John Lee Pendall is a featured columnist, editor, podcast host, and co-owner of the Tattooed Buddha. He’s also a poet, composer, multi-instrumentalist (He’s recorded five albums so far), an amateur photographer/graphic designer and pen & ink artist, and he has a B.S. in psychology. He currently lives between two cornfields in rural Illinois. His errant knowledge base covers astronomy, theology, philosophy, music theory, and quoting lines from movies.
John Lee practices Chan Buddhism as a Novice Chan Priest. He’s also a lay Buddhologist (Buddhist scholar), and frequently translates and writes commentaries on Buddhist texts.
Feel free to check out John’s Facebook page and his blog, “Salty Dharma.”
Silent Illumination: How to do Nothing
By John Lee Pendall The mind is like a pool; let the waves fade, and let everything heavy sink to the bottom. Also, there is no top or bottom. Yeah, I don't get it either. That's basically the practice of silent illumination (mozhao)....
Shelter-in-place: Surviving COVID-19 Isolation with The 6 Perfections
By John Lee Pendall My governor recently issued a shelter-in-place order thanks the promiscuous nature of COVID-19. Basically, until (at least) April 7th, all Illinoisans have been ordered to stay at home. At the same time, all "non-essential"...
Zen Isn’t Buddhism: Dharma Transmission & the Myth of Lineages
By John Lee Pendall Zen is a school of Mahayana Buddhism that focuses on meditation and sudden awakening. There are thousands of Zen doctrines, hundreds of rituals, and dozens of meditation methods that vary from school to school. It's a...
Happiness Discovered
By John Lee Pendall She was happier when she got here; I was happier when I got here. We were all happier. Happiness isn't one of those things that comes easily or naturally. You can't just be happy, no matter what some gurus or annoying people...
Effortless Being: Realizing the Wave is the Sea & the Sea is the Waves
By John Lee Pendall If there's this, then there's that---that's the simple foundation of Buddhism. That's the formula behind emptiness or dependent arising. On the surface, it kinda makes ya go, "So what? What's so liberating about that...
Moment-Mind & Dogen’s Time-Being
By John Lee Pendall On the nature of time, Dogen said that: "We must look on everything in this world as time... All beings are time; Buddhas are time... Other beings on land and in water also arise from time-being. All things in...
The Four Immeasurables: Joy & Peace
By John Lee Pendall We already covered two of the Four Immeasurables, now let's finish off the other two. Mudita is usually translated as sympathetic joy, and it basically means that---instead of resenting people for being happy---we're...
The Four Immeasurables: Love is Incomplete Without Sadness
By John Lee Pendall The Four Immeasurables pre-date Buddhism, but they're so handy that the Buddha taught them as well. Just as a primer, the Four Immeasurables are loving-kindness (metta), compassion (karuna), sympathetic joy (mudita),...
Back to Basics: Practicing with OM
By John Lee Pendall I didn't start contemplative life with Buddhism; I started with OM. Sometimes, prolonged stress can push us back into a self that we thought was long gone. Out on my own, trying my best to survive my grandma's...
What are You Growing?
By John Lee Pendall Where have all the fields gone? Corn, beans, hay, corn, corn, corn, pot---gone. Houses grow from the earth here, laid out in rows across the city grid. Houses full of people, most of them terrible but some of them are...
Live a Meaningful Life Now, Don’t Wait Till Later
By John Lee Pendall Old age tends to take all of us by surprise, even though it shouldn't. Getting old is one of the few things we can be relatively certain of in life, but it's easy to put it on the back burner. Just like how childhood...
What Do You Awaken To?
By John Lee Pendall Kurt Cobain said, "Birds scream at the top of their lungs in horrified hellish rage every morning at daybreak to warn us all of the truth, but sadly we don't speak bird." I don't know about you, but I tend to be...
Becoming Her Caretaker: In Search of The Way on an Imaginary Airplane
By John Lee Pendall It was the middle of the night in my kitchen when my grandma asked me, "Where's my seat?" "What seat?" "On this plane," she replied. I was walking around, talking to an old friend on the phone. My cat must've startled...
Mindful Thought: Cutting Through Confusion
By John Lee Pendall Thought isn't the problem; zen isn't about silencing all of our thoughts. Mindless, self-absorbed thoughts are the problem. Nanquan said, "Ordinary mind is the way." We don't usually have ordinary minds, we have...
Want to Save the World? Start with Paying Attention (A Primer in Samatha)
By John Lee Pendall The news seems to scream one thing: everything's out of control, and we're all going to die. That second part is most definitely the case. If we believe in birth, then we experience death; if we believe in gain, then...