Category Archives: meditation

06Jan/18

3 Analogies that Describe Enlightening Progress in Your Practice

01/06/2018awareness, buddhist, listening, meditation, spiritual, zenbuddhism, clarity, heart, meditation, mind, shurangama, states of mindTCN

It helps to know that you are on track with your practice, Here are 3 similes in Mahayana Buddhist texts that enlightened beings often employ to describe mostly indescribably states of mind.

13Nov/17

10 Benefits from the Shurangama Mantra

11/13/2017mantra peace prayer, meditation, shurangamabenefits, buddhist, mantra, meditation, shurangamaTCN

Why supplement the practice of listening with a practice around the Shurangama mantra? In general, some spiritual humps are difficult to overcome on your own. The Shurangama mantra is the lever that bounces you right over any obstacle. You can memorize this long mantra and recite it regularly, you can…

26Oct/17

4 Foundational Purifications for Enlightenment

10/26/2017buddhist, buddhist text, mantra peace prayer, meditation, shakyamuni buddha, shurangamabuddha, buddhist, buddhist text shurangama, mantra, meditation, precepts, teachingTCN

If you expect to evolve spiritually, you must exert yourself. If you expect miracle to strike simply because you willed it, it’s not likely to happen. You must cultivate the terra firma of your soul so it flowers fruits. You must cleanse the vessel that carries the messages of wisdom and compassion. You must polish the instrument that ignites and channels the transcendental. According to the Shurangama Sutra, a Mahayana Buddhist text that is revered for its teachings on meditation a long and powerful Buddhist mantra, here are four ways to dig deep into the soil of your soul, to bath your messenger, and to make your physical instrument for practice shine.

22Oct/17

The 6 Senses

10/22/2017awareness, buddhism, meditationbuddhism, divine, mind, six senses, teachingTCN

Human beings have six sense organs in common. So if there is a practice that leads to enlightening insight and even enlightenment through any of these senses, anyone can do that practice and advance spiritually.

18Oct/17

7 Possible Places to Locate the Divine Source

10/18/2017buddhism, Buddhist teachings, buddhist text, dharma, meditation, sacred text, shakyamuni buddha, shurangamabuddha, buddhism, mind, shakyamuni, shurangama, source, teaching, wisdomTCN

Where is the divine Source? If the Source is a father figure God in the sky for you, you may resolutely proclaim that God is UP there. If you’ve been meditating to the point that you’re just blissed out and could careless about the world, you may lift your gaze from your navel and slowly utter the words, “In here.” If you’re a nature lover who is fond of hiking, the whistles of the leaves, and the sounds of the birds, you may claim that the Source is everywhere in nature, in creatures large and small. What’s the right answer? Is there a right answer? Well, let me recount seven incorrect answers for you first.

20Aug/17

11 Steps to Listening: a Buddhist Meditative Practice

08/20/2017buddhism, Buddhism Buddhist teachings scripture teacher advice patience text sacred learning Chinese English, buddhist, Buddhist canon, Buddhist teachings, listening, meditation, practice, spiritual, zenbuddhism, listening, meditation, shurangamaTCN

1. Find an uninterrupted period of time, whether five minutes or an hour. 2. Find a quiet place that you can hopefully establish as your sacred space for regular practice. 3. Sit down on a cushion or your bed. It helps to have a cushion or pillow below your buttocks. Sit with your legs crossed.

09Mar/17

6 Buddhist Antidotes to Suffering

03/09/2017buddhism, dharma, meditation, suffering, Uncategorizedantidote, being, buddhism, compassion, healing, meditation, misery, pain, practice, sufferingTCN

Since evicted from a U.S. monastic order about eight years ago, I have been told many times that I suffer because of my karma, bad karma. Often this sentiment is coming from those I presume to be perpetrating intentional harm. This sentiment also becomes a sort of shaming and humiliation…

04Nov/14

Listening to Silence

11/04/2014avalokiteshvara, Avatamsaka, buddhism, Chengguan, dharma realm, guanyin, Huayan, huayen, listening, meditation, qingliang, shurangama, zenTCN

Part IV of Meditating on Sounds: Listening Your Way to Enlightenment An excerpt from Master Jiaoguang’s treatise on The Shurangama Sutra: As for the times when there is only stillness and silence, the nature of hearing feels even more boundless. Listening makes evident the entity that can hear. When we can…

26Oct/14

Meditating on Sounds: Listening Your Way to Enlightenment

10/26/2014avalokiteshvara, Avatamsaka, buddhism, Chengguan, dharma realm, guanyin, Huayan, huayen, listening, meditation, qingliang, shurangama, zenTCN

Part III Am I Listening Correctly? Sounds cannot be eliminated. No matter where you are or how quiet it is, there are sounds that cannot be eliminated. The “sound of silence” can therefore be acknowledged as an impossible-to-eliminate sound, the sensory object of quietude. Knowing the different types of sounds,…

14Oct/14

Part II of Meditating on Sounds: Listening Your Way to Enlightenment

10/14/2014avalokiteshvara, Avatamsaka, buddhism, Chengguan, dharma realm, guanyin, Huayan, huayen, listening, meditation, qingliang, shurangama, zenTCN

With What We Do Not Listen First of all, “the nature of hearing” is not in or with the physical ears. This nature of hearing is fundamentally the sea-like consciousness that stores all karmic interactions. It is the single entity with six functions, of which include the seeing of the eyes,…