Staying in the Present

One of the teachings given by Nyima Dakpa Rinpoche at the construction ceremony of the Tara Great Stupa in Hua Hin was that we should constantly be at the present moment. The past is already passed. We can't bring the past back. The future does not yet happen. So if we keep on thinking about …

Ten Wholesome and Ten Unwholesome Actions

I am now translating Deshung Rinpoche's oral commentary -- The Three Levels of Spiritual Perception, which is published by Wisdom Books into Thai. The process has taken quite a long time because I am so busy with other commitments, so I can spend only a few minutes each day for the task. Nonetheless I plan …

The Lankavatara Sutra

Yesterday I went to the office of the Thousand Stars Foundation and found that there were a number of new books waiting to be cataloged and arranged on shelves. The books were given to the Foundation by Anne Tuech, a friend of the Foundation who had helped us with a lot of things. She gave …

Emptiness of Karma

Talking about karma and empitness, Nagarjuna says that ultimately speaking there is no karma -- no perpetrator, no action, no recipient of action. So karma is empty. This is one of the most difficult teachings in the Fundamental Verses on the Middly Way. But we can unpack the difficulty as follows: First of all, for …

Vajrasattva

One of Phakchok Rinpoche's teachings next week will focus on the Buddha Vajrasattva. In fact he is going to give those attending an empowerment of the Buddha so that we know how to practice the deity properly and receive the blessings of the lineage of all the masters who practiced this very practice before. Vajrasattva …

Is it me that exist in the past lives?

Well, I used to be advised not to title a post (or an essay or a paper) with a question sentence, but somehow I could not resist it here. I kind of don't agree with the advise anyway. Continuing from the previous posts about karma, it seems that there is something that is still left …

Tsunamis, Cyclones, Earthquakes and Karma

There is a prominent teaching in Buddhism, which it also largely shares with other Indian religions such as Jainism and Hinduism, and that is the belief in the law of karma. Basically what the law says is that your present condition is the result of your post actions, and that your future condition will be …