Monthly Archives: May 2025

  Good morning!   The five faculties (indriya) usually mean the five sense organs. The special Buddhist meanings are credo (saddhā), virility/strength (viriya), memory/ mindfulness (sati/smṛṭi), synthesis (samādhi), and prognosis (paññā/prajñā).   I gave cognate translations to see the original … Continue reading →

  Good morning!   The four potency bases (iddhi-pāda) are will-, striving-, mind-, and investigation-potency bases attained by refined effort in samadhi. These decrease the unwholesome and increase the wholesome like the four efforts.   These increase potency or potential … Continue reading →

  Good morning!   The four right efforts (sammappadhāna) are effort for non-arising of the unwholesome (akusala), for abandoning of the unwholesome, for arising the wholesome, and for maintaining of the wholesome (kusala).   These are general definitions of the four right … Continue reading →

  Good morning!   The four mindful orientations (Satipaṭṭhāna) paces one’s mind on 1. body (kāya) 2. feeling (vedanā) 3. mind (citta) 4. dharmas (dhammā), and from the body to feeling, mind, and the Dharma (Law of all dharmas: forms). … Continue reading →

  Good morning!   The Buddha prognosticated the four holy truths of suffering, its cause, its solution, and its path, which is the holy (wholly wholesome, applicable for all problems in healthy solutions) problem solving truths applicable to all.   … Continue reading →

  Awakening for All; Zazen Key：Treasury   Zazen is the Buddha’s legacy and the key to open anyone’s treasury. He learned samadhi, but was not quite satisfied by it. He witnessed nirvana, and thus awakened from the long night of … Continue reading →

  Good morning!   Yesterday we touched on the four limitlessnesses or Brahma-abode of friendship, compassion, joy, and liberation (upekhā, lit. letting go, releasing, discarding). The last two appear toward the end of meditation (jhāna :zen).   The four zen … Continue reading →

  Good morning!   “No evils done, All good provided, One’s heart purified, Is the teaching of all Buddhas.” (Dhp.183) Bailutien said, “Even a three-year-old kid could know it.” Rev. Bird’s Nest relied, “Even an eighty-year-old man can’t do it.” … Continue reading →