spiritual Archives - The Compassion Network

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3 Analogies that Describe Enlightening Progress in Your Practice

TCN / 01/06/2018

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.

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11 Steps to Listening: a Buddhist Meditative Practice

TCN / 08/20/2017

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.

buddhist, Buddhist teachings, listening, shurangama, spiritual, zen

8 Listening Exercises

TCN / 08/10/2017

1. Listen for the sounds around you now: people’s voices, TV, music, cars, chirps, breeze. . . Stop what you’re doing. For three seconds, still yourself and hear what’s around you. 2. Listen for the sound of silence. Turn off any noise in your control. At a time when all’s…

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8 Reflections on Suffering upon Rising from Practice

TCN / 08/07/2017

First, “practice” in the Buddhist sense is that it is a regular and consistent sacred routine that you engage in on the spiritual path. It is often compared to nurturing a seed with nutrients consistently until it blossoms. “Practice” also in the sense that it is always evolving. I hesitate…

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7 Paradoxical Teachings in Buddhism

TCN / 06/13/2017

Typically, we reject contradictions. Buddhists, however, embrace a number of oxymora that serve as levers for opening into profundity likened to light at the end of the tunnel. The unexpected folding into of what is unfolding, and the unfolding of that which is enfolded bend our conscious mind so that…

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On Civil Rights Demands

TCN / 04/25/2014

From alleged government espionage programs to religious scandals of assault or abuse – where among this barrage of Lord of the Flies scenes do Buddhist observers find confirmation of the belief that people are inherently good? When the historical Buddha Shakyamuni founded his order…