2011 June « Rev. Danny Fisher

June 23, 2011

Please Check Out My Exclusive Buddhist Channel Interview with Lama Surya Das about the 2011 Buddhist Teachers Council!

Lama Surya Das. Image via www.surya.org.

OK, Buddhist blogosphere (and Buddhist Twitterverse): you had lots of questions, and I tried to get you some answers!

Please check out my exclusive Buddhist Channel interview with Lama Surya Das about the 2011 Buddhist Teachers Council! It’s right here.

Lama Surya Das, who was one of the conference’s conveners/main organizers, is, of course, the fabulous and mighty American-born Tibetan Buddhist teacher, founder of the Dzogchen Center in Cambridge, and author of such books as Awakening the Buddha Within and the new Buddha Standard Time. Many of you know him from his appearances on The Colbert Report, as well. (He’s rapidly becoming the host’s Buddhist stringer!)

I look forward to reading your thoughts about what Lama-la has to say regarding this much-discussed event.

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June 23, 2011

A Gift of Dharma for 6.23.11

Today’s quote comes from Siddhartha Gautama (circa fifth and/or sixth century B.C.E.) — the historical Buddha and de facto progenitor of the Buddhist religions. This is it:

Monks, do not wage wordy warfare, saying: ‘You don’t understand this Dhamma and discipline, I understand this Dhamma and discipline’; ‘How could you understand it? You have fallen into wrong practices: I have the right practice’; ‘You have said afterwards what you should have said first, and you have said first what you should have said afterwards’; ’What I say is consistent, what you say isn’t'; ‘What you have thought out for so long is entirely reversed’; ‘Your statement is refuted’; ‘You are talking rubbish!’; ‘You are in the wrong’; ‘Get out of that if you can!’

Why should you not do this? Such talk, monks, is not related to the goal, it is not fundamental to the holy life, does not conduce to disenchantment, dispassion, cessation, tranquillity, higher knowledge, enlightenment or to Nibbana. When you have discussions, monks, you should discuss Suffering, the Arising of Suffering, its Cessation, and the Path that leads to its Cessation. Why is that? Because such talk is related to the goal… it conduces to disenchantment… to Nibbana. This is the task you must accomplish.