Category Buddhism

For ordinary people, faith is the cause that opens the door to wisdom. For many convert Buddhists in the West, the central place of faith in Nichiren Buddhism, as well as in Pure Land, might seem strange and even un-Buddhist.…

Anger doesn’t just happen to us. If we’re able to catch an angry thought as it’s budding, we can let it go. The same is true of despair or hopelessness. And when letting go is too difficult, a good medicine…

We get quiet for a moment in meditation. We sink down to a relaxedness, a calmness, abruptly free from all the crazy dreams we confuse with reality. And in that instant, by mistake maybe, or because we aren’t thinking to…

What should you do to put your body to good use? Most people have no idea. A craftsman who borrows some tools will try to make the best possible use of them while they are available. Your body, too, is…

Meditation is recommended here not as a way to eradicate our rage but as a way to become fully present to its energies. When you become uncomfortable or frightened, remember that difficult emotions are your most profound teachers. The more…

Western Buddhists are very suspicious of attachment. They feel they need to be detached . . . so don’t get upset about racism, or injustice, or the poison in the rivers, because that means you’re too attached. I think one…

Too much suffering is not good. If you become always manipulated by it, if suffering is always the boss, that is not good. And if you have too little suffering, you will not be inspired to pursue real happiness. That…

We call meditation ‘practice’ for a reason. Any form of practice consists of doing something over and over again and failing at it over and over again. Through this process, we gradually build the capacities that make it possible to…

Do what you can to help the living, and dedicate the merit of your practice to the dead. We may be powerless to change the past, but we do have the power to shape the present and the future by…

You have to work at your sense of conviction. … Like someone lost in the forest, if you’re not really convinced that there’s a way out, you give up very easily. You run into a thicket here, a steep cliff…