Ajahn Chah says that if you want to transform the mind, you must to know and transform the heart. And when the practice gets uncomfortable and you want to quit, that’s when you know you’re on the right track. The whole reason for studying the dhamma, the teachings of the Buddha, is to search for a way to transcend suffering and attain peace and happiness. Whether we study [...]
What is Devaduta?
Devaduta as defined by Mu Soeng, a scholar and previously a monk trained in Korean Zen Buddhism. Devaduta is a Pali term that means “divine messenger” (deva is “divine”; duta is “messenger”). Depending on the context, deva can also be translated as the shining one, a celestial being, or heavenly one. The ontology and mythology of this term in the Hindu tradition and [...]
Forum: Does Buddhism Make You Happier?
Debating the Third Noble Truth: Andrew Olendzki, Gaylon Ferguson, and Blanche Hartman discuss what the Buddha meant when he promised the "end of suffering". Gotama the Seeker composed a very strange poem: dukkham samudayo nirodho maggo unease arising let go! here’s how Like haiku, it is complexity resolved, simply. Like Dada, it is a terse repudiation of those [...]
Koans for Troubled Times
How do we as Buddhists meet the challenges of our time? An answer, suggests Joan Sutherland, lies in the teachings of two great Chan masters and their response to one of the most difficult periods in Chinese history. Several years ago, in the face of a creeping despair about the state of the world, I began to reread my favorite twentieth-century Russian and East European [...]
Vajrayana Unpacked
The Vajrayana teachings offer a direct path to enlightenment, many people find them strange and confusing. Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche presents a clear explanation of the view of Vajrayana and its main practices of generation and completion, based on a song by the great seventeenth-century yogi, Karma Chakme Rinpoche. The root meaning: the path of generation and completion’s [...]
The Road to McLeod Ganj
Kay Larson travels to McLeod Ganj in northern India, home to the Tibetan government in exile and to thousands of Tibetan refugees, for a firsthand look at the challenges facing this exile community. The Dalai Lama has said that in the short term he has no hope at all, and in the long term everything changes. The dharma messages embedded in that pithy observation roll [...]
A Professor’s Dilemma
I have taught undergraduate-level courses in Buddhism for almost thirty-five years, but I still wonder whether I've succeeded in imparting to students what I see as the compelling qualities of this compassionate religion. In short, I find myself asking, is there anything “Buddhist” about a college course in Buddhism? I wonder what particular skills and qualities we [...]
Ask the Teachers: Without a sangha, is the practice moot?
Question: I have just begun meditation practice, and I'm doing it on my own, since there is no local Vipassana community that I know of in my area. I am using the Internet to practice-forty-five minutes in the morning and forty-five minutes in the evening-using an audio file on the method taught by Mahasi Sayadaw. I am facing some questions and some obstacles. First, I am a [...]
Rethinking Ritual
Zen Ritual: Studies of Zen Buddhist Theory in Practice, Edited by Steven Heine and Dale S. Wright Oxford University Press, 2008 352 pages; $74 (paperback) Buddhism was first introduced to the West in the late nineteenth century as a rational, iconoclastic, psychologically oriented form of spirituality. So different did Buddhism seem from Western religions that there [...]
Book Briefs
Mt. Koya, on the southern part of Japan’s main island of Honshu, was the seat of Kobo Daishi, otherwise known as Kukai, the founder of Japan’s Shingon sect of esoteric Buddhism. Since the ninth century, the mountain has been a major pilgrimage destination for Japanese followers of Kukai, who is said to still be present on the mountain. Koyasan is also a primary place to worship [...]