The Institute of Buddhist Studies provides graduate level education in the entirety of the Buddhist tradition with specialized instruction supporting Jodo Shinshu Buddhist ministry.
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Natural Creativity
Today’s Daily Dharma: When we speak about natural creativity and its expression, we are not talking about something separate from our own mind and experience. All that we call “existent phenomena” is experienced by mind. This awareness is primordial and omnipresent—is there ever a time when we don’t experience? Experience can be dull, we may be asleep, we may be ignorant or distracted, but we are always “awake” in one way or another—experiencing our thoughts, our emotions, our state of mind, experiencing our dullness, our distractedness or joy. There has never been a time when we have been inanimate, like a rock. This creative energy never leaves us, whether we turn toward ignorance or enlightenment; whether our intelligence is obstructed or not; whether we operate from the ego or from a bigger state of mind. More » -
Swayed by the Movement of Mind
An ordinary person’s attention strays according to any movement of mind. Suddenly there is the confusion of believing in self and other, subject and object, and this situation goes on and on repeating itself endlessly. This is samsaric existence. The buddhas and bodhisattvas were successful in getting up on the dry land of enlightenment. But we sentient beings became bewildered, and are now in the unsuccessful, unsatisfactory state we all find ourselves in. We are still in the ocean of samsara; we have not yet gotten our heads fully out of the water. We have roamed about in one confused state of experience after the other, endlessly. At the same time, we haven’t lost our buddha nature. More »
