Inspiratie

Door Marja de Groote en Elsbeth Wolf Wie waren die vrouwen eigenlijk aan wie Ton transmissie heeft gegeven in de beginjaren van 2000? Het was een vraag die ons sinds de zomer van 2018 hardnekkig bezighield. Elisabeth Dinnissen was de eerste dharma-opvolger van Ton. In 2002 ontving zij transmissie. Er werd regelmatig over haar gesproken […]

Religieuze vrijheid wordt als een vanzelfsprekendheid beschouwd. Flexibel geloven, het combineren van elementen uit verschillende religies, is gemeengoed geworden. Maar dat is het nog maar kort. Voor de roerige jaren 60 was het Nederlandse landschap van godsdienst en zingeving strikt verzuild. Buiten die kaders treden was not done. Tot er pioniers opstonden. Ze waren nieuwsgierig en

Having translated The Diamond Sutra and The Heart Sutra, and following with The Platform Sutra, Red Pine now turns his attention to perhaps the greatest Sutra of all. The Lankavatara Sutra is the holy grail of Zen. Zen’s first patriarch, Bodhidharma, gave a copy of this text to his successor, Hui-k’o, and told him everything

The Zen teaching of Hui-neng. The Platform Sutra occupies a central place in Zen (Ch’an) Buddhist instruction for students and spiritual seekers worldwide. It is often linked with The Heart Sutra and The Diamond Sutra to form a trio of texts that have been revered and studied for centuries. However, unlike the other sutras, which

The Perfection of Wisdom. Zen Buddhism is often said to be a practice of mind-to-mind transmission without reliance on texts –in fact, some great teachers forbid their students to read or write. But Buddhism has also inspired some of the greatest philosophical writings of any religion, and two such works lie at the center of Zen:

The Heart Sutra is Buddhism in a nutshell. It has had the most profound and wide-reaching influence of any text in Buddhism. This short text covers more of the Buddha’s teachings than any other scripture, and it does so without being superficial or hurried. Although the original author is unknown, he was clearly someone with

A pelgrimage to China. In the spring of 2006, Bill Porter traveled through the heart of China, from Beijing to Hong Kong, on a pilgrimage to sites associated with the first six patriarchs of Zen. Zen Baggage is an account of that journey. He weaves together historical background, interviews with Zen masters, and translations of

Encounters with Chinese hermits. In 1989, Bill Porter, having spent much of his life studying and translating Chinese religious and philosophical texts, began to wonder if the Buddhist hermit tradition still existed in China. At the time, it was believed that the Cultural Revolution had dealt a lethal blow to all religions in China, destroying

Wat zijn de verschillen en overeenkomsten tussen het westerse en het oosterse denken? De westerse hang naar vrijheid met zijn nadruk op kritisch denken en autonoom handelen versterkt het ego. In het oosterse verlangen om bevrijd te worden van de begeerte als oorzaak van het lijden wordt het ego juist vernietigd. Is er sprake van