Who has time to consider such lofty questions, even though the answer to this question is the answer to all of your stress. Yet we refuse to look at what we are. We think that continuing to do what we are doing will somehow magically relieve our stress someday. How is that working?
The ... Views: 1189
It's four p.m. I have been napping and doing walking meditation since the morning meal. My hut is deep in the forest, situated on the upper end of a massive, flat rock, with large, flat rocks on both sides and deep ravines separating them (havens for cobras). Surrounding everything is dense ... Views: 1185
Everything built up will fall, and all that falls will rise again - this could be called the cycle of existence. When things are about to fall in this cycle, there are premonitions that wash through our hearts, and the premonitions have definite signs:
We lose our Generosity:
We become ... Views: 1174
Think about it; what did we do in the pioneer days out on the prairie when we came down with an appendicitis attack? We would go, “Ouch. ooh, ahh” for a few days and then die. Easy! No paperwork, no deductibles, no out of pocket expense, no arguing back and forth with insurance companies, ... Views: 1161
This is a very important question; what interests you most, because your answer to this question determines your destiny. So before you answer, look carefully at all the options and decide which is truly the one thing that interests you more than any other.
The obvious ones - relationship, ... Views: 1151
No friendly moon was there to light this unfamiliar path; only a pitch-black night, so dark and foreboding that I could not see my hand in front of my face. Even Conqueror's sharp eyes soon lost the trail, forcing me to dismount and wrestle through heavy, wet vines, and walk on tangled roots and ... Views: 1107
Sometimes we can catch a fleeting glimpse of eternity in a wood, where the pungent odor of wet pine and a timeless stillness calms our troubled minds, for just a while. Or in a wondrous sunset, where we lose the burden of ourselves, for a precious moment. Or when something happens so suddenly ... Views: 1104
This old Zen saying describes the way in which a trainee practices Zen; no striving, no ambition (to become enlightened), no goals . . . only sitting quietly. As a matter of fact, Zen considers goal making a disease of the mind! Quite a contrast from modern life where without goals we would be ... Views: 1102
"So, you are ready to renounce everything," a John said. Then he smiled and added, "Words are spoken with ease, my good friend, compared to the actual experience of this discipline, although there are some key seekers who live in the forest quite comfortably. Some live without irritation; not ... Views: 1100
Good friends of mine, Catholic friends, recently confessed to me. They said that although they occasionally attend their Catholic church, they have found a community church that makes them feel better. They find themselves happy when they leave, unlike their Catholic experience where they feel ... Views: 1092
Hold her tight, tonight. Let her dream of what her life will be, her fairytales of love and happiness. Hold her tight, tonight.
Hold her tight tonight, so that monster truth can’t steal her dreams, not this night. This night, let truth not meet time, not yet . . . please not yet. Hold her ... Views: 1092
Humanity has always looked to the transcendent, a human trait pursued in many ways. And who can really say which way is right or wrong regarding an inherent desire to transcend this earthly life when our time is up. The religious insist that they are right, and spiritual seekers say likewise. ... Views: 1084
Self: Your consciousness of your own identity.
Esteem: The condition of being honored.
Self-esteem: Honoring oneself.
As we can see, self-esteem is a rather “self” ish condition that we necessarily feel obligated to create artificially when we are insecure. The fact that we must go out of our ... Views: 1064
A Thai farmer is in a ditch planting rice in the searing, Southeast Asian heat. He is old, uneducated, ill, toothless, and his body is small and frail, weathered from years of hard labor. Is this old, useless farmer less than you? You, who are educated, beautiful, healthy, relatively young, ... Views: 1063
Growing up in the Catholic tradition, I believe that I can understand some of the feelings that Christians, Muslims, and Jews might have about people who don't believe in a creator God! And Buddhists are guilty! I wouldn't be surprised if they think that Buddhists have a one-way ticket to hell ... Views: 1058
Are liberals and conservatives opposite? If you are a conservative, does that mean that liberal ideas are opposite of yours? And if you are liberal, are conservative ideas opposite of your way of thinking?
The opposite of liberalism is not conservatism - but tyranny (a form of government in ... Views: 1048
My admiration for Ariya was growing; this diminutive being that took me under her wing. And as I listened to her strange voice that appeared in my mind, her words became even stranger. She said that some believe that when life ends, there is nothing, just an unconscious, eternal sleep. Others ... Views: 1039
Suddenly, I found myself in a mist, and through the mist I dimly made out what appeared to be a cave. As I moved closer, my perfected insight revealed exactly what it was – the den of the Great Dragon of Self.
Three of the dragon’s guards lie dead and decomposing at the entrance, obviously ... Views: 1036
Here is a recipe for disaster: China and other Asian countries, being pressured at home by rising inflation, is forced to raise prices on all those goodies we buy at Wal-Mart, but not high enough to encourage us to compete again. This would be a formula for runaway inflation along with job ... Views: 1022
Values could be defined as beliefs in which we have an emotional investment.
If we study the values of rural areas throughout the world, we see that a pastoral, agricultural life naturally propagates ethics and ideals that create harmony between people, such as thrift, honesty, quietness, ... Views: 1021
Performing any deed, good or bad, has repercussions. A bad deed obviously sets us up for a load of bad karma and bad luck. But how could a good deed, that sets us up for good karma, punish us?
The punishment comes from the illusion that someone performed the deed. When we perform a deed from a ... Views: 1019
We will never succeed at changing ourselves by trying to change ourselves directly. We must do it indirectly. By indirectly means merely watching our anger instead of trying to rid ourselves of it, because attempts to aggressively change ourselves into something we wish ourselves to be results ... Views: 1012
A tremendous exhilaration began rising inside of me, as I watched Ariya disappear into the treetops. All of my unanswered questions now faded into the background. The appearance of this mystical being, whatever she was, liberated me to the point that I was ready to forge ahead with reckless ... Views: 1010
Everyone wants happiness. Happiness is the driving force behind almost all of our actions, and even when we are unhappy, we are involved with somehow changing that unhappiness into happiness for ourselves.
When we are confronted with someone or something, we either have a compulsion to pull ... Views: 1003
When we talk, or when we write articles, the number of times that we use the word "I" can indicate the level of confusion we might have in our minds about ourselves. This wouldn't ordinarily be a problem if we are not attached to ourselves emotionally, and only use the term conventionally; ... Views: 996
Some say that moms are the most important people in the world, after all; where would we be without moms? And dads too. We wouldn’t be at all!!
Sisters and brothers can be very important in our lives, and in many ways create the foundations of what we are by testing us throughout our life’s ... Views: 995
Christ and the Buddha were wise men; they never talked about politics. They didn't talk about politics because political opinions and campaigns are but afterthoughts in humankind's evolutionary process. Politics, war, power, and ambition have never moved humankind to a fundamentally better ... Views: 988
There are two faces of religion; that which we profess, and that which we project. Our professed religion follows our scriptures and our beliefs and are what we declare to be our truths, our ideals. It's the talk we talk. Our projection of our religion is how we act, what we say, how we say it, ... Views: 983
Ask anyone about the soul and more often than not, you will get a blank stare, or the soul might be explained as a spirit, a part of God, our basic being, or our true essence. But there has never been a good, logical explanation. So here goes!
Although according to Buddhism the soul does not ... Views: 982
An onion is peculiar in that it has many layers. It also causes you to cry when you peel off the layers. So we could say that the state of the onion is complex, as well as tearful!
Our country is kind of like an onion. Fifty states all wrapped around a flag that gets more tattered every day. ... Views: 978
War is the opposite of peace. When we say that we wage war in order to secure the peace, this is delusion, this is being ignorant of the truth of the moment, which is war, and replacing it with an ideal for the future, which is peace. It is a shell game. If we believe and confuse ourselves with ... Views: 975
The last time I looked, personal transformation was not on America’s top ten list of achievements. Success, family, happiness, friends, wealth, respect, health, religious beliefs or spirituality, satisfying work — these took priority. Our spiritual institutions follow suit with the most ... Views: 971
Walk into any busy Zen center and you will more than likely find Christians practicing meditation. Many famous Christians, including Thomas Merton; Trappist monk, poet, writer and social activist, recommended meditation as a means of directly communicating with God. Whatever we can do to calm ... Views: 967
Interest in Buddhism usually begins with either the philosophy or psychology of Buddhism. Or maybe the esoteric nature of Buddhism, Buddhist meditation, or Buddhist wisdom. But the morality aspects of Buddhism are typically overlooked and frankly considered dull and boring. Keep in mind, ... Views: 961
There are good people everywhere, but how do we define good? Pope Sixtus IV loved Tomas de Torquemada (arguably the most evil man that has ever lived)! Good and evil seem entwined with society’s expectations. Behavior can be considered good by some, bad by others, and volumes are written on this ... Views: 960
A political evolution is stirring. People are beginning to break free. But in order to understand this progression, we must look at what we were just yesterday, before we decided to think for ourselves. We must look at it because no matter what we do or what we think, the evolution is taking ... Views: 960
Being judgmental is being angry.
Fear, the basis of anger, is always connected with the past or future. If you can look deeply within and find what it is that you fear, whether it is God, living up to some kind of ideal, fearing ideas different from yours, or people that are different from you, ... Views: 953
Counting as fast as you can, at ten counts per second, for twenty-four hours a day and for twelve months, would only get you to less than one third of a billion. A billion is a big number.
The universe is estimated to be about 16 billion years old. Carbon dating pegs the earth at about 4.5 ... Views: 948
3. Dying peacefully
(From a talk by Ajahn Jagaro, the abbot of Wat Pah Nanachat when Janet and I trained in Thailand as a Buddhist monk and nun in 1981)
"Having considered all of this, if dying becomes no longer a contemplation but an actual experience, we can face it without fear. Not only ... Views: 940
The Buddha was called the great physician. In his quintessential teaching: The Four Noble Truths, he took us under his wing, as a good doctor should, to care for his favorite patients. In his First Truth, he diagnosed us as being very ill. In his second, he explained exactly what was making us ... Views: 925
Life can be a beautiful thing, but if we don’t understand life, we might end up fighting it. More often than not, it’s you and I against the world. Making a living, holding on to our relationships, to our wealth, our political and spiritual beliefs, these can become monumental struggles. Worry ... Views: 923
An old man with shaking hands counts out some crumpled bills to a receptionist in a doctor's office. The sign above the cashier's window says:
"If you are a Medicare customer you will be required to pay your $135 deductable before service is rendered."
But the old man only comes up with ... Views: 918
IMPORTANT: Always check with your medical and mental health care professional before beginning any new regimen.
1. EXERCISE:
Brisk walking: Three to five miles a day.
Neck roll: Twice a day. (Do this exercise slowly and carefully until your neck and spine become loosened up). Touch your left ... Views: 918
When we say that we are a Christian, or Buddhist, Jew, Muslim, or Hindu, what does that mean? When I was a faith-based Christian, it meant that I believed. I believed in God, Jesus, the Church, and I believed in Catholicism. I was proud of being a Catholic. It didn't matter whether my beliefs ... Views: 908
What we extend outward toward others, we internalize. Whether the emotions we extend are negative, such as hatred, animosity, and anger; or positive, such as love, forgiveness, and peace, these feelings seep inside of us and affect us deeply.
You can feel the physical difference between, on one ... Views: 900
Just as a fire is built by lighting small twigs so that they can in turn ignite the larger branches, we make the world a better place by changing ourselves first. This change, this transformation, must be mental, because all things begin with the mind, and mind is none other than our thoughts ... Views: 899
We compromise every day. With every moment, with every thought. Should I do this or that? Should I go here or there? If we didn't compromise, we would not consider choices, and if we didn't consider choices, then we would be less than animals, and we wouldn't survive. Making compromises reflects ... Views: 891
Business ethics are quickly becoming meaningless. As a matter of fact, ethics can actually become roadblocks to maintaining the almighty bottom line. We have seen this lately in the mortgage markets where dishonest loans lined pockets on Wall Street while ruining many common people's lives. ... Views: 890
"In the moments before death," a John began, "your whole life will flash before you and you will be able to see each separate moment simultaneously, noticing where you did well and where there is room for improvement. The reason that this only takes a fraction of a moment, which is a complete ... Views: 886
Once upon a time, in a magical land far across the sea, there lived together a donkey and an elephant. This was very difficult, because they both had such different ways. The elephant loved to trample trees and make a lot of noise, while the donkey nibbled on lowly grasses and said almost ... Views: 883