Category: Teachings
Caught in Indra’s Net
If you want to understand the full truth of “form is emptiness; emptiness is form,” says Robert Aitken Roshi, you must go beyond the Heart Sutra to philosophical texts like the Huayan Sutra, which unpack and elaborate this profound paradox.
The Phenomenal Universe of the Flower Ornament Sutra
The Huayan, or Flower Ornament Sutra, is not widely known in the West, yet it has had a profound and lasting impact on Zen and Chan Buddhism.
Crucial Instructions
The late Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, a great 20th century Buddhist teacher, offers four sets of pithy teachings on bringing the absolute nature into our path.
Forum: Practicing the Great Perfection
Forum with Marcia Schmidt, Ron Garry and Mingyur Rinpoche on the view, teachings, and challenges of Dzogchen.
In Translation: Nothing to be Discarded or Kept
Heart advice by Dzogchen masters, from the newly translated collection of teachings, Quintessential Dzogchen.
What is Jukai?
Jukai as defined by Diane Eshin Rizzetto, an abbess of the bay Zen center in Oakland, California.
Into the Depths of Emptiness
Master Sheng Yen surveys the path to enlightenment, explaining how it progresses and where its pitfalls are. Our intellectual understanding, our temporary realizations, even the exalted state of oneness—all must be dropped to realize the deepest emptiness, the highest truth.
The Power of Positive Karma
Rebirth and karma are the Buddhist beliefs that Westerners find hardest to accept. Yet are they really so foreign to us?
What the Buddha Taught
The Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche outlines the Buddha's teachings, broken down by the three turnings of the wheel of dharma.
First, the Bad News
Traleg Kyabgon Rinpoche looks at the late Chögyam Trungpa’s unique and uncompromsing presentation of Buddhism’s basic principles.
The Joy of the Lonely Dancer
Too often, says Judith Simmer-Brown, Buddhism’s principles of emptiness and aloneness lead us into the extreme of nihilism.
Laughter Through the Tears: Kosho Uchiyama Roshi on Life as a Zen Beggar
Kosho Uchiyama Roshi on the bittersweet life of a Zen beggar, translated by Daitsu Tom Wright and Jisho Warner.
The Pros & Cons of a Solitary Retreat
A solitary retreat offers the opportunity to deepen one’s practice in profound and lasting ways. But it’s not without pitfalls.
The Three Lineages
Inspiration, innovation, institution—Reginald A. Ray looks at the different manifestations of lineage and how they maintain their awakened quality.
Forum: How to Be a Student
Sharon Salzberg, Norman Fischer, and The Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche on how the student-teacher relationship really works.
What is Tendrel?
Tendrel, as defined by Tyler Dewar, an oral and textual translator for Nalandabodhi, an international network of Buddhist study and meditation centers.
Where Outer and Inner Meet
Eva Wong explains kanyu, the Taoist philosophy of external and internal harmony that is the basis of feng shui, energetic principles that govern nature.
Meet The Three Lords of Materialism
The Lords of Form, Speech, and Mind - we think they'll make us happy and secure, but Carolyn Gimian tells us that everything wrong with the world and our lives is their creation.