QUESTION: Dear Dharmavidya,… As you were used to travel a lot, to go where you're asked, to be in groups, to give workshops and talks...what is it to have to stay on the same place, in a little community or alone, as now? What is it for you to 'miss'
Read more…The reason that we have social rules is to restrain those who create trouble. However, when we have Dharma, such rules are not needed. This was the basic message of the text called On Why Monks Do Not Bow Down Before Kings (沙門不敬王者論) written by Lu Sha
Read more…QUESTION: Is religion in conflict with reason?
SHORT ANSWER: This shibboleth has bogged our culture down unnecessarily.
ANSWER: As always, it depends what one means - in this case, what one understands by ‘religion’ and by ‘reason’. If you approach th
QUESTION: How can one achieve lasting happiness?
SHORT ANSWER: Happiness is neither the goal nor the means, it is a side show.
LONGER ANSWER: Happiness is a frequent, but not essential, side product of a wholesomely productive life, but one does not ac
I have recently read an interview with the Buddhist nun Tenzin Palmo who is well known in Buddhist circles for having spent more than twenty years in retreat in the Himalayas practising tantra, living in a cave house in a valley that is cut off for n
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QUESTION: It is said that awareness is the epitome of the Buddhist life. Do you agree?
SHORT ANSWER: Not the epitome, one element.
LONGER ANSWER: Awareness refers to alert consciousness. Alert conscious is one part of life and is valuable, but it
