I thought I’d once again share a comment I made on another blog I’ve enjoyed greatly of late – Sacred West. We’d had a brief dialogue about a post on Strong Back, Soft Front, after which Sacred West was relating their experience from that morning: Sacred West : I awoke and thought of a stressful […]
Working with Anxiety Read Post »
(The third slogan of the Seven Points of Mind Training). This slogan is the third of the points on the actual practice – the cultivation of Bodhicitta. Let even the remedy subside …. The antidote will vanish of itself …. Even the Antidote Itself is Liberated in its own Place …. What is the Remedy
Self Liberate Even the Antidote Read Post »
From a post to a Dharma List: Is desire the same as attachment? Most translations of Buddhist terms will use craving or attachment interchangeably. They both are used for when we take an object and exaggerate the positive qualities of that object, and as a result, we feel a neurotic desire to have or possess
Use the Blade to Cut the Blade Read Post »
I remember very clearly my new boss at a company telling me (upon my finding out that he was a Buddhist and asking him what practices he does), that he doesn’t practice, that he’s taking a ‘holiday’ in this life, and that he’ll practice in the next life. It struck me at the time that
In reply to a question from her son, Gangpa Muksang, as to what is the meaning of ‘devil’ Machig Labdron replied: That which is called devil is not some actual great big black thing that scares and petrifies whomever sees it. A devil is anything that obstructs the achievement of freedom. … Most of all,
Reflections on Machig Labdron – The Material Devil Read Post »
Reflecting on how easy it is to get swept up in wanting and not-wanting, based on misunderstanding the impermanent and not-self nature of all things, the activities of this life, and the apparent pleasures that arise in it are seductive and yet illusory. How true it is that that which we grasp after slips like
Wordly Things are Pitiful – Milarepa Read Post »
How often it is that our response to our own suffering is to grasp at the very things which bring about our suffering! We seem to have a wrong ‘gameplan’ – one which says that having or grasping this or that experience will make things ‘right’, and not having or pushing away something will lessen
The Response to Suffering Read Post »
Where does the unsatisfactoriness of life come from? How is it that we experience pain or sorrow, frustration or unhappiness? What is the cause of experience of life as being imperfect? It’s all just a matter of perspective! The experience of Samsara Misunderstanding the nature of things we experience suffering. This is the experience of
Samsara and Nirvana Read Post »
Looking at a situation with a group of people, what do you see? Suffering However you look, you see either immediate suffering, the suffering that comes from the nature of change and therefore loss of present happiness, or existential suffering – the suffering that comes simply through being embodied. Looking at beings, you see beings
Suffering, Compassion and Meeting Needs Read Post »
Since things neither exist nor don’t exist, are neither real nor unreal, are utterly beyond adopting and rejecting – one might as well burst out laughing. Longchenpa Rabjampa Tenzin Chodron’s post to the Kagyu Online Study Group reminded me of this wonderful quote from the 14th Century Nyingma master, Longchenpa Rabjampa. So often recently I’ve
Reflections on Longchenpa – The Middle Path Read Post »
