Tag: Secular Dharma Retreat
Scenes from a Mindfulness Retreat: Experience
This is the final installment of four. Here are links to the first, second, and third part. It was 6 a.m. on the first morning of the retreat, and after a restless night’s sleep I was sitting on a wooden bench before a still farm pond, examining again my intention for being there. For several [...]
Scenes 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 [...]
Episode 101 :: Julian Adkins, Anantacitta Tunnell, Dana Nourie :: Secular Buddhism U.K.
Julian Adkins, Anantacitta Tunnell, and Dana Nourie join us to talk about a new website dedicated to growing the Secular Buddhist community in the U.K.
Every week, I get email from listeners to the podcast, and from people who’ve found the Secular Buddhist Association site. Take this one from Michael R. just the other day: “I would like to take a moment to thank you for developing and establishing your website. It fulfills a need I’ve long attempted to satisfy. My interest and practice of Buddhism is strongly oriented along the same lines of what I perceive to be those of John Peacock’s, Stephen Batchelor’s and Steve Hagen’s. However, it was not until I encountered your site that I realized there was a community that appeared to resonate for me. Anyway, I wish merely to express my gratitude and look forward to the SBA’s continued growth.”
Episode 100 :: Stephen Batchelor :: The Awakening of the West
Today we speak with Stephen Batchelor about his book The Awakening of the West: The Encounter of Buddhism and Western Culture.
Hi, everyone. Welcome to this milestone in The Secular Buddhist podcast, as we expand into our third digit of Episode 100. We would not have reached this point without you, our growing listener community. And it is growing, as of this recording each episode is getting over 1200 downloads with over 142,000 total. The Secular Buddhist is usually if not always listed in the top 36 on iTunes for Buddhist podcasts, the FaceBook page has over 2000 Likes, and even our Twitter feed is seeing a constant stream of new Followers. We have a new website for the Secular Buddhist Association, designed for the development of community, with new sites springing up in other countries (more on that next week!). And our sincerest thanks to the many wonderful guests it has been a great joy to speak with. If not for you, this podcast would not have gained the attention it has.
The 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 [...]
Secular Dharma Semitreat :: Day Three
Day three, at last our horrific kammic past has been fully extinguished, and we’re enjoying a change from that perfect weather. Rain, all day. And you know, that really is okay, the rich scents the moisture brings is better than incense. Our dish cleaning team of Stan, Stan, Bill, and Ted (yes, Bill and Ted, [...]
Secular Dharma Semitreat :: Day Two
We’re cursed with yet another absolutely gorgeous day. Clearly bad kamma coming to fruition. Darn you, vipāka! Darn you, previous me! We started the day with instructions from Martine on listening meditation, simply hearing the sound without creating additional commentary around it. In this setting, the sounds are typically birds and chippies, so that was [...]
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