by Chade-Meng Tan | Oct 30, 2023 | Buddhism for All
The Buddha ended his statement of the First Noble Truth with the sentence, “In brief, the five aggregates subject to grasping are suffering (dukkha).”[1] Simply put, the five aggregates are the five physical and mental factors that, in combination, are experienced as...
by Chade-Meng Tan | Oct 29, 2023 | Buddhism for All
“Master, this car is dukkha.” The lesson from the story of Emperor Qianlong and countless others with lucky human births is clear, that no matter how lucky our birth is, we are all still subject to the same suffering: aging, illness, death, separation, not...
by Chade-Meng Tan | Oct 28, 2023 | Buddhism for All
Emperor Qianlong on horseback in imperial armor. (Image from the Palace Museum website.) Imagine being born into an extremely lucky circumstance. Would you still have any suffering? Hongli had one of the luckiest births in the history of the world. He was born...
by Chade-Meng Tan | Oct 27, 2023 | Buddhism for All
The story of the Buddha is primarily useful for us as a template to guide us in how to move forward with our own lives. It is helpful to us in the same way that knowing admirable people is helpful to us: we see them live in good ways, watch them make decisions that...
by Chade-Meng Tan | Oct 26, 2023 | Buddhism for All
After his enlightenment, the Buddha spent seven weeks in Uruvela.[1] Some of the time was spent consolidating his teachings, specifically, the teachings on dependent origination (which we will explore in detail later in this series) was formulated during the...
by Chade-Meng Tan | Oct 25, 2023 | Buddhism for All
Students of religion may find one thing very peculiar about the Buddha’s enlightenment story: it does not involve any god at all. In the Bible, for example, God appeared directly in front of Abraham, and revealed Himself to Moses through a burning bush. In...
