With brief, easily absorbed wisdom from the precepts of Nichiren, a 13th-century Buddhist priest, this collection of day-to-day musings can be enjoyed by casual readers and devoted followers alike. Covering a wide span of topics--from life and death to courage and winning--the practical information and encouragement are ideal for those seeking to find a deeper understanding of this ancient philosophy.
Gleaned from more than fifty years of SGI President Ikeda's works, The Wisdom for Creating Happiness and Peace provides a window into the SGI president's thought and philosophy. His works are a boundless source of inspiration. They embody a universal message of hope and courage for a world increasingly beset with sorrow and suffering.
Plucked from a humble nomad family to become the leader of one of Tibet’s oldest Buddhist lineages, the young Seventeenth Karmapa draws on timeless values to create an urgent ethic for today’s global community. We have always been, and will always be, interconnected—through family, community, and shared humanity. As our planet changes and our world grows smaller, it is vital we not only recognize our connections to one another and to the earth but also begin actively working together as interdependent individuals to create a truly global society. The Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje, is uniquely positioned to guide us in this process. Drawing on years of intensive Buddhist training and a passionate commitment to social issues, he teaches how we can move from a merely intellectual understanding to a fully lived experience of connection. By first seeing, then feeling, and finally living these connections, we can become more effective agents of social and ethical change. The Karmapa shows us how gaining emotional awareness of our connectedness can fundamentally reshape the human race. He then guides us to action, showing step by step how we can change the way we use the earth’s resources and can continue to better our society. In clear language, the Karmapa draws connections between such seemingly far-flung issues as consumer culture, loneliness, animal protection, and self-reliance. In the process, he helps us move beyond theory to practical and positive social and ethical change.
If you have been practicing Buddhism for a while, why do you still have so many problems? And how do you balance the sometimes different needs of spiritual and psychological perspectives? Rob Preece draws on his personal experience—over two decades as a psychotherapist and many years as a meditation teacher—to explore and map the psychological influences on our struggle to awaken. For psychological and spiritual health, acceptance of imperfection is key. Wisdom does not always come as a flash of inspiration but from the slow, often painful workings of experience. As we detach from our ideals of perfection and develop our acceptance of imperfection, our love and compassion can grow in ways that are both psychologically and spiritually healthy. The Wisdom of Imperfection delves into this journey of individuation in Buddhist life, articulating the psychological processes beneath the traditional path of the Bodhisattva.
HEART SUTRA is a basic text in all schools of Zen Buddhism, and is chanted daily in the monasteries and Zen Centers of China, Korea, Japan, and the United States.
Ever since the Buddha's lifetime, people have been trying to express the ultimate meaning of Buddhism in a form that makes complete rational sense. The Prajnaparamita or 'Perfection of Wisdom' teachings offer a giddying counterbalance to this exercise. Emerging 2000 years ago as the core-teachings of Mahayana Buddhism, texts such as the Ratnaguna-samcayagatha, the Diamond Sutra and the Heart Sutra gave new impetus to the ideal of the Bodhisattva, one whose energies are dedicated to the attainment of enlightenment for the sake of all beings.
A clear and comprehensive guide to practicing the foundational Buddhist teachings of the four noble truths—and how these truths can lead to the liberating insight of the “wisdom gone beyond.” Written in a warm and accessible style by one of today’s most respected Tibetan Buddhist masters, Reality and Wisdom leads the reader on a journey of discovery beginning with the very first teachings of the Buddha and into the profound experience of emptiness. The first section of the book explores the bedrock Buddhist teachings of the four noble truths—insights into freedom from suffering from craving—which underpin all schools of Buddhism. Lama Migmar presents and explores these foundational Buddhist truths with humor and insight, explaining how, from a Mahayana Buddhist perspective, these truths serve as crucial supports for cultivating the transformative wisdom of emptiness. In the book’s second half, Lama Migmar illuminates the terse and enigmatic lines of the Heart Sutra, perhaps the most studied and revered of all Mahayana Buddhist scriptures. The Heart Sutra presents the reader with a vision of reality as it is perceived by a buddha, a vision underpinned by and infused with the radical flexibility and possibility of emptiness and the engagement and responsiveness of profound compassion. The clarity, warmth, and vibrancy of Lama Migmar’s writing combined with the comprehensiveness and detail of his presentations of key Buddhist teachings make this book a valuable resource for a range of readers, from beginners to more advanced practitioners seeking to deepen their practice.
ARE YOU IN REALITY? The quest for wisdom or man's search for what reality is in his experiences comes from man's astonishment in front of all that exist. When we see something, we are lucid that we do not know the whole; that which is the most profound is so hidden from our eyes that we easily prefer believing our own ideas to searching to unveil what the reality is. Rather than to be toward something we have not made and that escapes us, we prefer to remain in the ideas we construct, or to contemplate our own image. We need to seek if we Are truly living in reality or if we remain in our ideas as the only full discovery of reality as it is can be a path to wisdom and allow us to blossom. Written from a series of seminars, Are You in Reality is the author's contribution coming from his own experiences to the research of wisdom understood as man's search for truth. This search for wisdom, rightly called philosophy, is a quest without any preconceived ideas, an insatiable desire for light which can ultimately enlighten man about every aspect of his existence. It must be capable of meeting each man in his experiences, in his quest, and in his own journey. Therefore, philosophy is neither Christian nor Buddhist, neither European nor American, neither African nor Asian. It is human and intelligent in the sense that it takes its truth from no other source than that of the real that we encounter and of those who place themselves at its school.
It is all very well to expect Buddhism to be meaningful to where we are here and now but where is here and when is now.?Ever since the Buddha`s lifetime people have been trying to express the ultimate meaning of Buddhism in a form that makes complete rational sense.They are unique, extraordinary teachings, addressing the practical, everyday concerns of Buddhists, but in a way that can leave the rational mind spinning.
This book contains methods for transforming everyday actions into the cause of enlightenment, anger into patience, and the ordinary view of phenomena as inherently existent into the wisdom realizing emptiness. It also includes several meditations led by Rinpoche, although everything in the book is a topic for meditation.It would be hard to find a simpler, clearer, more practical explanation of the two fundamental paths of compassion and wisdom than the one Lama Zopa offers us here.
