Regard All Phenomena as Dreams

This slogan is another contemplation on absolute bodhichitta, our innate, ongoing wakeful state that is an expression of emptiness—the central Buddhist doctrine that reveals the phenomenal world as having no tangible, self-existing, or substantial nature. This world is said to be like a dream, a mirage, a magical illusion, an echo, or a reflection on water. That same world, when purified of our obscurations, is seen to be an ornament of our natural awareness. For when we awaken to ever-pres...

 Mindfulness to Avoid Attachment

...if you meet someone you feel strong desire toward, you can try to remember someone you were extremely attracted to in the past where that attraction turned into something unpleasant or painful. Think about all the problems that came from your excessive feelings of desire and then think that other sentient beings may have gone through a similar experience as a result of their obsession. Imagine you are absorbing all their pain, relieving them of their anguish. Then make the following mental...

 Cultivating Compassion

We cultivate a compassion that encompasses all beings, not just the ones that are suffering in a visible way. No one is free from the troubles of living, so we must direct compassion toward everyone, taking care that the nature of our compassion remains impartial, without degenerating into the type of blind emotions that compel us to act. Compassion has to be imbued with intelligence. Just caring for others is no guarantee that our intentions will be expressed wisely. We therefore make a dist...

 Mindfulness VS Awareness

Mindfulness (Skt. smrti; Tib. dran pa) and awareness (Skt. jneya; Tib. shes bzhin) are distinct but related features of the mind. Mindfulness is something we apply more or less deliberately in order to become more cognizant, while awareness is a gentle way of simply being present. The meditation literature describes mindfulness as the opposite of forgetfulness. The Tibetan term dran pa means “remembrance,” as in the ability to focus and pay attention to the object of meditation in an unwa...

 Life is Short, Train Hard Now

Our lives are short and we only have limited time to bring about any real and lasting change. If we fail to separate the essential from the nonessential, we will lose ourselves in everyday preoccupations and petty pursuits, and when the time comes to die, it will be too late to change. While we have time, instead of harping on our dissatisfactions, we should reflect on the favorable conditions for practice and resolve to make the most of our opportunities by inscribing the following thought p...

 Meditation Strengthens Focus

This practice of meditation itself sharpens your mind and improves your memory, qualities that are certainly useful beyond spiritual practice, whether in business, engineering, raising a family, or being a teacher, doctor, or lawyer. This practice also helps on a daily basis with anger. When you get irritated, you can concentrate on the nature of the anger itself and thereby undermine its force. Another benefit of such mental training emerges from the close connection between body and mind. ...

 Zen and the Art of Mastering Something

Every one of the arts which have been discussed involves a technical training which follows the same essential principles as training in Zen. The best account of this training thus far available in a Western language is Eugen Herrigel's Zen in the Art of Archery, which is the author's story of his own experience under a master of the Japanese bow. To this should be added the already mentioned letter on Zen and swordsmanship ( kendo ) by the seventeenth-century master Takuan, translated by Suz...

 Sitting Buddha

To train yourself in sitting meditation [za-zen] is to train yourself to be a sitting Buddha. If you train yourself in za-zen, (you should know that) Zen is neither sitting nor lying. If you train yourself to be a sitting Buddha, (you should know that) the Buddha is not a fixed form. Since the Dharma has no ( fixed) abode, it is not a matter of making choices. If you (make yourself) a sitting Buddha this is precisely killing the Buddha. If you adhere to the sitting position, you will not atta...

 Bushido is Zen for the Samurai

The Rinzai School of Zen was introduced into Japan in 1191 by the Japanese T'ien-t'ai monk Eisai ( 1141-1215 ), who established monasteries at Kyoto and Kamakura under imperial patronage. The Soto School was introduced in 1227 by the extraordinary genius Dog en ( 1200-1253 ), who established the great monastery of Eiheiji, refusing, however, to accept imperial favors. It should be noted that Zen arrived in Japan shortly after the beginning of the Kamakura Era, when the military dictator Y ori...

 Insistence on Impermanence Is not Nihilism

To serve their purpose, names and terms must of necessity be fixed and definite like all other units of measurement. But their use is-up to a point-so satisfactory that man is always in danger of confusing his measures with the world so measured, of identifying money with wealth, fixed convention with fluid reality. But to the degree that he identifies himself and his life with these rigid and hollow frames of definition, he condemn himself to the perpetual frustration of one trying to catch ...