Posts Tagged ‘secularism’
Buddhist Activism and Quietism
Many of us are looking for the right way to engage with contemporary political concerns. What does Buddhism have to teach us? A couple of recent articles have taken this question in opposite directions. In “Let’s Stand Up Together”, Bhikkhu Bodhi argues that Buddhism has a number of important ethical lessons to teach that rise above simple notions…
Read MoreInsight Buddhism is Secular Buddhism: Reviewing Heartwood
Wendy Cadge’s 2005 book Heartwood: The First Generation of Theravada Buddhism in America is a fascinating look at the way this form of Buddhism is adapting to contemporary American life. Although the book stems from her PhD dissertation it is readable, filled with descriptions of practitioners and their approaches. Cadge spent several years doing…
Read MoreThich Nhat Hanh, Secular Buddhist
Those of us who gathered for Social Circle last Friday evening spent a fair amount of time talking about Thich Nhat Hanh, whose recent hospitalization made headlines after rumors of his death had circulated online. The way the Internet lit up with expressions of concern and well wishes for the Vietnamese Zen monk, known to…
Read MoreMindful America: A Review
I was by turns excited, puzzled and exasperated as I read Jeff Wilson’s Mindful America: The Mutual Transformation of Buddhist Meditation and American Culture. This first attempt at an academic look at the rise of the mindfulness movement is a fascinating, provocative and often entertaining read, but its cultural studies methodology can be questionable and…
Read MoreWaking Up: A Review
I still remember my excitement on encountering, in Sam Harris’ first book, The End of Faith, the suggestion that it would be possible to enjoy many of the benefits which people had traditionally sought from religion without the need to embrace religion itself. Buddhist meditiation was one of the practices Harris mentioned as a specific example of wisdom that…
Read MoreOn Subtracting What You Don't Like
Here’s a tweet I got after mentioning a naturalized Buddhism: Okaaaaay…. couldn’t you do the same with any religion? Subtract the parts you don’t like? It’s a question that deserves more than a 140 character response. Editing Religions A three-character response to that tweet would be simple: yes. Given any religion, one is always free…
Read MoreEpisode 128 :: Gert de Boer, Brennen McKenzie, Doug Smith :: Scientific Skepticism and Buddhism
Gert de Boer, Brennen McKenzie, and Doug Smith join us to talk about scientific skepticism and Buddhism. We’ve found that there is a wonderful alignment between scientific naturalism, and secular Buddhism. Attitudes about Gotama’s presence as a human and the constraints of that embodiment, the veracity of first person experiences, and how we value the…
Read MoreEpisode 115 :: Sean Faircloth :: Attack of the Theocrats
Sean Faircloth Sean Faircloth returns to speak with us about his new book, Attack of the Theocrats, and his new role with the Richard Dawkins Foundation. Question: what does secular Buddhism have to do with politics? Or, maybe more accurately, what does politics have to do with secular Buddhism? The answer is quite alot, at…
Read MoreEpisode 109 :: José Angel Lopez :: Atheist Meditation Community
Jose Lopez José Angel Lopez talks with us about Atheist Meditation on FaceBook. Many of us either did not grow up with the practices of a religious tradition, or if we did, we’ve since moved away from them. We wear the scarlet letter for what is often viewed as a dirty word in our society,…
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.
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