by Chade-Meng Tan | Mar 24, 2024 | Buddhism for All
(Context: Emptiness) Out of Nāgārjuna’s MMK comes another teaching that had a profound and long-lasting influence on Buddhism, that is the idea of the two levels of truths. The way Nāgārjuna puts it: The Buddha’s teaching of the Dharma is based on two...
by Chade-Meng Tan | Mar 21, 2024 | Buddhism for All
“The farmer’s carrot-and-stick approach will cease to work once you perceive the emptiness of both carrot and stick.” There is a very important teaching closely related to dependent origination and non-self that gained a position of preeminence in many schools of...
by Chade-Meng Tan | Mar 19, 2024 | Buddhism for All
Image by Colin Goh (Context: Dependent Origination.) The most important thing about the teaching on dependent origination is it provides the answer to how to end suffering. If your understanding of dependent origination does not lead to ending suffering, then...
by Chade-Meng Tan | Mar 17, 2024 | Buddhism for All
The place where the theme of cause and effect really shows up in a big way is in the teaching of dependent origination (paṭicca samuppāda), in which the Buddha explains in detail how karma functions without a self. This teaching has a general expression, and a...
by Chade-Meng Tan | Mar 14, 2024 | Buddhism for All
In an earlier post, we stated the Buddhist teaching of non-self. That leads to two questions about karma that confound many people studying Buddhism, which turn out to have answers that are surprisingly understandable. The two questions are: How can...
by Chade-Meng Tan | Mar 12, 2024 | Buddhism for All
The teaching of karma can be profound, but its central core is surprisingly simple. Karma literally means action. The Buddha gives a clear, concise definition for karma: It is volition, monks, that I call karma. For having willed, one acts by body,...
