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Theravada

 The "Teaching of the Elders," rooted in the earliest complete teachings of the Buddha
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    Silence in the Pagoda Paid Member

    By Rollo Romig
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    Disconnect the Dots Paid Member

    By Cynthia Thatcher
    THE PAINTING WAS GEORGE SEURAT’S Neo-impressionist work A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, his famous scene of Parisians in a waterside park. As my eye scanned the canvas, jumping from boats to people to clouds, it caught on a tree.Here were no seamless bands of color, no blended patches of tint as in so many other paintings. The tree was made up of countless specks—a smattering of separate orange, yellow, and blue dots. The boats on the water, the people on the lawn, their faces and clothes—all were a sprinkling of motes, as if the canvas had been caught out in a rain of paint. More »
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    The Likably Unlikely Monk Paid Member

    By Andrew Cooper
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    Head & Heart Together Paid Member

    By Thanissaro Bhikkhu
    Two lily pads, Tiina Tervo The brahma-viharas, or “sublime attitudes,” are the Buddha’s primary heart teachings—the ones that connect most directly with our desire for true happiness. The term “brahma-vihara” literally means “dwelling place of brahmas.” Brahmas are gods who live in the higher heavens, dwelling in an attitude of unlimited goodwill, unlimited compassion, unlimited empathetic joy, and unlimited equanimity. These unlimited attitudes can be developed from the more limited versions of these emotions that we experience in the human heart. More »
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    Burning Alive Paid Member

    By Andrew Olendzki
    “Everything is burning!” said the Buddha almost 25 centuries ago. “Burning with what? Burning with the fires of greed, hatred and delusion.”(Samyutta Nikaya 35.28) These words seem prophetic today, as our planet is slowly warmed by the fires blazing in our furnaces and engines, by the explosion of our bullets and bombs, and by the raging delusions around which our entire world seems to be organized. There is not a single problem we face as human beings—other than the tectonic (earthquakes), the astronomical (meteor strikes), or the existential (aging and death)—that does not find its origin in greed, hatred, or delusion, whether of people or their institutions. More »
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    Karma in Action Paid Member

    By Andrew Olendzki
    The Nerve Center of Our Massive Corporation, Elif Soyer, 2005, digital print, 10 x 10 inches © Elif Soyer Karma is a word one runs across more and more these days. It’s too bad it is almost always misused. Somehow in English it has come to mean “fate” or “destiny” (American Heritage Dictionary). This is an unfortunate, if inevitable, distortion, because in its original Buddhist context karma is a concept of unparalleled profundity and significance. More »