Via Daily Dharma: Wisdom Doesn’t Discriminate

We are the recipients of this immeasurable wisdom and compassion of life that sustains us and embraces us at all times, regardless of the kind of people we are.

—Patricia Kanaya Usuki, “The Great Compassion”

Via Lion's Roar / How to Read and Study Buddhist Teachings

There is such a wealth of Buddhist books and teachings to consume. Where do you start? Here are some tips on how to tackle your reading list. 

 

Photo by Eugenio Mazzone.

A lot of people think Buddhism is all about sitting in silence and finding inner wisdom. When you start practicing Buddhism, it’s easy to carry that stereotype onto your spiritual path. But any teacher will tell you: At some point on the path, it’s important to balance your practice with cold, hard study.

The Buddha stressed the importance of studying — and even memorizing — Buddhist teachings. Practically speaking, in the modern world there is a wealth of misinformation about Buddhism. Fake Buddha quotes are as common as authentic ones. One of the core goals of Buddhist practice is the cultivation of wisdom, or prajna, which requires dedicated study along with meditation practice.

Read more: Four Teachers Discuss the Importance of Study

Here is a short guide to working with Buddhist teachings to develop prajna, along with further resources to go deeper with your study.

Choosing Something to Study

Sometimes, the first step is the hardest. There are countless Buddhist teachings, books, classical texts, commentaries, memoirs, and investigations. Where do you start?

If you have a teacher or a community, the obvious place to start is with the teachings they recommend. If you’re not sure, you might want to ask a teacher or an instructor for some suggestions. If you can’t get a recommendation, Zenkei Blanche Hartman suggests studying the teachings of contemporary teachers in your tradition.

If you don’t have a specific tradition to dive into, not to worry. Judy Lief suggests that you “notice what you are drawn to reading and reflecting upon.” See where those teachings come from. If you’re committed to a Buddhist path, ensure that the teachings come from an authentic, unbroken Buddhist lineage. Explore the essential texts of that tradition.

Read More: Ten Buddhist Books Everyone Should Read

How Much Should You Study?

This is completely subjective. Some practitioners love to read Buddhist texts and neglect practice in favor of reading. Others refuse to read, instead opting to sit in silent contemplation indefinitely.

Study and practice are both important. For a simple rule of thumb, Geshe Tenzin Wangyal recommends:

Whatever meditation practice you commit to, your study should support that, so that in your practice you know what you are doing and you have a reference for your experiences. Your study guides your practice, and your practice validates your study.

Judy Lief advises, “study yourself.” Get a sense of where you are in your practice, what your challenges are, and how you feel about reading and meditating. 

Knowing that studying and practice support each other, try to find your own balance. Lief writes:

No matter how much you read, how many talks you hear, or how many websites you visit, there is no guarantee that there will be any real benefit. It is good to accumulate knowledge, but it is better to let that knowledge transform you. The benefit comes in the meeting point between you and the dharma, when a seemingly outer teaching strikes a deep inner chord.

Read More: How I should balance practice and study?

How to Let Wisdom Penetrate

In general, teachers recommend that you take the time to let yourself absorb what you’re reading or listening to. This means different things to different people. 

You might read a chapter and then meditate on what you’ve read. You might read slowly and thoughtfully. 

Maybe you read one paragraph over a few times and then contemplate it for the rest of the day. Maybe you tape a favorite paragraph to the bathroom mirror and contemplate it regularly for years. “Each time you go over it,” writes Lief, “question what is really being said, its relevance, how it can be applied, and whether it rings true to your own experience and observation of the world.”

Are you the kind of person who wakes up and immediately checks Twitter, Instagram, and CNN? Bhante Gunaratana suggests replacing that morning routine, instead listening to a teaching of the Buddha, then keeping the wisdom with you throughout the day.

Read More: How to Start Studying Buddhist Teachings

Going Deeper with the Three Prajnas

Some schools of Buddhism break the development of wisdom down into three steps, as described expertly by Reggie Ray. These are: the first prajna, hearing; the second prajna, contemplating, and the third prajna, meditating.

The first prajna, hearing, deals with literally studying texts. This might mean reading a text over repeatedly, memorizing, or studying the meaning of the text in depth. In the second prajna, contemplating, as Ray explains, you look at the teaching in the context of your own experience. How does it feel? The third prajna, meditation, follows the teaching into the unconditioned experience of meditating on ultimate truth.

Read More: How to Study the Dharma

Resources

Advice

• How should I balance practice and study?
• How to Study the Dharma
• Forum: The Importance of Study
• DIY Dharma: You Have Everything You Need
• How to Start Studying Buddhist Teachings

Book Recommendations

• 10 Buddhist Books Everyone Should Read
• 10 Essential Books for Your Meditation Library
• Zenkei Blanche Hartman and Narayan Helen Liebenson’s book recommendations

Specific Traditions

A selection of commentaries on texts and studies from various traditions:

• John Tarrant’s introduction to contemplative Zen koan practice
• Four teachers discuss Zen koan contemplation
• More on koans
• Four teachers discuss Dogen, the founder of Soto Zen, and his writing
• John Daido Loori on Dogen’s Mountains and Rivers Sutra
• Zen monk Daigaku Rummé defines the word “sutra”
• Judy Roitman on contemplating Nagarjuna’s four negations
• The Dalai Lama’s commentary on Shantideva’s classic text, The Way of the Bodhisattva
• Pema Chödrön’s commentary on The Way of the Bodhisattva
• Karl Brunnholz’s commentary on the Buddha’s Heart Sutra
• Norman Fischer and Thich Nhat Hanh on the Heart Sutra
• Thich Nhat Hanh on the Heart Sutra
• Donald S. Lopez, Jr. on the Lotus Sutra
• Pema Chödrön on contemplating lojong mind training slogans
• Norman Fischer on contemplating lojong
• More on lojong
• Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche on contemplation practice
• Larry Rosenberg on skepticism and critical thinking
• Bodhipaksa on fake Buddha quotes

 Make the jump here to read the original article and more

Via Daily Dharma: Act on Spontaneous Compassion

When a compassionate intention arises, don’t evaluate it. Trust it. Just do it.

—Colin Beavan, “Intuitive Action”

Via Daily Dharma: Whose Presence Do You Value?

Many of us have a mind that measures self-worth in terms of productivity...  We give ourselves no credit for just being present. And yet, if you asked the people you care about what they would like most from you, their answer is likely to be some version of “your presence.”

—Jan Chozen Bays, “The Gift of Waiting”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - January 24, 2018

   

How stable are our lives? How stable is anybody’s life? What happens when stability is threatened is that people contract. If you’ve got an investment, and then it all starts to change, and you can’t quite stop it, so you contract, your heart closes, you go up into your mind, and when you get into your mind, you cause a lot of trouble.

The mind, in the service of fear, causes the quality of the thinking to become about things, so it sees everything as an object. All people become “them,” and “they” must be dealt with in order to protect yourself.

You and I are in training to find a place in ourselves, and in the way we live our lives, where we don’t freak out about changes to our dependent form of existence. A place where we don’t freak out in the presence of change or increasing chaos.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Moving Past Your Old Stories

We need not be limited by our stories. We are much more mysterious than they are.

—Mark Epstein, “If the Buddha Were Called to Jury Duty”

Via Daily Dharma: The Ecology of Mind

Dhamma is the ecology of the mind. This is how nature has arranged things, and it has always been like this, in a most natural way. The mind with Dhamma is fresh, beautiful, quiet, and joyful.

—Buddhadasa Bhikkhu, “Conserving the Inner Ecology”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - January 21, 2018

Both Hindus and Buddhists say human birth is highly auspicious, because it has the elements for liberation. You have everything you need to work with in a human birth to become realized: consciousness or awareness, conceptual understanding, the emotional heart, joy and sorrow.

When Buddhists talk about the preciousness of a human birth, it’s the awareness associated with human birth that’s the opportunity. We become aware to bring ourselves to higher consciousness. Suffering is part of it too; it’s all grist for the mill of developing awareness. What’s here in front of you is what you can be aware of; it’s food for enlightenment. It’s your part in this passing show of life…

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Run the Way You Sit

We experience the gradual awakening to pure awareness that develops over the days, months, and years as we sit. When it comes to exercise, the principle is the same. We let the mind and body go on their own run, noting but not minding at all.

—Michael Hoffman, “Mind on the Run”

Via Daily Dharma: How to Find Harmony

Listening properly becomes a kind of harmonizing of parts of our being—our intellectual center, our emotional center, and our moving center.

—Philip Glass, “Listening to Philip Glass”

Via Daily Dharma: Sangha Is the Soil

If you don’t have anyone who understands you, who encourages you in the practice of the living dharma, your desire to practice may wither. Your sangha—family, friends, and copractitioners—is the soil, and you are the seed.

—Thich Nhat Hanh, “The Fertile Soil of Sangha”

Via Daily Dharma: The Many Paths to Openness

Each of us has the possibility of finding a way to experience our lives free of struggle. And one of the common features of all these different ways is a sense of extraordinary openness.

—Ken McLeod, “The Way of Freedom”

Via Daily Dharma: Small Efforts, Big Changes

Positive transformation is usually incremental. Small efforts, if concrete, will pile up and bring about big personal, and even social, change.

—Shinso Ito, “Unconditional Service”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - January 17, 2018

As you get more conscious, every act you perform increases the amount of consciousness in the universe, because the act itself conveys the consciousness. In other words, I could tell you the greatest truths of the world but if I don’t understand them inside myself, forget it - because I’m not giving you the key that allows you to use it, which is the “faith” in it, which I can only convey through my own success in whatever I’m doing.

- Ram Dass -

Via Lionsroar / Death: The Greatest Teacher

The Buddha said the greatest of all teachings is impermanence. Its final expression is death. Buddhist teacher Judy Lief explains why our awareness of death is the secret of life. It’s the ultimate twist.

Make the jump here to read the full article and more

Via Daily Dharma: The Art of Wakefulness

To me, that’s what art and poetry are: trying to be awake in a room of people who are committed to being awake, and who are being attentive without necessarily acting.

—Marie Howe, “The Space Between”

Via Daily Dharma: Practice with Gentle Persistence

Refinement of attention is only achieved through a gentle and persistent letting go; it is never attained by the brute force of sheer willpower.

—Ajahn Brahm, “Stepping Towards Enlightenment”

Via Tricycle / Having Real Conversations (Even with My Sister)

When a gay Buddhist woman is asked by her sister why same-sex marriage is such an important issue, she is shocked into silence. Years later, she realizes that the only way we might communicate what we most care about is to have tolerance for another’s ignorance or confusion.

Make the jump here to read the full article on Tricycle

Via Ram Dass / 9 of 20 Words of Wisdom - January 14, 2018

You are loved just for being who you are, just for existing. You don’t have to do anything to earn it. Your shortcomings, your lack of self-esteem, physical perfection, or social and economic success— none of that matters. No one can take this love away from you, and it will always be here.

Imagine that being in this love is like relaxing endlessly into a warm bath that surrounds and supports your every movement, so that every thought and feeling is permeated by it. You feel as though you are dissolving into love. This love is actually part of you; it is always flowing through you. It’s like the subatomic texture of the universe, the dark matter that connects everything.

When you tune in to that flow, you will feel it in your own heart—not your physical heart or your emotional heart, but your spiritual heart, the place you point to in your chest when you say, “I am.”

- Ram Dass -