Category: Dharma Journal

When Siddhartha Gautama attained enlightenment, he was called Buddha, the ‘awakened one.’  He awoke from the slumber in which we separate our relative experience from the absolute nature of things. Buddha saw our relative...

On a recent trip to New Mexico, I was staying in a town about 80 miles (as the crow flies) from Trinity Site, the location of the first nuclear bomb test. As I looked...

I heard an NPR report on the spread of Coronavirus in South Dakota. Some of the folks who died from the disease held onto the view, until their last breath, that Covid-19 was a...

The Deschutes River speaks of change on this last truly warm day before winter begins its icy descent. The water roars through a canyon and then softens into a quiet meander—framed by red-barked willows...

I recently heard a TED talk about “deep fakes”, videos and other digital media manipulated to fool the viewer. Computer specialists are able to put the head of someone on any body engaged in...

A grasping mind Has nothing to grasp There is no mind to find A clinging thought Is a fleeting cloud No solid thing to hold A dreamlike body Chases after form And still remains...

The clouds roiled and boiled, swirling into beautiful patterns of infinite shapes. Our plane descended into this momentary expression of water vapor and the wings began to vibrate, gusty wind tossing us about like...

Many of us who have taken the Bodhisattva vow humorously quip, “Whew, if I knew what I was signing up for, I may have made a different choice!” Of course, this is only to...

I am checking in at the Redmond airport and sharing with the attendant the nature of my Meniere’s Disease—just in case I experience an episode while in flight. She does not know how to...

In the natural state of ease, mind watches over mind. When mind rests in this way it is called calm abiding shamatha (shiné in Tibetan). We leave the mind resting like a clear lake....