Articles
Religion and Dukkha
When atheists speak up about the harmful effects of religion, we’re often asked, in effect, what our problem is. How are we so sure we’re right? What about our own dogmatic beliefs? Isn’t it enough for us to reject religion, without actively opposing it? Why are we, as even Stephen Batchelor says, so “humorless’? These charges are even more pointed for those of us who are secular dharma practitioners. When we inveigh against the religious trappings of Buddhist traditions, we are accused of disrespecting the tradition and its teachers, indeed even of threatening the survival of the dharma in the West (see the interview with Tim Olmsted in the Fall 2010 Tricycle for a good example of this). Why don’t we just relinquish this fixed view and be more open-minded?
Read More10th Annual International Scientific Conference for Clinicians, Researchers and Educators
It is my great joy to be attending the Center for Mindfulness 10th Annual International Scientific Conference for Clinicians, Researchers and Educators this week in Massachusetts. It is, in a nutshell, a gathering of some of the leading researchers into the scientific studies of the effects of mindfulness. That in itself does require a bit of…
Read MoreThanissaro Bhikkhu's "The Truth of Rebirth" : A Review, Part 3
This is the final installment of my three-part review of Thanissaro Bhikkhu’s 2011 e-book, The Truth of Rebirth and Why it Matters for Buddhist Practice. You can read it online here. “One reason the Buddha recommended conviction in rebirth as a useful working hypothesis is that, as we have noted, he had to teach that skillful…
Read MoreThanissaro Bhikkhu's "The Truth of Rebirth": A Review, Part 2
This is the second in my three-part review of Thanissaro Bhikkhu’s 2011 e-book, The Truth of Rebirth and Why it Matters for Buddhist Practice, which you can read here. You can read Review Part 1 here. “. . . Many modern Buddhist teachers have argued that the teaching on rebirth should be treated [as an out-of-date…
Read MoreThanissaro Bhikkhu's "The Truth of Rebirth" : A Review, Part I
This is the first of a three-part review of Thanissaro Bhikkhu’s new e-book, The Truth of Rebirth: and Why it Matters for Buddhist Practice.
Read MoreThe First Watch of the Night
I recollected my manifold past lives . . .: There I was so named, of such a clan, with such an appearance, such was my nutriment, such my experience of pleasure and pain, such my life term; and passing away from there, I reappeared elsewhere; and there too I was so named, of such a…
Read MorePlaying With Pali: Poking Under the Hood
I was not good at grammar in grade school, and I got no better at it in high school. I found all the terms and the rules to be counter-intuitive, a lot like geometric axioms. In both cases, it seemed like these were rules applied on top of things that should be understood in some entirely other way (in one’s bones). I could understand them while I worked with them or when I was in the middle of a course of study, but they instantly disappeared from my memory the second I turned my back for a moment. How bad I am at grammar will come as no surprise to those who understand grammar and enough Pali to feel pain when observing my ongoing dabbling in translation via my personal blog. The question they must be asking themselves — and you may well ask, too — is “Why does she bother?”
The reason is this: however bad at grammar I am, with my cheat sheet and the free tools that are readily-available via the internet, there is no better way to check the integrity of the translations I’m looking at than to poke around in the Pali that is the closest we will get — short of time travel — to the Buddha’s actual words.
Read MoreWhat's Your Calling or Purpose in Life?
At the Wisdom 2.0 conference I heard several speakers talk about their life’s calling, and others refer to life’s purpose. Our society speaks about people’s life’s purpose as though it’s a real thing out there to be discovered, to give life your life meaning. In fact, there are books such as A Purpose Driven Life, Finding Your Life’s Purpose.
Read MoreWhat's Burning in the Fire Sermon?
Perhaps Gotama’s most famous discourse among Westerners is the one we call the Fire Sermon. It is included in most anthologies of “the Buddha’s sayings”; in that quintessential summary of Consensus Buddhism, the PBS documentary The Buddha, it’s one of the few discourses quoted at any length. On the show, professor of Asian cultures D. Max Moerman explicates it this way:
Read MoreReport from Wisdom 2.0: Living with Awareness, Wisdom, and Compassion
Ted and I had the opportunity last week to attend the Wisdom 2.0: Living with Awareness, Wisdom, and Compassion conference in Redwood City, California. We listened to speakers who are well known in the Buddhist and Yoga communities, as well as some who are prominent in the technology industry. It was fascinating to hear how mindfulness, compassion, awareness, and empathy are being brought into the workplace through classes, yoga sessions, talks, etc, as well as how digital media are bringing people throughout the globe together to share and discuss these topics.
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