For the benefit of all sentient beings, I am going to listen to the teaching on the Avalokiteshvara guru yoga method.Guru Shakyamuni Buddha showed different paths, the Hinayana and Mahayana, or the Lesser Vehicle and the Great Vehicle, according to the capabilities of sentient beings, the objects to be subdued. Within the Mahayana path, there are two yanas, or vehicles: the Paramitayana and the Mantrayana.

Being a medical student is a very stressful experience which can result in burnout without proper interventions. Natural interventions such as meditation are preferable to drugs in order to avoid potential side effects from tranquilizers. Mayo Clinic writes that meditation is used for relaxation and stress reduction. Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center reported in a news release on Oct. 30, 2013, that medical students are being taught meditation techniques to prevent burnout and improve care.

Is Buddhism a religion?, part 5: The idea of awakening does not offer an escape from self, but a way to attend to its nature.

There are four places, Ananda, a pious person should visit, look upon with feelings and sentiments of reverence. What are the four (4)?

Buddhism has many unique assets as a religious tradition. It has been received well in many Western countries. It places humankind at the center of its attention. It does not require you to believe in a god. It requires you to be rational and to use reason to make decisions. Also, Buddhism includes meditation, a practical method of self-development. As Venerable Tenzin Palmo explains: “You can experience for yourself, it is not based on faith, it’s based on very pragmatic basis which if you are willing to really use these tools, and you will see through yourself how very true this is.” Thus, meditation is not considered to be necessarily religious in Western countries.

With Ramadan and Khao Phansa coinciding this year, Southeast Asians have had a rare chance to celebrate two great religious festivals at the same time

“I do not say you can attain purity by views, traditions, morality or conventions, nor will you gain purity without these. But by using them for abandonment rather than as positions to hold on to, you will come to be at peace without the need to be anything.” – Buddha

The nucleus of the present book is a medieval compendium of Buddhist philosophy entitled the Abhidhammattha Sangaha. This work is ascribed to Acariya Anuruddha, a Buddhist savant about whom so little is known that even his country of origin and the exact century in which he lived remain in question. Nevertheless, despite the personal obscurity that surrounds the author, his little manual has become one of the most important and influential textbooks of Theravada Buddhism.

One of the most important questions we come to in spiritual practice is how to reconcile service and responsible action with a meditative life based on nonattachment, letting go, and coming to understand the ultimate emptiness of all conditioned things. Do the values that lead us to actively give, serve, and care for one another differ from the values that lead us deep within ourselves on a journey of liberation and awakening? To consider this question, we must first learn to distinguish among four qualities central to spiritual practice--love, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity--and what might be called their "near enemies." Near enemies may seem to be very close to these qualities and may even be mistaken for them, but they are not fundamentally alike.

Ajahn Brahm: For those abused and wronged is happiness actually possible? Attachment to painful emotions, such as grief, anger, bitterness, the notion of a wounded self with a distinct identity: all these can become a perpetual prison...