What do we really know about Siddhārtha Gautama, the historical Buddha? And who are these other Buddhas we sometimes see and hear about? Barbara O'Brien answers your questions about the very real human being whose spiritual quest and awakening have inspired the world for some 2,600 years. Contents Who Was Buddha? What Do We Know About the Historical Buddha? Have [...]
The Clarity Aspect
When the Buddha taught that all beings have buddhanature, says Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche, he wasn’t contradicting the teachings on emptiness—he was clarifying them. As soon as we talk about a path like Buddhism, we think about its finish line—some kind of result or goal. But in the Mahayana, there is no goal. In the Prajnaparamita Sutra, for instance, we hear that “Form [...]
How Do You Step Forward?
Many of us may find ourselves on a journey that feels in one way or another like a steep climb. With great energy over considerable time, we ascend stage by stage and take heart in our progress. Whether it is in our work or personal goals or Buddhist practice, we are eager to measure our accomplishments. In Mumon’s The Gateless Gate, Case 46, Master Sekiso says, “From the [...]
The Path of Gratitude
Photo by Michael Kenna. The goal of Shin Buddhism’s central practice, nembutsu, is not to attain buddhahood for ourselves, says Jeff Wilson, but to express gratitude for all we have received. I visit a lot of Buddhist temples and groups in North America, and it’s pretty common for people to ask, “So, what’s your practice?” It’s a sort of icebreaker in the Buddhist world. I [...]
Impermanence is Buddha Nature
Change isn’t just a fact of life we have to accept and work with, says Norman Fischer. Norwegian photographer Eirik Solheim glued a camera to a window shelf in his home and rigged it to take a picture every thirty minutes for a year. From more than 16,000 digital images the camera fed into a computer system, he selected 3,888 daytime photos. By taking one vertical line [...]
This Is My Mind, Luminous and Empty
According to Vajrayana Buddhism, the fast track to awakening is to look directly at your own mind and discover its true nature. Tsoknyi Rinpoche shows us how to experience two of mind’s most profound qualities. As a young child I used to sit on my grandfather’s lap while he meditated. At two or three years old, of course, I had no idea what meditation involved. My [...]
Lasting Happiness
It’s surprisingly easy to achieve lasting happiness — we just have to understand our own basic nature. The hard part, says Mingyur Rinpoche, is getting over our bad habit of seeking happiness in transient experiences. I have traveled all over the world teaching people how to meditate. Whether I am talking to a large group or chatting with a few people in private, it seems [...]
Four Steps to Magical Powers
Before you fully embark on the path of the bodhisattvas and buddhas, says Chan master Sheng Yen, you must first practice the four steps to magical powers. What are these steps and what are the magical powers you need? The four steps to magical powers are also called by such names as the four steps to the power of ubiquity, the four steps to unlimited power, and the four [...]
The Lamp of Zazen
The point of zazen, says Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, is to live each moment in complete combustion, like a clean-burning kerosene lamp. In this talk at the Tassajara sesshin in the summer of 1969, the great Zen master explains Dogen’s teaching on practicing within imperfection and warns against the arrogance of the false self. In our practice the most important thing to know is that [...]
Trust Practice, Practice Trust
When we truly give ourselves over to practice, explains Roko Sherry Chayat, we let go of our dependence on outcomes and begin to trust just being what we are, buddhanature, revealed right here, right now, in this very body and place. The genius of what the Buddha taught is that waking up does not depend upon his or anyone else’s realization. It does not rely upon a belief [...]