TEXT:
Saving grace, as was made clear by Shan Tao's dream and advice to Tao Cho, only comes through the sange-mon.
COMMENTARY:
Sange means confession or contrition. The sange mon is, literally, the “gate of contrition”.
According to the story, towa
The way that Pureland Buddhism is sometimes presented, it starts to sound like monotheism. This is not surprising given that the conventional speech forms of monotheism are known to us all and, however much we might think we have rejected or moved aw
Read more…The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation is, basically, an anti-Russia alliance. It has been led by the USA, though in the last decade or so, the EU has often played an equally influential part, while providing only a fraction of the funding or manpowe
Read more…QUESTION: This may seem a bizarre question but one I would like a Buddhist view on.is suicide a sin,in Christianity to commit suicide is a total sin considered evil and completely against all it teaches but in Japanese culture from the past a way of
Read more…Continuing the Commentary upon Summary of Faith and Practice
TEXT
Thus all obstacles become impediments to faith unless we experience contrition and letting go.
Path with a Goal
When we undertake a spiritual project, we are trying to achieve someth
President Trump has promised to "drain the swamp". What is the "swamp". Essentially it is corruption within the American system. The whole world it seems is suffering huge corruption problems at the moment. Prime Minister Modi, for instance, is much
Read more…I have posted a paper here.
If you are interested in the foundations of Buddhism, especially Mahayna, this may be of interest. I have been busy translating Dong Shan's poems and other material from Chinese and have arrived at rather different conclus
Read more…Mid-March and we might still have frosts to come. Apart from the proud daffodils this is the season of tiny flowers. Can somebody identify these little wonders for me? We have millions of them...
Look at those lovely darker blue lines in the petals g
What Does the UK Budget Tell Us?
The British government has just announced its budget for the coming year, though there will be some further announcements in the autumn. I think we can see some general indicators. Firstly, this is a cautious budget,
Read more…I am currently reading the diaries of Sophia Tolstoy who spent her life loving and fighting with her famous husband. He was a rich aristocrat who had a spiritual conversion and became a religious ascetic. He was thus intent upon renouncing all the th
Read more…There is no simple way to tell how well a country is doing economically. Economies are commonly ranked in terms of gross domestic product (GDP) and we then say that the US comes first, China second and so on. However, GDP is simply a measure of money
Read more…Well, I said it was going to get warmer and wetter. Right now it is blowing a gale here at La Ville au Roi and as this house is on a small hill we are getting the full force of it. During the day it has been grey yet strangely warm. I sat out in a de
Read more…The massive rise in "hate crime" across Europe and America is tragic. The fact that leading politicians in a number of countries speak in ways that foment it is deplorable. A kind of Nazism is on the rise. In Germany in 2016 there were on average 10
Read more…There is no cause for happiness,
only misery wants reason,
yet happiness has prompts innumerable
while misery is mute;
yet when we know the cause of our distress
it has its limit with its season,
only enduring malady is unable
to give account that is not mo
Early it was one of those mornings that makes you truly glad to be alive. Calm, clear, bright with blue sky and the sound of the rooks competing with the wood pigeon. I nealy missed it because there is grey cloud edging in from the West and we can ex
Read more…One way of testing one’s understanding of social and spiritual principles is to make predictions and then see if they turn out the way you expect. Here are a few questions that one might currently have in mind.
1) Donald Trump has expressed an intenti
Last night there were millions of stars, so I knew we would have a frost and this morning the air is sharp and the sky is pale blue. Not a cloud in sight. Here is some of last night's ice in this morning's sunshine
... and here is Tara come to inves
Read more…Those of you who have been worried about my health will be pleased to hear that during January and February I have had a series of tests and check ups, it being a year since my emergency, and it is all good news. I am now off medication completely. M
Read more…Buddhists are refugees. We take refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. This means that we do not take refuge in belonging to a national group, gender group, or any other kind of social classification. We do live in the normal social world and so we abi
Read more…I like to rotate the physical jobs so today it was liming walls. My technique has gradually improved and today I got quite a bit done. My son kindly bought me some extra tools for my birthday so they were in action today. Liming is rather different f
Read more…