The Five Remembrances help us to embrace the realities of life. We all will grow old, get sick, and die. There is no escape. When we contemplate them daily, we get a perspective on life that is skillful and wholesome. Many versions exist. This version is from the Plum Village Chanting Book by Zen Master […]
Search Results for: remembrances
Words of Wisdom for December 18, 2023
Dear Friends: Around us, there may be a lot of anger, bitterness, and resentment. If we don’t know how to go home to ourselves, to take care of ourselves, nourish ourselves, we will be overwhelmed by the collective energy of hate, anger, bitterness, and so on.So take care of yourself. It’s very important. And to […]
Practice Phrases for the Four Divine Abodes
Over the past many years, I have used the following sets if practice phrases for the four Divine Abodes also known as the brahma viharas, sublime abodes, immeasurable minds and so on. I discovered these many years ago and have been studying them ever since. I believe that they have changed my life in significant […]
We Cannot Escape Impermanence
One of the so-called “remembrances” contains the statement, “We cannot escape impermanence.” This is recited daily in monasteries around the world. This article is about the advice that I recently gave to a colleague when she was troubled with the law of change. Consider this wisdom teaching from Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh from my […]
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) […]
The Perfection Of Wisdom
You might think that all of the paramitas that we have studied so far lead to this one, the perfection of wisdom. While we have studied them in the order of generosity, ethics, patience, diligence, concentration, and now, wisdom, it is true that the can be studied and practiced in any order. Not only that, […]
Good Grief! In Memory of Dr. John Anderson
We just got back from a celebration of the passing of our good friend, Dr. John Anderson on Sunday, October 27 at the Merryman Beach House on Moonstone Beach in Trinidad, California. John passed away on September 29, the same day that my daughter, Jessica left for Barcelona. He was a dear friend of ours […]
Letter from Thầy From The Blue Cliff Monastery. October 12, 2007
[The letter from Thầy from the Blue Cliff Monastery in upstate New York was referred to in my post from August 6, 2013, Are We Eating Our Children? I’ve included this letter under Dharma Talks for completeness. –Jerome] Dear spiritual family – Blue Cliff in autumn is very beautiful. Forests are adorned by the ripening […]
There Is Beauty In Extreme Old Age
There are a few lines from the Mikado, a opera by Gilbert and Sullivan from 1885 that go like this, There is beauty in extreme old age. Do you fancy you are elderly enough? Information I’m requesting On a subject interesting: Is a maiden all the better when she’s tough? This refrain occurs because Ko-Ko, […]
Many Types of Mindfulness Meditation
In this article, I am going to review Dr. Philippe Goldin‘s Google Talk from March 1, 2008. I have already posted the video as Meditation Practices: How Do They Affect The Brain? My purpose in this article is to extract one of the slides from the video and expand on it from the point of view […]
You must be logged in to post a comment.