How to Visualize Uncle Monk

On Saturday night, I returned home from a short trip to New York to celebrate my son’s engagement and attend his last cabaret performance before he and his fiance move back to the Bay Area at the end of December. While meditating on the plane, I figured out how to visualize Uncle Monk, Zen Master […]

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 […]

Cultivating the Mind Brings True Happiness

These words of wisdom from Tricycle Daily Dharma were originally taught by the Buddha, himself. We are taught that only cultivating the mind brings true happiness. What does it  mean to cultivate the mind? It means to bring the mind into a calm abiding state through the practice of mindful meditation. It means that we […]

Ben Knew About Suffering

These words of wisdom come from Ben Franklin. They show that Ben knew about suffering when he wrote about inconveniences. I think that he also understood that life is available only in the present moment when he said that we “neither see nor feel those of the future.” Life’s inconveniences can be troublesome when we […]

The First Precept

Bernie Glassman is back again with more words of wisdom from Tricycle Daily Dharma. This time, he is talking about the first precept taught by the Buddha. The traditional rendering of this precept is, “Non-killing,” or  “To abstain from killing any living creature.” This is sometimes taken to extreme by certain monks and nuns in […]

Vipassana Meditation Day 3

The video in this article is from S. N. Goenka’s Dhamma Discourses on Vipassana Meditation Day 3. This follows after the Vipassana Meditation Day 2 and Vipassana Meditation Day 1 that we presented on June 30, 2014 and July 20, 2014, respectively. In the video from the first day, we learned that awareness of breathing […]

Pulled By Our Own Attachments

Bhante Henepola Gunaratana is a popular Sri Lankan Buddhist monks in the Theravadan tradition. He offers these words of wisdom today to show how we are pulled by our own attachments. These words of wisdom appeared in the Tricycle Daily Dharma last month. Our attachments these days are many and mostly quite useless in the […]

The Bliss of Awakening – Adyashanti Warning

Adyashanti issues a warning in these words of wisdom from Tricycle. He warns us that the bliss of awakening can be addicting and we should watch out for it. It is merely a by-product of awakening, and not true awakening itself. Adyashanti is an American born spiritual teacher with loads of credentials. He teaches non-duality […]

Vipassana Meditation Day 2

The video in this article is from the Dhamma Discourses of Vipassana Meditation day 2 as taught by S. N. Goenka. This follows from the Dhamma Discourses of Vipassana Meditation day 1 that we presented on June 30, 2014. In the video from day 1, we learned about the preliminary practices of vipassana meditation which mostly […]

The Raft is Not the Shore

These words of wisdom spoken by the Buddha are still as valid today as they were 2600 years ago. He is telling us that “the raft is not the shore”. What does this have to do with our lives? The Buddha is saying that we must study the dharma, i. e., the teachings, and they should […]