I had a question this week. “How can I lessen karmic retribution?” Let’s look at what karma is first. What is Karma? With every thought, word and action we make, we simultaneously set seeds into our life which will produce an effect when the time is right. In accordance with the law of the […]
Many people believe that they are the victim of one circumstance or another. Our culture teaches us that that is the case. We see it demonstrated over and over by public figures. There Are Advantages to Being a Victim When we think we are a victim we have turned over our power to something […]
I’ve had a number of questions about setting goals for various types of problems. So today I want to go through the basics of goal setting, how to set effective goals and then cover ways of setting goals that don’t work so well. People have asked me, “Why do I need to set […]
“I had a question this week: why do we need to chant in front of the Gohonzon if the law of Attraction works on its own. A friend of mine told me, ‘You don’t need the Gohonzon, just think positive.’ She made me feel confused.” I have a full discussion of this question in my […]
Can I change someone else by chanting? I have received this question over and over. Today I want to address this topic as it has come up several times in the last month. It is a concept, if not understood, can result in chanting without results. Oneness of Self and the Environment We have a […]
Transcript download: Just-How-Responsible-Are-We-For-Our-Problems-2-4 The Buddhist concept oneness of life and its environment teaches us that everything in our lives comes from the inside out to manifest in the world. That sounds fine when life is going well but we tend not to believe this when we come up against a problem with another person. […]
Trouble Can Nourish Growth Our lives are planted in the murky pond of everyday life, just like a lotus flower grows in a dirty murky swamp. If the lotus flower was moved out into a clean pond, where would it get the nourishment it needs to grow. Then it wouldn’t be able to […]
Transcript download: Adversity When you have come up against adversity and go to an experienced practitioner for guidance, they will say “Congratulations you have something to chant about.” Why would they say this? They know that no one is out to get you, that adversity is a normal part of the path to enlightenment. […]
Transcript download: How we get in our way I think one of the important Buddhist concepts is the oneness of self and environment. This means that we and our environment are not separate but rather our outer life circumstances arise from internal causes, our thoughts, and then manifest in the outer world. . This, […]
Buddhism teaches philosophical concepts, which, when you really study them, I believe are teaching us universal laws, or how the universe works. For example, one of them is the simultaneity of cause and effect. We are taught that when we create a cause through thinking, speaking or acting we have set a seed in our […]