(Context: The Awesome Power of Virtue) In earlier posts (for example, this one), I mentioned that the reason we practice virtue in Buddhism is that virtue is highly conducive to our own happiness. It gets even better. In addition to increasing your own...
If I ever give you the mistaken impression that virtue is merely the preparation for meditation, and that meditation is the “real Buddhism”, then you should scold me and call me funny names. In truth, virtue is a powerful and essential component in every step of...
In a discourse called the Discourse of the Great Forty[1], the Buddha taught that you can think the first seven parts of the Noble Eightfold Path as being the “support and requisites” for the last one, right samadhi. He also suggested that there is some...
Samadhi changes everything. It is how we see directly and accurately, finding happiness and peace. It is how we accept into our own minds the clarity that resolves all delusion. It is how we accept into our own bodies the joy that heals all trauma. It is how we...
Let us re-cap the Four Noble Truths. In short, the Four Noble Truths are: First noble truth: Birth, aging, illness, death, to be with what you do not want, to be separated from what you want, and to not get what you want, are suffering (dukkha). Specifically,...
There is an important teaching regarding samadhi that enjoys consensus among all Buddhist masters across all schools of Buddhism, which is that meditative experience and realization are different things. In other words, no matter how sublime your jhāna...
