Category: Buddhist Wisdom
The First Noble Truth of Baseball
In the Baseball Sutra, recently discovered by scholar Donald Lopez, the Buddha explains why he created a game where suffering and failure are the norm.
Get to the Root of Your Patterns
Our basic problem, says Trudy Goodman, is ignoring the reality of impermanence. Being mindful in the moment, appreciating this flowing, interconnected life, we miraculously free ourselves from habitual patterns.
Full-Stop Mind
The late Burmese teacher Mahasi Sayadaw helped to revitalize the Vipassana tradition with his precise teachings on meditation. His student Bhante Bodhidhamma presents Mahasi’s simple and direct method for slowing down and ultimately halting conceptual thinking.
When We Give It All to Buddha
How do we make offerings to Buddha? First we find Buddha everywhere, says Kokyo Henkel — and then we offer everything.
The Four Foundations of Mindfulness: A Direct Path to Liberation
Insight Meditation teacher Joseph Goldstein examines a key teaching from the Satipatthana Sutta, the Buddha’s discourse on the four foundations of mindfulness, which he called the direct path to liberation.
Buddhadharma Book Briefs for Fall 2020
Book reviews by Joie Szu-Chiao Chen from the Fall 2020 issue of Buddhadharma: The Practitioner's Quarterly.
Seeing Suffering Through the Lens of Karma
Buddhism in the West is having a difficult time. With allegations of misconduct made against teachers in several of our communities, there is now widespread disillusionment and organizational chaos. Of course, similar problems exist in other faith traditions, and the #MeToo movement has been revealing these issues throughout all levels of society. Many of us…
5 Tips for Spiritual Activists
Bill Aiken offers five Buddhist insights to be a more effective agent of change
The Real Change We Need
Using Buddhist principles, economist Clair Brown identifies the big policy changes we need to have a caring society and a sustainable future.
Omitting None: The Deep Practice of Community
The practice of community, says Mushim Patricia Ikeda, is more than including beyond all people, even all beings. It mean including all thoughts, all emotions, all realities—the bad as well as the good.
Review: “Mop Rides the Waves of Life”
We review "Mop Rides the Waves of Life" by Jaimal Yogis and Matthew Allen.
The Fifth Sight: The Suffering of Injustice
To the Buddhism’s traditional four causes of suffering we must now add a fifth: the suffering caused by racism, sexism, poverty, and all the other forms of human injustice. Only when seeing that clearly, says Ann Gleig, will our compassion will be complete.
The Heart of Good Spiritual Friends
When we are with others in times of suffering, says contemplative care expert Koshin Paley Ellison, we can take the four noble truths as our guide.
Our Inner Light
Only when we awaken to our own light can we be fully present to another person’s inner light and life, says Shinge Roko Sherry Chayat. "Only then can we respond fully, with nothing in the way."
A Dive Into Emptiness
A talk by Dainin Katagiri Roshi about the Buddhist idea of emptiness — and, an unusual sport.
The Golden Chain: Guide to a Life of Love
The Golden Chain is a traditional recitation within American Shin Buddhist communities. For Camille Hamilton Pating, it comes as naturally—and joyfully—as saying the Name of Amida Buddha.
I Thought I Knew How to Fix the World
We cling to our own worldviews, says Dorotea Mendoza. Imagine if we listened to each other instead.
Wisdom x Compassion = Freedom
The combination of wisdom and compassion—the very essence of Buddhism—leads to that all-American value, freedom. It is, says Duncan Ryuken Williams, freedom in the most profound sense.
Put Out the Fires
As we learn to limit our consumption, a peace appears, says Sean Feit Oakes. Without this peace, the fire that burns our hearts and communities can never be put out.