Tag Archives | Buddhahood
Neo on the road to enlightenment

The Matrix from a Buddhist perspective

I know – the film’s been out a while. More than a few have analysed it from a Buddhist perspective, but many have come unstuck when it comes to the foul language, bullets and guns, BDSM clothing and all the violence. More than a few commentators have speculated that, apart from a being scattered with nuggets Buddhist doctrine, the film devolves into a good old dualistic good and evil battle between the machines and the humans, making it more akin […]

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Ichinen Sanzen - Revealing the Ultimate Reality

Ichinen Sanzen Pt4

The picture I have chosen to introduce this article is a three dimensional fractal. Hopefully it can demonstrate how a simple universal truth (in this case, a mathematical construct) can give rise to all the beauty and complexity we perceive as reality. Ichinen Sanzen is the Buddhist theory that describes that reality. Despite having written at length regarding the Ten Worlds, the Ten Factors and Three Realms, it is almost inevitable that my words alone will only have provided the […]

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The Ten Worlds and their mutual possession – Ichinen Sanzen Pt 1

Read the other parts of this series – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 Ichinen Sanzen – Part 1 The mutual possession of the Ten Worlds is one of the foundations in understanding the broader concept of Ichinen Sanzen. So what is Ichinen Sanzen? What does mutual possession mean, and what are the Ten Worlds that Nichiren Buddhists so often speak about? Ichinen Sanzen was a system of thought put forth by the Great Teacher T’ien-t’ai in 6th century […]

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Ichinen Sanzen Diagram

Ichinen Sanzen Study Aid

This is just a short post to provide a copy of an “Ichinen Sanzen Explained” graphic I produced to explain how we arrive at the 3000 realms in a single moment of life, as revealed by T’ien-t’ai and later embodied by Nichiren Daishonin in Nam Myoho Renge Kyo. The Ichinen Sanzen diagram shows how the ten worlds, the mutual possession of the ten worlds, the ten factors, and the three realms all combine to provide insight into the incredible beauty […]

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Happiness, Compassion and the Mystic Law

As explained in On Attaining Buddhahood in This Lifetime Happiness in buddhism differs from the common understanding. One of the most powerful teachings of Nichiren Daishonin lies in the short Gosho (teaching) On Attaining Buddhahood in This Lifetime. In this lecture I would like to discuss how this Gosho can be applied to the question of happiness. Or, more accurately, how happiness is inextricably contingent upon compassion, and how compassion is contingent upon our grasping the Mystic Law. I’m not […]

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