A Fistful of Sand

BY CHRISTOPHER ANTHONY LEIBOW This is a reposted blog article by Sensei Keisho Ananda of Hongaku Jodo . It is well worth the read. Please check him out. Does Buddhism Need A Dhamma Police ? When I took refuge years ago I took refuge in The Buddha, The Dhamma (Dharma) and The Sangha.  The Dhamma is considered to be the body of the teachings of the Buddha . . . but where are the teachings, how do we know which dhamma, which teachings, are The Dhamma?  Do we need a Dhamma Police to make sure that Buddhists follow the “true dhamma”?  I think not and I hope not, and I’ll tell you why. First let’s take a look at where the teachings or the dhamma might be found.  Buddhism, like all traditions that are really, really old, started out as an oral tradition. Three months after the Death of the Buddha 500 pre-eminent Arahants concerned with  preserving the purity of the dhamma held a convocation at  Rajagaha to rehearse the teachings. ...

Samsara by Paul de Luna We have a problem — you have and I have it.   I may have worked on it a little longer on it than you have, but maybe not. Here is the problem: we have very little motivation to give up our comforts for something that is greater than we are. There is nothing in our life that we are willing to sacrifice everything else for. I’m not talking about the belief that we would sacrifice our lives for our loved ones. We all claim that we would sacrifice our lives for the ones we love. I have always been skeptical of those kinds of statements, and I continue to agree with myself. When we have no cause, no purpose, to our life, then we have to ask ourselves, “What is it that we are living for.” Are we really living for tomorrow so we can visit with our friends and talk smack? Some people live for tomorrow so they can go to a party or maybe meet that someone special, a someone like a “soul mate” (whatever that might mean) that will finally make them fe...

My comments on the Shurangama Sutra caused a bit of a flurry. A couple of Mahayana priests, Zen types, opted out of the newsletter and dropped out of HJCL. That's fine because it is none of my business what people think of me. My business is solely what I think and that’s okay. Although I am always amazed at the lack of intellectual reasoning that goes hand in hand with religion. This is perhaps why the Buddha was opposed to religion and called it “a very bad idea”. (I’m paraphrasing here.) In Theravada Buddha refers to the person of Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha of this dispensation. What he said was the whole of the teaching as we have it. In Mahayana Buddha refers to a concept called “Buddha” and there is no single dispensation, in spite of what the Buddha said. Under the proviso that “buddha” is a concept nearly anything can be attributed to it. It’s strange that nearly every academician and scholar on Earth agrees that the Pali Canon is closest in meaning, if not t...

One of the harshest ironies of life is that practically all people long to live a life of peace and yet we find ourselves entangled in dissonance, involved in relationships rife with tension, pitting one heart against another. Open hostility, backbiting and stress are everywhere we look. This is what the Buddha called dukkha, a fact of life as we experience it in samsara, the wandering from one state of mind to the next. The process of life becomes especially heartrending because we understand that pleasant and convivial relationships are necessary if we are experience our own authentic happiness. Such relationships help us follow the goals we regard as indispensable to our personal contentment and fulfillment without serious commotion. These relationships bring us joy and a sense of complete, valuable and even needed. In marked contrast living in conflict in most often fundamentally painful. In order to protect ourselves we “armor up”. We don’t want to feel the pain; ...