Author: Luna Kadampa

All that happens is here and now. If we are elsewhere, we are in fact missing out. Or, as John Lennon put it: Life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans. We are told this a lot. But how do we come into the here and now? And, perhaps more to the point, how do we stay here and now?! We have to pay attention. The best and perhaps easiest way to do this is to pay attention to the people around us. There are always people around us, including animals. Cherish them. Buddhists are aiming to love…

Here is the article I promised from the friend I quoted: Being a social worker makes me a better Buddhist. Being a Buddhist makes me a better social worker. Someone wrote me on Facebook to say they thought this was a good Kadampa motto. Replace “social worker” with your job title. And ask: Does my meditation practice help my job and does my job fuel my meditation practice? (If yes, you’re all set, as you probably spend most of your waking hours at work… ) Here is how one person is doing it: “For almost three years now I have…

A Kadampa nun gave the annual Martin Luther King lecture at Montana State University last Monday, speaking to about 400 students, professors and community members. King proved power of love, nonviolence, speaker says Martin Luther King Jr. achieved incredible changes in American law and society, yet it all sprang from what was within his mind, a philosophy based on love, compassion and wisdom, a Buddhist nun told a Bozeman crowd Wednesday. Gen Varahi spoke in Washington DC, a breath of fresh air in a city known at the moment mainly for its partisan bickering. Democrat or Republican, the only way…

Kadampas everywhere, I think it is time you are heard. Geshe Kelsang’s parting request at Festivals is to take the teachings we have heard and use them in our regular, everyday lives and family. Here is where I am coming from. There are thousands of Kadampas out there. Many are not working directly for the New Kadampa Tradition ~ International Kadampa Buddhist Union (NKT~IKBU) Centers or may not even be attending Centers at the moment. (There are all sorts of reasons, but they are not relevant for the purposes of this argument). What is relevant is that we are not…

When an intern called Paul Butler mapped the connections between everyone using the Facebook social network, the results ended up being a detailed map of much of the world! This is good news for Mark Zuckerberg’s bank account, but it is also a vivid illustration of how interconnected, and therefore mutually dependent, we are. None of us is an isolated individual, we are all part of the family of living beings. Our thoughts and actions directly or indirectly affect many other people, even when we are not aware of this. And everything we think, say, do or have is dependent…

A recent article in the New York Times reports the findings of scientists at Harvard that people are happier when their minds do not wander from what they are doing. Whatever people were doing, whether it was having sex or reading or shopping, they tended to be happier if they focused on the activity instead of thinking about something else. In fact, whether and where their minds wandered was a better predictor of happiness than what they were doing. This is the other side of the coin from the article, Mindfulness is as good as antidepressants. If we are not…

Yesterday on my way to do Xmas shopping I heard a heart-warming* National Public Radio report on the Chilean miners who were trapped for more than two months underground, believing they were on the verge of death. Instead of dying, however, they were spectacularly rescued, and are now being feted all over the world. Yesterday they had just been to see a Man United match and have photos  taken with the footballers. They were excited. They’ve been invited to the Greek islands, to travel with the Bolivian president, to a Real Madrid match in Spain, to Disneyland, to Hollywood… They…

“Mindfulness is as good as antidepressants, study says”: “Mindfulness therapy is gaining headway in many areas of psychology, and now there’s more evidence to back up its effectiveness. A new study published the Archives of General Psychiatry finds that depression patients in remission who underwent mindfulness therapy did as well as those who took an antidepressant, and better than those who took a placebo. That means that mindfulness therapy was as effective as antidepressants in protecting against a relapse of depression. Mindfulness generally refers to the concept of being present and in the moment, and comes from the Buddhist meditation…

I have just come across this inspiring example of equalizing self and others in action: In the Kadampa Buddhist meditation called “equalizing self and others”, we deliberately cultivate a feeling of affection for others by remembering that they are no different to us. We may be unique but, in the ways that count, we are all exactly the same, like snowflakes. Shantideva says in Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life: First, I should apply myself in meditation On the equality of self and others. Because we are all equal in wanting to experience happiness and avoid suffering, I should…

Without stirring abroad One can know the whole world; Without looking out of the window One can see the way of heaven. The further one goes The less one knows. ~ Lao Tzu