A Fistful of Sand

Did Sakyamuni Buddha practice kaihogyo? No! Did he burn goma? No! Did he say prayers? No! Did he recite mantra? No! Did he speak the lotus Sutra? No! Was he a vegetarian? No! What did he do? He practiced what he taught.

Visit the  Hongaku Jodo Website Click here to subscribe to our newsletter. We observe reality from a point denied by our species (and cultural, and individual) makeup, our observations can only be made through representations, and representations always both add to and subtract from what they represent. —Derek Bickerton The idea of a skillful desire may sound a little off beat, but a mature mind intuitively pursues the desires it sees as skillful and drops those it perceives as not. As the Buddha explains when discussing Right Mindfulness and appropriate attention, a skillful desire is a way of fabricating a better delusion, one that is helpful to us on our journey towards the other shore. Fundamental to all living beings is the desire for happiness and avoid pain. Every other desire can be seen as a strategy for attaining that happiness. You want a new car, a better job, a sexual partner, or even have the desire for inner peace because you probably think it will...

A reader of the Hongaku Jodo newsletter asked me why we rarely – he said “never” – directly wrote about meditation. Honestly, we do all the time, but we do it from the perspective of trained Buddhists. What we write about is usually incorporated into meditation. One who is not familiar with meditation will almost always not understand what meditation concerns itself with. For many in the West, or trained by “cult” leaders who claim to be gurus or meditation masters, the theory is that meditation is used to become more relaxed. This may have been a result of using the term š amatha , usually translated as “tranquility”. In the West we take “tranquility” to mean, “calm”, “blissful” or just “relaxed”. So many meditate to relax. You can see them in meditation halls all over America. They are the ones sitting in chairs, leaning back again it with blankets wrapped around them looking like they are asleep, sometimes they are.   Unfortunately, this is not meditation. Meditation ...