Category: Buddhist Wisdom

The Dharma of Fiction

Novels, fables, and plays — they’re stories that are made up, yet they often express deep truths. Five writers and thinkers explore the spiritual teachings they’ve found in fiction.

The Sacred Desire to Exist

Out of the primordial desire to exist, everything comes into being. This sacred force, says Anam Thubten, is different from clinging, which is the source of our suffering.

Develop a Mind Like Sky

Meditation comes alive through a growing capacity to release our habitual conflicts and worries that make up our sense of self, and to rest in awareness.

Why We Take Refuge

There are two kinds of refuge. The reason we take refuge in the outer forms of enlightenment is so that we may find the buddha within.

The Immeasurable Beauty of Queerness

Taryn Stickrath-Hutt shares her journey as a queer woman and Jodo Shinshu Buddhist, drawing inspiration from the infinite light of Amida Buddha.

How to Grow Wiser with Age

As you age, says Judy Lief, you can discover your true nature — timeless and luminous.

What to Say When Someone Dies

Avoid pat expressions, says Valerie Brown. What a grieving person needs is loving presence.

Detox Your Mind: 5 Practices to Purify the 3 Poisons

Five Buddhist teachers share practices to clear away the poisons that cause suffering and obscure your natural enlightenment.

Excerpt: Sangha of Boundless Life, by Jeff Wilson

An excerpt from Jeff Wilson's new book, "Living Nembutsu: Applying Shinran’s Radically Engaged Buddhism in Life and Society" — reviewed in the Summer 2023 issue of Buddhadharma.

How Mindfulness Can Help Ease Anxiety

Buddhist teacher Judy Lief explains the Buddha’s deep analysis of the roots of anxiety and shows how mindfulness can help us ease the suffering of an anxious mind.

How Mindfulness Leads to Enlightenment

Melvin McLeod on how Buddhism uses mindfulness to develop the wisdom that frees us from suffering.

How Listening Becomes a Spiritual Practice

Everything and everyone are always teaching us the dharma, says Christian McEwen. We just have to know how to listen.

Sculpture of Shakyamuni Buddha sitting and touching the earth.

The Buddha who lived 2,600 years ago was not a god. He was an ordinary person, named Siddhartha Gautama, whose teachings on enlightenment and the end of suffering became the basis of the world religion of Buddhism.

Celebrating Vesak (“Buddha Day”) 2025

Vesak marks the birth, enlightenment, and death of the historical Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama. Next year it falls on Monday, May 12, 2025.

The Sutra That Saved Me

Nichiren practitioner Johnny Edward Dean Jr. reflects on how his daily practice and chanting the Odaimoku helped him navigate mental health challenges during the Covid-19 pandemic.