Archived Posts
What We Believe – Setsubun – Podcast – May 7, 2019
35 Day Practice Day 20
Bodhisattvas From Underground
When the Bodhisattvas from beneath the ground make their appearance as told in Chapter 15 of the Lotus Sutra one of the first things they do is to greet the Buddha, enquire about his well-being, and ask how the teachings he is engaged in our progressing. This is in marked contrast to how others had approached the Buddha, those Bodhisattvas in the provisional part of the Lotus Sutra, Bodhisattvas in preceding chapters, where people asked…
On the back of our enemies – not by my effort alone.
Well not exactly our enemies, or at least I hope we don’t have enemies. Maybe just folks that don’t view life the same way we do. In Buddhism we often speak of interdependence, or dependent origination a concept that points out how we are connected on some level with everyone and everything else in the universe. The visual analogy used it Indra’s net. Picture if you will a fish net with a gem in each…
20 Minutes A Day
The past couple of days I have been reading and re-reading Chapter 15 in the Lotus Sutra, “The Appearance of Bodhisattvas from Underground”. I have even pulled out all of the various translations that I have of the Lotus Sutra to compare how each translator has dealt with this chapter. It isn’t a very complicated chapter, so I don’t know exactly why I felt compelled to look beyond the one translation that I normally use,…
Micro-Lending
Yes, another post on Micro-Lending. This one is merely an update. Of the six loans I have made four have completely repaid their loans. Today I was able to re-loan some of my repaid funds to a clothing vendor in Azerbaijan. I loan through Kiva.org and if anyone wants to join our temple’s team just search for Myosho-ji and sign up. There are lots of folks all over the world who, with the aid of…