Tag Archives: buddhism

Refuge in What? Repost from Lynn J Kelly

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We all need refuge from overwhelming times. Some people hide behind watching TV, overeating or overdrinking, or spending time with people doing things that may hurt us in the long term.

Today, Lynn J Kelly, an Australian American practicing Buddhist, offers another option that may be of some interest to you. See her blogpost below:


Refuge in What?

Posted on October 5, 2025 by lynnjkelly

One “becomes a Buddhist” by sincerely taking refuge in the Buddha, Dhamma, and Sangha. This is only meaningful if we have some sense of what that means. When we are afraid or unhappy, where do we go? Most of us take refuge in the ordinary comforts of our lives – music, on-line entertainment, TV, food, reading, friends or family, or some activity that we find absorbing. From the Pali canon:

They go to many a refuge,
Those who have been struck by fear;
They go to mountains and forests,
To parks and trees and shrines.
(Dhammapada 188, translated by John Kelly)

However, these refuges only offer temporary relief.

When we take refuge in the triple gem (Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha), we are saying that when things get rough, we look to:

  1. the Buddha as an embodiment of the potential for awakening in all humans (including ourselves);
  2. to the Dhamma as the body of the Buddha’s teachings on reality as we can experience it; and
  3. to the Sangha, the worldwide, time-spanning community of serious practitioners of the Buddha’s path.

Many of us started looking into the Buddha’s path with only a vague hope that it might help us become less confused. We naturally want to minimize suffering for ourselves and others, but how to go about that can be mysterious.

Committing to the Buddha’s path takes time. It generally requires some motivation (suffering?) and some inspiration, through reading or hearing about the Buddha’s teachings. But it’s only by taking up and trying out the Buddha’s instructions in our own lives that we develop faith – faith in the possibility of awakening, faith that the Buddha himself and many others have tasted the freedom he points to. For example, the teachings on how generosity and ethical behavior affect our mind state, if put into practice, will quickly produce results in our experience.

The thought of meditating can be a stumbling block for new practitioners. Remember that nothing special is meant to happen. We could think of it simply as a short period of unplugging from our normal inputs. We find a way to set worries aside and relax for 20 minutes or so, usually by training the attention on the breath or some other neutral object. If we accept whatever energy is in our body and mind, as it is in the present moment, we may find that it changes and is gradually replaced with a relatively steadier mind state. In this way, step by step, we learn to live fully in the present, whatever it contains.

Why Be Generous?

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Lynn J Kelly’s blogpost today provides more helpful wisdom for our consideration.

May we all be more generous with ourselves and others.

Why Be Generous?

Why Be Generous?

Posted on July 21, 2025 by lynnjkelly

There’s More to Giving Than We Think

One of the senior monks in the Ajahn Chah lineage said that Buddha talked about dāna [giving] first because if someone didn’t understand the value of basic generosity, they weren’t even teachable. If we don’t have a sense of its significance, and don’t have some degree of maturity in our experience of it, then other forms of practice—sīla, bhāvana, mettā—won’t even get off the ground. There has to be a malleability of heart, a softness, a diminished self-absorption, before the engines can even get started! And this softness is developed largely through our increasingly mature direct experience of dāna.

Giving as a ritual is not the same as giving as practice. There can be various motives for giving, and many of them have to do with varieties of clinging. We cling to the idea of what is expected of us, or what would “look good”, or we give to relieve a feeling of guilt, or even because we think it will produce a better afterlife. But there is a higher motivation that we can tap into, one that moves us away from any form of clinging.

(from Gloria Taraniya Ambrosia) There’s a wonderful story in the Vināya (Mahāvagga 8:15) about a very generous laywoman who lived at the time of the Buddha. As the story goes, she wanted to give a large gift to the community—lifetime gifts of food, clothing and medicinal requisites. Before agreeing to receive this offering, the Buddha asked Visakha why she wanted to make such a generous offering.

Her reply may surprise you. She said that when she sees the monks and nuns she will know that they are wearing robes made out of the cloth that she offered, etc., and it will make her very happy. Thus, her mind will be calm and her meditation will go well. As if to say, “Yes, that’s the right answer,” the Buddha accepted her gift.

So we can give to make our minds peaceful and happy. This may sound like a selfish motive – we want to be happy – but this sort of happiness comes from profound unselfishness, which feels entirely different from building up our self-image. Is this happening without our noticing it? Do we overlook this subtle and beautiful feeling?

Only we know what is in our minds and hearts, and we can track whether we are producing the kind of mental peace that is the foundation for wisdom or the product of a satisfied ego. Mindfulness is essential to discern this difference, but once we see it, we are naturally inclined to pursue a wholesome path.

How to Find Inner Peace – the Buddhist Way Excerpts

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Statue of Buddha at Magnolia Grove Monastery – picture taken by Patrick Cole

Spirituality + Health online magazine has shared another helpful article written by Victor M. Parachin. Highlights can be found below. For the full article see: https://www.spiritualityhealth.com/authors/victor-m-parachin-m-div-c-y-t

How to Find Inner Peace—the Buddhist Way

“Buddhism identifies inner peace as a sense of emotional, mental, and spiritual harmony, even as life’s challenges arise. When inner peace is present, there are strong feelings of serenity, balance, tranquility, and calmness. Here are some Buddhist methods of attaining inner peace:

  • Limit Desires
  • Practice CPR Meditation – calm, peaceful and relaxed
  • Don’t Gossip
  • Accept Help
  • Lighten Your Life, and
  • Cultivate Countermeasures

The Dalai Lama notes that whenever negative emotions such as anxiety, anger, worry, or fear emerge, “We need some countermeasures to oppose them. For example, if we are too hot, we reduce the temperature, or if we want to remove darkness, there’s no other way than bringing light.”

When you’re feeling impoverished, practice gratitude; when you’re feeling sad, smile at every person you encounter; when you’re experiencing guilt, be extra kind to others; when you’re feeling discouraged, recall and savor what is good and right in your life.”

Never Enough? Abandon Craving One Day at a Time

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“mindfulness is a means for overcoming craving.“

Below are highlights of a recent Tricycle article on Cutting the Roots of Craving. I have three of Gunaratana’s books now and the provocative excerpt below comes from his latest book co-written by Veronique Ziegler.

May the words below offer some helpful advice to overcome our addiction for “more.”

Cutting the Roots of Craving

Desire is beginningless. Yet through right mindfulness we can learn to abandon it. By Bhante Henepola Gunaratana and Veronique Ziegler Jul 18, 2024

Everything we do pivots around craving and Its insatiability is such that it yields more craving

whenever we ask ourselves the question “Am I satisfied?” we always get the same answer: “Not yet.”

There is no point in time before which a state of desirelessness can be found.

in dependence upon feeling, there is craving.

Everything happens in your mind. When you talk, write, perform any deed whatsoever, watch your mind at all times in order to guard it against defilements and prevent craving from invading it.

Look at your own mind to see the invisible greed, anger, jealousy, and all the other defilements that are the real cause of your suffering.

If you end greed now, you attain liberation now. If you end greed one minute later, you attain liberation one minute later. If you end greed tomorrow, you attain liberation tomorrow.

Craving can be found in our very own mind. Understanding it is a personal exploration that must be undertaken individually, for the solution to abandon it is also in our own minds.

How to Abandon Craving

there is a great danger in sensual pleasures—not that they cause immediate harm or risk to one’s life (although some sensory pleasures can definitely be lethal) but that sense enjoyments are impermanent. And because they are impermanent they can never be satisfactory.

to live a happy and healthy life. We must use our senses, but we must do so with wisdom,

Mindfulness is a means for overcoming craving.

© 2024 by Bhante Gunaratana and Veronique Ziegler, Dependent Origination in Plain English. Reprinted by arrangement with Wisdom Publications.

Bhante Henepola Gunaratana is a Buddhist monk from Sri Lanka and the author of Mindfulness in Plain English. He is president of the Bhavana Society in High View, West Virginia, an organization that promotes meditation and monastic life.
Veronique Ziegler earned her doctorate degree in experimental high-energy physics from the University of Iowa working on the BaBar experiment at SLAC National Laboratory in Menlo Park, California. She then took a research assistant position at the same lab and later a staff scientist position at Jefferson National Laboratory in Newport News, Virginia, where she currently works full time and is involved in the lab particle spectroscopy experimental program. In 2018, she started attending Bhante Gunaratana’s dhamma classes. She has been an avid dhamma student ever since.

The Value of Simplicity – KISSS

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A fresh cup of coffee to start the day, re-reading a familiar passage from a favorite book, letting go of unnecessary complexity in our lives, oh what joy can be received from a simple life!

Keeping it short, sweet and simple (KISSS) is a mantra worth remembering.

Below is an excerpt from a Tricycle article on Full Simplicity written by Kim Allen for a Buddhist take on the art of living more simply and skillfully.

http://www.uncontrived.org/books.html

The Value of Simplicity

Doing more with less: A teaching from the Metta Sutta By Kim Allen

“(The) idea of valuing simplicity is a notion that is consonant with the early (Buddhist) teachings. Choosing just one of many examples, we can find the value of simplicity expressed in the opening lines of the Metta Sutta (Sn 1.8).

This is what should be done
By one who is skilled in goodness
And who knows the path of peace:

Let them be able and upright,
Straightforward and gentle in speech.
Humble and not conceited,

Contented and easily satisfied.
Unburdened with duties and frugal in their ways.
Peaceful and calm, and wise and skillful,
Not proud and demanding in nature.

These verses suggest a link between goodwill (metta), ethical behavior, and simplicity.

Once we turn our mind toward the value of simplicity, we will notice ways in which complication has burdened or tangled our relationship with life. Here are a few possibilities for practice that can be extracted from these lines:

  • Simplicity of body: Moving more slowly (peaceful and calm); maintaining a balanced posture (upright); using fewer material resources (frugal in their ways),
  • Simplicity of speech: Speaking straightforwardly with just as many words as needed (straightforward in speech); refraining from complaining or demanding (not proud and demanding); speaking words of harmony (gentle in speech; skillful), and
  • Simplicity of mind: Being satisfied with little (contentment; humility); honesty (upright); seeing in wise ways (wise and skillful); choosing non-busyness (unburdened with duties).

Centering (your) simplicity practice on these few lines from the Metta Sutta could go very far … Pragmatic wisdom also guides how we view and think about life activities:

  • possessions must be managed, such as maintaining our car, computer, and phone;
  • cleaning our clothes and living space;
  • handling the purchase, preparation, and clean-up of food for meals;
  • caring for our body and health in many ways, and
  • the necessary task of acquiring money also takes significant energy, and even if we have enough money, it takes time and attention to manage financial resources.”

Excerpted with permission of the author from Full Simplicity: The Art of Renunciation and Letting Go, by Kim Allen, an exploration of how to fully embrace the dharma life as a layperson.

Kim Allen is an Insight teacher who draws from a background in long retreat practice, sutta study, and contemplative living to bring classical dharma to modern life. Her website is http://www.uncontrived.org.

See tricycle.org/article/value-of-simplicity/ for the full article.

http://www.uncontrived.org/about-kim-allen.html

Necessary Doubt

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“An open mind is a strong mind … our doubting and questioning spur us on and keep us intellectually alert and can help us develop confidence in our innate qualities.”

Senior teacher, Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo encourages us to live our lives with a question mark and to not settle for blind faith. Instead, we can experience our faith firsthand and not be content with what other people think or describe.

I hope you enjoy excerpts from the provocative Tricycle article below,

Necessary Doubt

Ani Tenzin Palmo teaches that a questioning mind is essential to the Buddhist path.

By Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo SUMMER 2002

we have a tendency to regard doubt as something shameful, almost as an enemy. We feel that if we have doubts, it means that we are denying the teachings and that we should really have unquestioning faith.

Referring to the dharma, the Buddha said, “come and see,” or “come and investigate,” not “come and believe.”

A famous sutra tells of a group of villagers who came to visit the Buddha. They said to him, “Many teachers come through here. Each has his own doctrine. Each claims that his particular philosophy and practice is the truth, but they all contradict each other. Now we’re totally confused. What do we do?” Doesn’t this story sound modern? Yet this was twenty-five hundred years ago. Same problems.

The Buddha replied, “You have a right to be confused. This is a confusing situation. Do not take anything on trust merely because it has passed down through tradition, or because your teachers say it, or because your elders have taught you, or because it’s written in some famous scripture. When you have seen it and experienced it for yourself to be right and true, then you can accept it.”

We need to be patient. We should not expect to understand the profound expositions of an enlightened mind in our first encounter with them.

Our doubting and questioning spur us on and keep us intellectually alert.

instead of suppressing the questions, I brought up the things I questioned and examined them one by one. When I came out the other end, I realized that it simply didn’t matter. We can be quite happy with a question mark.

We need to know what great teachers in the past have said, because they have been there ahead of us and have laid down maps for us to follow.

Following the path is about experiencing it for ourselves. It’s not taking on what other people have described. It’s not based on blind faith.

Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo is the current president of the Sakyadhita International Association of Buddhist Women. She is one of the first Westerners to be ordained as a Buddhist nun and the founder of the Dongyu Gatsal Ling Nunnery in India.

Zen Is the Religion of Brushing Our Teeth

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Below are excerpts from a delightful post by Myojin on the purpose of religion and why Zen is different.

Hope you enjoy this as much as I did.

Religion as a bastion of idealism

For some it’s the belief in an all-powerful, all-knowing God, who cares about our lives.

For others it’s about a better way to live, through morality, devotions, spiritual practices; prayer, meditation. Be the aim union with divinity, greater connection to others, to live more fully in the moment

Any practice is based on the premise that there is a better way to live than the way we are living now.

If zen is a religion it’s the religion of getting up in the morning and brushing our teeth. It’s the religion of ordinary things, stripped of fantasy and exposed to stark truth.

Zen is making up our minds that since we are here anyway, living life, we may as well do it well.