Posts Tagged ‘ethics’
On Supramundane Freedom
In my last post we looked a bit at mundane freedom: what it is, and what it is not. We saw that mundane freedom involved volitional formations (saṇkhāras) within a more-or-less deterministic causal nexus. What made the will free is that it was constituted by our desires, rather than by those of another. That is,…
Read MoreCrossed Paths in the Dhamma?
An apparent inconsistency lies at the heart of the Buddha’s teachings: his dhamma recommends we follow two paths at the same time, which lead to different destinations. On the one hand, we are to act ethically within the world, so as to build up a kammic bank account which will help us in attaining better…
Read MoreScenes from a Mindfulness Retreat: Ritual
Here are links to Part One and Part Two. One of the things I’ve admired about the Friday night drop in mindfulness sessions at the UW Health Integrative Medicine Center is the creativity displayed by the teachers in developing rituals, symbolic objects and activities that help to express the wisdom of practice. There is no…
Read MoreHumanism & Buddhism — Interview with Ted Meissner, The Secular Buddhist
Scott Lohman from The Humanists of Minnesota interviews Ted Meissner on “Humanism and Buddhism”. Learn about the many commonalities between Humanism and Secular Buddhism.
Read MoreThe Ethics of Impermanence
At the end of his very useful and somewhat demanding book, The Bodhisattva’s Brain, philosopher Owen Flanagan poses a dilemma: . . . I still do not see, despite trying to see for many years, why understanding the impermanence of everything including myself makes a life of maximal compassion more rational than a life of…
Read MoreHealing Ecology – A Buddhist Perspective on the Eco Crisis (David Loy)
There are precise and profound parallels between what Buddhism says about our individual predicament and our collective predicament today in relationship to the rest of the biosphere.
Read MoreIs Secular Buddhism Cherry Picking?
For me, yes! Just as I would pick cherries from a tree, taking the ripe ones and the almost ripe, and leaving unripe on the tree and the rotten ones on the ground (or throw them away), I have cherry picked from Buddhism. Over the last ten years or so, I have studied Zen Buddhism,…
Read MoreHow an Atheist Practices Secular Buddhism
What science has taught me about being skeptical of the outer world, Buddhism has taught me about being skeptical of the inner world. Both require critical thinking, and both require evidence. While science turns those methods outward, Buddhism turns those methods inwards. What differs are the tools. In science, to evaluate the world and universe…
Read MoreEpisode 66 :: Sikivu Hutchinson :: Moral Combat: Black Atheists, Gender Politics, and the Values Wars
Author and educator Sikivu Hutchinson speaks with us about her book, Moral Combat: Black Atheists, Gender Politics, and the Values Wars.
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