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How To Reset & Recalibrate Your Mind
Sep. 18 | Be with yourself as you are, but without haste, without impatience. – Shunmyo Masuno In our everyday lives, do any of us have time to think about nothing? I imagine most people would say, ‘I don’t have a moment to spare for that.’...
How To Rise From Rock Bottom
Sep. 4 | When you hit rock bottom, the only way is up – or to stay sunken. – Extended saying I’ve been a Dharma teacher for twenty years, and I’ve observed that prisoners, war veterans, refugees, and others who have been through extreme difficulties...
Friends, Not Food
Aug. 28 | If you’re eating animals please understand that they do not want your metta; they want you to not eat them. – Bob Isaacson If you stopped people on the streets of Chicago or London and ask them if Buddhists are vegetarian, the most likely...
The Three Kinds Of Patience
Aug. 21 | There is no evil like hatred, And no fortitude like patience. Thus I should strive in various ways To meditate on patience. – Shantideva (Guide To Bodhisattva’s Way Of Life) [1] Not Becoming Upset with Those Who Do Harm The first type of patience...
We Have No Time To Be Evil
Aug. 14 | There are those who do not realize that one day we all must die. But those who do realize this settle their quarrels. – The Buddha (Dhammapada Verse 6) Let’s get rid of anger’s evil; let’s purge the mind, tear out by the roots that...
Are You Causing Suffering With Speciesism?
Jul. 31 | If you believe plants are also sentient, you should not eat animals’ meat and such, as they eat much plants to grow them, while vegans directly eat the least plants. – Commonsensical [T]he Australian moral philosopher Peter Singer wrote a book...
A Stoic’s Daily Zen-like Self-Review
Jul. 24 | Our spiritual health demands that we let go of anger, or else it will never let go of us. – Seneca Seneca, to judge by his self-presentation in his writings, was a self-reflective and inward-looking man. He describes, in one of the passages...
What Is In Your Circle Of Control?
Jul. 17 | Mind your mind mindfully, or it will be ‘minded’ by its negative habits of greed, hatred and delusion. – Shilashanti ‘We control our reasoned choice and all acts that depend on that moral will. What’s not under our control are...
See Your Body’s Impermanence Closely & Quickly
Jul. 10 | With my diligence, carefully I examined the body And saw this as it really is — Both within and without. – Nanda (Thig 84) Because Nanda was so taken up with her physical beauty, the Buddha used his psychic powers to conjure up the vision of an even...
How To Truly Know Anyone
Jul. 3 | The fool assumes quickly. The wise observes slowly. – Shantishila The nature of the human mind is unpredictable. As Pessa has observed and the Buddha endorsed in his reply that the mind’s involved and tangled behaviour is difficult to understand...
Be Mindful, Brothers & Sisters
Jun. 26 | But little water do the oceans four contain, Compared with all the tears that man hath shed, By sorrow smitten and by suffering distraught. Woman, why heedless dost thou still remain? – The Buddha to Patacara Patacara, a lady from a well-to-do family...
Careful Who You Lust For, Whom You Might Never Get
Jun. 19 | From lust springs grief, from lust springs fear; One free from lust, has no grief, whence fear? – The Buddha (Dhammapada Verse 215) The Dhammapada Commentary relates the story of Anitthigandha Kumāra in whom love developed for the kind of feminine...
How An Abandoned Parent Taught His Children
Jun. 12 | How good can one be if not repaying the kindness of those first kind to us? – Nowanden A certain affluent brahmin had four sons and he had given away half of his property to the sons when they got married. Later, when his wife died, his sons came and...
The Three Fields As Spiritual Capacities
Jun. 5 | Plant the right seed well. Nurture the right way well. Bear the right fruit well. – Nowanden Once, Anathapindika, a millionaire who is the foremost benefactor of the dispensation [of monastics] asked the Buddha whether the Buddha is not compassionate...
