Name of Buddha – Part 2 – January 28, 2019

When we use a word in any language it is marker for an idea, it isn’t itself the thing it marks it stands for the thing.  When I write ‘car’ I am assembling letters according to conventions of language to represent the concept we know as car.  I can not drive to the store in the letters c-a-r so those letters are themselves not the thing they represent.   There is more to consider though. …

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Name of Buddha – Part 1 – January 27, 2019

I am beginning a new meditation or investigation through practice into some more mystical experiences I have in my practice of the Lotus Sutra.  This will be an active unfolding as much of this will be written as I experience and witness the sutra in my life.  What I write will not be wholly of my origin, rather will be a revelation of my practice and meditation using a variety of meditation and mystical formats…

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Contemplating Disease – Cessation – Part 13m – January 27, 2019

The sixth item in the teaching on Cessation is very fascinating to me because it takes a real experience, pain, illness, disease, dis-ease and looks at it from thirty-seven steps, or angles and Chih-I specifically states that this can be done “while you are at your pillow [suffering from disease].  Understand that suffering is not suffering, and you will enter the pure and cool pond [of awakening]. It would be difficult or even impossible to…

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Contemplating Disease – Cessation – Part 13l – January 27, 2019

Stepping away a little from Chih-I I’m going to share with you a little insight I have gained only in the past two days.   I returned from a trip to Alabama to visit an important museum and memorial dedicated to the cruelty and injustice that has been inflicted on Africans and blacks in our country.  I won’t go into the details as that is material for a different writing.   As I have shared…

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