Insights

Samadhi is a Sanskrit term usually translated as concentration. I have some problem with that definition, though, because it implies fixing mind on something else, like an object or the breath. In my experience, Samadhi is more about collecting or holding mind than focusing it on something. Practicing it correctly we don’t attach mind to…

Compassion is a human characteristic; some may say the most human of all. It is also the premier activity of enlightened people, as well as the major reason Buddhists commit to becoming enlightened. Those with Buddhist insight are particularly suited for experiencing compassion, compassion being defined as awareness of the suffering of others and the…

We have talked about emptiness, so it makes sense to talk about form. Logically, we could say that there is form because of emptiness and vice versa. In other words, if everything were form we would never have made a distinction about it and called it form. It’s like a fish would never make a…

The true nature of mind has two major components: emptiness and awareness. We have discussed emptiness earlier, and in this blog we will turn to awareness, the second aspect of mind. We can think of awareness from either an everyday or enlightened perspective. For most people, what experiences the world feels like something they possess…

The language I am using is dualistic. It accepts that there is always a subject that does something (verb), to another (object). So, from the very start the topic of duality is confused by the language used to explain it. To give an example, let’s take the following very common instruction a beginning meditator receives.…

For a more detailed treatment of emptiness from The Truth about Enlightenment: How to Find Egolessness, Nonduality, and Wisdom on the Buddhist Path, view this sample chapter. Emptiness is a pivotal term and experience in the Dharma. A nice way to think of it is as being without thingness. That which is empty has no…

To those who meditate, self is what does their thinking, breathing or anything else they consider to be meditation. For them, there is meditation and a meditator that does the meditation. What performs their meditation, or anything else in their life, is construed as self. The realized or enlightened, those who experience the true nature…

Most of us live in the relative world. It is a dualistic world split into a self that we feel is inside us and a world outside that we try to align with self’s wishes. The interaction between self and what lies outside it creates three types of behavior: wanting, rejecting and ignoring. These behaviors…