Buddhism January 2012 Archive

I hope to focus on dhyana paramita, the perfection of meditation, a bit this week. But many of you already are experienced meditators, so I'm not sure what to say ... Read More

Following up on the last post on the role of debate in Buddhism -- this brings to mind one of my favorite women of Buddhist history -- Liu Tiemo (ca. ... Read More

Lewis Richmond has an essay at Huffington Post about a couple of topics dear to my heart. One topic is the growing inclusion of women as equals in Buddhism, and ... Read More

One of the first posts I wrote here, as I remember, had to do with my discomfort with identifying as a Buddhist. I had no trouble with the Buddhism part; ... Read More

Shyalpa Tenzin Rinpoche, a lineage holder in the Tibetan Dzogchen tradition, has a new book out called Living Fully: Finding Joy in Every Breath. This is not a book I ... Read More

It's already January 23 in China, so the Chinese new year has begun. This is a year of the dragon, so for fun I wrote an article about Buddhist dragons. ... Read More

This morning I ran into an article about correct use of the word karma, based on what it says in a standard dictionary. Unfortunately, the article, and the dictionary, are ... Read More

As I've been reading commentaries on the paramitas, I notice that practice of most paramitas follows a similar three-step progression. One begins by focusing inward and "working on" oneself. Then ... Read More

The article "Do Thrifty Brains Make Better Minds?" by Andy Clark, in the New York Times, is not directly about Buddhism. But it touches on something that is very much ... Read More

This week's focus is on sila paramita, or the perfection of morality. In the many commentaries on sila one usually finds discussion of karma. Lots of Buddhist "westernizers" think that ... Read More

Milarepa, in his "Song of the Six Perfections," said of ksanti paramita, Beyond being without fear of what is ultimately true, There is no other patience. This week I've been focusing on ... Read More

Continuing to explore ksanti paramita -- "ksanti" can be translated many ways -- tolerance, endurance, composure, forbearance, patience. That last one, patience, is defined as the bearing of provocation, annoyance, ... Read More

I once heard someone say that the difference between tolerance and respect is that tolerance is putting up with something you don't like, while respect is seeing value in something ... Read More

While stumbling around the Web I found an article on Wonhyo (617 - 686), a major patriarch of Korean Buddhism. Wonhyo is credited with bringing Pure Land Buddhism to Korea, ... Read More

The third aspect of virya paramita, the perfection of energy, is altruism. The dictionary defines "altruism" as unselfish regard for the well-being of others. In Buddhism, this unselfish regard for others  ... Read More

Charging energetically ahead in our study of virya paramita -- the second aspect of the perfection of energy is spiritual training. This includes things like becoming familiar with rituals to ... Read More

The commentaries on virya paramita say that perfection of energy takes three stages. Roughly, the first is developing character and courage; the second is spiritual training; and the third is ... Read More

Let's talk about virya paramita, the perfection of energy. Virya paramita is about practicing with unflagging, enthusiastic effort -- as opposed to, say, maybe meditating for awhile after you're done ... Read More