If anyone whose mind is not harmonized and controlled through methodical meditative training should take a close look at his own everyday thoughts and activities, hewill meet with a rather disconcerting sight. Apartfrom the few main channels of his purposeful thoughts and activities, he will everywhere be faced with at angled mass of perceptions, thoughts, feelings, and casual b...

translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

Translator's note: According to the Maha-parinibbana Sutta (DN 16), Cunda the silversmith at a later date presented the Buddha with the final meal before his (the Buddha's) total liberation.

I have heard that on one occ...

Retold from an ancient Buddhist Story by Nyanaponika Thera

Once there lived a demon who had a peculiar diet: he fed on the anger of others. And as his feeding ground was the human world, there was no lack of food for him. He found it quite easy to provoke a family quarrel, or national and racial hatred. Even to stir up a war w...

Compassion and the Individual by His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama

One great question underlies our experience, whether we think about it consciously or not: What is the purpose of life?

I have considered this question...

Dependent Origination (paticca-samuppada) -The Wheel of Law (Life)

According to Buddhism, nothing can exist by itself except, but only in relation to other causally-related events: a particular result always has a cause. For example, cause A results in B, and B then acts as a cause for another result C. The patticca-samuppada is an important discourse on the process of birth and death of be...

Appreciating Our Advantageous Circumstances

We are extraordinarily fortunate to have the circumstances for Dharma practice that are presently available to us. In both 1993 and 1994 I went to Mainland China on a pilgrimage and visited many temples there. Seeing the situation of Buddhism there made me appreciate the fortune we have here. However, we often take our f...

Vassa is a three-month annual retreat observed by Theravada monks and nuns. It begins on the day after the full moon day of the eighth lunar month of the common Buddhist calendar, which usually falls in July. The retreat ends on the 15th day of the waxing moon of the eleventh lunar month, usually in October.

Dur...

This religion can be practised either in society or in seclusion.

There are some who believe that Buddhism is so lofty and sublime a system that it cannot bepractised by ordinary men and women in the workaday world. These same people think that onehas to retire to a monastery or to so...

This year's Khmer New Year angel is the fifth youngest in the family of seven and her name is KirineyTevy. She'll come riding on an elephant joined by a cast of thousands of angels. At the lead of the procession is the guide angel riding a rabbit, this being the year of the rabbit and therefore her knowing the way.

You can see this year's angel, Kirine...

You want: long life, health, beauty, power, riches, high birth, wisdom? Or

even some of these things? They do not appear by chance. It is not someone's

luck that they are healthy, or another's lack of it that he is stupid.

Though it may not be clear to us now, all such inequ...

The Buddha's advice to parents is straightforward: help your children become generous, virtuous, responsible, skilled, and self-sufficient adults [see DN 31 and Sn 2.4]. Teaching Buddhism to one's children does not mean giving them long lectures about dependent co-arising, or forcing them to memorize the Buddha's lists of the eightfold this, the ten such-and-suches, the ...

The Four Sublime States

Contemplation on Love, Compassion, Sympathetic Joy, and Equanimity

Introduction

Four sublime states of mind have been taugh...

Continued from Huam Life and Problems(1)

In Buddhist cosmology man is simply the inhabitant of one of the existing pla...

As human beings we have achieved a level of material progress we would not have even dreamed of barely a century ago. The marvels of modern technology have given us enormous power over the forces of nature. We have conquered many disasters but the ultimate question is: 'Are we happier than our ancestors were in the past?' The answer i...