Latest writings

Student: Master, you say about the moon in the water.  So the mind is the moon or water? Master: The mind is the full moon in the sky. …

Turn over the bed in the monk's quarters, Puncture the fantasy, the stars in the eyes; Amusing samsara in his palm, Golden Ox dances away.        

This morning I had the idea of writing about the Four Reliance, inspired by a friend who recently broke with his spiritual group. I have seen this happened often enough that I wondered what went wrong? I guess the Buddha had foreseen the confusion that future practitioners will be facing and therefore taught the Four Reliance in order to help us all stay on the right path. The Four Reliance are: Rely on the…

Just as the changing color of a single leaf reveals the arrival of autumn, understanding the individual can lead to an understanding of the Collective. * I don't know a lot of Buddhist monks. Before I edited Just Use This Mind, my exposure to monks in general was limited…

In Buddhism, there is the teaching of karma. It is often explained like the financial system - if you take from someone, you have to pay back. If you have given to someone in the past, then he or she will pay you back. Such understanding of karma is based on fear and greed. On one hand if life demands a lot from you, then you call that a bad or heavy karma; if situation and people tend to accommodate or favor you, then…