Dr Dosti Regmi Blog

  Many critics of Buddhism see emptiness as a form of nihilism, contradiction,  or plain absurdity. But these accusations are based on shallow understanding. In fact, throughout its history,   Buddhist philosophy has developed at least  5 distinct meanings of śūnyatā. Each of these is profound enough to change one’s entire perception of reality.  In any case, I have to warn you. The great Buddhist philosopher Nāgārjuna wrote that  ‘when it is wrongly seen, emptiness destroys the dull-witted, like a snake wrongly grasped’.      1 NO SUBJECT:   In the Suñña Sutta,   Buddha   talks about emptiness like this: ‘It is … because it is empty of self and of what belongs to self that it is said, ‘Empty is the world.’’ The first meaning of emptiness is that in the world of our experience a self (or anything belonging to a self) is nowhere to be found.  Anatta.   For the Buddha, as music arises is when the mus...

T HERAVADA B UDDHISM IN A N UTSHELL  - Ajahn Amaro (Adapted from a talk given on a retreat held at the Angela Center, Santa Rosa, California, November 1997) A couple of days ago   a few people asked: “What is Theravada Buddhism?” It’s a good question. Often people have come across vipassana , insight meditation, and its related teachings, disconnected from their origins. Sometimes they are unaware that vipassana has anything to do with Buddhism or who the Buddha was. How it began The Buddha started his life as the crown prince of a small kingdom in what is now Nepal. He was born around 563 BCE although, of course, scholars and different Buddhist lineages disagree on the exact date. After being cosseted within the confines of the palace for his first 29 years, the spiritual impulse led him to take up the life of a wandering ascetic. After a few years of intense meditation practice and many pointless austerities, he found t...

  “I teach only two things, suffering and end of suffering” - Buddha The first verses of the Dhammapada: Actions based on the three unwholesome roots of greed ( lobha ), ill will ( dosa ), and delusion ( moha ) are unwholesome, resulting in bad consequences, while actions based on the three wholesome roots of non-greed ( alobha ), non-ill will ( adosa ) and non-delusion ( amoha ) result in good consequences. In the first two verses of the Dhammapada, the Buddha described the central role of the mind in performing wholesome or unwholesome actions and how the consequences of one’s bad or good actions will follow the one who performed them.  “All mental phenomena have the mind as their forerunner,   They have mind as their chief, they are mind-made,    If one speaks or acts with an evil mind,      Pain follows him just as the wheel follows the hoof of the ox that draws the    cart”  “All mental phenomena have the mind as their for...