About This Blog
The Wisdom of the Buddha Blog is place to explore Buddhist teachings from the mindfulness tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh and to put them to practical use to reduce our suffering and that of others. All are welcome: You don’t need to be a Buddhist to benefit from Buddhist teachings!
The Blog has the intention of providing the kind of help that I wish had been available to me when I first became interested in Buddhism and was trying to understand and make use of the teachings.
When I first encountered Buddhist teachings some 25 years ago I found them extremely intriguing but also frequently quite baffling. What could possibly be meant by “no self,” or the idea that death is an illusion, or the teaching that suffering is created by the mind? My Western university education and previous years of college teaching in philosophy had not prepared me to comprehend something so radically different and alien. But still, there was something very appealing about the teachings and also about the manner of engaging life that I witnessed in people who actually did understand what was taught. They seemed to have a totally different way of engaging life and it had a magnetic appeal to me.
Over the years, through the help of many teachers, readings, dharma talks, and meditation retreats, I made progress in understanding what was being taught. The teachings, though a bit alien from the ideas we have absorbed from our society, turned out to be actually quite simple! Once understood and made use of with consistency, I discovered that these teachings had the power to totally transform my life.
The Buddha’s teachings are really about suffering. The Buddha said that he only taught two things: the nature of suffering, and freedom from suffering. He said that each one of us has the ability to free ourselves from suffering, both the suffering that we cause ourselves and the suffering we cause out in the world around us. Mindfulness—seeing what is really happening in each moment—is the central tool needed for this job.
To understand and make good use of the teachings, it is essential to begin seeing the teachings as a system of methods, rather than as a collection of theories or doctrines. For a long time I did not fully understand this. Western philosophy has the intention of accurately describing reality. The Buddha, on the other hand, wanted to develop methods to enable us to directly experience reality. It is this clear seeing of our situation that makes it possible to change ourselves radically and thereby reduce our creation of suffering. The words that are used in Buddhist teachings only point to the experience—they direct our attention and help us know how and where to look. The Buddha’s teachings are like ladders that, when we climb them, provide a new vantage point from which we can clearly and directly see for ourselves both the external world and our own internal world of thoughts and feelings. Wrapping ourselves up in studying the ladders is missing the point. The ladders—the teachings—are intended to be used as tools for reaching a better view of things. The Buddha’s focus everywhere and always was on the practical.
Because Buddhism is a collection of methods to see reality more clearly and change ourselves, it is not at all necessary to become a Buddhist in order to benefit greatly from what the Buddha taught. In the history of the world, there have been many Buddhas—some of them were Buddhists and some were not. What is important is not our chosen path to enlightenment, but our becoming more enlightened. And there can be more than one useful path to the same destination.
My own teachers have been many: Thich Nhat Hanh, Charlotte Beck, Eckhart Tolle, Sharon Salzberg, Jack Kornfield, Joseph Goldstein, Pema Chodron, Alan Watts, Phap De, Lama Dorje, and many more. Some of these teachers I have known personally, and many I have known only through their books and recorded dharma talks. And of course the greatest teacher of all has been my own moment-to-moment experience in applying the teachings to my own life, and in helping others to learn through sangha work and through the teaching of Buddhist meditation to others. The central intention in writing The Wisdom of the Buddha Blog is to pass along what was given to me and help people transform their suffering into joy the way that my teachers helped me.
Note #1: My intention is to add new posts to the blog on an approximately weekly basis. If you would like to receive an e-mail notification each time a new blog post is made, please let me know and I will add you to the list of recipients. This notification will also include the title of the new post.
The computer side of producing a blog is all new to me and I am learning as I go! Any suggestions readers might have for improvement would be much appreciated!
Note #2: Some of the material that appears here is copyrighted, but in keeping with the Buddha’s teaching that the dharma is not to be sold, the contents of this blog may be freely copied and given away, but not sold.
Personal Bio
Dale Lugenbehl has for 14 years been the Principal Teacher for Ahimsa Acres Sangha, an affiliate of the Thich Nhat Hanh Foundation. He has taught both Eastern and Western philosophy classes for 40 years in public colleges and universities, including 7 years of Buddhist Meditation Traditions at Lane Community College—the first college credit Buddhist meditation class ever offered in Oregon. He is also the Eugene, Oregon Chapter Leader for Dharma Voices for Animals, Environmental Editor for American Vegan magazine, Director of Ahimsa Acres Educational Center, and the author of The Wisdom of the Buddha: Using Mindfulness to Change Your Life, as well as more than 50 published articles. A new book, A Practical Guide to Buddhism for Beginners: Finding Peace and Happiness in a Troubled World, will be coming out within the next year.
Website
Link to Dale’s Book The Wisdom of the Buddha: Using Mindfulness to Change Your Life
http://www.ahimsaacres.org/Dale/Dale_Book-2022/Wisdom_of_Buddha_Ahimsa_Acres_webpage_final-2022.pdf This link will take you to detailed information about the book: Introduction, short summaries of each chapter, sample chapter. The book can be sent free upon request as an e-mail attachment (specify either PDF or WORD format). Paperback and Kindle versions are available from Amazon.
Comments
Post a Comment