Sculpture of Ānanda from Wat Khao Rup Chang, Songkhla, Thailand. Why use the expression “Thus Have I Seen (or Heard)”? It is said that Ananda, Shakyamuni Buddha’s cousin and attendant for His last twenty-five years on...
Xuanfa Institute Logo. The following paragraphs, like the last two blog articles, are from the PREFACE from my forthcoming book Thus Have I Seen: The Marvelous True Buddha Dharma and Its Power to Transform. I will...
In classical Greco-Roman (western) mythology, the phoenix is a large elegant bird like an eagle or peacock that lives for five to six centuries in the Arabian dessert, and after living this time, self-cremates, burning...
“Chuda sweeping,” from Pabongka Rinpoche’s “Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand.” In our class Sunday, one of the students reminded us of the story of Chudapanthaka who reached...
Mahamayuri Vidyarajni Tathagata. If you want to join us for our class next Sunday, please consider the following questions concerning what we have already covered and add any others you have in the comments below. What...
This morning, October 11, 2020, during our morning service, we continued our reading of the Vimalakirti Nirdesa Sutra with Shakyamuni Buddha asking each of his 500 Arhat students to go and ask Venerable...
At our Sunday morning chanting yesterday we started with a reading on the first two chapters of The Vimalakirti Nirdesa Sutra. I chose the Charles Luk translation from the Chinese translation by Kumarajiva, but there...
You should read and reread Part I of Learning from Buddha, “If You Learn Dharma but Do Not Cultivate Yourself, You Cannot Attain Accomplishment.” We will also review what we learned from the first class...
On August 16 we held our last class on the Five Vidyas and shared how they impacted our lives and practice and what we had learned from this series of classes. I reported in my earlier blog about a story told in that...
The Four All-embracing Bodhisattva Virtues are known as the four methods that Bodhisattvas employ to approach and save living beings. They include 1-giving gifts that people like, 2-using kind words, 3-acting to...