From an article on Buddhistdoor All living beings desire happiness and recoil from suffering. When the Buddha said he taught suffering and the end of suffering, rather than being pessimistic, he was being optimistic. When the Buddha explained dukkha (Pali. suffering, discontent), he explicated its cause, how to eradicate its cause, and the method of practice leading to its eradication. He taught us the way to avoid suffering. Happy will he be who knows how to bring an end to

A short excerpt from My Buddhist Journal The Screen Door From time to time little things wake me up. This morning, I went to the Rooster Coffee House hoping to have a coffee and some time to write. When I arrived, they were open of course, but there was major street work going on outside and there was no place to park. If I had parked, it would have been uncomfortably noisy and dusty. So, long story short, I ended up having coffee at the Riverdale Perk, a little coffee sh

This is a brief section from our upcoming book Wisdom in Buddhism Right Speech (Pali – samma vaca) The third factor on the Eightfold Path is that of Right Speech. In this age of mass-media, social media and almost instant communication around the globe, we might sometimes forget that our words have meaning. The words we use and how we use them help convey our intent. Our words express our thinking process; clear, muddled or somewhere in between. The words we use have weig

A short section from our upcoming book Wisdom in Buddhism Do not take Intoxicants Intoxicants have been with humanity for a very long time; caffeine, tobacco, peyote, alcohol, hallucinogenic mushrooms, cocaine, marijuana, etc. Why is this so? Why have so many intoxicants been used by even our earliest, ancient ancestors? Why has humanity spent so much time and energy seeking them out? It might simply be that (as we will discuss in the Chapter 11.1 The Four Noble Truths) li

Master Jingzong; English translation by Foyuan, edited by Jingxing Painting by Han Xi Shan A proverb says, “[In a chess game], bystanders see the game better than the players.” The famous poet Su Shi also had this to say, “One cannot see the true shape of Mount Lu because one is in the mountain.” The [chess] player cannot see clearly his situation because of self-interest, improper motives or a fixed perspective. The casual observer, however, can see and understand the whole

Introduction to wisdom in Buddhism

Do Not Believe Everything You Are Told Wisdom, to a large extent, is learning to see the world, not as we think it is, but to see it as it actually behaves. An excerpt from our upcoming book Wisdom in Buddhism What do you believe when the president of the United States stands before you on national TV, addresses the nation and tells you that global warming and the very idea of climate change is nothing but ‘fake news?’ Do you believe him, because he’s the president and noth

This is a short excerpt from Death and Dying in Buddhism, a publication from Off the Dock, an imprint of Canadian Outdoor Press. It should be clear as mountain air that no one, no human being, nor animal nor plant nor smallest microbe manages to escape death. It’s the ultimate end of everyone now living or that ever will live. There is no “cure” for it and no avoiding it. Your religion, spiritual practice, health regime, fit body, medication and wealth will not alter the u

This delusion manifests in many forms. “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.” ― Heraclitus Heraclitus observes that even if the river looks the same, feels the same and appears to be in the same place, it’s only an illusion. The river changes course constantly, the water ebbs and floods throughout the seasons. The water may run clear one day then murky the next. Fish may run and fish may die. The river, in reali

An excerpt from our upcoming book Wisdom in Buddhism When we speak of wisdom and its role in public discourse, it’s rarely about an individual, private citizen. Instead, it tends to be about public figures - those who open themselves up for criticism and put themselves in the limelight to be seen and to be critiqued, judged and held accountable. Rarely would a private citizen want their lives, past transgressions, decisions, policy choices or intellect exposed to public scrut

We examine morality and ethics and how they relate to wisdom in Buddhism.

What is Suffering? - An excerpt from Pain and Suffering in Buddhism. Suffering is distinctly different from pain, but it is often confused for pain – the two words are frequently used interchangeably. Suffering may be thought of as an uncomfortable or negative emotional reaction to unwanted circumstances. Sometimes these circumstances will be getting things you don’t want or having things happen to you that you wanted to avoid. Sometimes we might suffer over not getting wh

A short excerpt from our upcoming book, Wisdom in Buddhism. Being truthful and thinking, deeply, before speaking, is a fundamental skill leaders need to learn if they wish to be considered 'wise.' This excerpt is part of a much longer article dealing with the need for wisdom in political and business leaders. Effective Public Communication Skills One does not need to be a ‘great orator’ in order to be an effective public communicator. When we think of great orators or the p

From our upcoming book Wisdom in Buddhism You may also enjoy Pain and Suffering in Buddhism Death and Dying in Buddhism Life of Milarepa FREE Early or Anchoring Bias When we hold a hypothesis and begin to seek information to confirm or deny its validity, there is a strong tendency to believe any early data that tends to confirm our hypotheses. That is to say that we might ‘anchor’ our evaluation on the early data. The danger is that we don’t continue in the search for mor

A Story of Compassion - From our upcoming book, Wisdom in Buddhism A Story of Compassion A story is told in the Jataka Tales of a land ruled by King Benares, in which a beautiful deer that is born with an unusual golden fur, silver antlers and eyes as bright as sparkling jewels. As this deer matured, there gathered around him a large herd and he became known as King Banyan Deer. At the same time, in a distant part of Benares, another buck was born, equally splendid and as he

An excerpt from our upcoming book Wisdom In Buddhism, due for release early 2018. This is from the chapter on Bias in Decision Making Attributing Intention This bias is really a subsection of attribution theory, which is beyond the scope of this book, but it is worth a mention. Attribution theory looks into how an observer is able to use gathered social cues to arrive at causal explanations for events or judgment about another persons behaviour. For the most part there are t

An excerpt from our upcoming book Wisdom in Buddhism This selection is from the chapter Eight Forms of Bias in our Thinking 1) Early or Anchoring Bias When we hold a hypothesis and begin to seek information to confirm or deny its validity, there is a strong tendency to believe any early data that tends to confirm our hypotheses. That is to say that we might ‘anchor’ our evaluation on the early data. The danger is that we don’t continue in the search for more information, be

This is an excerpt from our upcoming book Wisdom in Buddhism Whatever you believe, remember that you may be wrong. You need to be fearless about thinking, because sometimes you’re going to be wrong. And when you’re wrong it's going to hurt. The difficult thing about being wrong, is that it feels exactly the same as being right. You feel, clever, righteous, vindicated, honourable, exonerated and smug, just like if you were right. “The moon is made of cheese,” feels exactly

A short excerpt from our upcoming book, Wisdom in Buddhism. Hatred, the Third Mental Defilement Hate arises from ignorance of the world and how everything and everyone is interconnected. We come to think of ourselves as standing apart or separate from the world and judge everything and everyone by some internal standard that we may not even understand. When those people, things or circumstances we judge are found wanting in some quality, we begin to develop negative feelings

An excerpt from the upcoming Wisdom in Buddhism. Elements 4 and 5 of the eightfold path relate more to ethical behaviour, than to wisdom per se. Still, much wisdom can be found in behaviour that is conductive to building positive relationships, not harming others and being a responsible member of any society. Ethics (Pali, silakkhandha ) #4 Right Actions (Pali, samma sammanta ) Abstain From the Taking of Life The first thing to recognize here is that we should abstain from k