THE WANDERER AND PREM READ KIYOTA Wanderer — Show me what you’re studying. Prem — Kiyota’s Shingon Buddhism: Theory and Practice. He starts by defining tantra as “thread,” same literal meaning as sūtra. Useful. It frames tantra as another teaching-thread rather than a separate universe of Buddhism. Wanderer — A thread can connect many regions of a cloth.

BuddhaGang Bodhisattva Dharma Rambling: A dual-voiced transmission in which The Wanderer frames the moment from the ancient, ever-present stream of the Bodhisattva vow, and Prem speaks from the lived field of practice inside real encounters with beings in the world we have today. Together they show how BuddhaDharma moves through beings — through conflict, confusion, recognition, clarity, and deeper, wider, truer love — revealing how BuddhaGang Bodhisattvas course in living Buddhadharma in real time for the sake of all other beings.

An Old Friend Pops into the Flow Here, I'll share about a series of exchanges with an old friend. This first part is about a more recent interaction. The second part is about the whole flow, but it's told in Buddhagang story form.

Social Media Bodhisattva Work is Also Dharma Delight Here, I’ll walk you through what has happened so far today (12/4/2025). I woke up very early from a wild, gnarly dream. Then I chatted with some Buddhagang friends for a while. That helped shake off the weird-mindedness the dream left sitting in me.

The Wanderer is the Grandma Bodhisattva Mahasattva of the Buddhagang Bodisattva Team. She was there! For all of it! And she remembers it all too. Here's a video I shared to the Buddhagang spaces across the various social media platforms.

What this is about: This piece explores how two powerful emperors — Ashoka and Constantine — stepped into vibrant, diverse spiritual traditions and flattened them into state-backed orthodoxies.

Over the past few months on TikTok, I’ve been sharing short videos exploring the detailed histories told by Taranatha. There are a few up already, and many more to come—because this history is vast, layered, and important. In this post, I'll share a sad part of that story, and then we'll learn about Vaisali and Vimalakirti.

The government was shut down at the time, SNAP was being threatened, and people were carrying that quiet fear that hangs in the air when systems start wobbling..

When you sit with Vimalakirti, you see immediately why the disciples hesitated. They weren’t afraid of insult. They were afraid of precision.

Dharma Decline After the time of the earlier siddhas, the land was held for a while by the Candra kings. Aksha-candra and Jaya-candra were the brightest of them — kings who bowed to the Three Jewels and protected the Dharma as part of their duty. Their courts held monks and panditas, their treasuries supported monasteries, and their kingdoms allowed the teachings to spread cleanly.

The Live Video Some Explaining This #buddhagangtimewithprem session was me doing what Thay urged us to do and what the bodhisattvas have always done — take an ancestral teaching, look deeply, clear away the distortions, and let the Dharma shine through it. I introduced this old Nag Hammadi passage because so many of our friends grew up shaped by Abrahamic language, and if we understand that terrain better, we can speak to beings where they actually are.

Here I took a section from the Mahayana Uttaratantra Shastra, rewrote it and expanded in various directions so the meaning might come through for more beings. This is part of what I read yesterday in that #buddhagangtimewithprem episode. If you search the hashtag across platforms, you’ll find the videos where I share the dharma. And in the future, when other BG friends feel like sharing, they can use #buddhagangtimewith___ so all our teachings stay easy to find.

Prthagjana is the name for the common, split flow of mind-as-sentient-being.. it is the common way of being a being.

Dear friends, #buddhagangtimewithprem today is about a Jataka tale that cuts right into the marrow of our present world. It shows why silence, stillness, and passivity can be the worst karma of all. The Buddha taught this story to clarify why ethical discipline is not just private restraint. It is relational. It is communal. And when someone has taken refuge, when they have responsibility, when they know better, silence becomes its own form of harm.

When we look at the movement of Yeshu bodhisattva through history, we’re not looking at “Christianity” as it was later defined by imperial courts, bishops addicted to power, and thinkers who traded the living Dharma of a teacher for the political usefulness of a doctrine. We’re looking at a stream of bodhisattva activity that moved in every direction at once. One branch was immediately corrupted by Rome — by Paul’s faith-only shortcut, by Athanasius’ narrow canon list, by the Nicene error, by Augustine’s surrender-ethic that declared human effort meaningless.

This is a song where I recite the name of Amitabha Buddha, in Vietnamese. I give homage to infinite light and infinite life Tathagata. "NAM MO A DI DA PHAT."

I just read a potent paper on the work of Aeschylus, and I've been reading Aeschylus frequently for years. Lately, Aeschylus' bodhisattva nature has become more clear to me. Prometheus Bound is particularly potent for modern Western Bodhisattvas. Check it out. This is something else.

A good Buddhagang friend said that I'm like Vimalakirti. So, I responded like this: I try! 😁🦁☸️ I’ve got a lot of work to do. Vimalakirti is a fierce bodhisattva layperson. One of the greatest. He was sick, and he used that sickness as a Dharma-door for the benefit of all beings. The sutra is deep, and many people misunderstand it because it challenges the small-vehicle mentality directly and without apology.

Upagupta crossed the Ganga moving north, carrying that brightness bodhisattvas carry when they walk for the sake of beings. He reached Videha, on the western side of Tirahuti, and stayed in a monastery built by a householder named Vasusara — the kind of being who delights in welcoming the sangha, offering food, support, and constant generosity.

Engaging with the world while studying and practicing Buddhism unlocks the transformative power of compassion. This post discusses the nature of suffering, impermanence, and the role of Mara in distracting individuals from the path. It is engaged Engaged Buddhism, for Buddhagang Bodhisattva friends and everyone else who cares to read.

The Buddha said it would be better, not worse, to listen to a wise person if you find one. And who’s wise? The ones who love. Not always the loud or popular ones, not the cruel ones, not the flatterers or the show-offs, but the ones who help you see clearly and act better. That’s kalyanamitrata — good friendship. When Ananda said it was half the holy life, the Buddha admonished him.