On Baking With The Kids and The Most Important Ingredient

Portland Buddhist Priory Posted on by

(To view the August / September 2018 newsletter where this was first published click here.)

At our July Family day we did a little baking and read a nice story (called A Path of Stars by Anne Sibley O’Brien and is well worth reading!). Our time together at the family day reminded me of the following article written by Rev. Master Koten and is reprinted here from the Lion’s Gate Buddhist Priory Newsletter with his permission.

The Most Important Ingredient

– Rev. Master Koten Benson, Lion’s Gate Buddhist Priory

Some monks once asked the Buddha why the food offered by a particular lay person was so delicious and the Buddha replied that the food contained “the most important ingredient” which was love.

In the life of a community, a family, an individual, the active cultivation of this ingredient is paramount. Deeds of secret kindness – that which no one is ever going to know about, making offerings without strings and letting go of small irritations are all ways of doing this. Continue reading →

Allowing Ourselves To Be Different, Allowing Ourselves To be the Same.

Portland Buddhist Priory Posted on by

(To view the July 2018 newsletter where this was first published click here.)

My teacher once gave the advice: “allow yourself to be different.” When I look at my own mind and life and try to pin down what or who I am, while I might have some blurry notion about what that is, really, I just see this complicated tangle of changing characteristics. There are certain aspects of myself that I put a lot of energy into defending or reinforcing and the funny thing about that is that some of those characteristics are parts which clearly cause me a lot of trouble. Continue reading →

Turning Toward The Buddha

Portland Buddhist Priory Posted on by

(To view the June 2018 newsletter where this was first published click here.)

An illuminating question we could ask ourselves is what motivates us? There is the sort of motivation that comes from outside ourselves – the wish to have some good attribute like world peace, a clean environment, a comfortable amount of money – and these are worthy of consideration. What I am really interested in, though, is looking at what actually gets me to do what I do, good or bad, throughout the day. Continue reading →