“Hot chocolate is like a hug from the inside,” one chocolate lover famously said. “All you really need is love, but a little chocolate now and then doesn’t hurt,” concluded another. Are you a chocolate lover, too? If you are, try a simple chocolate meditation script provided in this article. For best results, imagine that … Read more
What are the twelve links of dependent origination in Buddhism? A better question to ask, in my opinion, would be, “Why do we suffer?” In Buddhism, the main source of our suffering is traced to our boundless cravings, contained in the Second Noble Truth. We crave many things but the most powerful among them … Read more
What are the five aggregates? In Buddhism, they are the building blocks that we typically use to construct our sense of self. The Buddha classified the constituents of body and mind into five categories known as “the five aggregates of clinging”: form, feeling, perception, volition, and consciousness. In his book Satipatthana: The Direct Path … Read more
Can you be an atheist and a Buddhist? From what I’ve read, I can tell you that seeking an answer to this question will surface two groups of people – those who’ll tell you that it’s possible and those who’ll tell you that it’s not. Among the former is Stephen Batchelor, the author of … Read more
As a lover of ancient wisdom, I’ve been slowly savoring the now classic Zen Flesh, Zen Bones: A Collection of Zen and Pre-Zen Writings — an extraordinary portal into the minds of the greatest sages of the East, oscillating between the transcendent and the mundane in the most thought-shattering way possible. From short stories that … Read more