My Own Writings
Worth Knowing About Buddhism
Before the modern person engages in the details of Buddhist view and practice, a few common misunderstandings need to be clarified, particularly the problem with conveniently fitting Buddhism into the familiar, yet narrow, parameters of the Western knowledge tradition.
A Tale of Two Sciences
Originally published in Buddhist Door, this highlights the similarities and differences between the science tradition of Buddhism and that of the modern world, and the particular value of Buddhism.
A General Overview of Buddhism
An introduction written for students at an Australian grammar school, specifying how to understand Buddhist theory and practice.
Living in Reality
An illustrated introduction to meditation created for Australian teenagers. Many of the illustrations are taken from Robin Hall's excellent The Miracle of Mindfulness, which can be found here.
Art as Celebration of Unlimited Reality
A comment on the unified vision of truth, beauty, and goodness found in cultures where wisdom, and knowledge of the sacred, is a living experience, and intrinsic to cultural practices.
Skepticism As the Gateway to Faith
The value of critical enquiry for appreciating the wisdom of Buddhism, and how it leads to the trust and faith essential to practicing a path that goes beyond the rationality of the conceptual and linear. Notes taken by my friend Dominic.
Buddha Nature - Our True Ground​
A brief overview on the premise of all Buddhism: that, in our core, we share the same fundamental awake sanity as that which the Buddha awoke to, and hence our confusion can be remedied through the practice of the path.
Buddha Nature, the Uttaratantra, and the Seven Vajra Points
Maitreya describes buddhanature in terms of seven points, while making the point that while the realization is acquired through the journey of the path, buddhanature is at all times unchanging. The journey towards realizing one's buddhanature is akin to the dissipation of clouds, revealing the vast expanse of blue sky.
The Tenet Systems
The Indian and Tibetan masters classified the increasingly profound insights into the nature of reality in the tenet systems, namely the Vaibhashika, Sautrantika, Yogacara, and Madhyamaka. This brief introduction highlights the process of developing insight on the basis of analysis and contemplation.
The Wisdom of Emptiness: Theory and Practice
Notes for a talk given in 2019, unpacking the Buddhist view of wisdom, how it is taught, and how it is practised.
The Two Truths
An introduction to the essential Buddhist teaching on how ordinary persons perceive a relative truth, the conventional experience common to the world, and how sages see the ultimate nature of reality, free from conceptual and linguistic constructs, which is the experience of the buddhas. Knowing the two truths is said to be the ground of the Mahayana path.
The Four Boundless Attitudes
Love, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity are attitudes essential to the Mahayana path, and specifically they provide us with qualities that are essential to cultivating the great mind of awakening.
Lojong
Lojong - "training the mind" directs us to expanding awareness of our attitudes in ordinary life experiences. Lojong teaches us to cultivate a vast mind of wisdom and compassion and how to emulate and train in the way bodhisattvas think and act.
Approaching Vajrayana Practice
Vajrayana is the path of connecting and manifesting innate enlightenment. It requires experiential grounding in the general understanding and discipline of the path, and particularly of an authentic guru. This overview identifies the greatness, logic, and practical requirements of the Vajrayana path.
Establishing the View of Pure Perception
An academic paper looking into the reasoning basic to the Vajrayana view of pure perception, drawing on the teachings found in the Nyingma and Kagyu lineages, and particularly the writings of Mipham Rinpoche.
Nyingtik - The Dzogchen Heart Drop Teaching
The Nyingtik or Heart Drop teaching of Great Perfection as they were transmitted in Tibet was gathered into the Four Sections of the Nyingtik by the Great Longchenpa, and has since been transmitted as the pith of countless awakened masters.
Ch’an in Tibet - Redeeming the Great Hashang
The great master Getse Mahapandita challenges common Tibetan misperceptions of the Chinese Ch'an tradition, identifies its consistency with the Indo-Tibetan manner of engaging the view and practice of the Prajnaparamita teachings. Particularly Getse Mahapandita establishes Ch'an (and implicitly Zen) as a valid lineage of the Mahayana - the ultimate lineage of essence (snying po don gyi brgyud pa) - on equal footing with Madhyamaka and Yogacara lineages.
Shrines, Stupas, and Prayer Flags
A brief clarification about the nature and effects of these common manifest expressions of the Buddhist vision and compassionate engagement with the world.
Perspectives on Consciousness and Rebirth
With its unique focus on the tangible, modern physicalist science lacks the knowledge and the methods to assess the nature of consciousness, much less its role in our experience of reality, including the nature of death and rebirth. This is where knowledge traditions that focus on the primacy of consciousness, and especially Buddhism, have much to offer.