UnbornMind Zen

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In these unprecedented times I shall remember these days as my Udāna period here at Unborn Mind Zen. With this new rendition of the suttas written in Light of the Unborn and accompanied with exegesis the ever-present and dominant backdrop has been the lingering presence of Covid 19. I live in upstate NY, pretty close to ground zero in NYC. The death tallies just keep adding up and up, hopefully there will be a peak shortly. But returning to anything resembling normalcy just isn’t in the cards Read more [...]

Ash Wednesday has always been profoundly deep-rooted in my being. Perhaps no other date on the Catholic calendar induces such a sense of somberness that millions (mostly non-practicing Catholics) are obsessed to go to church to get those ashes splayed across their foreheads. While that particular liturgical action no longer holds any stock for me, the solemn season of Lent that it ushers in does prove to have an enduring quality. If one were to search the archives here at Unborn Mind Zen, you Read more [...]

Welcome to our new look! For this new decade have decided to return to the feel of our original theme from 2011, with a few variables. This theme is known as parchment. Love the ancient feel to it. I like our new format, less dark and perhaps easier on the eyes. Enjoy!   Read more [...]

When one considers adultery, it is usually in the carnal sense, such as in having an adulterous affair. There are other forms of adultery, i.e., psychic adultery and spiritual adultery. Our focus for today is on the latter two. Psychic adultery consists of using occult means to gain control and power over another. For instance, utilizing telepathy, or the ability to manipulate the thoughts of others, especially in an offensive way—implanting a thought of low self-worth or even driving someone Read more [...]

Shambhala, once the proud publishers of Pocket Books such as The Zen Teachings of Huang Po, are now mass-publishers of love, empathy and caring—or in other words, your ever-prevalent new age bookstore. In my email box are incessant titles of stuff such as "Seeking out Deeper Connections”, the deep as in the emotional garbage that is the sewer-hole of our mass-infected world, and connections as in wounded souls seeking incessant solace and surface sharing and stroking. The popular guru on Read more [...]

Continuing with Dorji Wangchuk’s study, he writes: In Mahayana, the entire concept of bodhicitta and bodhisattva would collapse or make no sense without sattvas, for a bodhisattva is, in the first place, a sattva whose citta is directed towards attaining the highest state of bodhi for the sake of other sattvas. Not only is the bodhicitta of a bodhisattva dependent on sentient beings, but also his practices of the perfections (pāramitā) are in one way or another connected with them. A bodhisattva Read more [...]

In continuance of our blog from yesterday, Dorji Wangchuk utilizes an article published in 1965 (in German) by the Japanese scholar, Kumatarō Kawada, based on the transcendent and immanent nature of bodhicitta. Our interest is on the article’s discussion of the relationship between bodhicitta and dharmatā. It [rightly] argues that the highest truth—the dharmatā, or the Absolute Essence that is realized inwardly by oneself—is always [the master] over such appellations as Buddha, bodhisattva, Read more [...]

Am presently reading an excellent study on the generation of bodhicitta by Dorji Wangchuk in his work, The Resolve to Become a Buddha, A Study of the Bodhicitta Concept in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism. Themed closely is the actual account of what firstly constitutes being a Buddha. The following for your perusal are some of his preliminary accounts of such an understanding. Becoming a buddha ('Awakened One') under the Bodhi tree (Ficus religiosa) was undoubtedly the most significant event in the career Read more [...]

It’s been quite an eventful year. I recollect writing about my father during the series, Journey to the Center of the Mind, how he was diagnosed with rectal cancer. After a few months of enduring endless anguish he died on Thanksgiving night, November 28th. My mother died soon after from complications associated with the dreaded Alzheimer’s disease on December 18th. Needless to say this was a lot to have to undergo for myself and my brother and sister, something that will be revisited again Read more [...]

Perhaps no other subject-matter within Buddhism has caused the most ongoing contention than the issue of whether or not the Buddha denied the Divine Ātman. As we shall discover in this upcoming series in October, a form of atman was denounced, but “which one?” I can state with absolute certitude that our time spent with Kamaleswar Bhattacharya in his 2015 book, The Ātman-Brahman in Ancient Buddhism (English translation of his original 1973 French edition ), will decisively and definitively Read more [...]