Category: Teachings
“I Take Refuge in Amida Buddha”
The Pure Land is right here, right now, says Sensei Alex Kakuyo. Chanting the nembutsu can help you see that.
Transforming Self-Comparison
Eda Ocak reflects on how meditation practice and the Buddha’s message of no-self transformed her habit of self-comparison.
How Do We Make Sense of Rebirth?
Questions around rebirth—from how it works to whether it’s even real—have energized and divided Buddhists for millennia. In this excerpt from his book "Rebirth," Roger R. Jackson unpacks the complexity of it all and offers four basic approaches to incorporating it (or not) into our own practice.
Buddhism, Nonviolence, and the Moral Quandary of Ukraine
How does Buddhism make sense of war? In the abstract, the teachings are straightforward. But according to Bhikkhu Bodhi, if we find ourselves supporting those who are fighting back in Ukraine, then we have to ask some hard questions—and maybe accept some uncomfortable truths.
Zen in Vietnam: The Making of a Tradition
A century ago, Buddhists in Vietnam—and in much of Asia—started rewriting their traditions, and in some cases even their history. Alec Soucy explains how what we think we know of Vietnamese Buddhism points to a much more complex reality.
Wisdom Seeks for Wisdom
In this teaching from 1965—taken from the oldest extant recording of his talks—Shunryu Suzuki Roshi explains what it means to understand your true nature.
Buddhadharma Book Briefs for Summer 2022
Joie Szu-Chiao Chen reviews Through the Forests of Every Color by Joan Sutherland, Renunciation and Longing by Annabella Pitkin, The Dharma in DNA by Dee Denver, and more.
Listen, Contemplate, Meditate
These instructions, which appear across traditions, sound so simple that we may imagine they’re self-explanatory. Lama Karma Yeshe Chödrön invites us to look deeper.
We Cannot Ignore Buddhist Extremism
If we don’t allow our practice to include the political, asks Brenna Artinger, then how can we stand up to those who do?
Black Buddhists, Black Buddhisms
Rhonda Magee reviews "Black Buddhists and the Black Radical Tradition," by Rima Vesely-Flad.