Wisdom Quarterly: American Buddhist Journal

Monday, September 28, 2026

The Buddha's imprint: Dhammapada

(Einzelganger) Buddhist wisdom for inner peace

The Dhammapada: The Path of Dhamma

The Dhammapada (Pali धम्मपद, Sanskrit धर्मपद, Romanized Dharma-pada) is a collection of the historical Buddha's sayings in verse form. It is one of the most widely read and best-known Buddhist collections [1].

The original version of the Dhammapada is in the Pali canon's Khuddaka Nikāya, a division of sacred texts in Theravada Buddhism.

The great Indian Buddhist monk Buddhaghosa

The famous Buddhist scholar-monk and commentator Buddhaghosa ("ghost or voice of the Buddha") explains that each saying recorded in the collection was made on a different occasion in response to a unique situation that had arisen in the life of the Buddha and the massive community of male and female monastics he founded.

Buddhaghosa's translation of the commentary to it, which is called the Dhammapada Aṭṭhakatha, presents the details of each of these events and is a rich source of legend for the life and times of the Buddha [2].

Levi's jeans corporation borrows a saying from the Buddha found in the Dhammapada.

There are many translations.

ETYMOLOGY: The title "Dhammapada" is a compound term composed of dhamma and pada, each word having a numerous denotations and connotations. Generally, dhamma refers to the Buddha's "doctrine" or "eternal truth" or "righteousness" or is a collective term for all "phenomena" [3] or "things." At its root, pada means "foot" (or "footprint"); thus, by extension, especially in this context, means either "path" or "verse" (cf. prosodic foot) or both [4].

English translations of this text's title have used various combinations of these and related words [5, 6]. More

Who will save the trees? Butterfly will

juliabutterflyhill.com

Will anything I ever do make a difference? IDK

If only all of us had Butterfly-will like Julia Butterfly Hill who willed that Luna the Tree be saved from corporate logging.

The Buddha called "will" (cetanā, volition) "karma." (Most of the good things that happen to us in life are due to our karma, as are many but not all of the bad things).

The Legacy of Luna

But what can just one person do? One person can save the world, save a grove, a forest, nature, a species, a region. And more people coming together for a cause can do even more, taking their lead from that ONE person.

Sure, we say she's a "super heroine" now, but at the time, everyone said she was a "crazy hippie" for having uncapitalist ideals and principles. There is that scientific theory called the "butterfly effect," the idea that the smallest change can have a compounding effect, stacking, triggering a cascade much bigger than would ever seem possible by just one act, a kind of domino effect.

Julia, you did the impossible! How'd you do it?
Easy. I just did something. Nature did the rest.

What can just one pretty, little, dumb, colorful, flighty, teensy-weensy butterfly do?

No One Is Too Small...
It isn't just the karmic (willful) action that has an immediate result. There is the inspiring of others, modeling change for them, blowing the whistle, speaking up for the unpopular but honest view of things. Greta Thunberg may not do much more than boycott school, hold a sign, garner attention, speak at rallies, or get herself in the media, and she still has done a great deal. She gets demonstrates, protests, investigates, sticks to her guns (e.g., against Israel), speaks out, gets arrested, talks to movers-and-shakers, addresses the U.N., and inspires millions to think and act. She does participate in direct actions herself, but more than that, she rallies demonstrators and attracts attention to important causes. What can I do? What can you do? What can we do?

I didn't begin with a book. I began a strike.

How, for example, could a single piece of flimsy straw (like a pretty girl in a tree) ever break a robust camel (like a greedy corporation out to hump everyone and steal water from an arid place for itself) with a strong back for carrying bales and bales of hay?

No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference
The Legacy of Luna: The Story of a Tree, a Woman and the Struggle to Save the Redwoods
It's so possible, even a Pakistani girl can do it. - Do what? - Do something. Just ask Malala Yousafzai (malala.org)

Teaching crusade: female education in the Muslim world around the world (malala.org)

You don't have to be white, right, Barry? - No, but it sure helps, Mal (with Malia+Michael O.)

'Super heroine'? I'm just a regular person with no ability to anything about greedy corporations

Reverend Dr. MLK Jr. was very popular until he spoke out against the U.S. War on Vietnam.

A Jew for Palestine? I thought Jews hated them? - Many good people stand for truth and justice

Devis live at the tops of trees, mostly unseen by ordinary human beings who do not meditate.

How to meditate wrong: Zen

(ECHOES OF LOST KNOWLEDGE) The Zen teaching that tells us to stop "trying" | Bodhidharma, the First Patriarch of Zen (Chan).

What more could there possibly be than just this?

Why doesn't Zen Buddhism teach a path to enlightenment like the historical Buddha did? They are of the opinion that we are "already enlightened," so there's no need to speed up the process of realizing or remembering that, as in Hindu teachings of lila ("divine play," awakening to itself). It seems the Buddha would have mentioned that if he agreed with the Brahmin priests and their Vedas; yet, he took an adversarial position and presented a superior vision of what "awakening" (bodhi) and "nirvana" (moksha, "liberation," vimutti, "freedom") are. Below are the remainder of the instructions for those not content to believe they are already awakened beings who sit shikantaza just to sit because that's what sitters (zazen practitioners) do.

What is the way to enlightenment after effortlessly settling into the "zen" state of serenity and stillness?

Path of calm and insight

The eight spokes of the Dharma wheel

If Buddhism is the marriage of wisdom and compassion, then the historical Buddha's path-of-practice is calm and insight. To gain calm, let go (no effort required). To gain insight, practice vipassana ("clear seeing") by the fourfold setting up of mindfulness (sati), a practice called satipatthana.

Insight into what? Mind-and-body to see three personally verifiable marks of existence

The historical Buddha Gautama

In Early Buddhism, the Pali term dhamma vicaya (Sanskrit धर्मविचय-) has been variously translated as "keen investigation of things" (Wisdom Quarterly), the "analysis of [various] qualities" [1], "discrimination of dhammas [phenomena]" [2, Note 1], "discrimination of states" [3], "investigation of [the] doctrine [the Dharma]," [4, Note 2], and "searching [for] the [ultimate] Truth" [5].

The Three Universal Marks (Characteristics) of Existence

The meaning, which may seem tricky to translate, is clear and not ambivalent in context. In the two Four Foundations of Mindfulness sutras (MN 10, DN 22). It is the systematic investigation of physical-and-mental phenomena (dhamma, "things") -- "body and mind" in terms of their ultimate constituents, which are "form particles" (rupa kalapas) and "mind moments" (cittas).

Pa Auk student, American Shaila Catherine

It would be wonderful if scholars stop disputing and practiced instead. Why? Practitioners who read and follow the two sutras can see the meaning very easily; however, in real practice, it is far better to seek out a competent teacher who has known-and-seen these things. In that way, there is no speculation, interpretation, or arguing. The path is already known and handed down, not in books, but in meditation halls.
Meditation Master at Pa Auk
The scholar-monk and master practitioner Pa Auk Sayadaw (Ven. Bhaddanta Āciṇṇa) is all about the practical: How will one ever be able to "see" a particle (kalapa)? By purifying (visuddhi) the heart/mind, one is suddenly able to make use of all its powers. But particles move far too fast and live far too briefly to ever be discerned or analyzed by the mind's eye because the mind/heart has a speed limit due to the number of impulsions (javanas) in a mind-moment.
So here's the trick. Locate the "mind door," which is a green light near the physical heart. This door is a mirror of sorts reflecting everything in consciousness. It records. And the recording can be played back in slow-motion so as to see the life of the kalapa (form particle, which has three distinct phases that can be observed directly: arising, turning, passing). It does not stand even for a single moment, but rather passes through these three submoments.
Practical instructions, not theory
How can anything composed of form (materiality, the mahabhuta or Four Great Elements, which are actually four qualities of matter, not matter itself, which come in pairs as outlined in Pa Auk Sayadaw's book Four Elements Meditation) be real if everything "form" is made up of is particulate matter, countless particles that are constantly arising, changing, and passing away -- always hurtling towards destruction? This is not a belief; for it to be effective, one must directly and literally know-and-see it happening all the time, everywhere, but particularly in this fathom-long body many call my "self." Most people can quickly comprehend that the body is, of course, not the "self." But nearly everyone gets stuck believing that the "self" must therefore be the mind (the watcher, the doer, the knower) or consciousness (awareness through the six senses, the interplay of cittas and cetasikas or mind-moments and mental concomitants, which is an impersonal process, not a thing in and of itself).
The "Four Elements"? At a Pa Auk Meditation Center, in Burma, California, Georgia, or elsewhere, discern in this very body: 1. The "earth element" as hardness, softness, roughness, smoothness, and heaviness, lightness; 2. the "water element" as flowing (saliva), cohesion (stickiness); 3. the "fire element" as heat, cold (relative temperature variations, including the burning chemical "digestive fire" of the stomach or coolness of the outbreath); 4. the "air element" as pushing, supporting (dhammawheel.com).
Pa Auk student Beth Upton as nun, Burma
The Buddha searched for a self that was not be found and went into very great detail to catalogue that process masquerading as a "self" (soul, atman, atta, ego, personality, true self, higher self), which is recorded in the very dense collection of sacred texts, the Abhidhamma, and Buddhaghosa's meditation manual The Path of Purification. See A Guide Through the Abhidhamma for a comprehensive introduction to the details. It will be impossible to ever believe there is, ultimately speaking, no self until one does a systematic search of mind, of which consciousness is but one component.
Wait, why would anyone in his, her, or their right mind ever want to find out that there's no self? Surely that would mean annihilation, oblivion, falling into the void, the vast emptiness, utter destruction, the loss of everything?!
Knowing and Seeing (Pa Auk)
One would want to because that is the entrance into the stream that leads inevitably to full awakening, enlightenment, and liberation from all suffering here and now in this very life. It is on account of not seeing this, not comprehending Dependent Origination, that we have all been lost and wandering, life after life, through this interminable and miserable (unfulfilling) samsara, seeking for pleasure now here, now there, existence after existence, state after state, world after world until there's nothing new that we have not already experienced many times over only to be disappointed and misled yet again.

Samatha, Jhana, Vipassana: Practice

This, of course, will be impossible...until the meditative absorptions (jhanas) purify and intensify the heart/mind to make that investigation, discrimination, analysis.

In the meantime, the practice of Four Elements Meditation and the application of discernment (by wise reflection or yoniso manasikara, which includes seeing things as they really are, including their repulsive aspect or patikula-manasikara that we normally work so hard to ignore) to body-mind phenomena in the application of right effort, so as to gain entry into the first absorption (jhana, the first "meditation") if "mindfulness of in-and-out breathing meditation" (which is the first practice in the setting up of the first of the Four Foundations of Mindfulness) has failed to bring one there.

Pa Auk students on jhanas

ETYMOLOGY: According to Rupert Gethin, "Dhamma-vicaya means either the 'discrimination of dhammas' or the 'discernment of dhamma'; to discriminate dhammas is precisely to discern dhamma"[6].

But, again, this is the confusion of something very simple and straightforward. One does NOT study Dharma (capital D Dhamma) during mindfulness meditation. What one DOES do is analyze, discern, and discriminate the "things" (phenomena, dhammas) the sutra specifies:

2. feelings (pleasant, unpleasant, neutral, whether corporeal or spiritual);
3. mind states (lustful or free of lust, angry or free of aversion, deluded or free of delusion, contracted or expansive, exalted or mundane, surpassable or unsurpassable, samādhi or not-samādhi [still and coherent or not], released or bound);
4. mind-objects (the [presence or absence of] the Five Hindrances and the Seven Factors of Enlightenment). See Lists of the Fourfold Setting up of Mindfulness or satipatthana here.
1. The first foundation is the body, and the body is usually known through parts of the body or more deeply by knowing the Four Great Elements in their tangible expressions as hard, soft, wet, dry, hot, cold, smooth or rough, heavy or light, and so on. (See Four Elements Meditation for details). More: dhamma vicaya (Wikipedia)

Yeah, I thought I made that pretty clear.

Rest assured, Bodhidharma has an excellent point to make. Striving, struggling, muscling, forcing, pushing, thirstily struggling is NOT the way. Let go of all that [waste]. Just be. Just observe the becoming that is going on all by itself. There is nothing to do or change for the heart/mind to come to the first absorption. It's just that we needed to stop caging ourselves in "trying" or "needing" it to be this way or that. It is far better to practice allowing and accepting, wakefulness and dispassionate mindfulness.

ECHOES OF LOST KNOWLEDGE (video); Dhr. Seven, Ani Kalyani, Amber Larson, Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation) (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly COMMENTARY Wiki edit

Peace Class with Mandy Kahn (9/30)

Every Wednesday, 6:00 pm PT (prs.org)

Join FREE online gathering to build inner peace as well as world peace with Mandy Kahn, now in its sixth year.

Peace Class is led by activist and poet Mandy Kahn. It is a free weekly gathering for participants around the world to come together to build peace in themselves and therefore world peace as a community.

To attend, simply join this Zoom link at the West Coast start time every Wednesday at 6:00 pm (PT). us02web.zoom.us/j/82150472713

Peace Class is presented by the Philosophical Research Society (prs.org) in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California.

Peace Class is now in its sixth year. Each class meeting presents a short talk that elucidates some aspect of the true nature of peace. The talk is followed by a journaling-based practice to give each participant the opportunity to develop a set of peace-building tools to use at any time.

Mandy cross under Kahn billboard, LA

Each hour-long session also includes a collective peace meditation (such as metta bhavana or the cultivation of "universal Buddhist loving-kindness," agape or boundless friendliness to all).

Teachings about pioneer peacebuilders like Peace Pilgrim and the opportunity to share participants’ personal peace-building discoveries with the group.

Each Peace Class meeting presents a stand-alone lesson; participants are invited to drop in for any single class or the full class series.

Mandy Kahn and PRS are grateful to be joined by peace advocates and would-be activists from around the world in this supportive online space.

Instructions

Talk, guided meditation, sharing, inspiration

Zoom link at its local start time: every Wednesday night 6:00 pm (Pacific Time). This class is FREE and is open to ALL.

us02web.zoom.us/j/82150472713
DETAILS: Attendees are welcome to participate in the interactive aspects of class or simply observe.

Holy Doors: Poems (Mandy Kahn)
ABOUT: Mandy Kahn is a California poet and peace teacher raised in Los Angeles and educated at UC Berkeley. She’s the author of three collections of poetry, the most recent of which is Holy Doors (2023). Her poems have been included in the Best American Poetry anthology series, have been featured on BBC Radio, and are seen in the nationwide newspaper column American Life in Poetry. She presented a program of her peace-building immersive poems at the Getty Museum in 2019.
She is a frequent feature of Wisdom Quarterly: American Buddhist Journal with fellow UC Berkeley graduate Editor Dhr. Seven, presenting the text of past Peace Class presentations.
Peace Piece: Poems Mandy Kahn
She was also the subject of Courtney Sell’s feature-length documentary Peace Piece: The Immersive Poems of Mandy Kahn, which is available from IndiePix. In 2021, Kahn presented a two-day peace concert at Meditation Mount in Ojai in conjunction with Dot Maver, director of the National Peace Academy, Fumi Johns Stewart, executive director of May Peace Prevail On Earth International, and Michael Lindfield, Meditation Mount’s board president. Mandy Kahn has been a featured speaker at many peace events, including at Peace Week, World Unity Week, and One Planet Peace Forum. Mandy Kahn serves as the Philosophical Research Society’s contributing writer and previously served two years as PRS' artist-in-residence.
Questions? Please email events@prs.org or phone (323) 663-2167

Friday, September 25, 2026

Japan Zen simple with Grandma Kinoe

Bodhidharma must be kidding because there's so much we can do, beginning with appreciation

(Lizzy Grant) Before she was Lana Del Rey, she wrote "Gramma" (about bad boy Axl Rose) #LDR

Japanese grandmother leads simple Zen life

(Japanese Grandma Kinoe) Living alone in the Japanese countryside: a day in the life of 93-year-old Grandmother Kinoe.

Minamoto Yoshiie at Nakoso barrier
Wisdom Quarterly: Gramma Kinoe, should Lana Del Rey keep obsessing about love, relationships, men, lesbian summer crushes...
Grandma Kinoe: What's a summer crush?
WQ: It's like when, you know how sometimes at the all-girl schools in Japan you get carried away admiring the little uniforms they make us wear, and two students get, um, carried away?
GK: Oh, you mean rezu-dōseiai (女性同性愛者).
WQ: I guess. Lana just does it for attention and to be inclusive of her big LGBT fanbase.
GK: What's a fan base?
WQ: It's sort of, never mind that.
GK: I mind that!
WQ: It's like a base, for a fan, or fans.
GK: Oh, you mean tessen (鉄扇) like for war.
WQ: Yes, exactly. Look, you're living the "Zen" life. What's it like? Shouldn't you move to a temple nunnery-monastery (zendo) where everyone practices proper form, slows down, and goes the Way of the Tao, with the flow and wu-wei (noninterference)?
GK: You mean seppuku (切腹, harakiri [ritual suicide])?!

Why does J art look cartoonish?

WQ: No, no, like royal forms and formalities but in a dojo, bowing and turning, taking your shoes off and sitting correctly for zazen on zafu and zabuton, meditation cushion and mat.
GK: Oh, you mean go to the senbutsu-jō (選仏場)? I can do that in the comfort of my own home...if my darn grandkids didn't keep filming me for these silly YouTube videos. What is a you tube anyway?
WQ: It's like a tube for you.
GK: Oh, you mean shiso-arabiki (粗びき) [sausage].
WQ: No, no! That's pig slaughter and offal; YouTube is more like crockpot TikTok pig butchering and awful.
GK: What's offal/awful?
WQ: YouTube is. It's really gone downhill since all the corporate Google censorship.
GK: OK, OK, enough chit-chatty. Let's listen to soothing music and talk about 21 healthy foods to add to diet.
WQ: Yeah, good idea, Gramma.
GK: "Gramma"? I'm Kinoe! Why does that girl keeping calling me "Gramma"?
WQ: She's trying to perfect her practice of wabi-sabi (侘び寂び).
GK: Oh, that makes sense! Good for her. Good luck, Lezzie!
WQ: No, Grandma! It's Lizzy or Lana now.

Healing sounds of Japanese Zen

Healing sounds of Zen • eliminate negative energy • calm body and mind

Zen: The Art of Simple Living

Zen: The Art of Simple

Editor/translator Allison Markin Powell (shown here smiling) and author Shunmyo Masuno have 4.6 out of 5 stars (with 3,688 reviews) for this handy little guide. Relax and find happiness amid the swirl of the modern world with this internationally bestselling guide to simplifying life by a Japanese Buddhist priest who embodies the wisdom of Zen.

Drawing on centuries of wisdom, renowned Zen Buddhist Shunmyo Masuno applies the essence of Zen to modern life in clear, practical, easily adopted lessons -- one a day for 100 days. Discover how:

lining up our shoes after we take them off can bring order to our lives
putting down our forks after every bite can help us feel more grateful for what we have
spending time barefoot can strengthen our bodies
planting a flower and watching it grow can teach us to embrace change
going outside to watch the sunset can make every day feel celebratory.

Author Zen Priest Shunmyo Masumo

In Zen: The Art of Simple Living, readers will learn to find happiness not by seeking out extraordinary experiences but by [moments of appreciation and] making small changes -- to what we do, how we think, how we interact with others, and how we APPRECIATE the present moment (yes, this one right NOW).

[This is what the historical Buddha called sati or "mindful awareness," diligence, vigilance, conscientiousness, wakefulness, and MINDFULNESS].

With each task, we open ourselves up to a renewed sense of peace and inner calm. More

Maybe centenarians are what they eat?

(PhytoWise) 21 foods that make Japanese people virtually immune to any illness for longevity

natto (whole fermented soybean)
miso (fermented soybean paste)
tofu (vegan soymilk bean curd cheese protein)
edamame (young saltwater boiled soy pods)
shoyu (umami savory soy sauce)
tsukemono (lactic acid pickles, sauerkraut)
[taiyaki] (murdered cooked fish)
sashimi (murdered raw fish, omega fatty acids)*
wakame, nori, and kombu (mineral-rich seaweed)
shirasu don (bowl of warm rice, calcium topping)
daikon winter radish (enzyme-rich)
beni imo (Okinawan-purple-sweet potato, anthocyanins)
shiitake and other mushrooms (dried savory beta-glucan)
goya bitter melon (bitter gourd, Momordica charantia)
J-rice (white and brown, polished and whole integral)
soba (buckwheat noodles, gluten-free with its own toxin)
matcha (green tea, phytonutrient-rich, antioxidant catechins)
yuzu (flavonoid-rich citrus zest, usually for warm soaking)
wasabi (horseradish vegetable with antimicrobial powers)
umeboshi (salted fermented citric acid apricot-like plum)
[*hemp seeds (raw Cannabis sativa, protein, EFA-rich): Gummy 'flower' on 4/20? Cannabis (ma huang)].

(Dan Martin) Eat like it's Japan every morning (one simple prep)

Unseen Japan: magical land of many worlds

UNSEEN JAPAN | The Secret and Incredible Places in Japan | Travel Video

(World Travel Doc) May 16, 2026: This documentary is a guide through the most extraordinary places in Japan, perfect for planning a trip. Discover wonderful Buddhist Japan through spectacular images and fascinating stories for an unforgettable journey through unseen places that will leave viewers breathless.

I think it's very wabi-sabi. Good work!

01:48 - Yakushima. 04:20 - Ishigaki and Yaeyama Islands. 07:09 - Shirakawa'go. 09:46 - Koyasan. 12:44 - Ise. 15:29 - Hakone. 18:15 - Nikko. 20:59 - Kanazawa. 23:42 - Takayama. 26:37 - Japanese Alps/Nagano. 29:28 - Mount Fuji. 33:14 - Kamakura. 36:12 - Yokohama. 39:03 - Tokyo. 43:12 - Kyoto. 47:09 - Arashiyama. 49:54 - Outro – Japan Beyond the Postcard.