Re-Release of "Welcome to Sutra Snippets for Everyday": It's now a FREE series!

An Easy Way of Getting to the Source

Aug 31, 2022

There’s more to Buddhism than mindfulness or the latest social media meme of “what the Buddha said” … or even your favorite Buddhist books, written by contemporary teachers, and stacked on your nightstand. And all of those things—except maybe the meme—came from some Sutra, either from the Theravada Buddhism suttas of the Pāli Canon or from a Mahayana Sutra.

Sutra reading or study creates a direct relationship between you and the teachings of the Buddha. Even if you don’t understand a sutra when you first read it, if you keep reading it, you will be surprised at how an understanding happens despite yourself. In my experience, the understanding that comes from rereading a sutra goes deeper than the typical conceptual understanding you arrive at when reading a contemporary Buddhist teacher.

In this new ~~paid~~ Substack series, Sutra Snippets for Everyday, I will share some lines from sutras that positively effected my thinking and my actions. And in the style of everything I podcast, write, and teach, I will keep my focus on sharing snippets that you can pick up and take with you into your day. The lines I select will have no particular order or relationship from one post to the next. Since it’s my newsletter <wink>, I will pick whatever lines from whichever sutra that grabs me on the day I post. I see a couple of benefits for you, the reader, from this approach:

You may be exposed to a sutra you weren’t aware of or hadn’t explored.
We might bond over some snippets that made both you and I go “Ah-ha” or “Wow” or “What the???”

This is what I intend for this ~~paid subscription~~ series. I hope to post at least twice a week. Since I am a Mahayana practitioner, the odds of reading more Mahayana sutra snippets than Theravada snippets are high.

So, what do you say? Let’s start!

From The Maha Prajna Paramita Hridaya Sutra (Heart of the the Great Wisdom Sutra) ~Translation by The Venerable Gyomay M. Kubose:

Sariputra, the original nature of all things is this:
no born, not extinguised,
Not defiled, not pure, no gain, no loss,
therefore in emptiness….

Your Everyday Take-Away:

Try to go through today day seeing all things without conceptualization; without a label; without a comparison. Go through today seeing things just as they are—not as they aren’t and you wish they were; not as they seem to be to someone else; not as things at all?