On the 24th of August I left Syracuse and drove to Buffalo, NY to attend the Enkyo-ji Buddhist Network retreat to be held at a private farm on the shore of Lake Ontario, one of the Great Lakes of North America. My first stop was to visit a friend who I have known for several who now serves as the Chief Rabbi of Temple Beth Zion in Buffalo, New York. Rabbi Jonathan Frierich and I…
Chih-I refers to the Four Elements as snakes, he wasn’t the first to do so, yet it is his work we are exploring. An explanation for the metaphor of four snakes can be found in the Suvarnaprabhasa Sutra which offers a parable of a man who fleeing from the two bewildering forms of life and death spies a rope (life) and climbs down into the well of impermanence. In this well are two mice who…
What I hope will be a regular weekly feature, here are a few books I recommend. The books will not always be directly about Buddhism however they will relate to the greater truths found in Buddhism and also to things I’m interested in. Sometimes ideas from my outside reading I use as I process the complex theories we study in Buddhism. Please note that the temple will receive a small percentage of any purchase made…
To have physical form is to have disease. Why you might ask? Beside an obvious answer that a physical body is subject to decay and change another response is because of the natural imbalance of physical life forms. Our bodies are comprised of the four elements of earth, water, air, and fire. That may sound a tad bit ancient or even suspiciously superstitious and certainly not the language of modern medicine. Remember though we are…
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