I Know the Secret

Except I don’t.

Not because I don’t know.

But because it’s not a secret.

The secret to what?

The secret to remaining calm and happy during our current, parlous times. The secret to the Buddhist path.

There is a vast amount of information and teaching about the Buddhist path available in the world. The greatest promise of the world wide web as a mechanism for storing and distributing information comes in the quantity of resources about the Buddhist path.

Dharmaseed alone, with 4,482 pages of dharma talks, mostly if not exclusively Theravadan, is one obvious source. If you prefer Zen, do a web search. Look on Youtube. The Dalai Lama is a Buddhist rock star, as famous as the pope.

You do need to take some care. The problem with the web is that anyone who can afford to create a web site can post whatever they want, including false information about the Buddhist path. Stick to well established sites and teachers.

There are various sources for the original teachings of the Buddha, organized in what we call sutras or suttas, a word that means “thread” in Sanskrit. The Buddha spent 50 years walking around India, with a growing retinue of monks, teaching whenever the opportunity presented itself. Two of the modern collections are called the…