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    Heartfelt Advice Paid Member

    By Lama Dudjom Dorjee
    When we are deeply involved in the practice of the Buddha dharma, the sages advise that we practice a common sense of balance by learning to structure our mundane activities and dharma practice in ways that allow us success in both areas of our life. We should not fall into extremes, either of procrastinating in our dharma practice with the excuse of mundane distractions, or of allowing our mundane world to fall apart around us due to an overemphasis on dharma practice which ignores our mundane responsibilities. More »
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    From the Canon: Thirst Paid Member

    By Acharya Buddharakkhita
    The craving of one given to heedless living grows like a creeper. Like the monkey seeking fruits in the forest, he leaps from life to life (tasting the fruit of his kamma).Whoever is overcome by this wretched and sticky craving, his sorrows grow like grass after the rains.But whoever overcomes this wretched craving, so difficult to overcome, from him sorrows fall away like water from a lotus leaf.This I say to you: Good luck to all assembled here! Dig up the root of craving, like one in search of the fragrant root of the birana grass. Let not Mara crush you again and again, as a flood crushes a reed.Just as a tree, though cut down, sprouts up again if its roots remain uncut and firm, even so, until the craving that lies dormant is rooted out, suffering springs up again and again.The misguided man in whom the thirty-six currents of craving strongly rush toward pleasurable objects, is swept away by the flood of his passionate thoughts. More »
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    In the Forest of Faded Wisdom Paid Member

    By Gendun Chopel, Edited and Translated by Donald S. Lopez Jr.
    Walking with weary feet to the plains of the sandy south,Traversing the boundary of a land surrounded by the pitof dark seas,Pulling the thread of my life—precious and cherished—across a sword’s   sharp blade,Consuming long years and months of hardship, I havesomehow finished   this book. Although there is no one to beseech meWith mandates from on high or mandalas of gold,I have taken on the burden of hardship alone and writtenthis, More »
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    Dear Abbey Dharma Paid Member

    By Sylvia Boorstein
    Dear Abbey Dharma, In my lifetime of professional work in Canadian social service, I have gone from being left-leaning to Social Conservative. I don’t find a place for myself in any Western Buddhist sangha where being politically left is the norm. Even my current dharma teacher spews out hateful speech against just about anyone and everything on the right side of the spectrum. I have a hard time listening to a Buddhist teacher going on about how much he despises George W. Bush or Sarah Palin or people like me. No one but me even notices, or at least is affected by it. How can I remain part of the Western Buddhist community under these conditions?—Up North More »
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    Unlimiting Mind Paid Member

    By Andrew Olendzki
    The perspective articulated by the Buddha was something very different from either materialism or spiritualism, and might be called an early form of phenomenology. What we take to be “the world” is a virtual construction of the human mind and body, woven together of moments of consciousness arising and falling away in an ongoing stream. It is a world of appearances, of phenomena, constructed and imbued with meaning locally by each individual according to patterns learned from, and passed on to, others. More »
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    The Dalai Lama’s Little Book of Wisdom Paid Member

    By His Holiness The Dalai Lama
    What do we understand by meditation? From the Buddhist point of view, meditation is a spiritual discipline, and one that allows you to have some degree of control over your thoughts and emotions. Why is it that we don’t succeed in enjoying the lasting happiness that we are seeking? Buddhism explains that our normal state of mind is such that our thoughts and emotions are wild and unruly, and since we lack the mental discipline needed to tame them, we are powerless to control them. As a result, they control us. And thoughts and emotions, in their turn, tend to be controlled by our negative impulses rather than our positive ones. We need to reverse this cycle.Hampton Roads Publishing Company (2009) More »