study buddhism

I finished reading Becoming Enlightened by the Dalai Lama today (2/28/09). It was very good. Not the first book I’ve read by him and I’ll probably read more books of his.

The Three Pillars of Zen: Teaching, Practice, and Enlightenment
Discover Zen: A Practical Guide to Personal Serenity
Complete Idiot’s Guide to Understanding Buddhism, Second Edition
The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Zen Living
Going Beyond Buddha: The Awakening Practice of Listening

I would recommend any or all of these for anyone interested in finding out more about Buddhism.

right now i want to focus on organizing my life and working on my procrastination issues before i throw myself head first into a religion. i will probably work on this goal towards the end of this year.

Read “Buddhism for Dummies”.

While attending the International Coach Federation Global Conference last week, I was honored to attend a key note speech given by Matthieu Ricard. He is a Buddhist monk who lives at a Monastery in Nepal. Matthieu was born and raised in France and obtained a PhD in molecular genetics. After completing his doctoral thesis he decided to forsake his scientific career and concentrate on the practice of Tibetan Buddhism.

Matthieu spoke to us for about 2 hours explaining his work as a member of the Mind and Life Institute, which is devoted to meetings and collaborative research between scientists and Buddhist scholars and meditators.

His discussion on the benefits of meditation and his philosophy on life were truly inspiring. Matthieu is often referred to as the Happiest Man on Earth and after seeing him, I can see why.

The practice of meditation is a key component of Buddhism. So, as a way to help study I am partaking in a 12 month course on Insight Meditation. The course is broken down into 12 lessons; each lesson is accompanied with a 45 minute guided meditation aimed at supporting the ideas being presented. My plan is to spend one month focusing on each lesson by weekly reviewing the lesson material and daily practice the guided meditation for that lesson. The goal should help me establish a regular meditation practice and help with my understanding of Buddhism.

The lessons are broken down as follows:

1. The Power of Mindfulness
2. Bare Attention
3. Desire and Aversion
4. Sleepiness, Restlessness and Doubt
5. Concepts & Reality
6. Suffering
7. Delusion
8. Karma
9. Equanimity
10. Faith & Wisdom
11. Lovingkindness
12. Practice in the World

I am currently on day 10 of the 1st lesson.

“They have many points in common: for example, both depend on logic and investigation to ascertain the nature of phenomena. Both discourage blind faith and encourage free inquiry on the part of the student. Buddhism does not contradict current scientific theories about the origin of the universe or the physical evolution of the human species. In fact, His Holiness the Dalai Lama has said that if scientific findings contradict what is written in Buddhist scriptures, then Buddhist must accept that new information. However, if science can not actively disprove what is stated in the scriptures, then there is no need to abandon that concept.

Both science & Buddhism use theory of cause and effect to explain how things function. Science investigates cause and effect as it functions in the physical, material world, whereas Buddhism explores it in terms of the mind.” ~ Taken from Buddhism for Beginners by Thubten Chodron.

This is one of the concepts of Buddhism that I really admire. It is not closed minded and accepts other points of view once they are proven, not acting and judging based on faith alone.

I recommend this book (Buddhism for Beginners by Thubten Chodron) for anyone who is new to the concepts of Buddhism and is interested in studying it.

ive been studying about buddhism and hinduism.
really interesting,
i have this huge inspiration to study all sorts of religions now aha.

This week the sangha hosted visiting teacher Dairyu Michael Wenger. It was a wonderful week. I learned about the Heart Sutra and heard the story of Seiko and the dragons. The group discussed the importance of Sangha and how we can support and learn with one another.

I learned about Bodhisattva Never Despise and Bodhidharma and had a beautiful, and, for me, emotional lesson during zazen. I also finally got up the nerve to try and chant along today. And today I had my first dokusan.

It has been a long and inspiring week. I am actually a little sore from all the zazen.

How I am choosing to think about things right now:

Things are not truly as I perceive them, good or bad. Things just are without qualifiers.