The Buddha Times

Volume 74. April 18, 2026

We interrupt our regular scheduled programming to bring you this special report from The Buddha Times.

News flash: They’ve killed Mr. Chaos!

Barely halfway through his second term, Donald Trump is generally considered the cruelest, most corrupt, and most chaotic president in American history.

The 2024 Presidential Greatness Project Expert Survey, conducted by 154 scholars (including Republican and conservative scholars), ranked Trump dead last (45th out of 45 U.S. presidents).

Murdering peaceful protesters in the streets of Minnesota, enriching himself and his billionaire friends, embroiling the Middle East in a misguided war, assaulting democratic norms, perverting justice, covering up his involvement in the Epstein scandal — another day, another outrageous episode of presidential depravity.

His insolence is infuriating. But Trump is not dead yet.

There is another Mr Chaos, whose passing we note today.

To tell the story of his demise, we turn to Chuang-tzu, our special correspondent from the world of Taoism, who reports:

Once upon a time, before there was a world, there was nothing but primordial Chaos — the undifferentiated soup out of which everything came to be.

The gods met Mr Chaos, who treated them with immense kindness. Thereupon, the gods set to work creating the world. Having finished their task, they decided to show their appreciation to Mr Chaos, whose self-effacing help was essential to their work.

The gods supplied him with the same senses that they themselves enjoyed. They bored seven holes in him: eyes to see, ears to hear, nostrils to smell, and a mouth to taste, eat and breathe.

While the gods were congratulating themselves on the splendid results, however, Mr Chaos died.

The end.

What’s the moral of the story?

Mr Chaos symbolizes that pure state that exists before the division of heaven and earth, that pure state that exists, as it were, before our rational minds butt in and “create” the universe.

Buddhism calls that state of primal unity Buddha-nature.

We experience Buddha-nature when we let things be.

Why make waves? Why stir up trouble? Eat when you’re hungry. Drink when you’re dry. Sleep when you’re tired. Go about your day as naturally as water flowing down a stream. Let things be.

When we discriminate between this and that, we kill Mr Chaos.

When we meditate, we perceive the essential Oneness of life.

Even while watching a special report.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

Volume 73. March 8, 2026

If it weren’t so serious, it would be laughable.

The Trump administration cannot articulate why they chose to go to war with Iran. Their rationale keeps shifting.

First, it was a response to the violent crackdown by Iranian authorities on protesters. Then, it’s a mission to take out the regime’s leadership to allow the Iranian people to take over their government. Then, it’s sold as a need to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran. Then, it becomes an operation to dismantle Iran’s navy and ballistic missile capability. Finally, it’s billed as a preemptive strike to stop an “imminent” threat against the U.S. and Israel.

They’re selling reasons like brown bananas, but no one is buying what they’re selling. Public support for the war is tepid at best.

As the Trump administration struggles to get its story straight, people are dying, embassies are closing, Americans are scrambling to leave the region and gas prices are going up.

So, what’s the real reason for the war with Iran?

One word: ignorance.

A failure to see our connection to all people and all things.

Buddhism teaches that all life is deeply interconnected. Nothing exists in isolation. Nothing is independent. We are all one.

Your well-being is connected to my well-being.

One day a student asked, “Master, all things return to the One. What does the One return to?”

The Zen master answered, “When I was in Ch’ing Chou, I made a cloth shirt. It weighed seven pounds.”

A seven-pound shirt is an absurdity.

The point: If you want to achieve enlightenment, if you want to return to the One, if you want to achieve a state of peace and unity with all life, stop using your rational mind. Meditate.

Most people live in a dream world, a world of delusion, a world of separation. The illusory world seems real to us. But when we meditate, when we hear the sound of one hand clapping, then we transcend dualities such as good versus bad, friends versus enemies, the U.S. versus Iran. We become One.

So, get out of the dualistic mind. Get into the Buddha-mind.

Iran is not the enemy of the United States. Our enemies are fear, greed, money, lust for power, self-centeredness, ignorance and aggression.

How do we defeat these enemies?

The Buddha recommended morality, meditation and wisdom.

Be kind to one another.

Meditate.

And appreciate that all life is interconnected.

Now that’s a war worth waging.

Volume 71. January 9, 2026

Well, well, well. Heading into the new year, who would have thought Marco Rubio would be the Viceroy of Venezuela and Donald Trump would be the Emperor of the Western Hemisphere?

But here we are.

Citizens of Greenland, Cuba, Columbia, Mexico and even Canada, are concerned, quaking in their boots, fearing the rapacious power of the imperial U.S. presidency.

Despite their lofty titles and expansive land claims, however, Trump et al. are no match for the true Master of the Universe: Buddha-nature.

Japanese Zen master Hakuin put all arrogant tyrants in their place and nullified their greedy usurpations way back in the 18th century when he stated Dharma truth this way:

He rules a vast realm, Unremitting Buddha-nature,

A splendid, pristine landscape, fresh day after day.

Kuan-ting, second patriarch of the T’ien-t’ai school in China, stated Dharma truth even more succinctly in the 7th century:

There is nothing that is not the ultimate reality!

From the most piddling stinkbug crawling in a barnyard dungheap to the most glorious star system beyond the Andromeda Galaxy, all things are manifestations of Buddha-nature.

How do we enter this infinite, everlasting realm?

Easily, through meditation.

Find a quiet spot. Sit with your back straight. Focus on the breath. Dispel evil thoughts. Discard fantasies. Avoid conceptualization. Rest in the Great Calming alone. Identify all things with Buddha- nature. Be confident that there is nothing that is not the Buddha. Dwell where there is no dwelling. Dwell where all Buddhas dwell.

And that’s it!

The immanence of Buddha-nature is both the departure point and the point of arrival in meditation.

For thousands of years, teachers have passed on this teaching.

But begin to ponder it, even slightly, and you at once stray from the Path.

Contemplating the mind gives rise to the Mahayana, the big ferry boat that carries us across the sorrowful seas of samara to the bliss of the Yonder Shore.

Let the Mahayana achieve its victory.

Reach the state beyond thought.

Buddha-nature is not simply everywhere. It’s everything.

Citizens of Greenland, Cuba and Columbia, set aside your fears!

A mind grounded in meditation experiences no distress.

Don’t let a “splendid, pristine landscape, fresh day after day,” become sullied with fear, anger and rational thought, or else you will never enjoy the happy new year.

Volume 68. October 8, 2025

Halloween is just around the corner. ’Tis the season of goblins, ghouls and hell on earth. Cometh October, cometh the nightmare.

Unfortunately, our bad dream started in September. Take a look at a few examples.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth convened a rare assembly of the military’s top brass to impart an extremely important message: Lose weight and shave your beards.

“It’s about the look,” he said.

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr issued an ultimatum to ABC regarding the content of Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show, stating, “We can do this the easy way or the hard way.”

Critics called Carr’s threat a dangerous attack on free speech.

Interim U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan indicted former FBI Director James Comey on two criminal counts. Lindsey, a former personal lawyer for Donald Trump, was appointed to the job (by Trump) after no self-respecting attorney would sign off on the charges.

Question: What happens when a grandiose narcissist with no capacity for human kindness is given unlimited presidential power and immunity from any abuse of that power?

Answer: He surrounds himself with incompetent sycophants, exacts revenge on his “enemies,” and lets the bad times roll.

And here we are. Nightmare Town.

Buddhism seems to say, “Who wouldn’t want to wake up from a nightmare?”

In Buddhism, we wake up to an experience of Buddha-nature.

We are here forever in one form or another, but while we are human, we have an important task: Wake up! Become a Buddha! Achieve enlightenment!

If you don’t keep your mind pure and free from thoughts, if you don’t act kindly and consider the welfare of others, if you don’t appreciate the transience of life and the impermanence of time, you’re only a yakking fool.

Consider the following story.

One day, in medieval Japan, a Buddhist priest performed funeral rites for a monk.

He said, “In the seven days since the death of this virtuous monk, loneliness has deepened over the Zen gardens. His gentle disposition and humility made all who knew him regard him as their elder brother. His kindness and sincerity made all who met him wish to become his friend. We miss him dearly.”

The next day the priest presided at the funeral of the shogun. He offered these words in eulogy: “That old coot was as hard as flint, ruthless to the core, as venomous as they come. Even the Buddhas and the patriarchs found him impossible to endure.”

One man woke up to Buddha-nature. The other did not.

This Halloween let’s take off our mask and let our True Self shine.

Otherwise, it’s back to the nightmare.

Volume 67. September 1, 2025

Lo, the Buddha peered into the Gem of Suchness and saw …

National Guard soldiers, toting firearms and billy clubs, looking for trouble, menacingly prowling the streets of Washington D.C.

What is their job? Why are they here? No one really knows.

There’s no rampant crime. There is no widespread violence. There is no emergency of any sort in our nation’s capital.

Thug-like, the guardsmen walk around town scaring tourists and intimidating office workers.

Critics bewail a military occupation of an American city. Khaki- clad soldiers are not allowed to conduct domestic law enforcement.

One critic labeled the spectacle “a fascist fashion show.”

What in the Pure Land is going on here?

The president of the United States apparently has manufactured a crisis out of thin air and called in the troops to quell it. But, in reality, there is no crisis.

Believe it or not, that’s exactly what our highly exalted, rational mind does every minute of the day.

It conceptualizes. It names. It categorizes. It befouls reality.

Attached to the pollution, our mind creates an imaginary crisis.

If our thoughts are tied up, we spoil what is genuine.

What’s the solution — besides wine and anti-depressants?

Well, Buddhism advocates meditation.

Slow down. Relax. Breath.

Instead of purifying the mind-pollution, let it be.

When thoughts rise up, don’t repress them. Don’t attach to them.

Don’t interfere with them. Let them be.

Then, Buddha-nature appears. Buddha-nature is ever-present.

It’s your true nature.

By doing nothing, we achieve everything.

So, do we even need meditation?

Saraha, an 8th century Indian Buddhist tantric adept, thought not.

He is considered to be one of the founders of Vajrayana Buddhism.

In his song of realization, Saraha wrote:

If the Truth is already manifest, what’s the use of meditation?

Abide in the bliss of yourself.

Whatever you see, that is it,

In front, behind, and in every direction!

In other words, why defile what is already pure?

Peer into the Gem of Suchness. Behold Buddha-nature.

Experience the “Everything-Is-Alrightness” of the universe.

Don’t call out the National Guard for an imaginary crisis.

Call out the National Guard for the Dharma.