Contemplating Disease – Part 5a – Comforting the Ill – August 29, 2018

At this point I’d like to make a little detour away from Chih-I and look at Vimalakirti.  I mentioned earlier that the illness we are talking about do not cover those taken on by Buddhas or Bodhisattvas for the purpose of instruction, such as the illness of Vimalakirti.  Yet in the Vimalakirti Sutra we can learn important lesson, such as found in the exchange between Manjusuri and Vimalakirti on how to encourage a bodhisattva who…

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Contemplating Disease Part 4 – Resting in Forbearance – August 27, 2018

Subscribe to my blog post newsletter Diseases to be contemplated as has already been said do not include those that are taken on as a means to educate or instruct someone in the Dharma.  What is left is the wide range of karmic diseases, or diseases that are ours because we have a physical body.  We are in this case speaking of karma in a general and broad sense and not to any specific karmic…

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Conclusion – Why We Chant the Junnyoze Three Times – August 28, 2018

Subscribe to my blog post newsletter During our service and the recitation of portions from the Lotus Sutra we recite the Junnyoze from Chapter II three times.  You may wonder why that is since it is only written one time in the sutra.  I’m surprised more people don’t ask about that since it is so clearly at odds with any other recitation we do, repeating something that isn’t written. I suppose it is because some…

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Rewards and Retributions – Nyoze Ho – August 27, 2018

Frequently it is necessary to remind ourselves that in Buddhism there is no punishment for not doing your practice.  In the ten aspects we read rewards and retribution and it would be an easy mistake to think there is punishment in Buddhism.  The fact is this phrase only refers to how we might consider the effects of our causes, the primary cause and the environmental cause.  If there is no cause made then there is…

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