Weekly Features
Weekly Sutra: Hatthaka Sutta: Sleeping Well in the Cold Forest: “having cut all ties… he sleeps at ease… “
Buddhist Sutras and Sutta English, Weekly Features
Transcendental Meditation: insight and stress relief. Buddha: “Our life is shaped by our mind; we become what we think.”
Twenty-six centuries ago (or so) Buddha said, “The mind is everything. What you think you become.” Seven-hundred years later, philosopher and Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius wrote, “The Happiness of Your Life Depends On the Quality of Your Thoughts.” (around 177AD). This universal theme had its roots in human experience and is emphasized in Transcendental Meditation.
Read MoreIn Praise of the Vajrayana – A Brief Introduction to Buddhist Tantra
‘Tantra is the method for putting all of the sutra practices together in an extremely efficient, holistic manner.’ ‘Mahayana is the philosophy, and Vajrayana is the practice.’
Read MoreTantra is esoteric rather than exotic: embracing Samsara and Nirvana, and transforming our cravings
The inspiration for this feature is a reader who wrote in to ask: “What does Buddhist Tantra have to do with love-making?” The short answer is, it doesn’t. In Buddhist Tantra, sex is no more important than any other activity: “Making love, as we like to call it, is in itself no more profound than any other activity,” writes Robin Kornman. [7] The longer answer, we tackle below, including a little controversy: the infamous self-described “Omnipotent Oom” Pierre Bernard (October 31, 1875 – September 27, 1955) who abused his position as a self-described tantric, to promote sex. [He wasn’t a Buddhist Tantric, but he made the term Tantra famous in the West.] In Buddhism, specifically, Tantra is associated either with Vajrayana, or Zen — but as a method, not as a sect or school. The majority of Vajrayanists or Zen practitioners do not practice Tantra. The Psychology of Tantra —…
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