Is This Teacher Okay?

Apr. 26 | Question: I understand that it is difficult to distinguish the right from wrong teachings of controversial teachers, that it is best to stop listening to their ‘Dharma’ talks to avoid undetected confusion. I came across the teachings of a...

Is Mindfulness Of Buddha Applicable In Everyday Life?

Feb. 29 | Life is uncertain; death is certain. Rebirth is certain; where to is uncertain. - Extended Buddhist Saying Summarised in one line, the Pure Land teachings, which are the most popular in the Mahayana tradition, teach that via faithful single-minded practice...

Teachers & Students

Jan. 3 | If you have never questioned any teacher’s teachings, you must have encountered only perfect teachers, or you are an imperfect student. - Stonepeace

Are Teachers Reflections Of Their Students?

Oct. 25 | When the student is ready, the master appears. (When the students wrongly assume they are ready, the might maras appear.) - Zen Saying (extended) There is the mistaken notion, that after ‘carefully’ choosing human gurus (spiritual teachers),...

True Listening

Apr. 20 | True listening [to the Dharma] does not rest in how much you have listened to your Master [teacher] but in how well you have listened. Even if you have listened well, you would benefit only if you can apply properly what you have heard to the circumstances...

Asking & Commenting

Apr. 20 | Asking one about a Dharma teaching when [this] one had not practised it is like asking a frog in a well what one thinks of the sky outside. Commenting on a Dharma teaching when one had not practised it is like a frog in a well trying to describe the...

Best Student & Teacher

Mar. 30 | The best Dharma student aspires to be the best teacher [a Buddha]. The best Dharma teacher aspires to be the best student [a good disciple of the Buddha(s), e.g. in Pure Land]. ~ Stonepeace

Are You One In A Million?

Oct. 25 | If you don’t find a teacher soon, you’ll live this life in vain. It’s true, you have the Buddha-nature. But without the help of a teacher, you’ll never know it. Only one person in a million becomes enlightened without a teacher’s...

How Poor Students Can Create Poor Teachers

Sep. 23 | As long as one is still not a Buddha, one is still a Dharma student, even if one sometimes a Dharma teacher. - Stonepeace To be a poor student of the Dharma in terms of being lacking in sincerity to accept the true Dharma is of course a big problem. However,...

How to Seek a Good Teacher

Sep. 17 | The best teacher not only shares the Dharma, the best teacher also embodies the Dharma. - Stonepeace Without acquiring some wisdom and knowing true Dharma from false Dharma, trying to practise with great diligence may be like a blind person riding a blind...

Your Own Master

Aug. 25 | You are your only master. Who else? Subdue yourself. And discover your master. - The Buddha (Dhammapada)

Is There Tension Between Compassion & Detachment?

Jul. 30 | Emptiness in Buddhism is not nothingness; it is everythingness (physical and mental) being unsubstantial, being ‘empty’ of anything unchanging (e.g. self), due to constant change in the moment. - Stonepeace Does compassion, which relieves...

Internalising The Dharma

Jul. 19 | Merely being near Dharma teachers is not enough if the Dharma they teach is not internalised by you.

How Students Can Become Teachers

Mar. 31 | Only Buddhas, who are perfect teachers, do not require [constructive] criticism from their students. - Stonepeace What do you do when you encounter a Dharma teacher who teaches in ways far from perfect? I used to slap an invisible label of ‘lousy’...

The Bird That Flew Too Far

Dec. 9 | Dharma practice does not require faith in any god, while every god requires faith in Dharma practice. - Stonepeace It is said in the Kevatta Sutta that a monk once wondered where the four great elements of earth (extension), water (cohesion), fire (heat)...