Search Results for: Sutra

The Weary Advocate’s Guide to Happiness — Still Harbor

The Weary Advocate’s Guide to Happinessby Heather Lyn MannFor twenty-five years I worked on the front lines of environmental justice. Thirteen years ago I adopted Buddhism as a spiritual practice. In many ways daily meditation, Sutra study, and retreats with Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh transformed my advocacy methods and goals, but the stress and […]

Make Me One with Everything

I just received a metta practice from Lama Surya Das and want to share it with you. The book he is referring to is Make Me One with Everything: Buddhist Meditations to Awaken from the Illusion of Separation. “As I travel on book tour around the country this month, my formal sitting meditation practice is really […]

How to Recover from Failure

Dr. Alex Lickerman provides us with these words of wisdom today on how to recover from failure with determination. These are teachings from the Pure Land tradition of Nichiren Buddhism. This form of Japanese Buddhist practices focuses on the Lotus Sutra and relies on the Gohonzon – the chanting of Namu Myoho Renge Kyo. The […]

Get-What-You-Want Buddhism

Jan Nattier is a scholar of Early Indian Buddhism, Early Mahayana Buddhism, and Chinese Buddhist Translation and author of A Few Good Men (Studies in the Buddhist Traditions). She was a professor of Buddhist Studies in the Department of Religious Studies at Indiana University and held the post of the Shinnyōen Consulting Professor (Buddhist Studies) […]

Why We Teach

“We teach out of compassion. We teach because the world suffers and our teaching will reduce that suffering. We teach because we have received that compassion and want to share it with others who suffer. The cause of suffering, in the Yoga-sutras, is ignorance. Our teaching reduces the level of that ignorance. The student arrives […]

Ancient Wisdom for Our Times

These words of ancient wisdom for our times were offered centuries ago by Lao Tzu. He is the famous author of the Tao Te Ching, the Book of Changes. My copy of the Tao Te Ching dates back to 1969 or 1970. If you are depressed, you are living in the past. If you are […]

A Feast of Dharma | February 18, 2015

A Feast of Dharma | February 18, 2015   All the teachings, all the words, all the sutras, are skillful means for liberating the mind, rather than statements of absolute truth. When we take words to be statements of ultimate truth, then differences of opinion will inevitably result in conflict. This is where ideological wars […]

The Sixth Patriarch of Zen

Master Huineng was the sixth patriarch of Zen. Remember, he was an illiterate who had to have the announcements on the bulletin board read to him. He had to have someone write his response to the fifth patriarch’s (Hongren) quiz. He tells us that “Constant sitting restricts the body.” It cannot help us to find […]

The Better Way to Live Alone

My teacher, Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh (known affectionately by his followers as Thay – teacher) , often teaches on the better way to live alone. His teachings are based on the words of the Buddha passed down orally until they were written down. These writings are called sutras. In this article, we are going to review Sutra […]

How to Regard All Beings

Here is a quote from Huineng on how to regard all beings. Other than the quote, which is from Tricycle.com, this is my recollection of his role in Zen Buddhism. Huineng was the sixth patriarch of Zen. He was born in 638 and died in 713 at the age of 75. He began his spiritual […]