Category: Good Things

Good ideas, good causes, good actions, good things

Francophone Study – English and French Language – Video – October 8, 2019

The recording is in French and English. Today we discussed how to have gratitude and appreciation for unpleasant events in our past. In particular how do we have gratitude to parents who may have treated us in unskillful ways, or who harmed us when we were children. The issue is complicated, and not to be over simplified, and certainly we should not read general guidance written for someone else or written for a general audience…

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Ohigan Autumnal Equinox – Dharma Talk Video – September 22, 2019

Ohigan and Equinox Well, here we are approaching the autumn equinox.  Twice a year on our planet we have an equinox, a period of equal light and equal dark.  Twice a year we take time during the equinox season to pay particular attention to observing the Six Paramitas.  We find reference to Higan, which means crossing to the other shore, in the Lotus Sutra Chapter 1.  “They had already trained themselves out of their compassion…

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Righting the Ship – Sangha Building – Dharma Talk – September 18, 2019

Righting the Ship – Sangha Building Sometimes even with our best intentions and our most skillful actions situations arise which affect the entire Sangha in a negative and potentially harmful way.  What I am mostly thinking of in this moment as I write this is about harmful behaviors either from a group of members, single individuals, or leadership including the priest or lay-leader of the Sangha. There needs to be a way to manage these…

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Exile and Banishment – Sangha Building – Dharma Talk – September 17, 2019

Exile and Banishment – Sangha Building These two words and the many synonyms of these words may seem to be contrary to some of my posts about Sangha Building.  In past posts I’ve written specifically about actions I believe the Sangha should embrace.  These two words and this post will address some of the complicated reasons which may impact and affect the nature of individuals who wish to approach the Sangha. People are exiled and…

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