Buddhist Teachings

What happens to a stone with sharp edges on the top of a mountain? Let's play a little mind game here. You are stranded on a deserted island. Nobody is around except wildlife and beautiful flora and fauna. My first thought is: Great! These are perfect conditions for relaxation and enlightenment! There is just this little issue. Who helps me to stay on the right track towards the unconditioned?  In the past I had a dream of living an hermit lifestyle, somewhere remote, alone. With all the time on my hand to focus on spiritual growth. But reality will kick in pretty fast. I talked to a monk in a Thai monastery about it, as I was so frustrated with the ordinary monastery lifestyle of duties, work and little time for formal practice. He gave me a little simile: "What do you get, when you put a rock with sharp edges on the top of the mountain? You get a rock with sharp edges even afer decades of weather heavily wearing and tearing it. But what do you get when you throw a rock a wit...

  So after having meditated for some months, you might want to get additional information on how to make your meditation practicr more methodical and profound. I stumbled across the homepage of the Insight Meditation Center where you can find a lot of information and instructions about meditation. Well, you can find a lot of information about meditation online, but what made the difference is that there is a free 6 week training course in mindfulness that you can either do totally on your own or you can also do it with a personal assistant that you can ask for support during your 6 weeks of the course. How it works is that you sign up on that page and when the course starts, you will get every sunday a link to the 80 minute audio file that you can download as well as transcripts and additional handouts. If you have chosen that you want to be assisted, you will get a person assigned to you, that you can contact once a week during a predetermined time, if you have questions about t...

  So you are motivated to start your first meditation, but somehow you can't get yourself to sit down on a cushion and to close your eyes? Here is a little secret that the NIKE brand has used for decades as a marketing slogan: "Just do it!". There is no away around pushing yourself over the edge to get the deed done.  Here are 8 tips, how to get yourself over the hump: 1) Make a strong resolve to do a meditaton today. Right after you wake up and get up out bed, think about the things you want to achieve today. And make sure you include meditation in your planning. It could be something like this: "Today, I want to sit down and meditate." 2) Pick a specific time, when you want to meditate. When you do the strong resolve, make sure you include a specific time, when you want to do it. So it should be something like: "I want to meditate today, when I get back home after work." or "I want to meditate at 10 p.m.". Being specific helps your brain to...

  Concentration, Insight and Loving-Kindness: The Swiss Army Knife of Meditation Practice Today I want to shine a light on basic meditation practices, how they work and why you should use them. I would consider this to be the tip of the iceberg and just a first introduction. There are basically 3 types of meditations for different purposes, which I would consider to be the "Swiss Army Knife" of meditation. Just like this multi tool has different blades for different purposes, these 3 meditation techniques have certain use cases. And like a Swiss Army Knife, they should be seen as a package, they last you a life time and never go out of fashion.  1) Concentration Meditation helps you to focus, relax and enjoy yourself (Samatha) Concentration Meditation (Samatha) uses an object to focus the attention on. It is like one of those old school Maglite flashlights, which you can twist at the top to bundle all of the light in one spot in the distance. There are various objects that ca...

It's a virtual jungle out there, and if you type in "Buddhism" in google, you get more than 200 million hits. Yes, thats a 2 with 8 zeros. Trying to understand a new subject pretty much depends on the learning type of the person. Are you a reader, a listener or a watcher? Do you like to dive into subjects like an autodidact or do you need a structured approach with a clear curriculum?  I picked out 5 ways for you, that might be the right choice to start your Buddhism journey: 1) Watch the documentary "The Buddha: The Story of Siddhartha" For those of you who do prefer visual content, I would start with the well made 2 hour PBS documentary "The Buddha" released in 2010. Richard Gere narrates the life story of Siddhartha Gotama and how he became the Buddha. The IMDB Rating is 7,5 out of 10 which I would consider as rather high. The footage, music and animations throughout the movie make it very pleasurable to watch. It is a movie that I do like to watch...

When I started out my journey into the Buddhist world, I felt completely lost. What is Buddhism? Simple question, but somehow it seemed like there are just too many answers to a simple question.  Then we have different interpretations of Buddhism with different distribution routes and lineages. And on top, we have different sects within a country. All too confusing for a beginner.  So I somehow started to dive in and put together all the pieces to the puzzle and managed to get a grip over where to find buddhist teachings, where monasteries are located, how to find retreat centers and how to find local meditation groups, what meditation apps are good to use, etc. It felt sometimes like an excursion through a jungle - without a proper framework or tools to assist the journey.  To make your life a little easier, I am compiling a spread sheet with the most important resources I have stumbled upon over my explorations. So here it is. I call it the Buddhist Journey Companion. P...