I think of the sangha as a very soft, open thing. I’ve got people I’ve practiced with in a deep way for many years, like my wife, and my dear friends. Right now you’re in my sangha. We’ve touched in that way. Everyone I meet is in my sangha. I don’t know if that’s the… Read More The Path of the Wandering Siddha
The whole concept of making people sit perfectly still without making any noise for hours on end is really a a form of social control practiced by the white western upper-class, not based on an authentic Buddhist spirituality. Read what Dilgo Khyentse has say to say about “sitting”: “When engaging in meditation practice, we should feel it to… Read More Dilgo Khyentse on “Sitting”
When we resist change, it’s called suffering. But when we can completely let go and not struggle against it, when we can embrace the groundlessness of our situation and relax into its dynamic quality, that’s called enlightenment, or awakening to our true nature, to our fundamental goodness. – Pema Chödrön, “The Fundamental Ambiguity of Being… Read More Pema: Flowing with Change
Today I am very glad to introduce Jim Hartz as a regular contributor to Engage! Jim is an author, teacher and lifelong student of Chögyam Trungpa. Jim teaches ‘Buddhism without Credentials’ classes around the US. He is also a very deep and critical thinker on the subjects of spirituality and materialism. We present his first… Read More Hartz: Some Notes On Buddhist & Marxist Dialectics
The central guiding principle of Buddhism is compassion and concern for the world in which we live. It’s the idea of interdependence—that our actions dictate the experience of others. I don’t think everybody needs to run out and join an aid organization and everyone should feel bad that they’re not doing more for people in… Read More Compassion Demands Engagement
Bhakti is the practice I use to turn ’emptiness’ into compassion. When you realize everything is empty, then you realize that everything is buddhanature. In Hindu or theist terms, buddhanature is divine. However, buddhanature is never separate from so-called relative reality, because as relative phenomena arises, emptiness or buddhanature arises with it. Buddhanature, or divinity, is intrinsic… Read More Bhakti and Buddhanature
Last night I listened to the CBC broadcast of Payam Akhavan’s speech on his work as a war crimes investigator for the UN, and as a jurist at the Int’l Court of Human Rights at the Hague. Akhavan is a B’hai, and he is now on my list of spiritual teachers that I hold on… Read More Payam Akhavan: B’Hai Human Rights Jurist on Empathy, Interdependence
