Dharma Wheel

In his essay covering the bardo realm and the Tibetan Book of the Dead, at one point Julius Evola mentions an encounter the recently deceased will have with "the absolute primordial light"- After recovering from the "swoon" (i.e., death), consciousness awakens in a state of supernatural lucidity and...

Welcome

Several friends of mine are big fans of chanting dharanis, one of which is the long version of the Cundi dharani. I've tried to find a translation of it online, but have never managed to find any. I'm an extreme amateur with Sanskrit, however I attempted to translate it on my own using what little k...

I keep seeing various forms of Ratnasambhava in Devanagari and I'm uncertain of which to use. Ratnasambhava (रत्नसम्भव), Ratnasaṃbhava (रत्नसंभव), or even Ratnasanbhava (रत्नसन्भव​). This website for example has numerous pronunciations listed www.visiblemantra.org/ratnasambhava.html Does "sam" have ...

Not so. Vipassana is necessary for liberation. Samatha and Vipassana are two wings of the meditative bird and both are required in order to obtain high states of absorption, correct? If I recall correctly, anapanasati practiced right is both samatha and vipassana. It means not chasing a sensory obj...

I recall reading about this young Japanese Buddhist pilgrim recently who had visited India.
https://www.rt.com/news/219699-india-ra ... e-student/

The Mahavairocana Sutra presents a list of actions that one should never do, such as killing, stealing, lying, idle chatter. However in the next section it provides specific situations in which it's acceptable to commit the previous offenses. It's okay to kill in order to save lives, it's okay to st...

In quite a number of traditions knowledge is presented as the one and only true upāya, which is what all of the other means eventually lead to. Diverse scriptures also point out men and even asuras sitting in samadhi for absurd lengths of time, such as 10,000 years, yet failing to obtain liberation ...

Mantras can be recited at any time provided you aren't doing it in a distracted way, but I've been told (this may or may not apply to you, idk) that the only time mantras can be "counted" in terms of accumulations is during a formal session. If you are accumulating 100,000 om mani then you would no...

I don't believe in this "two wifes" saying, because all yidams are one essentially. Very true from what I've read. If I recall correctly the Mahavairocana Tantra says that prostrating to any Buddha is equivalent to prostrating to all Buddhas. But anyhow, I think your question could best be answered...

Last year after having it suggested to me by multiple parties I began to practice recitation of the Cundi dharani as a part of my sadhana, primarily during formal sitting sessions, but also throughout the day when I'm able to keep accurate track of my count, as well as for prostrations. For those of...

When tired, sleep. When hungry, eat. How could dharma practice ever be a struggle? Even if you're just referring to formal practice, what is meditation? It's literally just sitting, allowing the mind and breath to come to a rest and from there dhyana unfolds naturally. Dharma is the proper, healthy ...

Thicket of views.

Well I'm not exactly Buddhist yet I am curious I have explored and many many religions and have yet to find one that seems to call out or fit me in any any general way a friend suggested Buddhism so I thought that I would come to a source to get information. I am Ari 38 female from Kentucky. I am p...

If I may be so bold as to offer one observation from the outside: The downside is that because in prison your main resource is books, often from disparate traditions, it is harder to cultivate a genuine relationship with a teacher, sangha, or practice lineage. The downside of this is that (necessar...

I'm actually volunteer for prison Dharma stuff for the last few years. By and large, I was pretty impressed by the dedication of the men in the group to practicing, There is a a seriousness there (while still some good humor:) that I haven't seen in many sangha on the outside, other than a few peop...

Welcome Fikrilast. I have a Muslim friend and he typically just replaces the Buddhist paraphernalia with Islamic ones. Meditating while laying or in the prayer position, chanting the names of Allah instead of more typical mantras, always having a Quran close by, etc. This seems to get him by in the ...

I was considering making a brief introduction in the member bios thread, but then it occurred to me that what I have to say is rather unusual and will take somewhat more than a paragraph or two. I'll try to condense this as best I can, and to keep it relevant to my practice. My family is largely Mor...

This strikes me as being a kind of Shaivite statement about meditation and can be interpreted in different ways (and not necessarily strictly physically). In fact I'm pretty sure a virtually identical statement can be found in Paul Reps book "Zen Flash, Zen Bones" in his Shaivite chapter. One of ou...

About 10 months ago I decided to try and connect with some of the "local" meditating community. However I live in a rather dead area as far as Buddhism goes, and so I settled upon the occasional visit to a yoga ashram which is about an hours drive away. The founder of the ashram has a quote upon the...