There are a couple of instances in the Pitaka, where the Buddha compares our moment to moment experience (zoom out and you would call it “life”) with a swift river. In some similes he compares our journey from Samsara to…
Or: How can i desire Nibbana if it is supposed to be the end of desires? Part of mainstream Buddhism and supported by a notion from late Mahayana school of thought is the proposition that you cannot achieve Nibbana if…
Why did the Buddha emphasis, over and over again, the necessity to keep the 5 basic precepts PURE in order to progress in meditation? Keep them for a couple of days while meditating and you will know! Nothing helps to…
Or: How do i find my way to the first jhana? Let’s say your meditation topic is Anapanasati (remembering the breath). So you would concentrate on breathing. If that is all you do, very soon, you would find yourself lost…
Please add to the list of Prof. Ian Stevenson, Dr. Jim Tucker, Dr. Raymond Moody, Francis Story and Thomas Shroder one other name: i found Prof Erlendur Haraldsson website this afternoon. Have a look at these three cases from Libanon:…
Do you have a favorite passage in the Suttapitaka?…Difficult question, there are so many gems. But this one is really special, IMHO. It’s a ZEN Masters dream come true in the Pali canon: ‘Tasmātiha te, bāhiya, evaṃ sikkhitabbaṃ – ‘diṭṭhe…
How do the 4 jhana and 4 arupa jhana they relate? You could say that the 4 arupa jhanas are a “modification on the topic” of the fourth jhana or a “variation on the same theme”. They bear its characteristics…
Some people face these questions: My day to day life doesn’t allow me to meditate at all. I have the feeling that i do not progress in my meditation. The retreat was fine, but now all the calmness and serenity…
Found this very nice Chinese film about the story of Bodhidharma: Bodhidharma (11 parts) The legend of Bodhidharma is a wonderful founding story for Zen a la Chan a la Dhyana a la “Jhana Buddhism”. But in the time of…
the following is an email i answered with regard to the last blog entry on the vipassana knowledges. I thought that many people might have the same reservations and would like to share with you my take on this: Well,…