Contemplating Disease – Part 7 – Shijo Kingo and Managing Illness – September

In Chih-I’s time, and in fact for most of the time humans have been around until more recent times, the idea of living with long term illness didn’t exist much.  You either recovered or you died in most cases.  With the advances of modern medicine people are living longer, dying at later ages, and living with illnesses that would previously meant death.  This is a wonderful benefit of modern medical science.  We have much to…

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Ten Suchnesses Book Available Print and Digital – September 4, 2018

Now available in both print and digital format my latest book.  The Ten Suchnesses or Ten Aspects, Junnyoze is a portion of Chapter II from the Lotus Sutra which we read everyday during our services.  This book attempts to offer a detailed examination of their meanings, the importance and relevance to our daily lives as well as valuable insights into how to strategically apply them to life to eliminate suffering. The Ten Suchnesses are an…

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Contemplating Disease – Part 5b – Comforting the Ill – September 2, 2018

It’s not just family and friends who don’t know how to interact with the patient.  I’ve witnessed many doctors who, while good at the practice and delivery of medicine are woefully inadequate in finding the balance between honesty and compassion.  I’ll say this from my witnessing many doctor patient interactions, most doctors don’t know how to deliver bad news.  Part of this comes from the sense of failure on the part of a doctor if…

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Incarcerated Lotus – #9 – Anger

Anger is one of the Ten Worlds and, therefore, a very real part of our whole self. The question for us as Buddhists is not to eliminate anger; that is impossible. I believe we serve ourselves well, and thereby improve our lives if we examine when we are the master of anger and when anger is our master. When anger so consumes you that you act without thinking or, act in ways you would not…

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