From Barabara O’ Brien’s Buddhism Column at About.com

I’ve written a new feature article on the Three Pure Precepts.  These are Mahayana precepts featured in Zen, Pure Land, and probably some other schools. A standard translation:

To do no evil;
To do good;
To save all beings.

However, as I explained in the article, there are lots of interesting variations. One that I didn’t discuss in the article is from Reb Tenshin Anderson Roshi, from his book Being Upright: Zen Meditation and the Bodhisattva Precepts:

Embrace and sustain forms and ceremonies
Embrace and sustain all good
Embrace and sustain all beings

Read the full article

Image by jpellgen via Flickr

Barbara O’ Brien discusses Buddhism for Beginners on her Barbara’s Buddhism Blog

John Sojun Godfrey spent eight years living as a monk in Daitoku-ji, a Rinzai Zen monastery in Kyoto. He says he spent most of that time in silence. There were few discussions of philosophy and doctrine within the monastery, he said.

“I think the assumption is that if you are interested enough in Buddhism to become a monk that you are going to do this (learn the philosophy) anyway,” he said. “I also really feel that they (other monks) don’t think it’s important. I don’t feel that it is necessary to be able to explain what we are doing in able to do it

I understand that in Japan, people who want to learn Zen practice are given little direction except how to sit zazen. I once read an autobiography by a Japanese Zen nun, who said that on her first day in the monastery she was told only to go to the zendo and sit with Mu. So she went into the zendo, completely baffled, and finally asked someone which monk was Mu.  (Mu is not a person but the name of a koan.)

Read the full article

Related articleson Buddhism

• Moving Out of Emotional Captivity: Are You the Driver or the Driven? (psychcentral.com)
• Dalai Lama visits town near Tibet (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Buddhist Sutra Chanting Distribution On Cellphone (asiajin.com)