» Home

No more reincarnation… intermediate scope motivation in Mahayana Buddhism

The Path to Enlightenment, the Lam Rim in Tibetan Buddhism, is divided in three ‘stages’ or three motivations. I started out my explaining the Beginners Motivation. It is, as Lodro Rinzler says in his upcoming ‘The Buddha Walks into a Bar: A Guide to Life for a New Generation‘: a process of getting your act [...]

Read the full article →

My Buddhism for today, why I choose only ONE lineage…

As I’ve noted before, on my Dutch blog people respond very critically. This is often annoying, but they also sometimes ask great questions. The question asked in this case was: doesn’t your present path contradict your earlier assertion that we need to balance certainty and uncertainty? The answer is – as it often is – [...]

Read the full article →

Tibetan Buddhism and Lam Rim

I was on a Tibetan Buddhist (FPMT) retreat for half of August, so what I was able to share with you all since then was mostly inspired by that tradition. I wrote one book review: When the chocolate runs out, Lama Yeshe. I’ve become a big Lama Yeshe fan, in fact.  For All Considering I wrote [...]

Read the full article →

Gratitude meditation – thanking our teachers

I’ve written about gratitude before, but I think the topic merits a revisit. For one thing: in our culture we’re taught, by psychologists, to face up to the negative things our parents and teachers did to us as we grew up. Facing up to our emotions, including the negative, is a good thing no doubt. [...]

Read the full article →

Beginners motivation in Mahayana Buddhism

I’ve decided to translate what I learned over the past two weeks at an FPMT Lam Rim retreat into blog posts by simply explaining to you all my understanding of some basic concepts from those teachings. I am of course merely a beginner on this path, so please take this as no more than what [...]

Read the full article →

Between drowsiness and distraction: meditation and certainty

I was on an intense FPMT Lam Rim retreat for the past two weeks. One of the things they teach is meditation: meditation techniques as well as pitfalls. On all levels of meditation one of the pitfalls is not finding a middle ground between drowsiness and distraction. Both are recognizable at our level: nearly falling [...]

Read the full article →

Certainty, uncertainty and spirituality

I have been in a very neti-neti (not this, not that) mood for a while now, in terms of what I share on this blog. Not channeling, Not Krishnamurti, Not ideals… If you add in the topics I’ve considered writing about there’s even more: not merely God, not merely Goddess… But I’ve gone further: what [...]

Read the full article →

Channeling: real, unreal? Divine, human?

On my recent post about Mahatmas, someone commented that Ascended Masters sound a lot like spirit guides and that the main thing is they know more than we do. Well, perhaps. The main issue here, it seems to me, isn’t so much knowledge as wisdom. Science has given us plenty of knowledge and plenty of [...]

Read the full article →

You are your Soul Mate, Rick Singer

[guest post] Within your own house dwells the treasure of joy, So why do you go begging from door to door. Chinese proverb As human beings we are consistently involved in an endless search for something external to fill the void within us. We search for the perfect partner or our Soul mate, with the [...]

Read the full article →

← Previous Entries

Next Entries →