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    The Final Word: An Interview with Jacqueline Stone Paid Member

    "The Lotus Sutra presents itself as being extraordinarily precious. It is difficult to encounter it; it is difficult to believe it; it is difficult to understand it; it is difficult to preach it. So embracing the Lotus Sutra is something that is even more difficult than the most mind-boggling supernatural feats. The scripture is equated with the Buddha’s body, and so to hold the sutra is to hold the very body of the Buddha..."More »
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    Single-Practice Masters Paid Member

    The Lotus Sutra directly influenced the development of Japan’s “single-practice” Buddhist traditions, which placed one practice above all others as the most correct and effective means to enlightenment for all people. Emerging during the Kamakura period (1185�1333), the primary proponents of the Japanese Pure Land, Soto Zen, and Nichiren schools of Buddhism all embraced the single-practice approach. More »
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    The Towering Assembly Paid Member

    In this excerpt from the Lotus Sutra, buddhas and believers gather in the sky to hear the preaching of the Wonderful Law. More »
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    Entering the Lotus Paid Member

    Although I would not have described it as such at the time, looking back, I’d say that my first decade or so of Zen practice was focused on self-improvement, especially on discipline. I think I learned a lot, but most of what I learned centered on me - my strengths, my weaknesses, that sort of thing. During this time, I spent three years in monastic training at Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, and when I returned, I felt�More »
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    Buddha on the Rio Grande Paid Member

    A River Runs Through It Drumbeats pierce the quiet of first light as fires appear at the top of a low mesa that hangs over the eastern edge of the pueblo of Jemez. The pink and yellow hues of the canyon are softened by the haze from the bonfires that line the roads winding between low adobe houses in the village. The people of the pueblo welcome Christmas morning as they have for as long as they have farmed corn along the river and hunted deer in the mountains. More »
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    Place of Practice: Advice from the Masters Paid Member

    The Grass Mat, Shakyamuni Buddha's Diamond Throne Now, very late that afternoon, just as the rays of the westering sun gilded the trees with a prodigal burst of glowing color, Gautama rose up like a lion bestirring himself and set out on the way back to his forest hermitage. And there, on the road which the wind had paved with fragrant flowers, the Bodhisattva met a grasscutter by the name of Svastika, And when Svastika saw the Great Being, he gave him eight handfuls of the sweet-scented grass he was carrying. More »