Obstacles to the path

From other traditions

Discovery and Refuge

In the modern world where religion is a dirty word and being spiritual (but not religious) is the defacto stance, how does Buddhism stack up?

What is Buddhism?

Importance of Sangha

$129

Ben, a Vajrayana practitioner, compares it to science.

Aaron, a student of zen,
shares his enthusiasm for the question.

Zselyke provides a very practical view of Buddhism.

Meditation

Establishing A Practice

Fruit of Practice

Practitioners

wpadmin2024-06-04T14:38:44+00:00

Josh

I was raised Roman Catholic and my grandfather was a fourth degree Knight of Columbus. So, I was very intrenched with a fixed Idea of what God was and was not. As well as a lot of dogma and beliefs that I wasn’t even sure were real, that the people telling me weren’t eve sure were real either. I always suffered because I was trying to force myself to believe in a God or higher power.

wpadmin2024-06-04T14:55:05+00:00

Zselyke

So both of my parents are actually time practitioners, they both met lama for the first time in 1994, if I remember correctly. And I myself met my root lama first in 1996, so only a year after I was born.

wpadmin2024-06-04T15:12:03+00:00

Aaron

I encountered spiritual practice through reading BKS Iyengar’s Light on Yoga when I was 18 and immediately trying a number of the forbidden pranayama techniques that he described in the back of the book, because of course this is what you do when you’re 18.

wpadmin2024-06-05T13:08:55+00:00

Dottie

Nothing seemed to fit, however, until I began to be introduced to Buddhism. At first it was Insight Meditation, and then I moved to a town where the only Buddhist community was a Tibetan Buddhist Center.

wpadmin2024-06-05T13:41:36+00:00

Dick and Bonnie

Joking in 1980 as I introduced myself to the workshop leader of a weeklong seminar entitled “Owning your Religious Past”, I described myself as a Zen-Baptist. It was an attempt at the time to show off my witty nature to the attractive teacher. She and I remain married.

wpadmin2024-06-05T14:21:32+00:00

Ryan

I am not sure exactly when I first became aware of the dharma path, but my first brush with it was through reading Thich Nhat Hanh's Beyond the Self a translation of the Sutra on the Middle Way. At the time I had been in recovery for about 10 years and had a sustain spiritual practice of self-reflection and service, but I had never been exposed to the truth of Dependent Origination.