Top Highlights

• Legend has it that Siddhartha Gautama became obsessed about the nature of human suffering and devoted his life to understanding it. He did this by approaching several spiritual masters, practicing various disciplines (some of which nearly killed him), and by meditating deeply.   One day, as he sat in meditation beneath a tree, the answer hit him, a...
• Buddhism is an agnostic religion. It neither acknowledges the existence of a god nor denies it. It simply teaches that we must live by a moral code because it is our nature to do so, regardless of whether a god exists or not. To choose good in the hopes of reward, while avoiding evil out of fear of punishment, is not true goodness. It is sheer hypo...
• The stereotypical, average American understanding of Buddhism is a mish-mash of Kung Fu movies, the Dalai Lama, Richard Gere, Tina Turner, and bald people in yellow robes. Am I right?   Buddhists all over the world, the US included, are a diverse group. There are the Nichiren types who chant “nam yoho renge kyo,” like Tina Turner does; those who fo...
• Buddhism is incredibly diverse, but it does have three common threads running through it. The first is the belief that a man named Siddhartha Gautama once lived in Nepal, became the Buddha, and got the whole thing rolling. The second is the belief in the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path. The third is that the belief that the Buddha’s teachi...
• as “anxiety,” “stress,” or “dissatisfaction.”