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Ritual as part of a spiritual practice: Tibetan Buddhism

Over the past year I’ve gained some experience at (Gelugpa Tibetan) Buddhist ritual. As a born agnostic from a protestant background rituals don’t sit very well with me. In fact, before hand I was planning to select the Buddhist lineage in part on the amount of ritual it involved. Funnily enough I ended up with [...]

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On how to stay celibate

As a life long celibate (by most definitions) I thought it might interest some of you to get a few tips Yes, this is largely a tongue in cheek post, as I’m sure most of you are NOT celibate. Celibacy has a respected history in both Buddhism and Roman Catholicism. Like most people today I [...]

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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. [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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The push of experience…

Yes, that title is enigmatic and for the linguists among you: a bit double as well. It has to do, I’m afraid, with the limitations of the English language – or possibly of my knowledge of it. Though I do rarely run into that problem these days. Anyhow – the question is: do you all [...]

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Jiddu Krishnamurti as a man of his time

Let met start this by saying that as I’ve had more experience meditating, I have gained in respect for Jiddu Krishnamurti, because he describes the experience so well. However, it’s not thanks to Krishnamurti that I did start meditating, nor is he any help in doing so. And that is precisely the limit to his [...]

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Is there something wrong with boredom, during meditation?

Merely putting the question answers it, I think: No, there is nothing wrong with boredom during meditation, at least, that’s how I feel. My recent blogposts about meditation have evoked many responses about my attitude towards that boredom I wrote about. And then, especially on my Dutch blog, my analysis of the responses was apparently [...]

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The unsaid basics of meditation and life

What we all do when we start something, when we do something, when we try something, when we read something, when we respond to something… is bring ourselves into it. I was a bit baffled by some of the responses to my post about the unsaid things about meditation. And what it was is this: [...]

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