Using Thich Nhat Hanh’s Three Powers to heal our relationship with ourselves  By Sister Dang Nghiem To know that innately we have great powers, and that we can cultivate them in our daily lives, is truly empowering. I’d like to share with you Thich Nhat Hanh’s teaching on the Three Powers—the most potent antidote to the feelings of helplessness, powerlessness, uncertainty, vulnerability, and confusion that many of us are suffering from. The first power is the power of understanding. In 2001, a 12-year-old girl came to our Plum Village Practice Center in France. Her father was an alcoholic and gave herdrinks from the time … Continue reading How to Be Your Own Soulmate

The Middle Way of Nagarjuna, one of Mahayana Buddhism’s greatest philosophers By Filip Holm When people think of Buddhism, they tend to picture meditative practices. But what many tend to forget is that Buddhism has a tremendously rigorous philosophical tradition, and its thinkers have contributed immensely to philosophy across history. Of these Buddhist philosophers, few—perhaps none—have been as influential as the 3rd-century logician Nagarjuna. Sometimes considered the “Second Buddha,” Nagarjuna presented a novel approach to the core Buddhist doctrine of emptiness, or shunyata, that would become central to the development of Mahayana Buddhism. In fact, his most famous work, the Mulamadhyamakakarika (“Root Verses on the … Continue reading Emptiness Explained