment of the superior worth or influence of something or someone. To say that something has no meaning is an attempt to negate the experience of someone’s experience. In the reality of life, nothing is more important or less significant than anything else. Everything has the right to be simply because it does, conditions support the existence of a thought, a word, or a...

Upali lived during the time of Buddha and was the follower of another religion and went to the Buddha in order to argue with him and try to convert him. But after talking to the Buddha, he was so impressed that he decided to become a follower of the Buddha. But the Buddha said: “Make a proper investigation first. Proper investigation is good for a well-known person like yourself. “Now I am even more pleased and satisfied when the Buddha says to me: ‘Make a proper investigation first.’ For if members of another religion had secured me as a disciple they would have paraded a banner all around the town saying: ‘Upali has joined our religion.’ But the Buddha says to me: Make a proper investigation first. Proper investigation is good for a well-known person like yourself’.” (Majjhima Nikaya 2.379) * * * * * * * I sometimes use the Amitāyus Sādhana as a practice during mini-retreats. The Amitāyus Long Life Mantra is  om amarani zewänteye söha .  This...

For the past three weeks we've been working with the Medicine Buddha Sadhana. Many people when entering into the Sadhana practice are looking for a magical remedy to their problems. That is not the point of the Medicine Buddha. The point is zeroing in on emptiness and so closer to nirvana. Physical healing becomes incidental. If it happens, well, that's wonderful, but understanding is more valuable - after all, everyone becomes ill, everyone dies. Nothing you can do will avoid these. This reminds me of an apocryphal story in which a man came to the Buddha and explained all of his problems and issues with life. He wanted the Buddha to help him make all of these problems and issues go away. The story goes, the Buddha listened quietly and told the man, "Dharma can help you with sixty-two problems and one it can never help you with. You have this sixty-third problem." "What is this sixty-third problem?" The man was astonished as if e were just g...

Buddhist thought in South China was distinctly philosophical in character in Zhiyi’s time. (See more about  Zhiyi ) Northern Chinese Buddhists were developing a religion of faith and discipline called Zhingtu (sometimes called Ch’ing-tu or Pure Land). Zhiyi was a product of the southern Chinese educated upper class. His teacher, Huisi (514-577), was a Northerner of the lower classes. Because of this, Zhiyi came to the judgment that the contemplative and philosophical approaches to religion were like the two wings of a bird. As a result the Chinese T’ien T’ai School, and its descendent, the Japanese Tendai School, is characterized by a strong philosophical content and emphasizes meditative practice at the same time. The most distinguishing trait of the T’ien T’ai worldview is that there is only “one” reality consisting of both the phenomenal world of samsāra, and ultimate reality of nirvana. Zhiyi undertook to explain the evident incongruity between this view and the “two-wor...

I n the past I was able to teach the Buddha’s Dharma throughout the day without ever mentioning him or using a Pali or Sanskrit word. I’ve given up on that. Once the Buddha is taken out of the equation people are free to twist the teachings anyway they want to because the teaching has no context. I’ve seen psychoanalysts of all stripes damage a patient’s life by using Dharma teachings secularly avoiding what might be perceived as a religious connotation.   Whether or not “Buddhism” is a religion or not is a matter of interpretation. As a practitioner of the Dharma I find the Buddha is immensely important to me. It is after called Buddhadharma. If we can all agree that these teachings originated with the Siddhartha Gautama then the importance of the Buddha cannot be over estimated.   It is true that Dharma, as taught, is to be used in secular settings but I am just a tad skeptical of a secularized Dharma having great long lasting value. If one cannot ha...

I received this question through an email. It seemed like a reasonable question and points that there are teachings in Buddhism that are not terribly Buddhist at all. These distortions of what the Buddha taught are so common that we often take them for granted without question. This emailer question the standard distorted teaching.  How does a Bodhisattva save sentient beings when there are no beings to save. From a practical position this seems like quite a tricky paradox. I mean in your studies you at some point realise that you don't actually exist from the perspective of being interdependent from other things, yet of course you do....paradoxes abound eh! One question that might need to be answered is where do these vows come from. That may help us understand their meaning. Then I will discuss some of the more obvious problems with the vow as it is presented today and offer a solution to the apparent paradox. Origins of the Vow Current wisdom has it that the Bodh...