Buddha-Wise

08/09/2025

May you always find the courage to speak truth and stand up for justice.

May all sentient beings be free from oppression, free from suffering. ❤️

, , , , ,Palestine’s Pain: The World’s Silence Explained | Jim Carrey SpeechIn...

05/09/2025

We can bomb the world to pieces, but we can’t bomb it into peace...

Michael Franti & Spearhead - Bomb te world Album : Everyone Deserves Music Copyrights : (C) UNI Records (Universal Records

03/09/2025

🐁Saving Lives 🦟

As humans we hold many ideas about what is good and what is bad. We condemn the killing of humans and of animals we’ve accepted as pets. Yet we often accept the killing of those who feed us, and even more so those who irritate us—like mosquitoes. We call someone who saves a human life a hero, while applauding someone who kills a bug at the dinner table.

But every life is a life.

From a Buddhist point of view, animals are living beings, like ourselves, caught in the endless cycle of birth and death. However different their form, or however limited their intelligence may seem, they are still endowed with mind. They cling, like us, to the notion of “I” and to their life. They long for happiness and suffer when they cannot attain it.

We cannot live a human life without some killing. Even driving a car along the highway ends countless insect lives. Still, we can do our utmost to protect life wherever we can, and to avoid killing intentionally. It only takes a little effort to catch a mosquito in a glass and release it outside. It is a life!

Imagine the difference we can make if we choose to save lives, however small. Imagine if your life—or your child’s life—was in danger, and someone saved you. Wouldn’t that be a true hero?

Saving lives matters. And changing the world begins with ourselves. 🌍❤️

Recommended book: Food of Bodhisattvas - Shakbar

29/08/2025

Continuation 🌱

Looking at the burned land leaves a deep imprint on the heart. Death is tangible here. A few birds still circle in the sky, but otherwise it feels as if everything has come to an end.
Yet the Buddha taught that nothing truly ends — it only transforms. Death is not a final stop, but a continuation in another form. Much of this forest has turned into ash, and yet this ash will feed the soil. In time, new life will grow again. This softens the pain of the grey landscape.

It is harder to fathom, but in the same way, when beings die, what they are continues to flow on — in the lives they touched, in the love they gave, in the vast stream of existence itself.

If we could truly know this, despair or fear for death would lose its hold, for death is change and continuation, not extinction.
Sometimes I get to see a little glimpse of this truth — which is truly liberating.

Jeanine

28/08/2025

Teachings of the Buddha is actually simply science of mind.

27/08/2025

🔥Wild fires🔥

Last week, a fire came close to our village. A big forest has been burned — what was green and alive turned to smoke and ash in only a few hours.

Everything changes... Nothing we love will last forever. Being confronted with that in a direct way is always deeply touching again.

It also softens something inside us as humans.
It seems like for a moment we stop taking life for granted, and we see how precious each moment is.

The community tries to be there for each other and we all realize the selfless efforts of the fireman risking their lifes.

May all beings touched by fire and loss find safety, healing, and peace.

Jeanine

22/08/2025

🍅 Drying Tomatoes & Preparing the Mind

While preparing a lovely harvest of fresh tomatoes to preserve them so they can nourish us for a long time, I was reminded of something essential: the importance of preparing ourselves — through the Buddha’s teachings and practices — for death.

Many might ask: Why think about death? Shouldn’t we focus on living?
For a Buddhist, death is not the end but a continuation of life’s stream. Just as we prepare for winter or a long journey, Buddhists prepare for death — because at that moment, nothing from our worldly life can come with us. That can be shocking if we are not ready to let go.

The only thing that continues is our mind. Death is considered a profound opportunity: if we have not yet recognized our true nature during life, the transition of death can open that door. But only if we are prepared.

That is why it is so important not to waste this precious human life by clinging to what we cannot carry with us. Instead, we use this opportunity — with mindfulness, meditation, compassion, and wisdom — to prepare for the greatest journey of all: recognizing our true nature, whether in this life or otherwise hopefully at the moment of death.

With love,
Jeanine

20/08/2025

🌿 Everything is Changeable 🌿

“The truth of reality is that what is born will die, what has been gathered will be dispersed, what has been accumulated will be exhausted, what has been built up will collapse, and what has been high will be brought low.”
— Sogyal Rinpoche, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying

When we really take this truth to heart, life looks different. Death can come at any moment. Knowing this, it can sometimes feel useless to keep building a life on impermanent things.

There is a story of a yogi meditating in his cave. At the entrance grew a thorn bush. Each time he left the cave, his clothes got caught and he thought, “I should really remove this bush.” But then he would reflect, “Why bother? I may not even return.” When he came back and got caught again, the same thought arose: “Why bother? I might die here in the cave now. Better to spend my time meditating.”

This story reminds us: the only thing we truly carry with us when we die is our practice—our state of mind. That is why it is so important to train in the true nature of reality, because only that leads to infinite peace.

Most of us spend our lives building what is impermanent—wealth, possessions, achievements—that cannot bring lasting freedom. This doesn’t mean we must stop creating and building in the world. It means we do it without clinging, knowing that whatever is built will one day collapse. This understanding gives us inner freedom.

As I reflect on this, I feel grateful that we are now joyfully working on our fourth project in just four years—building and creating a space where the presence of the Buddha can be felt and experienced by anyone who joins us. Looking back, we have learned much from the process of building. But perhaps we learned even more when things collapsed.

Both building and collapsing are inseparably part of life. Peace is found not in resisting one side, but in embracing both. 🌸

18/08/2025

🌍 On Injustice and Non-Violence

There is so much injustice in the world. About 4.5 years ago, I faced a painful turning point in my personal life, where injustice struck my family deeply.

I am a strong believer in non-violence and a peaceful approach. For me, as the Dalai Lama explains, this means dialogue—using our language, our human intelligence. Problems should never be solved by force.

Yet, my young children were taken from me with aggression and force, based on false accusations like pornographie and sexual abuse that I could never have imagined to be taken serious. Within weeks, their father—having the status to work for one of the wealthiest families in the world—managed to convince the authorities to separate my children from me and give their care to him. Since then, many harmful actions have been used to keep the children with him against their will. Even today, they ask daily to return to their mother—and still, he refuses.

For a long time, the trauma and the repeated punishments for my children whenever I spoke out silenced me. I lost much of the little trust I had left in the authorities. But now, as my children begin to raise their own voices, I see it is my duty as their mother to stand with them. So I am preparing to present our full story in court, supported by documents, and request that the court finally hears the children. It is a big step for me, taken despite my fears of losing even the little contact the children are allowed to have with me today.

Along this journey, I have been touched by the stories of others facing oppression and injustice—the occupation of Tibet, the genocide in Gaza, and many more. One of the deepest lessons I have learned is that justice begins in myself. Every step I take in my struggle for my children must be grounded in compassion, love, and the sincere wish for all beings to be happy.

This even includes the father of my children: I wish for him to be happy, and to have a genuine bond with his children—one based not on force, violence and control, but on mutual respect, patience, and understanding. Because happiness can never be built on domination and violence.

Reading about those who chose the path of non-violence—Mahatma Gandhi, the Dalai Lama, Nelson Mandela—touches me deeply. Their courage and commitment inspire me, even though their journeys were full of loss and hardship. They remind me that hate and force only create more hate and force, but that we must always continue to stand up against injustice—courageously, but without hatred.

As the Dalai Lama said:
✨ “Peace is not the absence of conflict. Peace is the resolute practice of compassion and non-violence.”

With love,

Jeanine

18/08/2025

🌟Vision of Buddha-Wise 🌟

We live in a time full of challenges. Across the world, famines, conflicts, wars, and other unrest are increasing. This often stems from the fact that people, without inner freedom and driven by emotions, act without awareness of the consequences.

Inner transformation is needed—not only for ourselves, but also to prepare future generations for the opportunities and challenges that life brings. This transformation begins by looking within, by discovering our own mind and cultivating inner freedom.

When we learn how, in the midst of daily life, to experience happiness that is independent of external circumstances, how to calm our own suffering, and how to restore our connection with others, we not only bring peace within ourselves, but also contribute to a healthier, kinder world. A world in which children receive the education, care, and support that help them grow into free, strong, and compassionate human beings.

The Buddha gave us a complete path of wisdom and practice to transcend suffering and to understand and accept the reality of life. He reminded us that everything is impermanent, that nothing lasts forever, and that no external circumstance can bring lasting fulfillment. What we see, think, or project is not always how things truly are. These are confronting truths, but by examining and experiencing them deeply, insight can arise that leads to profound transformation and inner freedom.

- Buddha - Wise

15/08/2025

💖 Happiness comes from every direction 💖

It is in every moment. To see that, you will have to let go of the idea what happiness is.