Musings on Middle Way Musings

There Are No Mahayana Monasteries

Wed, 23 Jul 2025 16:00:49 +0530

Introduction

It has become all too common these days to refer to Buddhist monasteries (by which I mean established communities of monks or nuns that maintain traditional Vinaya observance) by their cultural flair or the doctrinal views they follow. We may call some monasteries “Tibetan”, or “Zen”, “Theravāda”, or even “Mahāyāna” or “Hīnayāna” (i.e. Śrāvakayāna). While it may seem to make sense, these labels create unnecessary barriers between monastics who are actually much closer spiritual siblings than it may appear. Moreover, they obscure an underlying truth about how so-called Mahāyāna monasteries function.

Redefining Tibetan Buddhism

Wed, 05 Jul 2023 11:19:49 +0530

The Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara in the form of Shadakshari Lokeshvara: folio from an Indian manuscript of the Ashtasahasrika Prajnaparamita, courtesy of the Met Museum. Avalokiteshvara is as much a Tibetan figure as he is an Indian one — and that is precisely the point of this article.

Introduction

Tibetan Buddhism can look strange from the outside. Long horns, butter lamps, deities with many heads and many arms, monks debating in courtyards by clapping their hands. To a first-time visitor it can feel impossibly exotic, and to some critics it looks like a tradition that has wandered far from anything the historical Buddha would recognise. The common assumption is that Tibetan Buddhism is its own thing — a distinct, somewhat baroque Himalayan religion that grew up in isolation on the roof of the world.

Is the Big Bang Theory Wrong?

Fri, 20 Jun 2025 11:33:18 +0530

Photo by James Webb Telescope

In recent years, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has unveiled discoveries that have shaken the foundations of our cosmic understanding. Among its most startling findings are fully formed, massive galaxies dating back to just 300-500 million years after the supposed Big Bang—galaxies that, according to conventional Big Bang cosmology, simply shouldn’t exist yet. These ancient galaxies appear too large, too mature, and too numerous for the standard timeline of cosmic evolution. As Allison Kirkpatrick, an astronomer at the University of Kansas, memorably put it: “Right now, I find myself lying awake at 3 am wondering if everything we’ve done is wrong.”¹

Does God Exist?

Sat, 24 Aug 2024 10:00:00 +0530

Photo by Sakshi Shail on Unsplash

Introduction

Many of us are familiar with Nietzsche’s famous words “God is dead, and we have killed him”, meaning that following the European period known as the Enlightenment, rational and scientific thinking had essentially uprooted the need to believe in the words brought by the Prophets. However, he and the Europeans were quite late to the party. If we go back more than two and a half millennia we will find that a different type of Enlightenment also had the effect of killing the notion of God.

Arya Mūlasarvāstivādin Sramanera Karika

Sun, 08 Mar 2026 21:05:12 +0530

Photo by 和平 on Unsplash

In Sanskrit: Arya Mūlasarvāstivādi Śrāmaṇerakārikā

In Tibetan (transliterated): Phags-pa gzhi-thams-cad yod-par-smra-baʼi dge-tshul gyi tshig-leʼur byas-pa

In English: Verses for the Novice Monk of the Mūlasarvāstivāda

Foreword

The Śrāmaṇerakārikā or Getsul-kārikā (“Verses for a Novice Monk”) is a short practical manual attributed to Ācārya Nāgārjuna, composed in verse for easy memorisation. It belongs to the Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya tradition — the monastic code followed in Tibetan Buddhism — and provides a concise guide to the daily conduct and training of a novice monk (śrāmaṇera, Tib. Getsul).

What Theravada Can Teach Us

Sat, 22 Nov 2025 17:02:09 +0530

Photo by Dzongsar Institute

Introduction

As I sit under the Bodhi tree during the Dzongsar Monlam, while most people are reciting the King of Aspirations, my mind can’t help but wander to the events that transpired earlier today. Bodhgaya really has a way of making magic happen. As someone who was (and secretly still is) a fan of fantasy franchises, I feel it appropriate to use this word, magic. Of course, everything that happens is because of karma, but isn’t the ability to speed karma up or align causes and conditions just perfectly a kind of “magic”?

Vinaya Schools Network Diagram

Fri, 11 Jul 2025 20:44:41 +0530

This interactive visualization maps the historical development of Buddhist monastic lineages from their original unity to the surviving traditions that guide contemporary Buddhist communities worldwide.

Buddhist Vinaya Schools Network

Attached To This Life | ཚེ་འདིར་ཞེན་པའི་ཚོར་སྣང།

Fri, 14 Jun 2024 10:30:00 +0530

Photo by Rohan Aggarwal on Unsplash

Preface

This poem was written during the teaching of Nyingtik Yabshi in May 2024. It is a reflection on attachment to the concerns of this life (ཚེ་འདི་), a fundamental obstacle on the Buddhist path.

In the Kadampa tradition, it is said that if one is attached to this life, one is not a true Dharma practitioner. This poem explores the various ways this attachment manifests—in our relationships with wealth, comfort, reputation, praise, and influence—and how these attachments become obstacles to genuine practice.

Reflections on Going Forth | རབ་བྱུང་ཞིག་གི་བསམ་གཞིགས།

Mon, 11 Sep 2023 13:44:10 +0530

Having decided to embark on the spiritual path, Siddhartha cuts his hair, removes his royal garments, and puts on rag robes. Illustration from Life of the Buddha, Burmese Edition, via The Jade Turtle Records.

Preface

This poem was written during my second Traditional Rain Retreat. It is a reflection meant to generate the mind of “renunciation”, although the correct word to convey the meaning of the sanskrit words niḥsaraṇa or niryāṇa would be “emergence” or “going forth”.

The 37 Practices of a Bodhisattva's Outline

Fri, 04 Aug 2023 17:13:41 +0530

Given this text has been translated by enough people ¹ ² ³, I didn’t want to make yet another translation. However, while studying a Tibetan commentary from འཇིགས་མེད་ཚུལ་ཁྲིམས་དཔལ་བཟང་། (Jigme Tsultrim Palzang), I came accross an interesting outline that I hadn’t seen before. It really helped me to understand the root text better, so I’m sharing the translation I made of this outline.

The outline

Each number in parentheses indicates the corresponding practice with a total of 37.

Welcome to Middle Way Musings

Sun, 02 Jul 2023 13:22:52 +0530

Photo by Thien Dang on Unsplash

Today marks the beginning of a new journey. After years of contemplation, I’ve finally created this space to share my thoughts as I navigate the path of Buddhist study and practice.

Why “Middle Way Musings”?

The name of this blog reflects both my philosophical orientation and my approach to writing. In the Madhyamaka tradition, the “Middle Way” refers not simply to moderation, but to a profound philosophical position that avoids the extremes of eternalism and nihilism—neither asserting that phenomena inherently exist nor claiming they are utterly non-existent.