We were blessed this week to be guided and inspired in practice by Rev. Daigan Gaither. He wrote this about his talk with us: “Zen Master Dogen said, ‘To expound the Dharma with this body and mind is foremost’. How do we move what we learn on the cushion into our complex lives? What does it mean to embody our […]
Embodiment & Appropriate Response: An evening with Rev. Daigan Gaither Read More »
I began formal Zen practice in 1993, in a tiny rural monastery in the Jemez Mountains of northern New Mexico known as Bodhi Mandala (now Bodhi Manda — hippie era mistranslation finally corrected after 30-some years). They gave me a cot in a rickety old ex-Catholic dormitory, a black robe in two pieces called kimono and hakama that I had
Reflections on/of the Heart Sūtra Read More »
When the 5th century Roman philosopher Boëthius was under house arrest for treason (he got on the wrong side of a political fight, basically), he wrote his best-seller, an allegorical play in which he is visited in prison by Philosophy, personified as a wisdom goddess. When she first arrives, he complains about his misfortune, especially after he had a faithful
The Consolation of Philosophy: Study as Path, Wisdom as Mother Read More »
The second limb of the Noble Eightfold Path, and the all-important hinge from View (limb 1) into Action (limbs 3-5), is Right Intention, sammā-saṅkappa. (Here’s the talks from the first part of this series, on Right View.) And what, bhikkhus, is right intention? Intention of renunciation, intention of non-ill will, intention of harmlessness: this is called right intention. SN 45.8:
“Like throwing loaded dice”: Right Intention, the root of skillful action Read More »
When I first started going to my teacher Eugene Cash’s meditation group at the Unitarian Church in San Francisco on Sunday nights, back in the late 90s, I did what a lot of enthusiastic young meditators do in groups like that: I skipped the break. Which is to say, after the silent meditation finished, I just continued sitting in meditation
How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Break Read More »
A new dive into the Noble Eightfold Path (8FP), the Buddha’s brilliant scaffolding for integrated individual and collective liberation. We start, as is traditional, with Right View: the turning of the heart toward reality and away from delusion. Right View is both the prerequisite for wisdom to arise and the manifestation of wisdom when it matures. It is described many
The Noble Eightfold Path to the End of Dissatisfaction: Part 1, Right View Read More »
Buddhism and Yoga are two major branches on the family tree of South Asian spiritual practice, whose roots we can glimpse in ancient texts called upaniṣads. Both branches focus on transformative practice aimed at the end of suffering and stress. From a deeply interwoven beginning, each tradition branched into many different schools and practice systems, remaining in dialogue and sharing
Buddhism & Yoga: Integrating the Traditions Read More »
Gratitude to Gotama for speaking the Dhamma,Beloved Ānanda for remembering it all.Gratitude always to the First Council Elders, and Ānanda again, his own path assured. To the monks with no master, for 300 years,committing to memory their teacher’s words,lifetimes pre-literate, sati is memory, gratitude.How many lives given becoming these books? To the scribes, the printmakers, carvers, inscribers, gratitude. Your craft
Gratitude for the Text Transmission Read More »
In honor of Vesak, coming up this year on May 19, a series of talks on the Buddha themself, interwoven with some discussion of the traditional verses of praise we chant in our Refuge & Precepts Pūja. We’ll use as a framework this month a strange and beautiful sutta known as “Wonderful and Marvelous,” (Acchariya-abbhūta Sutta, MN 123, here in
Wonderful & Marvelous: Recollection of the Buddha Read More »
One of the most prolific and brilliant Buddhist scholars of our generation is the German Theravāda monastic, Ven. Anālayo. His vast research on the texts and doctrines of Early Buddhism has transformed both the academic study of Early Buddhism and the practice of meditation and mindfulness in lineages connected to it, especially Insight Meditation. His dissertation on Satipaṭṭhāna is the
The Radical Inquiry of Buddhist Mindfulness Read More »
May the forces of delusion
not take hold, nor
weaken my resolve.
(Sharing of Merit)