Climb the Joyous Mountain

The Buddha, 2500 years ago, pointed out that three conditions are common to all beings: impermanence, lack of any lasting ego-self, and suffering. Dukkha (suffering) means more than pain as the opposite of pleasure, [...]

There is, in this writer, a sense of unworthiness in writing a book called Climb the Joyous Mountain. Once, when I mentioned the many errors in my life to the Bengali teacher, Rammurti Mishra, [...]

The number 108 holds within it a great mystery, but I have never found anyone who could explain this mystery. There are 108 beads in both the Hindu and Buddhist rosaries. There are 108 [...]

We create needs and then struggle to fulfill them, which is like voluntarily placing our ball in the sand trap. ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ Time has always seemed to [...]

To understand Japanese culture, one must know something of the wabi-sabi concept. The Japanese sense of beauty, unlike some of the elaborately embellished Chinese manifestations, usually relies on delicate understatement. What is left out [...]

It had been a cool morning. Expectedly, there had been a number of phone calls – one from a student who asked if he could make up the meditation class he had missed, one [...]

The world is a reflection of ourselves. What we see without is an accurate measure of what we are within. If there is serenity inside, the outside world seems friendly. When we go to [...]

The lengthening twilight seemed almost interminable as the old car plowed along the dismal roads east of Baroda. Indian sunsets are particularly spectacular where there is flat country and few trees or buildings to break [...]

There is a profound difference between the life-negating pessimism of traditional Indian Buddhism and the life-prolonging, immortality-seeking attitude of Chinese Taoists. The Indian Buddhist sees the world as a place of complete impermanence, a [...]

Often, while staying on the second floor of a two-family house in Baroda, India, I noticed numerous monkeys watching me intently outside the window of my room. I asked my host Kaushik why this [...]

May I be properly grateful for this food, which is the result of the work of others and the suffering of other forms of life. May I always be grateful to the Buddha, Who [...]

Not all religious seekers find Ultimate answers. Some do, some don’t. I’d like to deal with both here. Rabindranath Tagore, the great 20th century poet of India who often wrote in English, expressed bewilderment [...]