QUESTION: Is there any value in being a hermit?
SHORT ANSWER: Yes, huge.
LONGER ANSWER: The hermit does not have the distraction of the deluded world. In nearly all the great religions there are hermits. In the theistic religions, being a hermit
QUESTION: How can I attain the right state of mind?
SHORT ANSWER: There is no right state. The mind is a river.
LONGER ANSWER: Body is not reliable, mind is not reliable. Let body and mind ‘fall away’. So long as we are obsessively worrying about our b
QUESTION: Most weeks I visit a local temple in my town, where Theravada monks have a brief service before spending about 45 minutes meditating. This then makes me feel that maybe I should have made the effort to travel to the temple of my own form of
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QUESTION: After a good few years of working hard towards personal improvement and continually tripping over myself, I'm struggling to see any real change in my propensity for being foolish. Given the depth of my defectiveness, how realistic is it to
QUESTION: In one of your recent posts, you made the statement: "12. Nonduality is a dualistic theory." I was hoping you could elaborate a bit more on this statement, or perhaps point to a sutra or previous work where this is discussed. It is definite
Read more…QUESTION: Other traditions talk a lot about generating metta for our friends, acquaintances and enemies. How would we talk about this in the Pureland tradition?
SHORT ANSWER: Nembutsu is gratitude for Buddha's metta toward all beings.
LONGER ANSWER:
Read more…QUESTION: How do I proceed to live your Amidist take on the 4 Noble Truths and Eightfold Path?
SHORT ANSWER: Live wholeheartedly
LONGER ANSWER: In my understanding, the eightfold path is an outcome. You can try to mimic it if you like, but one is bou
Read more…QUESTION: Is Buddhism a religion or a psychology?
SHORT ANSWER: Both and more, but religion firstly.
LONG ANSWER: Buddhism is first and foremost a religion, and as such it has given rise to culture and civilisation, including systems of education,
QUESTION: My understanding of pure land is that we are all bombu and therefore use the nambutsu as its easy for us to understand. To practice more seems like we going against this principle by use of meditation or the use of other intellectual means.
Read more…QUESTION: I have been at an event this weekend led by a teacher of Tibetan Buddhism. The teacher taught about the four immeasurables, loving kindness, compassion and tonglen meditation. Today she is teaching about lojong mind training. I found some o
Read more…QUESTION: Derrida is famous for saying that "there is nothing without a context" and I wondered whether his thinking partly overlapped with dependent origination.
SHORT ANSWER: Definitely, but... not everything is impermanent.
LONG ANSWER: Buddha's t
Read more…QUESTION: What did the Buddha say about obedience?
SHORT ANSWER: Pay heed to the Dharma
LONG ANSWER: The definition of a Christian monk is a person who lives a life of poverty, chastity and obedience. Poverty and chastity are important values in Buddhi
QUESTION: As I read the sutras from the Nikayas much of what the Buddha teaches seems to be very self-power - try hard to concentrate, do this, don't do that - I'm having trouble squaring this with the Pureland teachings and wondered if you think the
Read more…QUESTION: What exactly is the teaching/doctrine of no-birth? I can only come at that through the idea that there is no-thing to be born ... only causes and conditions out of which a transient reality emerges. And that reality is ultimately all of th
Read more…QUESTION: Does the common Theravada and Tibetan Mahayana teaching of three levels of suffering, briefly:
Hi, again:
Another question about a common Theravada and Tibetan Mahayana teaching and its place in Pure Land. This is the three levels of suffering, briefly:
QUESTION: With regard to the recent bombings in Brussels, is it better to suffer or to inflict injustice? Is it better to be the victim or the perpetrator?
SHORT ANSWER: All parties need our compassion and understanding.
LONG ANSWER: This is a complex
QUESTION: Can we think of Amida as mother?
SHORT ANSWER: Yes
LONGER ANSWER: Buddhas can appear in whatever form is necessary to save sentient beings, so can certainly appear as mother. However, one has to be careful in designing one's own Buddha beca
Read more…QUESTION: I am confused about the location of the Pure Land in time. In some things I read, it seems to be located in the future, after death, when one "goes to" the Pure Land to become fully enlightened (and then returns to serve all sentient being
Read more…QUESTION: I watched a TV programme recently that featured a rape. it really affected me and one thing that struck me was how would it be for someone who has faith in Pureland to contemplate that the perpetrator of violence against them could also ent
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