Posts Tagged ‘Secular Practice’
What Is Secular Buddhist Practice?
We often get asked by traditional Buddhist, and people of all kinds, what is secular Buddhist practice? This is a great question, and I’ll do my best to answer, but I hope other secular Buddhist practitioners will also comment on this article to share any practices not mentioned here. Also, I want to remind everyone that we have a discussion forum that is dedicated to secular Buddhist practice, where people can ask questions and share their practice.
What is secular Buddhist practice? For the most part, secular Buddhist practice is identical to traditional Buddhist practice. In every Buddhist tradition to my knowledge, the following are vital practices:
Read MoreEpisode 106 :: Robert Ellis :: The Trouble with Buddhism
Robert Ellis speaks with us today about his book The Trouble with Buddhism: How the Buddhist Tradition Has Betrayed its Own Insights.
Read MoreEpisode 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.”
Read MoreBe a Buddha, Not a Buddhist: Introduction to Weekly Practice
Be a Buddha, not a Buddhist is an important concept to me because the real value, as I see it, in Buddhism is not the ism but the practice itself. I’ve realized recently that I’d like to take my understanding of Buddhism into deeper territory. One of the best ways to do this is to revisit everything I’ve learned in the past, to start my practice from scratch, or with the beginner’s mind, so to speak.
Read MoreWeekly Practice (Impermanence)
For this Weekly Practice we are going to explore impermanence. Don’t lament, “Oh, I know everything is impermanent!” No matter what ideas you currently have about impermanence, no matter how much you may have dug into this topic before, let’s look at it in detail this week. While most of us have a basic awareness…
Read MoreEpisode 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.
Read MoreFour Truths, Four Vows
This is another in my series of discussions of ideas Stephen Batchelor has been presenting in dharma talks since late 2010. You can hear them at dharmaseed.org. One of the attractive ideas to come out of Stephen Batchelor’s recent teaching is a mapping of the Four Noble Truths onto the Four Bodhisattva Vows of the…
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