Author: Luna Kadampa

Here is an article from a guest writer, Kelsang Chogma. I will explain how Dharma transformed a very difficult situation for me. This may seem like an extreme situation, but hey, this is samsara and you have to work with whatever it throws at you. A few years ago my brother was killed in Afghanistan, along with thirteen other soldiers. It was a horrendous death in which their bodies were apparently ‘fragmented’; which meant that they had to be repatriated to the UK before all their parts could be identified using DNA sampling. What this meant for my family, and…

My friend, who has five children including two new twin boys!, has written an article for Kadampa Life on what it is like to be a Kadampa parent. Some people believe that having children and a family is an obstacle to one’s Buddhist or Dharma practice. This has certainly not been my experience. My children and my family ARE my Dharma practice. What does it mean to practice the Dharma? It means to clearly understand that we have no problems other than our own negative minds or delusions, and that the solution to all of our problems is to replace…

I wrote this on the occasion of the Japanese earthquake some years ago, but Buddha’s advice still holds true. How can we help? “What did you feel when you heard about the colossal tragedy in Japan? Powerless or not? What are the best ways you think you personally can help?” I asked these questions on Facebook and share some replies below. I just saw three fish struggling for their lives, inevitably losing the battle. One was big, one was medium, one was small. Their mouths were gasping and their silver bodies thrashing about, eyes wide with fear, drowning in the air. I…

Do you remember the Chilean miners? They were stuck underground for several months but then were miraculously saved. After they were rescued, they traveled the world like heroes, being feted wherever they went, having a grand old time. Imagine being stuck down a mine. Imagine you have been down there so long that you don’t even register the possibility of a bright shiny world outside the mine, or, if you do occasionally wonder about such a thing, the thought quickly fades. Then imagine that one day something amazing happens. A crack appears above you in the solid darkness, and light…

Geshe Chekhawa, famous Kadampa master, told us how we could measure our success in training our minds: “Always rely upon a happy mind alone.” This has many layers of meaning. But one thing I think it reveals is the best perspective for approaching our spiritual practice in the first place. If we can get that right, our meditations flow, and we make easy progress. If we don’t get it right, meditation and spiritual practice seem like more hard work, more duty, and one day we might just pack it in. Over the past 30 years, I’ve seen umpteen people start…

This is the second article from a guest writer, Kadampa Buddhist and student social worker. For the first, see Meditation Helps Me Be a Better Social Worker and Vice Versa. The problem is not in the person — the problem is the problem and the person is the person. ~ Solution-focussed social work theory Our problems do not exist outside our mind.  The real nature of our problems is our unpleasant feelings, which are part of our mind. ~ How to Solve Our Human Problems, Gyatso, 2005, p3. When I first started training as a social worker I was immediately…

Recently the New York Times did another article on the benefits of meditation – along the lines of how scientists are finding it makes your brain bigger in all the right places. It attracted a great deal of interest and hundreds of comments. This is good. But reading the article and especially the comments, I was struck by how many people don’t know how to get started with meditation and feel a little overwhelmed by the thought of what might be involved. And this reminded me of when I began 30 years ago this fall. Back then, in the Friday…

This brave, funny and happy man is helping millions of people to change their attitude, seeing the glass as half full rather than half empty. He is inspiring because he is a dramatic, visible, irrefutable example of how life depends on how you look at it. It is hard to sustain self-pity or even self-doubt when watching this video. That might be why some people have watched it many, many times! Where does happiness come from? Nick Vujicic reminds me that we have all the tools we need to be happy — very happy, indeed very blissful — but we…

The book Eating Animals is brilliant. Jonathan Safran Foer has done the world a service. He is a best-selling novelist who has managed to write a book about factory farming that is readable — horrific, yes, but still readable. Even un-put-downable. He has looked at the question of eating animals from many angles — culture, community, history, politics, husbandry, morality, health etc. He has avoided black and white haranguing and reasonably discusses shades of gray so people can come to their own conclusions. Those of you die-hard carnivores who don’t want to change your habits at all, don’t read any…

Recently two of my old friends lost their beloved husbands to unexpected death. One was a suicide and the other a murder. These were both very loving partnerships, lasting decades. Both these women have responded to violent loss by seeking refuge in their spiritual practice. While on retreat, J called her husband at about 2pm each day. This day he didn’t pick up. After 20 minutes of redialing: “I had a hunch that something was dreadfully wrong.”  Driving to his store, she was crying all the way. She found him unconscious, and two days later his life support was turned…