Buddhism // Current

Author Goes To Japan Seeking Enlightenment, Ends Up Writing About Organized Crime

Author Jake Adelstein was on Jon Stewart last night talking about his new book, "Tokyo... more

atomiclegion
added this
4 days ago
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You see a child soldier with a rifle--you are in Burma--do you take the picture?

(trailer for documentary, Please Don't Say My Name, www.pleasedontsaymyname.org)... more

kzusman
added this
6 days ago
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2 comments

Sherpa hospital in Himalayan heights

For the Sherpas of the high Everest or Khumbu region of Nepal, keeping healthy is a... more

LadybugLady
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8 days ago
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Buddha Sculpture Created Using Dead Bugs

There’s nothing unusual about statues and sculptures of religious deities. But... more

whitespacecarpet
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20 days ago
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A Flowchart to Determine What Religion You Should Follow [diagram]

Flowcharts are a great way to make sense out of confusing scenarios, and there's no... more

GrrlScientist
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28 days ago
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23 comments

Tibetan medicine man on local sacred land

Tibetan doctors must help patients psychologically and spiritually in order to treat... more

tammytymeproduktions
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1 month ago
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2 comments

A Look at Christianity, Through a Buddhist Lens

New book that discusses how a Catholic priest has wrestled with his beliefs after coming into close contact with Buddhism. Much more at link.

Five decades ago, Paul F. Knitter, then a novice studying to become a Roman Catholic priest, would be in the seminary chapel at 5:30 every morning, trying to stay awake and spend time in meditation before Mass.

Last Wednesday, at the same hour, he was sitting on his Zen cushion meditating in the Claremont Avenue apartment he occupies as the Paul Tillich Professor of Theology, World Religions and Culture at Union Theological Seminary in New York.

A few hours later he was talking about his pointedly titled new book, “Without Buddha I Could Not Be a Christian” (Oneworld). The book is the outcome of decades of encounters with Buddhism — and of struggles with his own faith.

“Has my dialogue with Buddhism made me a Buddhist Christian?” he writes. “Or a Christian Buddhist? Am I a Christian who has understood his own identity more deeply with the help of Buddhism? Or have I become a Buddhist who still retains a stock of Christian leftovers.”

The struggles Mr. Knitter is writing about are not the familiar ones about sexual ethics, the role of women or the failures of church leaders.

His focus here is on what he calls “the big stuff”: What does it really mean for Christians to profess belief in an almighty “God the Father” personally active in the world, or in Jesus, “his only-begotten Son” who saved humanity through his death and bodily resurrection, or in eternal life, heaven and hell?

He was not asserting, as some people have, that religions like Christianity and Buddhism are merely superficially different expressions of one underlying faith.

On the contrary, he insists they differ profoundly. Yet “Buddhism has helped me take another and deeper look at what I believe as a Christian,” he writes. “Many of the words that I had repeated or read throughout my life started to glow with new meaning.”New book that discusses how a Catholic priest has wrestled with his beliefs after... more

hpseaton
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1 month ago
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A Basic Buddhism Guide: Rebirth

For those who believe in rebirth, this should tell you everything you need to know

franksalot
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1 month ago
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Monks brains mapped during meditation

Science delves into the mysteries of meditation

franksalot
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1 month ago
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4 comments

The Buddha's Charter of Free Inquiry

BUDDHIST BLOG

franksalot
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1 month ago
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Is there scientific evidence for reincarnation?

Science refers to knowledge as it relates to the physical world and its phenomena —... more

urlspotter
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1 month ago
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8 comments

Buddha Shaped Pears from China

Chinese farmer Hao Xianzhang has perfected the process of growing pears inside Buddha... more

photi
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1 month ago
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3 comments

Soka Gakkai International : Peace Proposal 2009(Summary)

Since 1975, SGI president Daisaku Ikeda, has presented a Peace Proposal to the United Nations. Here is a summary of his 2009 Peace Proposal, provided by Dr. Ikeda himself.
You can download the full Peace Proposal in pdf from the link.

[I'm just posting a part of the summary I found personally insightful]

As I have pointed out in these proposals on a number of occasions, the deepest underlying root of the crisis is the love of money itself, of currency, the global Mammonism that constitutes an essential pathology of our contemporary civilization. The currency that controls and dominates market economies has, of course, virtually no use value, it has only exchange value. And exchange value stands only on the foundation of understanding and agreement between people; in its essence it is both abstract and anonymous. It is not directed at such concrete (and therefore finite) objects as real goods and services; thus, as the object of human desire, it has no real or inherent limits.

Soon after the end of World War II, the French existentialist philosopher Gabriel Marcel offered a penetrating perspective, examining the "spirit of abstraction" as a key causal factor in war. While the ability to develop and manipulate abstract concepts is indispensable to human intellectual activity, to Marcel the spirit of abstraction is destructive, a process in which abstractions are alienated from concrete realities, taking on a life of their own.

For example, it is only possible to participate in war if we first deny the individual character and humanity of the opponent--reducing him or her to an abstract concept such as fascist, communist, Zionist, Islamic fundamentalist, etc. Without this kind of reductionism, it would be impossible to justify or find meaning in one’s participation in war.

When looking at the present financial crisis, we have to ask if we as a society have not been caught up in this spirit of abstraction. Have we not fallen prey to the Medusa-like spell of the abstract and anonymous world of currency, losing our essential human capacity to see through to the underlying fact that--however necessary it may be to the functioning of human society--currency is nothing other than an agreement, a kind of virtual reality?Since 1975, SGI president Daisaku Ikeda, has presented a Peace Proposal to the United... more