2012
Though much of my experience during the Guan Yin session was, in many ways, indescribable, there is at least one fact to take away from my experience. Meditation will change you for the better. It will help you be happier every moment of every day, and more importantly I think, help you see the value in, and possibility of, dedicating your life to others. [...]
Everyone is familiar with the holograms embedded in our credit cards, those cool 3D images that appear lifelike when rotated at various angles. A hologram has the property of containing the whole in each of its discrete parts.... The twelve links and the interdependant origination of our entire reality have this same structure. [...]
When I received an email a couple of weeks ago announcing an upcoming 1-day meditation retreat with Dharma Master Heng Chih, I felt a strange rush of excitement – a question forming in my mind, and almost immediately, an answer. Should I do this? I am going to do this. I was a little surprised at myself.... [...]
Ms Rosey is an adult female cockatiel. Her body is white dotted with grey spots, and long yellow streaks run the length of her tiny body from crown to tail (which is as long as her body). She has lived with the Hughs since their elder daughter brought her over one day eight years ago, claiming that the bird came to her while she was hanging her laundry outside. The mother took Rosey under her wings and showered her with much affection and attention. [...]
To what extent am I an astronomer? In The Shape of Time: Remarks on the History of Things, George Kubler* suggests that time is conveyed in signals... whose message is based on the past, like old light seen by astronomers. The signal energies, similar to karma, transmit impulses from the past.... Like the ancient light of the stars, karma has been accumulating from time immemorial. [...]
The act of seeking, at this subtle level, is directly related to one of the twelve links in the Buddha’s teaching on dependent origination. The tenth link is called bhava in Sanskrit. In English, it is translated as becoming or continuation. The way in which seeking is related to this link is through its involvement in moving the mind’s attention away from the present and into the future. When we seek, we are always seeking after something in the future, because of the fact that in the present we feel discontent. [...]
A couple months ago, during a conversation about DRBU planning, Professor Mark Mancall from Stanford University posed a question: “What does contemporary Buddhist architecture look like?” He said he’d been asking people this question lately whenever he has a conversation about Buddhism, and so far, he said, no one he’d talked to seemed confident that they had an answer. [...]
As I was diving into the depths of the wisdom of the various religious traditions, I still had these burning questions in my heart: “What do I believe?” “What path am I supposed to follow?” And, I couldn’t help but feel torn. I found the Biblical teachings of Jesus extremely inspiring and skillful. [...]