Buddhist Women on a Path of Spiritual Awakening
Holding the Chalice
We underestimate the power of renunciation to gain our true spiritual inheritance from the Buddha. These deeper levels of practice require not a formulaic approach but faith enough to let go the clinging that perpetuates an endless cycle of loss and suffering. On this…
The Fire of Illumination
We wish for perfect conditions in life. But true perfection only arises within the awakened mind. So we are like mendicants of the present moment – not able to control or know what lies ahead. Let us not lose heart. In truth, this Middle…
I Just Wanted Some Toothpaste
The way out of pain is not in sense pleasure. But suffering can be a ticket to Nibbana – maybe not the one we asked for, but it’s in our hands. So we try. Taste the moment just as it is. Choose love when…
Those Who Rightly Love Wisdom
In a psychic feat for his sister, Sundari Nanda, the Buddha creates a vision of a beautiful lady who transforms into an old woman. Through this direct experience of impermanence, her mind is liberated. Likewise, those who rightly love wisdom and contemplate death without…
Purest Gold
The sublime attitudes of loving kindness, compassion, joyous empathy, and serene composure create for us a path, a moral training to guide us not to ransom our goodness or our intrinsic values for the fleeting joys of worldly gratification. As we purify the heart,…
Silent Thunder
The Dhamma is deep, subtle yet powerful enough to teach us how to stop, how to listen, how to see the truth of things. For what we thought we knew, we may have not really understood. So how can we transcend our social, cultural,…
Compassion Enough to Care
Let us truly live with compassion enough to care. And share that beautiful mind energy with a depth of awareness and attention to each moment. Keeping far from the noise of the world, every breath, every new moment will arise in a field of…
My Religion is Kindness
Joy comes softly. First, we plow through the labyrinth of our emotional compost. We know anguish, selfishness, and all their truant cousins. Then we learn skillful ways to let go. Dying to the ‘self’, the heart is purified. Even despair and the darkest energies…
When the Canoe Starts to Tip
Right mindfulness developed with meticulous appreciative attention on the breath enables us to tame the wilderness of the mind. If we are careening off course – just when the canoe starts to tip – we notice and immediately rebalance, regaining awareness and sustaining it…
Behind the Mask of Fear
What do we fear the most? Love, unconditional love. Learning to see intuitively, we truly see. And when we have eyes to see, we are fearless. We may not feel fearless but we know how to face our fear – to know it as…
~ Dhammapada Verse 54