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    The Form of Compassion Paid Member

    By Sherab Gyaltsen Rinpoche
    It is said that the Enlightened Ones possessed of the omniscient eye of wisdom can state with certainty exactly how many drops of water have fallen during an uninterrupted twelve-year rainfall but that they cannot calculate the benefit that comes from a single sincere, perfectly focused, and pure recitation of the six-syllable mantra of Chenrezi, the Bodhisattva of Compassion: Om mani padme hung. Chenrezi, the Bodhisattva of Compassion. The goal of deity practice is to develop qualities that mirror those represented by the deity. Avalokiteshvara (detail) Dorje and Sunlal Talang, 2006 © Robert Beer More »
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    Five Practices to Change Your Mind Paid Member

    By Barry Magid, Gil Fronsdal, Bhante Henepola Gunaratana, Peter Doobinin and Judith Simmer-Brown
    Leave yourself alone!Zen teacher Barry Magid describes the practice of just sitting. More »
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    The Snaggletoothed Barbarian Paid Member

    By Jisho Cary Warner
    Zen lineages all begin with Bodhidharma, the mythic first ancestor of Zen, who came to China from India, and who, by inaugurating Zen, also transmitted the true teaching beyond words that begins with Shakyamuni Buddha. For years I felt irritated by Bodhidharma; he glares out of innumerable portraits with a thick odor of machismo clinging to his robes. Image after image offers up a pair of round, bulging eyes popping out between beetling eyebrows and a bulbous nose, the face framed by immense pendulous ears and an untrimmed beard. He is a solid, bull-necked figure, muscular running to fat—a dharma linebacker. More »
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    The Principles of Zazen Paid Member

    By Zen Master Dogen
    The Way is basically perfect and all-pervading. How could it be contingent upon practice and realization? The Dharma-vehicle is free and untrammelled. What need is there for man's concentrated effort? Indeed, the Whole Body is far beyond the world's dust. Who could believe in a means to brush it clean? It is never apart from one right where one is. What is the use of going off here and there to practice? More »
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    The Beautiful Trap Paid Member

    By John Kain
    I’m sitting for fifteen hours a day in a four-by-four cell behind a shoji screen. Meals are brought three times a day to my enclosure, and apart from a short work period, two brief outdoor walks, bathroom breaks, a daily shower, and sleep time, I never leave my space. More »
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    Tying The Knot Paid Member

    Judy Lief: If the Buddhist path has to do with overcoming attachment, then it might seem odd for a Buddhist to consider adding the complications of marriage and family to her life. But in my experience it is the complications, not my neurotic attempts at smoothness, that have benefited my practice the most. These complications have been many and varied, including marriage, family obligations, motherhood, sickness, work, travel, and teaching. More »