According to Buddhist teachings, the ultimate truth is not something mysterious and remote, but the truth of our own experience. To be liberating, this truth has to be known directly, gained by insight and realized within oneself. To bring our life experience into...
The Eightfold Path is the Buddha’s guide to enlightenment. Right Livelihood is the fifth element of the Path, and is grouped with Right Speech and Right Action to form the “moral discipline” (read: ethical conduct or harmonious practice)...
Right View While all eight elements in the Eightfold Path work together and support each other’s development, it’s necessary to start with a sense of direction. Right view takes on the role of compass as we strive to eliminate suffering and achieve...
The Eightfold Path – An Overview One interesting aspect of Buddhism is its focus. It does not aspire to explain the beginning of the universe, as other religions attempt to do with the concepts of almighty gods, along with our relationship to those gods as the...
Sandokai This poem was composed by the 8th century Chinese Zen master Shitou Xiqian. Sandokai refers to the meeting of sameness and difference, the relative and the absolute. Looking at each part: San means plurality, diversity and difference and is associated with...
Koans are Catalysts Koans (KO-ahns) are paradoxical questions and stories that defy our usual, heavily conditioned approach to answering questions using thought and words. The answer gained through the understanding of the koan is not expressed in thought or words,...
