I am standing on top of a high desert rim and notice a dragon’s tail snaking through the landscape. Silvery strands of drying bunchgrass move in waves across the hill as the dragon prepares to take flight. All at once, the plants become…

Today (5/18) is the 40th anniversary of the Mt. St. Helens eruption. It was a very big boom. I remember ‘feeling’ it while lying in bed at my home among the junipers between Bend and Sisters. My mother lived in Yakima, Washington, and…

I often wonder about Buddha’s awakening. I imagine it to be simple. He simply sat and watched his mind. He noticed the movement of mind was inseparable from the movement of wind and waves and clouds—arising with no partiality and surrendering with no…

In the previous post, I discussed a symbolic meaning of the arrow according to fundamental Buddhism. The Vajrayana Buddhist point of view embraces all the early school teachings but adds a slight nuance according to the tantrayana. Tantra can mean transformation, as in…

In the Sallatha Sutta (Sutra), Buddha is asked to describe the difference between a Dharma practitioner and and one who is unfamiliar with the Dharma—specifically, one who has no awareness of the Four Noble Truths. Here is an edited rendition of a portion…