Buddhist

Korean Sunim sitting by open door.

Life in a Korean Monastery, Jisu Sunim

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At the beginning each practitioner is given a hua-tou, a kind of koan. For example: What is this? I-Mo-Ko? What is this? The idea is to concentrate your entire attention and mind on this one particular koan or hua-tou: What is this? What is this? What is this? It is different from vipassana meditation where the intention is to be aware and solely aware of what is going on. When you eat, you just acknowledge how that feels—approaching the spoon, touching the spoon, feeling the coolness of the handle, and so on. In koan meditation, however, your attention is single-pointedly directed to this question—What is this?—right now. Initially, it is very difficult to concentrate because all kinds of thinking comes up . . . comes up . . . comes up . . . like clouds, or smoke from a chimney…

Gold Bars

The Gold Bar, by Ananda Dulal Sarkar

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There were many kingdoms in ancient India varying in physical size and military might. More often than not, the bigger and stronger powers absorbed the smaller and weaker ones by unprovoked military actions. A king always accompanied his army and led it if he belonged to the Kshatriya class…

illustration from Handbook of Tibetan Iconometry

The Middle Way, by Buddhadasa Bhikkhu

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When the instincts are out of control, they become selfish, and this gives rise to all the defilements. The out-of-control instincts pull the mind off the Middle Way into the dead-end of the kilesa (the mental defilements). This is very important to know…

Dartington Buddha

The Development of Loving-kindness

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Just as the radiance of all the stars does not equal a sixteenth part of the moon’s radiance, but the moon’s radiance surpasses them and shines forth, bright and brilliant, even so, whatever grounds there are for making merit productive of a future birth, all these do not equal a sixteenth part of the mind-release of loving-kindness…