Buddhism As Education

The Buddha does not want us to follow the double path - desire and indulgence on the one hand and fear and aversion on the other side. Just be aware of pleasure, he teaches. anger, fear, dissatisfaction are not the path of the yogi but the path of the worldly people. The tranquil person walks the Middle Path of right practice, leaving grasping on the left and fear and aversion on the right. One who undertakes the path of practice must follow this Middle Way i.e. "I will not take interest in pleasure or pain. I will lay them down". But, of course, it is hard at first. It is as though we are being kicked on both sides. Like a cowbell or a pendulum, we are knocked back and forth. When the Buddha preached his first sermon, he discoursed on these two extremes because this is where attachment lies. The desire for happiness kicks from one side; suffering and dissatisfaction kick from the other. these two are always besieging us all the time. But when you walk the Middle Path,...

When we live with another person, to protect each other's happiness, we should help one another transform the internal formations that we produce together. By practicing understanding and loving speech, we can help each other a great deal. Happiness is no longer an individual matter alone. If the other person is not happy, we will not be happy either. To transform the other person's knots will help bring about our own happiness as well. A wife can create internal formations in her husband and a husband can do so in his wife and if they continue to create knots in each other, one day, there will be no happiness left. In this case, as soon as a knot is created, the wife, for instance should know that a knot has just been tied onto her. She should not overlook it. She should take the time to observe it and with her husband's help, transform it. She might say, "darling, I think we would better discuss a conflict I saw growing". This is easy when the states of...

When we see dishonest people who are wealthy or cruel people who are powerful, or kind people who die young, we may doubt the law of Karma. But many of this results we experience in this life are results of actions in previous lives and many of the action we do in this life will only ripen in future lives i.e. this is called long term Karma. Short term Karma is that which show results within a short term of time. The wealth of dishonest people might be the result of their generosity in past lives. Their current dishonesty is however leaving karmic seeds for them to experience poverty in their future lives. Likewise, the respect and authority given to cruel people is due to positive actions they did in the past. In the present, they are abusing their power, thus creating the cause for future pain. Those who die young are experiencing the result of negative actions such as killing done in past lives. However, their present kindness is planting seeds or imprints on their mainstreams for t...