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Buddhism

Chocolate Frosting and Garbage, Thubten Chodron Buddhist quote

Creating Bridges: Spirituality & Philosophy: Spirituality in Daily Life, Bhikshuni Thubten Chodron A kind heart is one of the principal things we are trying to develop. If we run around childishly telling others, “I’m this religion, and you’re that religion. But, mine is better,” it is like turning chocolate frosting into garbage: what was delicious [...]

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Buddha on Good and Bad Karma (quotes and explanation)

People find one of my web projects for the term ‘buddha quotes on karma’. Unfortunately we don’t really know what the Buddha said. Lots of ‘Buddha quotes’ pages online share quotes attributed to Buddha rather indiscriminately. What I mean by that is that these online sources take each sutra attributed to the Buddha literally on [...]

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What’s the goal of the spiritual path?

I got three books in the mail this week… Two from Quest publishing, the Theosophical Publishing House of the TS Adyar in the US, another from an author herself. All three are about what one might call ‘the spiritual path‘. Two are highly personal accounts of people on the Fourth Way of Gurdjieff, one was [...]

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10 simple mindfulness exercises

I was eating at an Ethiopian restaurant yesterday. For those not familiar with that cuisine, the food is served on thin pancakes and one is supposed to eat one’s dinner with the right hand. For me it was a painful exercise in overcoming my conditionings. The table went quiet: a measure of the concentration we [...]

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Being halfway a Buddhist – what’s a real Buddhist?

I said in my blogpost about whether Buddhism was the best world religion (let alone win an award) that I was halfway a Buddhist myself. I got a question about that: what do I mean? A real Buddhist, in my view, and in the traditional Asian view, is someone who has taken refuge. That is, [...]

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Did Buddhism win the best Religion of the world award?

There’s a rumor going about a lot of blogs that Buddhism wins the best religion of the world reward. Unfortunately it’s only blogs that are reporting this. No ordinary news sources, nor can I find the ‘Icarus’ foundation that is said to have given the award because: “It wasn’t a surprise to me that Buddhism [...]

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Osel Hita Torres – aka Lama Osel goes on to make movies

This is a true story that someone emailed me because it reminded them of Jiddu Krishnamurti’s story. That is: someone raised to be a teacher, steps outside the tradition that he was brought up in to do something totally different. Lama Osel was born to Spanish parents, but brought up as the reincarnation of Thubten [...]

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Remembering Blavatsky – White Lotusday

On May 8th theosophists all over the world, whatever theosophical organization they belong to, commemorate Blavatsky’s passing on May 8th 1891. This day is called White Lotusday. Traditionally quotes from three texts are read: The Bhagavad Gita, The Voice of the Silence and Light of Asia. So here goes from chapter ten of the Bhagavad [...]

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Work as those who are ambitious…

Work as those work who are ambitious. Respect life as those do who desire it. Be happy as those are who live for happiness. Mabel Collins, Light on the path, part 1 (4) This quote must be a bit puzzling for those who think ambition itself is a spiritual virtue. Light on the Path is [...]

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