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Great Conclusions! Yet, without knowing the topic upon which they are being thrust.

No use of psychedelics necessary, just consider listening to the psychedelic experiences detailed in Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan and hear with your dharma heart what they are seeing.

Then ask:

• Are they seeing the "prettier walls of their cage?"
• Or are they experiencing clearly the states we are told of from the most enlightened practitioners?

Observe and reflect. Seems a wise route. Judge and scorn afterward perhaps.

First things first: Listen. Your mind is quite made up regarding Buddhism and what it looks like. Empty that and listen to what people are saying to you. Read Mindfulness in Plain English. Try a sutra or two. Explore and be humble.

Second: It's vague and confusing because you are approaching it like an object to be acquired. Wisdom is not an object, it is a practice. It is this way because that is the nature of these things. I can't just come over to your house and pour you a big glass of Buddhism.

Third: That truth that people seem to have is experiential. They put in the practice and did the work and they see their truth. If you put in the effort you will find your own. Not theirs, not mine; your truth.

Lastly: Please listen to Alan Watts speak. He will change your mind that every wise person sounds like they're high all the time.

If I can, I'd like to suggest a book. It's called Going Home by Vietnamese Monk Thich Nhat Hanh. It does a fantastic job of going over the parallels (and differences) between the two. This will definitely benefit you more than I could hope to do in a comment section on reddit.

The book is pretty popular so you may be able to find it at you library or order off of Amazon for $10.

Seems to be the preferred method of disposing a body:

"... we followed Gyayak Rinpoche's instructions to move my teacher's body to an open area on a mountain about eight hours away for a sky burial. In Tibet, a sky burial is the traditional way to dispose of the earthly body. The deceased is brought up to a mountain, where the body is cut into pieces and left for the vultures. This is the final act of generosity, offering the body that is no longer needed to sustain the lives of other creatures.

Unfortunately, because of increasing human activity, vultures had become rare in these mountains, so we stayed with the body and waited. Gyayak Rinpoche had told us that if sky burial was not possible, we should cremate the body. We decided to perform the cremation the next evening, after we prepared the site.

That night a strange thing happened. Sometime after midnight, Lobsang Gyatso woke us up, pulling us out of our tents. Pointing to my teacher's body he said, "Look at the fire, the fire!" We all clearly saw flames dancing above Tsultrim Lhaksem's body. We wanted to get closer, but Lobsang Gyatso held us back. The flames formed an orange fireball that lasted three hours, but the next day, when we checked my teacher's body, we found no charring, no sign at all of what happened the previous night. Filled with awe, we recited prayers and sutras as we cremated Tsultrim Lhaksem's body in a hollow we had dug into the side of the mountain. In this way my first mentor departed from me.

When we returned to the monastery and reported the strange flames to Gyayak Rinpoche, he said calmly, "It was not fire, but rays of emanations leaving his body." From that day on, I no longer felt uneasy about death." - Arjia Rinpoche https://www.amazon.com/Surviving-Dragon-Tibetan-Account-Chinese/dp/1605297542

I think you are mistaking a Buddhist teacher for a psychiatrist. Teachers are not there to fix your depression, they are there to help you transcend dualism and learn other Buddhist techniques and Dharma.

There is an easy solution: Read about Cognitive Therapy techniques. Basically you have habitual thoughts (lies) that you believe are true. Cognitive Therapy will teach you how to counteract those erroneous thoughts.

https://www.webmd.com/depression/features/cognitive-therapy#1

What the Buddha Taught is pretty good and often recommended.

>This comprehensive, compact, lucid, and faithful account of the Buddha’s teachings persistently enjoys great popularity in colleges, universities, and theological schools both here and abroad. “An exposition of Buddhism conceived in a resolutely modern spirit.”—from the Foreword.
>
>“For years,” says the Journal of the Buddhist Society, “the newcomer to Buddhism has lacked a simple and reliable introduction to the complexities of the subject. Dr. Rahula’s What the Buddha Taught fills the need as only could be done by one having a firm grasp of the vast material to be sifted. It is a model of what a book should be that is addressed first of all to ‘the educated and intelligent reader.’ Authoritative and clear, logical and sober, this study is as comprehensive as it is masterly.”
>
>A classic introductory book to Buddhism, What the Buddha Taught, contains a selection of illustrative texts from the original Pali texts, including the Suttas and the Dhammapada (specially translated by the author), sixteen illustrations, and a bibliography, glossary, and index.

Here's a very good book. What the Buddha Taught by Walpola Rahula.

Also, the website AccessToInsight has a wealth of information.

Best to you!

Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness by Sharon Salzburg. It helped me a lot. Metta (loving-kindness) meditation in general helped me a lot, and this is a really good introduction to it.

Honestly, it felt a bit cheezy at first. But after sticking with it for a while, I now think it's the most important part of my practice. There is a very powerful resonance between loving yourself and loving other people. In metta you cultivate both, and they enhance each other.

I'll assume you've already found the 4 noble truths and 8 fold path (if not give those a google). Here are a few suggestions that I've found personally helpful:

Mindfulness in Plain English (link to text)

Confessions of a Buddhist Atheist (link to Amazon)

Explore the different sects of Buddhism, but don't get too caught up if some of them seem too religious to you. Much of Buddhism spread by incorporating local traditions and gods/goddesses, and those are not the heart of Buddhism. Don't get too much into the theory before you get into the meditation. While Buddhism can be studied academically, you really need to practice to fully understand. (And by practice I mean meditate).

Reaching nirvana isn't about being "worthy". It's about letting go of as much as you can.

Get a copy of "In the Buddha's Words" by Bhikkhu Bodhi. That'll take care of the theory. Take up the five precepts and start practicing insight meditation. If you haven't read them yet, get "Mindfulness in Plain English" as well as "Meditation on Perception." Put what you read into practice.

The Buddha said that even with just a week of strong mindfulness one could attain liberation. But the only way to get there is to practice and study the teaching.

Every time I read those words this starts playing in my head.

Also some relevant Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind stuff:

>No matter what god or doctrine you believe in, if you become attached to it, your belief will be based more or less on a self-centered idea...

>You will be involved in an idealistic practice. In constantly seeking to actualize your ideal, you will have no time for composure....

>But if you are always prepared for accepting everything we see as something appearing from nothing, knowing that there is some reason why a phenomenal existence of such and such form and color appears, then at that moment you will have perfect composure....

>So it is absolutely necessary for everyone to believe in nothing. But I do not mean voidness. There is something but that something is something which is always prepared for taking some particular form, and it has some rules, or theory, or truth in its activity. This is called Buddha nature

>If our mind is concentrated on ourselves we will have this kind of worry. But if we accept ourselves as the embodiment of the truth, or Buddha nature, we will have no worry. We will think, "Now it is raining, but we don't know what will happen in the next moment. By the time we go out it may be a beautiful day, or a stormy day. Since we don't know, let's appreciate the sound of the rain now."

> This kind of attitude is the right attitude. If you understand yourself as a temporal embodiment of the truth, you will have no difficulty whatsoever. You will appreciate your surroundings, and you will appreciate yourself as a wonderful part of Buddha's great activity, even in the midst of difficulties. This is our way of life.

Even Mara isn't evil, per se. Just extremely misguided.

OM MANI PADME HUNG and generating as much compassion for those beings as possible is probably the best thing to do. They're suffering far more than you are. A great story about this concerning Milarepa and his experience with some demons:

>One evening Milarepa returned to his cave after gathering firewood, only to find it filled with demons. They were cooking his food, reading his books, sleeping in his bed. They had taken over the joint. He knew about nonduality of self and other, but he still didn’t quite know how to get these guys out of his cave. Even though he had the sense that they were just a projection of his own mind—all the unwanted parts of himself—he didn’t know how to get rid of them. So first he taught them the dharma. He sat on this seat that was higher than they were and said things to them about how we are all one. He talked about compassion and shunyata and how poison is medicine. Nothing happened. The demons were still there. Then he lost his patience and got angry and ran at them. They just laughed at him. Finally, he gave up and just sat down on the floor, saying, “I’m not going away and it looks like you’re not either, so let’s just live here together.” At that point, all of them left except one. Milarepa said, “Oh, this one is particularly vicious.” (We all know that one. Sometimes we have lots of them like that. Sometimes we feel that’s all we’ve got.) He didn’t know what to do, so he surrendered himself even further. He walked over and put himself right into the mouth of the demon and said, “Just eat me up if you want to.” Then that demon left too.

> that sounds SO TWISTED and 100% the opposite of compassion!

Compassion doesn't change the world and how it works. You can be the most compassionate people in the world but if someone asks you what would happen if they jump off a cliff, you'd answer "you'll suffer painful injuries and even likely to die" because that's the truth.

> some Buddhists do and some don't?

Well, people have their own beliefs, and religions don't always completely overwrite those beliefs.

Have you read Frankl's "Man's Search for Meaning"?

I can't speak to why others here are Buddhist, but I can tell you this - your question involves defining both the word atheist and probably what religion is. Neither are particularly interesting questions to me, and I don't think they are to most Buddhists. If you are truly curious, read something like "Mindfulness in Plain English," and spend one month meditating daily. Then you will have an idea of what Buddhism is and if it is right for you.

As for me, I was the most cynical, anti-religious person I knew, until I spent a month meditating, and realized, who cares about that? I gained a new cognitive and sensory experience of reality, and that's what was important. Good luck. :)

From the book "Peace is Every Step" by Thich Nhat Hanh:

Peace is present right here and now, in ourselves and in everything we do and see. The question is whether or not we are in touch with it. We don't have to travel far away to enjoy the blue sky. We don't have to leave our city or even our neighborhood to enjoy the eyes of a beautiful child. Even the air we breathe can be a source a joy.

We can smile, breathe, walk, and eat our meals in a way that allows us to be in touch with the abundance of happiness that is available. We are very good at preparing to live, but not very good at living. We know how to sacrifice ten years for a diploma, and we are willing to work very hard to get a job, a car, a house, and so on. But we have difficulty **remembering that we are alive in the present moment, the only moment there is for us to be alive. Every breath we take, every step we make, can be filled with peace, joy, and serenity. We need only to be awake, alive in the present moment.

Great book, by the way - for anyone interested, this is from Instructions of Gampopa, from the root text.

Read through the side panel basics, and read the book "Mindfulness in Plain English" - it is free online and one of the best introductory meditation guides available. Meditation will slowly but surely reframe your mindset in a way that allows you to stop relying on external factors and experiences to determine your internal feelings. Eventually you will begin to drop your ego-identity, layer by layer, until what you are is simply experience of the present moment - no preconceptions, no judgments, no good nor bad, just raw, beautiful experience.

Life is beautiful, and anyone can experience these things, but it will take effort and dedication. Most people I know who are depressed don't think this is possible for them for whatever reason, and so they give up after a week without any tangible progress. If you give your practice time to develop, though, you WILL see results, and they will be worth it.

If you're feeling suicidal, or like you need help now, I suggest you see a doctor just to be safe. Buddhism can and will help you out of this rut, but it will take patience and determination, and the benefits (usually) will not come instantaneously.

yeah, back then, violence was pretty much the norm for any religion.

Fifteen century Japanese Buddhism spread under this motto:

> "The mercy of Buddha should be recompensed even by pounding flesh to pieces. One's obligation to the Teacher should be recompensed even by smashing bones to bits!" Source

World conquest, for a long time, was on the Buddhist agenda too. That is why we have a narrative of Wheel-Turning Kings dominating the world. Yes, these are pacifist kings, but the implication is that the kingdoms do not become pacifistic until after the territories have been conquered. Many Buddhists consider Ghengis Khan to be a Wheel-Turning King, even though he wasn't Buddhist, because he allowed for the freedom of religion in his empire and his rampage spread the dharma throughout the world.

Not that I'm arguing for world domination, but to think that it wasn't part of Buddhist thought is to ignore two millennia of our history.

Jobs, by all accounts that I'm familiar with, was a pretty big egomaniac. I don't think that Zen or Buddhism had anything to do with that. Lots of people see Zen or meditation as a way to self-actualize. I don't know if that's the way Jobs viewed it or what he wanted to get out of it, but hey. Didn't know the guy.

If you're interested in looking for more information about Zen, then the book "Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind" is a good place to start. It's a collection of talks from Shunryu Suzuki who helped popularize Zen in the US.

I'll just add that we can have an intuitive, experiential understanding of enlightenment from the very start of the path because we experience suffering.

There is a reason that the Buddha's First Noble Truth (the entry point for the path) is the truth of suffering. At a talk I attended, Dzongsar Khyentse was asked whether a rock can be enlightened. He said, "No. A rock can't be enlightened because a rock has never been confused." Just as in the quote from the Buddha in the post above, there is suffering and suffering simultaneously arises from and results in confusion (belief in a solid, independent self), the Second Noble Truth, and the path, the Fourth Noble Truth.

The First Noble Truth (suffering) and the Third Noble Truth (cessation of suffering or enlightenment) are connected. This is why a brand new practitioner can sometimes immediately and intuitively and experientially connect with Dharma teachings. This is why Shunryu Suzuki wrote a book entitled "Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind" -- there is a connection between enlightenment (Zen mind) and the mind that suffers and sees the path (beginner's mind). Because we suffer, we understand on an intuitive, experiential level that cessation of suffering is possible.

It's odd that you are put off, because the "just" of this is that we don't really live in the present moment - we are always looking for the next thing in the future to deliver happiness, and never finding happiness in the now. Then when the future arrives, we are looking to the next future. I think that describes human existence for the majority of people - not just Buddhists.

"Mindfulness in Plain English" is one of the most renouned books out there on meditating and mindfulness, and approaching life in a way that doesn't fall victim to that mentaility. You really should finish reading it.

edit - if you want another book in a similar vein, check out whatistad.com.

>Start warming up to meditation; it's a very, very central aspect.

This. Meditation is great, I'm very detached from the dogma and focus on the philosophy. Meditation is fairly universal through out all subsets of Buddhism though. One of my personal favorite books is Mindfulness in Plain English which you can get in e-book form for free.

Actually there is a lot of anecdotal evidence and now some perlimeary studies that people who have developed a strong and consistent meditation practice long term they do exhibit the need for less sleep.

I have been part of monastery where one of the most advanced meditators only needed about 4 hours of sleep a night.

"In long term meditators, multiple hours spent in meditation are associated with a significant decrease in total sleep time when compared with age and sex matched controls who did not meditate. Whether meditation can actually replace a portion of sleep or pay-off sleep debt is under further investigation."

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2919439/#:~:text=In%20long%20term%20meditators%2C%20multiple,debt%20is%20under%20further%20investigation.

"Interestingly, anecdotal evidence suggests that long-term expert meditators need significantly less sleep. In fact, according to some Buddhist texts, a full night’s sleep totals approximately four hours among proficient meditators."

https://www.headspace.com/blog/2015/11/11/do-meditators-really-need-less-sleep/

Not enlightened, not buddhist, more deluded than fraud, but can be a stimulating source of food for thought.

Sounds a bit like myself, really!

Edit: Actually, my opinion of Osho isn't too dissimilar to his opinion of Alan Watts:

"When you are enlightened, whatsoever you say is beautiful; it has to be. But when you are not enlightened and groping in the dark, and yet can find a small window of light, that's tremendous, fantastic." - Osho

And it really is. I wonder if he ever claimed to only inhale N2O in an enlightened way....

It's certainly plausible. In Gandhara, there was a pretty substantial influx of Greco-Buddhist art. I'd think it's pretty likely that philosophical ideas could've been exchanged, too.

I also believe that it's possible that the monistic philosophies of Greece, such as Pythagoreanism and Platonism, where inspired by those of India, such as the philosophy of the Upaniṣads.

Here's an interesting article detailing the interactions between them.

Leonard Cohen calms a belligerent fan at a concert. -- (Cohen was ordained as a Rinzai Zen Buddhist monk.)

Garma C.C. Chang, A Treasury of Mahāyāna Sūtras: Selections from the Mahāratnakūta Sūtra

> It is common Buddhist experience that realization can be engendered through long years of frequent recitation of sutras. Therefore, the purpose of reading a Buddhist sutra is not only to grasp its meaning, but also to acquire religious insight and experience. To achieve this one should not just read the sutra once and digest the information therein. but should read it again and again, even out loud, so that the words of the Sutra become totally absorbed into one's subconscious mind. This is tantamount to letting the sutra take over the mind and run its course to reach the beyond. It is for this reason that the intentional repetition in Buddhist scriptures should not be treated entirely as a defect, but rather as a constructive and beneficial method for Dharma practice.

Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche: "There are two possible causes of upheaval or negative conditions. They can be the result of your previous actions, which is your karma, or they can just happen in the course of circumstances, in which case they are the result of adventitious conditions. In the case of upheaval that results from adventitious conditions alone, any means of protection may be effective. For example, if you are trying to get out of the rain all you have to do is go into a building and that will suffice."

Student: ... I thought that everything was caused by karma. Are there other causes of sickness?

[Khenpo Karthar] Rinpoche: Definitely, you can experience unpleasant things that are not caused by previous actions. The indication of that is that they will be remedied by conventional means. For example, if you become ill and the illness responds to medical treatment, it means the illness was caused by adventitious conditions and not by previous karma.

Student: So there are all kinds of things that can happen to us that are not karmically linked?

Rinpoche: Yes, and that is why so many methods that we have come up with to deal with situations may be effective. They are effective when a situation is not produced karmically but is produced by adventitious circumstances.

https://www.amazon.com/Karma-Chakmes-Mountain-Dharma-Vol/dp/0974109215

cc: u/jlapointe

This is dubious and was likely concocted by monastic elites to solidify their institutional control of the Buddhist religion.

Indian Vajrayana and Tibetan Buddhism have had many lay masters who broke the ten fetters while living as householders.

OP, The Mind Illuminated is a superb meditation guide that has become very popular. I recommend that you browse the /r/streamentry practice community, where there are many who have attained the first and second stages of awakening in this very life.

Shunryu Suzuki's Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind is a pretty oft-recommended English-language text.

If you're prepared for something a little more source-materialy, Dogen's Shobogenzo isn't fucking around, and of course The Gateless Gate is always a thing.

You can learn to drive without a teacher, but it is safer and quicker if someone can point out the common pitfalls.

In buddhism, it seems to me that you can learn a lot from books. But there are a lot of books to read. A teacher removes this vast choice from you and gives you all that you need.

Books are made up of words. A person is made up of actions. Buddhism is about going beyond concepts (words) and towards experience (actions). So, a teacher will one day be required because books only take you so far down the path.

But if there are no teachers around, books are just fine! I would read widely - and don't just limit yourself to buddhist teachings. The sidebar has some great recommendations, but I would also read books about the brain, about cognitive biases, about embodied cognition, about people who have lived through impossibly difficult experiences such as the Holocaust, about stoicism...

Here are ten books I have enjoyed and which have taught me a lot:

1. The Invisible Gorilla
2. The Self Illusion (Why there is no you inside your head)
3. Mistakes Were Made (but not by me)
4. The Power of Habit
5. Meditations (Marcus Aurelius)
6. Man's Search for Meaning
7. The Chimp Paradox
8. Thinking, fast and slow
9. On the brevity of life (Seneca)
10. Philosophy for Life and other dangerous situations

EDIT Wow! I wasn't expecting this to get downvoted..."For content that does not contribute to any discussion"...I am surprised!

Started reading this webcomic called Kung Fu Ganja which has these beautiful scenes with temples though the comic itself isn't about buddhism: monks fighting to defend a boy that is taking care of reforestation on his area in the current chapter. I find the art and its references to be beautiful nonetheless.

The comic is available for free at https://tapas.io/episode/562462 :)

Edit: a word.

"The greater your intelligence, the greater your understanding and wisdom, the greater impact your actions have. Animals accumulate a small amount of karma for aggression, but a human being with the same behavior accumulates much heavier karma.... From the Buddhist perspective, compassion is rare in the animal realm but it is there. In the hungry ghost realm, compassion is even rarer, and rarer still in the hell realms. However, again there is a loophole. Because of the relative difficulty of compassion in non-human realms, the karmic significance of even a little bit of compassion is great. It is said that in a hell realm, a being who has compassion for another is immediately liberated." -B. Alan Wallace https://www.amazon.com/Buddhism-Attitude-Tibetan-Seven-Point-Training/dp/1559392002

"The Buddha taught in the Sutra of Repaying the Kindness that he had been reborn as a strong man in hell, where he pulled a cart across red-hot iron ground. A hell guardian was continually beating his weak companion. The Buddha had affection for his companion and said to the hell guardian, "Have some pity on him!" This made the guardian furious, and he stabbed the Buddha with a trident, ending his life. This purified the Buddha of hundreds of eon's worth of bad karma." https://www.amazon.com/Mahamudra-Related-Instructions-Teachings-Classics/dp/086171444X

It is a completely false claim.

Bhikkhu Analayo, a Theravadin monastic and a scholar of Early Buddhism, has released a new book on rebirth and thoroughly debunks the claims that rebirth was not a fundamental part of Early Buddhism.

The first two books I read were The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching and Mindfulness in Plain English. They'll get you started with the basics.

Yes, the basic principle of engaging in Buddhist rituals is effectively harnessing the causal power of karma to transform your mind. The idea is that actions imbued with certain intentions results in an effect on how the mind perceives, engages, and interacts with reality.

Say your parents are burning incense for the Kitchen God. You burn some too, bow, offer prayers. It doesn't matter if the Kitchen God exists or doesn't exist, if the ritual has any result on the venerated being. The more important thing is engaging in the ritual because: 1) doing nice things for people or devas, whether or not they are real, makes you a kinder person in the long run; 2) sometimes you do things just to make your parents happy, and that compassion too has an effect on the mind

There's a Tibetan text called Sutra on the Questions regarding Death and Transmigration that basically involves funerary rituals for the dead, and the question if merit-offering rituals for the dead have any real effect. The Buddha explains that whether or not the dead receive these offerings, these rituals are still encouraged because of the effect that it has on the living engaging in the practices. It is how we grieve, how we find resolution to loved ones being lost, how we cultivate our minds to be more compassionate and more benevolent.

All Tibetan school have lam rim. At least Kagyu, Nyingma, and Gelug. I'm less familiar with Sakya, but I think Lamdre is basically lam rim.

In Kagyu you might check out The Jewel Ornament of Liberation by Gampopa. In the Nyingma school you might check out Finding Rest in the Nature of Mind by Longchenpa, for instance.

EDIT: Looks like this is a Sakya example, Three Visions: Fundamental Teachings of the Sakya Lineage of Tibetan Buddhism by Ngorchen Konchog Lhundrub.

Second all this. I also recommend Anthony de Mello's work, particularly Sadhana: A Way to God, Christian Exercises in Eastern Form to broaden his mind.

"So there is a very deep approach in Buddhist philosophy and practice to try to examine if that 'I' is just an illusion, just a name we attach to that stream and flux in continuous transformation. We cannot find the 'I' in any part of the body, or as something that would pervade the body in its entirety. We might think that it lies in the consciousness. But consciousness is also a stream in continuous transformation. The past thought is gone, the future one has not yet arisen. How can the present 'I' truly exist, hanging between something that has passed and something else that has yet to arise? And if the self cannot be identified in the mind or the body, nor in both together, nor as something distinct from them, it is evident that there is nothing we can point to that can justify our having such a strong feeling of 'I.' It is just a name one gives to a continuum, just as one can point to a river and call it Ganges or Mississippi. That's all." -Ven. Matthieu Ricard https://www.amazon.com/Destructive-Emotions-Scientific-Dialogue-Dalai/dp/0553381059

"... Buddhist contemplatives have discovered, through close inspection of the mind in deep meditation, a continuum of consciousness, or "mind stream." This stream is a series of arising and passing moments of awareness. No single, unchanging identity bridging these moments is observed, and because this mind stream is influenced by various phenomena, it is interdependent rather than independent. One might be tempted to equate this mind stream, the substrate consciousness, with the individual or self, or say that each individual "has" such a mind stream. However, since no independent entity is observed gluing together the moments of awareness of the substrate consciousness, calling it "the self" is arbitrary." -B. Alan Wallace https://www.amazon.com/Embracing-Mind-Common-Science-Spirituality/dp/159030683X

There's really nothing to do. I would say persistence is key; try your best not to miss meditation at least once a day. If you do that for long enough, you kind of find your own way. I know it's not a sexy answer, but it's the truth.
I do prostrations, chant the Heart Sutra every morning..but these are merely rituals that, if not handled correctly, just get in the way of practice.
Book recommendation alert! I would read Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind by Shunryu Suzuki. And stop there, for a while at least. Don't fill your head with so much info that you don't know what to do with it...take it from me :)

On the side bar you'll find a link to the book Mindfulness in Plain English. This is an introduction to mindfulness meditation. Thich Nhat Hanh's book 'Peace in Every Step' is recommended in the Buddhit Book Recommendations. These should serve as a good introduction. You can explore more on the sidebar if you wish. I hope this is helpful! Good luck!

I have not yet read it, but I have heard that this book goes into some detail on the history.

If you read, say, Chagdud Tulku's autobiography Lord of the Dance, to some extent he also talks about murder, blood feuds, stealing, corrupt or unethical monastics, etc.

As to why I practice Tibetan Buddhism, basically the bottom line is it seems I had a karmic connection that blossomed. I initially read a book by Chogyam Trungpa that I found fascinating and then searched out Tibetan Buddhist centers that I had access to and essentially have stayed connected since, in various ways.

I think it's a great book, but it's not for everyone. Your experience with it will depend entirely on whether you enjoy having all that detail or not, and whether Culadasa's style is a good match for you.

That said, it's perfectly appropriate for a beginner. The overview chapter is a good start, followed by the first interlude (which contains a quick-start meditation guide).

By that point, you'll have a sense of whether the book is a good fit for you. If it's not, you might like Mindfulness in Plain English. I'm suggesting it because it's very widely recommended, but I personally do not click with it (I have no specific complaints -- it just doesn't connect for me). So if you don't like TMI, you may be more in tune with MIPE :)

One warning about TMI. Culadasa makes the following claim in the overview chapter:

> For householders who practice properly, it’s possible to master the Ten Stages within a few months or years.

However, he qualifies this claim in the endnotes:

> The Dalai Lama has said, “If one knows the nature, order and distinctions of the levels explained above without error and cultivates calm abiding, one can easily generate faultless meditative stabilization in about a year.” When I first began teaching, I also believed that with diligent practice most people should be able to master all Ten Stages in less than a year. I have since learned that is not realistic in terms of most people, and making such a flat pronouncement can be discouraging for those who have been practicing much longer without attaining that mastery.

Culadasa has said he regrets not making that more clear in the main part of the book, since people are still winding up with unrealistic expectations.

Good luck!

Through open-eye meditation, I have been able to not only name things in my mind as I see them, but shift to a mindful state wherever I go! When I do the closed-eye meditation, it is like taking a mind shower. My head gets very warm and everything washes away. I don't "see" anything but I am more in tune with my inner-body, my breathing, and the connected world outside.

I got into Buddhism in high school, although at the time I saw it as more of a cultural study then actually putting it into practice. Later on, in my junior year of college (this is where the drugs come in lol) I was smoking with a great friend of mine and he gave me a copy of The Power Of Now. I took it and soon realized that a year ago my other friend (also a smoking buddy) who was in the peace corps recommended it to me. The book resulted in my first mindful experience.

I was not high at that time and I was in a state on non-thinking bliss for a few days. I didn't eat, simply because I wasn't hungry or craving anything. It was one of the first times the stream of unruly thoughts had stopped and my anxiety was washed away. I took another big step and stopped my anxiety medication, I trusted my path for the very first time. Through meditation and the middle way I am working to not only maintain my mind and body but to clear negative energies and help all people!

Thank you very much for reading my story, stay wise and enjoy your path :)

My way into Buddhism was kind of interesting. After being on a Navy ship at sea for a year, things start to get boring so I decided to try out the religious services on board and see what they were all about. The sect of buddhism they taught on-board was Nichiren Buddhism and particularly the kind associated with Soka Gakkai International. This ended up being my favorite service on board so I kept going back. After a month or two I decided to order Mindfulness in Plain English from Amazon (They mail to APO addresses) and I got really caught up in meditation. So caught up I ended up leaving Nichiren Buddhism behind and when I got out of the service, I studied a bunch of the different schools, and found Theravada to match up the most with my interests.

Sure, but then it follows that if that truth has such attachment it isn't the ultimate truth, in a way. Of course, in reality it is more complicated than that; you might have heard someone say that attachment isn't necessarily bad, and can even be a useful tool on the path.

Edit: In fact, I heard something recently somewhere (probably through a Dharma Talk or in "Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind") where it warned that meditation is no replacement for a life.

I found Mindfulness in Plain English to be a great resource to give me some structure and guidance when I began meditation. This is about meditation only and is a practical guide to getting started. It deals with Vipassana (Insight) meditation.

If you're looking for words from the Buddha himself, I would suggest you look for translations (The ones from Wisdom are widely acclaimed and reputable.) of the Pali Canon. The Pali Canon is the oldest remaining canon of the Buddhas teachings and (possibly more significantly) the one preserved in a language closest to that which the Buddha spoke.

But most of all, remember what the Buddha himself preached. Don't take anybody's word for it and beware of Dogma. Don't take an enlightened man's word, don't even take the Buddha's word for it, find out for yourself. Believe only what you've discovered for yourself. You can read all the suttas and Buddhist philosophy you want, but the only way you can truly gain enlightenment is to pursue it in your own self.

Tonglen practice or “exchanging” meditation. Pema Chodron has a great book on my this with a lot of detail and theory.

Awakening Compassion: Meditation Practices for Difficult Times by Pema Chodron, narrated by Pema Chodron on my Audible app.

https://www.audible.com/pd?asin=B002V1CNJC&source_code=ASSORAP0511160006

Yeah but the idea is seen in the work of Buddhist monks, like Longchenpa. He's often quoted out of context though. Here is some context.

The Natural Freedom of Mind ( སེམས་ཉིད་རང་གྲོལ )

>Since vision and attention to the vision are not disrupted nor falling into contraries, having nothing to do with acceptance or fear, high or low, one may well be joyous.

>Since enactment and goal, having nothing to do with acceptance and rejection, expectation and anxiety, are not seen as something to be obtained or missed, one may well feel an inner warmth.

>Since everything is but an apparition, perfect in being what it is, having nothing to do with good or bad, acceptance or rejection, one may well burst out in laughter.

All buddhist temples have candles and incense burning, but they don't sit there and space out to music, they do actual meditation practice. At least the practicing Buddhists do. Go to Eiheiji temple in Japan and ask them about the music thing, they will probably smack you with a stick.

No. I think that likely comes from a misconception regarding the depiction of his hair in East Asian cultures, but that was supplanted and came much later.

The Sakyan people were most likely Aryans who descended into northern India by means of modern-day Iran, replacing the Dravidian cultures there that eventually moved southward. So the Buddha was most likely (there is no strong evidence to identify his ethnicity, only circumstantial) an Indo-Aryan, as that makes the most sense for that region at that time.

He was probably fair-skinned (but not "white", think fair-skinned Indian) due to his palace upbringing (he was probably not a prince, but the son of a republican chieftain, so still raised in a palace). The scriptures say he had blue eyes. If that theory holds up, he probably looked somewhat similar to the blue-eyed fair-skinned Iranians of today, with more Indic features.

"I've suffered from PTSD/anxiety/depression/panic for the last 10+ years. I want to find some relief from the pain."

You have been working with a health care professional right? Meditation can help with a lot of things but it isn't a panacea.

"Mindfulness in Plain English" is a good introductory text. You'll find it online from many sources.

I'm curious why you consider yourself Buddhist while seemingly knowing so little about it.

My recommended books: Thich Nhat Hanh's "The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching" and "The Miracle of Mindfulness" to get started. There are many other excellent books out there for beginners as well by other Buddhist masters, but these are just my general recommendations.

Set a daily meditation practice. "The Miracle of Mindfulness" should be able to help get you started there.

Here's my take on the 3 major Buddhist canons.

Although having a teacher is obviously optimal, many westerners such as myself don't quite have the luxury of living any reasonable distance from a teacher in the tradition that you're most interested in.

Most of everyone in this sub can agree, however, that a book recommendation that you really can't go wrong with is What the Buddha Taught by Walpola Rahula.

After that, I recommend reading Mindfulness in Plain English by Bhante Gunaratana to get you started on your meditation practice. This is also a pretty tried and true text; Bhante G does some lovely writing.

Being without a teacher myself, I personally listen to a lot of audio dharma talks online. There's a wealth of those available, I personally recommend dharmaseed, but audiodharma is a good option too.

And seeing as how you've stated an interest in secular Buddhism, I highly recommend reading/listening to Jack Kornfield. :)

But, really, everything in this thread so far are pretty solid pieces of advice. Go where your heart leads you!

People here usually say that if you have underlying mental illnesses then you should be careful with meditation, but it is proven to be effective when combating depression. It is called MBCT - Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy.

So I suggest starting mindfulness meditation.

But you should also study dharma texts (as lvl_5_laser_lotus said, feel free to take a look at the sidebar, there even are some free on-line books). Learning dharma from literature (like the Tripitaka) and lectures is a vital part in making the mindfulness meditation more useful and keeping yourself going on the road.

I suggest you read "What the Buddha Taught" by Walpola Rahula and "Mindfulness in Plain English" by Bhante G first. Alan Watts was great at explaining it all to us westerners, you should listen to him talk as well (look for his lecture tracks on YT).

Usually you can find modern dharma texts for free online. It is a good idea to make use of this.

I wish Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha was the first book I read. Despite its controversial author it was/is the single most helpful book in my unnecessarily huge library. I wasted months of time before it set me straight.

The Wisdom of Insecurity

Buddhism Plain and Simple

Mindfulness in Plain English

The Book: On The Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are

Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha (though I would skip the jhana maps and all that, save them for another time)

From Man's Search for Meaning I believe. He outlines logotherapy which has some overlap with Buddhism. It is an amazing book and a very quick, easy read.

Check out Mindfulness in Plain English. It's a free book listed in the sidebar. It's just one person's perspective, but there are some key principles that will help put all further learning in context.

Buddhism probably isn't the fastest way to deal with social anxiety. It's a common misconception that Buddhism teaches you how to control your mind, but the truth is Buddhism gradually reveals to you that you don't need to believe your mind when it spins out of control in social situations (and all other situations as well).

Yes, learning to meditate is a great idea. r/meditation has great resources in the sidebar. You'll find that you can't meditate worth a damn at the start, but that's natural. It's an acquired skill that's far removed from our hyper-stimulated culture. You'll have to be patient. Practice meditating to the best of your abilities, but here's the really important part: be good to yourself. Don't be hard on yourself for not being better at it to begin with. Desire to be a better meditator will really get in the way. Be like an adoring parent patiently teaching their kid to walk. No matter how many times they fall, the parent optimistically keeps helping them, knowing that with practice they'll get it. You'll get the hang of it too, but progress will come when it comes and there's nothing you can do to force it.

I think it wouldn't hurt to do a little reading first, but HipsterMonk's suggestion that you find a sangha (community of meditators) is good advice. You can learn a lot by meditating with others. Sanghas tend to be very helpful and supportive, and you're likely to discover more about the causes and conditions of social anxiety when you're in a room with people, but quietly focused on your experience. Good luck. I got started for similar reasons. Wound up getting so much more than I bargained for.

None yet, but I've been considering getting the Tibetan om mani padme hung on my forearm. I've also wanted to get this for a while but haven't yet.

The analogy the Buddha is reported to have drawn was this: you've been struck, deeply, with the arrow of suffering — right in the heart. As your nervous system slowly checks out and blood flows steadily away from your heart, you decide to say, 'I wanna know what kind of arrow this is, who made it, and when they made it before I pull it out!'

The Buddha would say, 'There's not much time, and fixing the wound might take too long, you'll lose your chance to experience excellent health.' All because of time allocated toward non-suffering-related questioning. That is why older texts tend not to go into 'why' the world is the way it is type questions.

Since it's so hard for people to accept THAT things are the way they are in the first place, diving into the unresolved inquiries about 'why' things are the way they are would be seen as counterproductive. There are buddhist ideas which no doubt seem like a 'why' — karma, etc — but that doesn't seem to be getting at what you mean. You seem to mean more like, 'why is there something, rather than nothing?' 'why do we have desires in the first place,' 'why is life here as opposed to non-life?' that's not really an old-buddhist style discourse.

If you want an interesting answer, check out the online free class 'Buddhism and Modern Psychology,' which tries to answer your 'why' question through the lens of evolutionary psychology.

First, a quick correction: Bodhisattva of Compassion, not Buddha of Compassion. Buddha is one who discovers this dharma, and teaches it; a Bodhisattva is an enlightened being that has attained enlightenment for the benefit of others. This means that they are enlightened, but have not necessarily severed their cycle of rebirth, so that they may directly impact the human realm.

If you follow the Dalai Lama, and his work, you'll see that he actively teaches Buddhism and the dharma, as well as engages with scientists and philosophers about human nature. So, not really a figurehead with a title, but a teacher for the Buddhist community.

If you're seeking some information about the reincarnation aspect, you may find "The Unmistaken Child" an interesting documentary. It follows a lone monk in search of the reincarnation of his master. https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xw5low_unmistaken-child-1-a-documentary-film-about-reincarnation_shortfilms

EDIT: A recent post about some of the differences in terminology between arahants, buddhas, bodhisattvas. http://www.reddit.com/r/Buddhism/comments/2e43mh/of_arahants_buddhas_bodhisattas_by_bhante_punnaji/

Many Mahayana sutras are in fact already compiled collections of various other texts. And luckily a few of them have been translated into English.

The Jeweled Treasury in one such example:

https://www.amazon.com/Treasury-Mahāyāna-Sūtras-Selections-Mahāratnakūta/dp/0271034289

Hello I recommend The Heart of Buddha’s Teaching

It goes over the basic principles of Buddhism with fairly easy to read text 8/10 for beginners (this was my first Buddhist book) any other recommendations?

Hey! I found it. It looks like it's a really good deal too, at least compared to what I paid :). There are only 6 left, according to Amazon.

https://www.amazon.com/Meditation-Tapestry-Bedspread-Hanging-Bohemian/dp/B00IZDM354

This seems reasonable, as much of anxiety is about negative counterfacual thinking, or as the DSM says, "apprehensive expectation".

I have some cognitive aspects of anxiety without significant emotional distress. I don't panic or emotionally stress out about things unless there is a real threat, although I'm aware the perception of "real threats" as well internal understanding of emotion is impaired in anxious people. Admittedly, I notice I'm tense a lot and agitated, but in ways better explained by my primary diagnosis.

What I really notice is the fact that I think in certain ways that are unreasonable and anxious. One common trait of anxious people is a discomfort with uncertainty. This compels me to dwell on things until I reach a satisfying conclusion so that I don't have to worry anymore. At the same time, my mind draws out protracted scenarios where things could go wrong, which I have to counteract with unnecessary preventative behavior. Then I get upset when my disordered order is disturbed. That's the main interaction between my anxiety and emotional stress: I often get tense about something being off my design, in ways I can easily see through when I pay attention.

I say it's mostly cognitive because as distressful as the above sounds, I am mostly cool with it. I don't subjectively feel bad about it. I'm pretty upbeat. Poor emotional monitoring about my stress makes me feel good about life even if it's imperfect. A main negative impact is the effect it has on my willingness to accept risk, so I refrain from doing things.

When I put it that way, I guess I'm pretty classically anxious. There's not a lot I can do medication-wise because of how it interacts with my primary diagnosis. That's why I'm happy to hear about this study. I want to supplement my treatment with meditation. I'm kind of flailing in the wind without real instruction, but I want to read Mindfulness in Plain English soon.

I'm an atheist and I'm fairly new to Buddhism as well. For me personally, the claims of reincarnation and soul or anything metaphysical in nature, are simply untrue and untestable. I don't want to offend anyone here. That's just my opinion.

The original core teachings of Gautama are very down-to-earth, pragmatic, and testable. I use his teachings as a means to reach a better mental state when it comes to awareness, or "awakening", if you will. I also believe that it is fully possible to reach a state of peace and lack of suffering through the practices taught by the Buddha.

Some awesome books you might want to look into are Buddhism Without Beliefs and Confession of a Buddhist Atheist, both written by Stephen Batchelor. These books are more focused on the core of what the Buddha taught rather than the later adopted spiritual practices and beliefs.

Another good one to read would be Buddhism Plain and Simple by Steve Hagen.

Good luck to you! May you find an escape from dukkha.

EDIT: Another excellent book not necessarily pertaining directly to Buddhism is Waking Up by Sam Harris. He uses the term "spirituality" in the subtitle of the book, yet he explains his reasoning for that word early on. Highly recommended.

You've probably gotten the willies from me at various times, then. This is something I'm really conscious of, but I don't know of any way to avoid the problem. I feel like a total shill.

But his book on meditation really is the best thing I've seen on meditation. I studied Master Kamalashila's treatise on meditation, and it said many of the same things Culadasa's book says, but didn't give enough detail to allow me to figure out how to apply his advice to my practice. I also studied Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche's book on meditation, Turning The Mind Into an Ally and Shunryu Suzuki's book Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. Both are good books, but again didn't give me the detail I needed to actually develop my practice.

So yeah, I feel like a total broken record recommending TMI over and over again, but I think it would be worse not to recommend it. If you know of a better book, I'd love to hear about it, but the mere fact that a lot of people like it doesn't seem like a good reason to avoid it! :]

The nature of the mind is to think and it isn't going to stop nor is this the goal of meditation.

>"Bhikkhus, consciousness is not self. Were consciousness self, then this consciousness would not lead to affliction, and one could have it of consciousness: 'Let my consciousness be thus, let my consciousness be not thus.' And since consciousness is not-self, so it leads to affliction, and none can have it of consciousness: 'Let my consciousness be thus, let my consciousness be not thus.'

The word "mindfulness" is a clumsy or clever (depending on one's understandings) translation of the word sati which literally means "recollection" or "memory." We must remember to turn our attention back to the chosen meditation object when the mind drifts and the mind will drift. Those "distractions" are just as important to the process as the breath itself. The mind is always working even when we think it isn't.

Don't worry about where you think you should be and enjoy where you are right now. Setting expectations is like planning for disappointment. You job is just show up to the cushion and let the outcomes take care of themselves. You needn't have faith in yourself but you will come to have faith in the practice.

You might enjoy reading Mindfulness in Plain English. This is the online abridged edition but it still has much to offer you in the way of understanding and encouragement.

I think a lot of people outside of Buddhism are under the impression that the Dalai Lama is our pope or something. He seems like a nice dude but he's only a representative for a relatively small regional sect of Buddhism. Anyway, I wish you the best on your journey. I highly recommend reading Daniel Ingram's "Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha". That's a link to the free ebook. He approaches Buddhism with some scientific rigor which I think you'll appreciate.

Hey!

Do you hate this feeling of anger and resentment that keeps popping up? How much effort are you willing to put in to make it go away? Enough to read a book?

Mindfulness in Plain English.

You read the book and I will provide the guarantee that you will be able to come to terms with it much sooner than you expect. :)

If you can, please also do a follow up post and let us know how you felt after you read it.

Hello Furricane. Looks like you have the basic idea down. Though I am not an expert, I would like to suggest couple of things.

Calling out your distraction might be helpful, but are you alert/aware when you are lying in bed or just relaxed. I personally think it helps meditate in a posture that makes you alert.

"Mindfulness in Plain English" is a great book to start and I think it'll answer your question in more detail. http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma4/mpe1-4.html

Keep up your practice. Good luck.

Came in here to post essentially this. To add to the above, you may find that jealousy is just something that's hard-wired into your instincts and it may not be something you can do anything about; kinda like how many folks are startled by loud noises. Like startling, you may always find that you have that response in certain situations. BUT, like the above implies, you don't have to respond to it. Observe the emotions instead as a form of sensory input.

This is a form of insight meditation. If you're ready to start investigating specific things like jealousy, you may also be ready to start regular insight meditation as well. I stand by Daniel Ingram's book - Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha as a very Westerner-friendly book on the subject. Also, you can't beat the book's price. :)

Please, please consider using a translation site like this or this to check your English before posting. Your English is very hard to understand.

Which reminds me to post about an interesting free online course by people from Princeton:

Buddhism and Modern Psychology

I will submit a post about it a week in advance too. :)

Sorry to hear you are suffering. May I ask if you've ever read any of the work of Dr. John Sarno?

You might get something out of:

Healing Back Pain

The Mindbody Prescription

I just wanted to mention in case you hadn't seen this.

I love Jack.

Reading his book, "A Path With Heart" , really helped to get my mind thinking correctly

https://www.amazon.com/Path-Heart-Through-Promises-Spiritual/dp/0553372114

I've heard The Body Keeps the score is a go-to book for learning about trauma treatment. It's not exactly Buddhist, but there are some details into how mindfulness, yoga, and breathing were used effectively in treatment with therapy. It is pretty heavy content-wise, so just a word of caution. One section of the book focuses on children and developmental trauma.

I know you will love and appreciate this. Just posted it before too. https://www.amazon.com/Old-Path-White-Clouds-Footsteps/dp/0938077260

Always remember, the Dhamma of the Buddhas is very simple to follow. Do only what is good and true. Never do what is worthless, vain, false, or empty in meaning and life. Purify the heart with the teachings and with your practice, and always rely on yourself as your refuge, asking us silly people from time to time of course any questions. :)

There are tons of meditation methods so it's good to understand which one we're doing. Right now you're talking about samatha (calm abiding).

Since we're addicted to sense objects, especially thoughts and emotions, our attention is constantly preoccupied with them. Samatha (breath) meditation brings the attention to something new—simple conscious awareness of breathing. This is like introducing a new language to someone, we have to keep doing it. From this practice, naturally comes insight (vipassana) during formal and informal meditation. Maybe look into Anapanasati instructions or get a good book like Mindfulness in Plain English. The four foundations of mindfulness are very useful.

As for practice, you can just focus on the breath for any amount of time. Don't be rigid about that, just try to relax and watch the breath. In the periphery you'll still be getting sense stimulation (sounds, smells, etc) and internally you'll still have thoughts coming and going, but the awareness of all this is good enough. As you breathe you'll notice bodily sensations, emotional energy and you can just be there with it. Breathe and allow your conscious awareness to go where it wants but always anchor back to the breath. You can also look into the 7 Points of Posture to help with sitting.

I read his Peace is Every Step and it really helped to teach me to be mindful in a modern setting. It's a book that is easy to put down and practice the things he says inside his book. Despite being less than 150 pages it took me 2 weeks to contemplate/practice/finish it.

There is a bit more discipline that is involved in meditation -- for the body, good posture (particularly the upper body, from the pelvis upward) is necessary, and for the mind, concentration.

After that, there are different meditation techniques, in terms of concentration and insight, but vipassana is a good doorway into Buddhist meditation to begin with (which is not to say that it isn't good for more advanced practitioners!).

Bhante Henepola Gunaratana has a book, Mindfulness in Plain English, which serves as a good intro to vipassana meditation. Better yet, even if only for a short period, you should find a Buddhist teacher in your area (if possible) to get you started -- and I do specify Buddhist teacher (not a kind of general new-age feel-good guru who will take Buddhist mediation out of its meaningful context).

You might benefit from reading Mindfulness in Plain English. This online version is short and will answer questions like this and others that you may have not yet thought to ask.

I don't think anyone here would downvote you for your past choices. Those who might don't matter.

Here's the thing with meditation, most of what we learn from it doesn't require much help. Every time we sit and draw our attention back to the breath (or other meditation object) the mind is being trained outside of your awareness. Our job is just to meditate the mind will do the rest. One of my favorite quotes is Bhante Gunartana's;

>"Don't ponder: You don't need to figure everything out. Discursive thinking won't free you from the trap. In mediation, the mind is purified naturally by mindfulness, by wordless bare attention. Habitual deliberation is not necessary to eliminate those things that are keeping you in bondage. All that is necessary is a clear, non-conceptual perception of what they are and how they work. That alone is sufficient to dissolve them. Concepts and reasoning just get in the way. Don't think. See."

If you haven't read his book Mindfulness in Plain English I highly recommend it.

I'm a meditator as well and have been dealing with anxiety over the years, I'd like to offer some suggestions which have helped me:

• Keep meditating, every day. It's great you're making a habit of it, keep at it and try to sit 35, 40, or 45m once you feel ready.
• Read Mindfulness in Plain English, even if you feel that you understand meditation well. It's a fantastic manual and has a lot of practical wisdom that will help with dealing with anxiety.
• I would highly recommend reading through The Relaxation & Stress Reduction Workbook and putting its various tools into use. It has a huge number of exercises you can learn to train yourself to relax at will, and is very applicable to dealing with anxiety-related issues. Meditation is a fantastic tool for learning to work with anxiety but it's not the only tool.
• Exercise and get healthy. This has a number of benefits, but in particular this can help with the physical symptoms of anxiety which will otherwise create a feedback loop that's frustrating to try and manage. If you are able to, try jogging/running for at least 20m 5 days / week. Eat healthy (more vegetables and fruits, whole grains) etc.

A great book to start with is Mindfulness in Plain English by Bhante Gunaratana.

There are some real, practical techniques that can help you overcome your anger and depression.

Excerpt (in regards to basic meditation practice):

Somewhere in this process, you will come face to face with the sudden and shocking realization that you are completely crazy. Your mind is a shrieking, gibbering madhouse on wheels barreling pellmell down the hill, utterly out of control and helpless. No problem. You are not crazier than you were yesterday. It has always been this way, and you just never noticed. You are also no crazier than everybody else around you. The only real difference is that you have confronted the situation; they have not. So they feel relatively comfortable. That does not mean that they are better off. Ignorance may be bliss, but it does not lead to liberation. So don't let this realization unsettle you. It is a milestone actually, a sign of real progress. The very fact that you have looked at the problem straight in the eye means that you are on your way up and out of it.

Best of luck my friend.

Lately I've been dipping at random into Thomas Cleary's translation of the Dhammapada.

Shunryu Suzuki's Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind is in my grab-and-go daypack, the one I take for overnight visits and weekend stays.

I see both theravada and zen as being the least inherently supernatural.

The main principles can be followed as a philosophy and world view, but the Buddhist doctrine does include several unsubstantiated claims (literal rebirth, hell, heavenly abodes).

As usual, if you're in the USA then Zen will be the easiest to approach.

I'd read "What the Buddha Taught" and "Mindfulness in Plain English." Both of which can be gotten for free here. They can probably be read online too.

It's important not to get upset at yourself when these things happen. Be assured, everyone starts out like this. Think of it this way, your mind has been unrestrained for your entire life. It's a muscle you've never flexed, so you can't expect to be able to do it right away. As you practice, you will find you are able to focus on your task better and better.

At first, just get used to breathing. Count if it helps, you're just working on focusing on one thing. Breathe in, count 1, breathe out, count 2. In, 1, out, 2. Or however you'd like to do it. Even doing this, you will find your mind wandering, but again, that's what your brain has learned to do. When you find this happens, accept it, don't get angry, and just return to your breathing. In 1, out 2. In 1, out 2. You're not always gonna be counting, but it really helps when you're working on focusing your mind on a single thing.

As you keep doing this, you're going to find your mind wanders less, and you can do away with the counting and try and focus on just your breath, but start out by doing what you can. If you keep directing your mind to the same palce, you will soon find you're breaking your old habit of having an untamed mind.

Not sure if any of that helps or if you already knew it, but I'm going through the same learning period. May I suggest reading Mindfulness in Plain English?

Try Mindfulness in Plain English. It's simple, straightforward, and tends to leave the woo out, if you know what I mean.

I think you're on the right track with exploring metta meditation. And the first step in metta is watering the seeds of love for yourself. Don't expect 1 or 2 metta sessions to leave you feeling wonderful, but with a little time you can be assured that those seeds will grow if you tend to them.

Don't feel at all bad about your lack of changes through meditation so far. Each person is so different, and you really can't compare 2 people's meditation practices. Sooner or later everyone hits a big wall in meditation. In some ways you can consider yourself lucky to have hit it right off the bat. The patience and persistence that you apply now are the heavy lifting muscles you'll be able to exploit once you break through that wall. For those who experience easy progress at the beginning of practice, there's often real discouragement down the road when they hit their first big obstacle and things don't come so easily.

Given the popularity of Mindfulness in Plain English, I'll assume you've read it. And hopefully you're starting to apply some mindfulness on and away from the cushion. This can be overwhelming, so it's good to complement it with metta or you may become hard on yourself for not doing better or being more mindful. But as your mindfulness increases (this takes time) you'll discover more of the habits/causes of depression and be able to let them go.

Lastly, you may want to make friends with the enemy. It's natural to have an antagonistic approach to depression and suffering in general. But that turns into a war, and in war there are no winners. You could try killing depression with kindness. Take a metta-like approach to your depression. There are actual reasons & causes for depression, and if you make friends with the depression and lovingly listen to what it's got to say, you may discover the means to set it free.

edit: grammar

At this point, these links should be up on the sidebar, but here are two books that are a great start: Mindfulness in Plain English and Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha. Those are good places to start.

Assertiveness (Not aggression or passivity). "Hey I noticed you borrowed my shirt without asking me. In the future, please ask me before you borrow something." Passive wouldn't say anything. Aggressive would destroy the other person's property or make threats. Passive/aggressive would be to borrow something of theirs without permission.

Nonviolent communication model. Observation: I noticed you borrowed my shirt. Feeling: I feel angry when people borrow things without asking. Need: I need to feel safe, that my property won't taken without my permission. I need to trust that my property rights won't be violated. I need to be considered when my property is being used. Request: Please ask me before you borrow my clothes. (Needs list)

Haha, I saw this Samsara last Friday, and as good as that one was I think I'll try this one out just based on the name.

And in case any of you guys haven't heard of that one, it's a follow up to Baraka (1992) and Chronos (80s) in limited release right now, definitely recommended. https://vimeo.com/barakasamsara/trailer

You may be interested in a current online course by Peter Singer on Practical ethics, particularly week 6 and 7, which focus on how to choose the most effectively altruistic career. There are many ways to go about this and you should realize you're not really taking your ego out of the equation by going to work for developing nations.

Ultimately if you really want to live for the benefit of others you should thoroughly analyze how much good you can do in any given career option. Of course this is a hard thing to do, but you have time and there are services to help you such as 80000 Hours which aims to teach people how to do the most good with the 80000 hours they will spend working.

It is good that you are thinking how to benefit others, but social good is both an art and a science. To maximize your altruistic potential you will have to put in the same breed of effective thought that you put into your studies. I do not know much about the potential benefits of genetics/biochemistry professions so I can only give resources, but know that your choices are broader than you currently perceive. I'm also working on this goal and find that utilizing the thoughts of people who have thought about this concept longer than us very beneficial.

apologies then. peace.

Try Zen Flesh, Zen Bones.

http://books.google.com/books?id=m9CCTo258n8C&printsec=frontcover&dq=zen+flesh,+zen+bones&source=bl&ots=jOX6uZDeHI&sig=1GvUi_sSE6M4z-j1Po4GmoRlTFg&hl=en&ei=evEjTcS4M46-sQPIkoXQAg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=resul...

If Zen is your thing, start with the Zen Open Directory. You can find a center in your area.

Buddhist Centers vary greatly in form and function. Some are full-on temples like you would imagine from a movie, some are priories that are basically houses with areas for monks to live and people to meditate, and some are little more than an office or apartment space converted for weekly use. Most US centers bear more resemblance to the latter examples. You might have to try a couple to figure out what you like.

No matter where you go, the people will probably be very receptive to new folks. Once you find a center, see if they have a website and email the teacher, letting them know that you are new, and ask when a convenient time for a newbie to stop in would be. I would strongly urge you to take advantage of weekly or monthly meditation sessions at the centers.

It sounds like you are wanting one-on-one time with a teacher. Feel free to ask the teacher for a convenient time for that; most places have a system set up. Again, take advantage of the regular group sitting offered by the center. You can form a mutual relationship with the teacher and have plenty of contact with people who are asking the same kinds of questions you are.

As far as participating, just identify someone who looks like they know what they're doing and do that. Don't be afraid to ask questions. Most everybody is super-nice. When in doubt, bow. And take your shoes off at the pile of shoes.

Lastly: all the teachings and wisdom can come to you through meditation. Reading books and speaking with those with more experience than you can help you and provide you with a framework for your journey, but it will come through meditation if you commit yourself.

Good luck buddy!

For those who do not know about The Forest Dhamma Monestary it is something new and special.

The head monk is an American expatriate who has returned from years in Thailand as a Thai Forest monk. He has the advantage of understanding both worlds and communicating well in both. He is establishing a Thai Forest monastery on the east coast of the US. I think that unique. He is also ordaining women, which is rare in Theravada. It will give American women who want to pursue the dhamma as nuns opportunities they would not have had.

The problem is that the US government will only allow Ajahn Dick, his nun, and his other monks stay in the country if someone provides health insurance for them.

The local Thai communities are already tapped out paying to build the monastery

Some local Washington D.C. area Buddhist students have started a fund to pay for their health insurance. They don't have their full funding amount yet, so contributions, even small one s( $10 a month ) are very, very welcome: . https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=F5DZDVXKRRJY4

It is going to take community support to get and keep this rare new opportunity for Buddhists on the east coast of the US.

I think you are looking for esoteric - a better word than supernatural.

http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Tantric_Buddhism.aspx

A little more detail though: Buddhism is mostly about meditation. All the Buddhist philosophy, religion, and ethics are secondary. What is learned in meditation is wisdom, compassion, and for the 'advanced' enlightenment and then nirvana. Our problem, as humans, is that we forgot we were all Buddha's and fell into believing that Samsara (suffering, the material world, our ego) is real. Buddha Nature is simply seeing (becoming one-with) reality.

"The Ego Tunnel", yes, it's a more accessible book than "Being No One". Again for people who lack funds or just want to check it out before they buy it, the full pdf can be found here. It touches on the evolutionary processes behind the development of the concept of the self, which evolutionary psychologist Robert Kurzban deals with in more detail in "Why Everyone (Else) Is a Hypocrite: Evolution and the Modular Mind" which isn't as technical as Metzinger's work, but is very informative and interesting.