Blog Posts
Not Misunderstanding Dukkha
Have you ever heard someone – usually not a Buddhist practitioner – summarize the central Buddhist teaching as “life is suffering?” Sometimes people end up with the impression that the Buddha’s teaching was something like this: “Generally speaking, life is a terrible experience. The best thing to do is withdraw from life as much as possible, literally and emotionally.” Put another way, when people hear that the Buddha counseled...
read moreSpiritual Longing
Spiritual longing, like any desire, can cause great distress and be an obstacle in spiritual practice. It also is a great force that can propel us along a difficult path and drive us to investigate the deepest and scariest spiritual questions, so I heartily encourage it. For about seven long years of my junior Zen training, I was in a pretty much constant state of anguish due to my spiritual longing. These years followed three or four initial “honeymoon” years, when I was thrilled...
read moreZen “Forms” (Established Ways of Doing Things) and How They Can Be Liberating
In traditional Zen practice we have a lot of what we call “forms.” Forms are the physical ways we do things… they include the ways we move in the meditation hall, place our shoes outside the door, the way we chant and offer incense, show respect for one another, and cook communal meals. Our forms include our rituals and ceremonies, the titles and names we use, and the rules, procedures, conduct, traditions and paraphernalia we encounter in our particular religious practice. If you practice Zen...
read moreThe Paradox of “Taking Refuge” in a Non-theistic Religion
When someone wishes to become a Buddhist, they “take refuge” in the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, after passing through the “gateway of contrition.” Yet Buddhism is not a theistic religion, and the Buddha’s last teaching was “be a lamp unto yourself.” Who or what is providing refuge to a Buddhist, and to whom are we confessing our shortcomings? How are the acts of taking refuge and being contrite compatible with being “a lamp unto yourself”? Some people have no trouble summoning...
read moreWillpower and the Buddhist Perfection of Virya, or Energy
When you want to make a change in your life, have you ever wished you skip over the willpower part? If only you could leap directly to that deep conviction that you are intimately connected to all beings, so anger wouldn’t arise in the first place and you wouldn’t have to resist indulging it. If only you could suddenly find yourself four months into a new exercise routine, when you would be very familiar with how good it makes you feel and you would naturally be motivated to do it....
read moreChanging Reality With Positive Thinking
Much of the time we observe the world around us and pass judgement on it. Something we observe may appear good, bad or neutral, but we usually feel like we are simply drawing a conclusion from the data of our experience. We may qualify our judgement by acknowledging it is “just” our opinion or preference, but usually we have a sense that we can’t do much about our opinions and preferences. We either like something, or we don’t. We believe people can usually be trusted,...
read morePaying Attention No Matter What
When the ability to be fully present in our life eludes us, it is usually because we cannot possibly believe the mundane or frustrating experience in front of us merits our attention. This bowl of cereal? This tax form? This stop-and-go traffic? This irritating co-worker? Surely these are just experiences we have to pass through on the way to what really matters. This approach to life ends up feeling profoundly dissatisfying when a) we realize we are “just passing through” a majority of our...
read moreThe Experience of Not-Self
Last week our Sangha worked with the mindfulness task of watching our hands as if they belonged to a stranger. This reminded me of the Buddhist teaching of not-self. As I did this task, I noticed that it was very easy to imagine my hands belonged to a stranger. They seemed to move on their own, or at least they were usually one step ahead of me. They performed their complicated maneuvers with amazing grace and precision, before I had even consciously formed any intention to complete the task...
read moreConundrum and Koan
If "koan" was a more widely used and understood word in English, I would have described this blog as "Essays on the Koan of Life." In Zen, a koan is a question, problem or situation that requires (sometimes demands) resolution, but cannot be resolved through reason. According to the Shambala Dictionary of Buddhism and Zen, "a koan requires a leap to another level of comprehension." I like the understanding of conundrum as "a logical postulation that...
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