The Gradual PathĀ Blog
Humanity is on the brink of a third world war, and the Arab-Israeli conflict is but one of many complex global challenges we all face. Given the horrific devastation and loss of life, I ask myself the obvious question: are we broken beyond repair?
It’s an existential question that emerged...
Congratulations! You made it to the summit of the gradual path.
The correct view of reality sees the conventional reality of people, places, things, and experiences, as inseparable from their ultimate reality, the lack of inherent existence. Emptiness is form, form is emptiness. Which means we...
Definition of emptiness - The lack of inherent existence of the subject, object, and interaction.
The “lack” implies something we thought was there is not. Self-existence or independent existence is not there. And yet...things still arise, appear, and feel good or bad.
There is a...
Overcome the negativity bias and conduct an inventory of all the success stories and expressions of human triumph.
Just as all social suffering has its origin in self-grasping in each of us, so too all examples of social flourishing have their roots in love and compassion.
Here’s the good...
The following is a lightly edited excerpt from Find True Refuge.
How many of you feel like you're a terrible sinner? How many of you went through all the hell realms in the Yangsi [Rinpoche] book and all the negative karmas and all the things that can befall you and felt like you were a...
I think it actually requires much more maturity to be able to stay in the hot pocket of understanding the virtue of this institution and how the lama arrangement works and the qualities of seeking a master that's truly qualified and also recognizing all the malarkey and all the nuance and...
What are the main building blocks of Buddhahood? There is both the body and the mind of the Buddha. The mind of the Buddha is the mind that realizes complete and utter interdependence or emptiness and the body of the Buddha is of a compassionate, sensitive, capable, skillful agent of change or...
For millennia the contemplative traditions of India and Tibet have taught that the ultimate nature of reality is empty of inherent existence, and thus insists on social engagement based on love and compassion. This paradox is known as nonduality and understood correctly avoids the extremes of...
Visualization is a powerful meditation technique that many people give up on because they think it's too hard and that they can't do it. In fact, we're visualizing all the time. Dr. Miles Neale explains in this clip from Return with Elixir.
You'll get people who say 'I can't visualize' or...
Excerpt from Class 3 of Find True Refuge
I actually want to put this under the point of what does it mean to take refuge. Now that you have the causes, what are the two causes? Fear and confidence.
Then what are the three objects? The reliances. You rely on the Buddha as the epitome, as the...
