Sublime

Although making sense of it has been challenging, I am surprised how straightforward it became once I found the two threads that held this sutra together. Basically, the teaching of the Lankavatara is similar to the approach used by later Zen masters who offered their disciples a cup of tea, then asked them to taste the tea. The cup of tea in this

Ajahn Amaro

We are all by now familiar with Rinzai’s old saying “If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.” That saying, once startling, is in danger of becoming a cliché, preventing us from experiencing the full force of the words. We need to “kill” any idea we have of the buddhahood being “out there,” or down the road or in any way outside ourselves.

In Buddhism, there are three gems: Buddha, the awakened one; Dharma, the way of understanding and loving; and Sangha, the community that lives in harmony and awareness.