Meditation and Self Improvement

Nietzsche Meets Samantabhadra–The Way Forward Recently, a group of us were sharing thoughts, observations and feelings about the current world situation, which any normal person would recognize as a crisis. And a crisis that seems to be deepening. So it got me to thinking about two approaches to understanding and hopefully, finding a way out of the crisis. To this end, I referred to my earlier reading and inspiration of the German 19th Century philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, whose book, Beyond Good and Evil shaped my thinking as a 20 year old.  Nietzsche introduced the idea of the “Superman”, with the …

Read more

  Introduction—Can Zen Practice Help Us in ‘the Last 500 Years’? In today’s tumultuous world, many people are asking if we are facing ‘the End Times’. Not only do people in the Christian world wondering about this, but even in Buddhism, there is a view that we are in ‘the Last 500 Years’ after the life of the Buddha, who lived 2500 years ago. Despite our fears and the many obstacles that the media and social pressures inflict on us, Zen practice says that we should “Do Good, Don’t Do Evil, and Purify Your Mind”. Regardless of what the time …

Read more