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Tag Archives: Buddha
Parallels Between Darwin and Buddha: Evolution and Dependent Origination
Buddha’s theory is Darwin’s. I had an aha moment yesterday: Buddha’s theory of suffering and its cessation can function as a trope–a metaphor–for evolution. Buddha’s insight tracks Charles Darwin’s. Buddha was Darwin before Darwin. Put another way, Buddha discovered how … Continue reading
Who Is Your Neighbor?
Sharing with a stranger–one of the better angels of our nature–is on display in this YouTube: __________ The video is moving, but why is it moving? Why don’t we have similar responses, say, to adult alcoholics who are homeless, cold, … Continue reading
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Tagged ahimsa, Buddha, gandhi, God, Jesus, love, nonkilling, nonviolence, vegetarianism
8 Comments
A Good Reason For Meditators To Exercise A Lot (And Not Just Sit On Their Asses)
Want to be a calm Buddha with a highly attentive and awake “diamond mind?” New research suggests that maybe you should get out from under that Bodhi tree you’re sitting under and put on some running shoes instead, for exercise, … Continue reading
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Tagged anxiety, Buddha, Buddhism, depression, exercise, health, meditation, therapy, yoga
1 Comment
The Lowdown on the Religions of Jesus, Buddha, Mohammad, Krishna, Moses, and Paul Kurtz
The six great world religions come with messages of good news and bad. Here’s the lowdown: Islam and Christianity. Good news: God and heaven are real and you can go there! Bad news: Get with the program or God will … Continue reading
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Tagged apologetics, atheism, Buddha, faith, God, Jesus, krishna, Mohammad, secular humanism
8 Comments
The Tao of Emily, the Calm of Lao Tzu, and Trouble from Blake
Below are two couplets of flower power yin-yang from Emily Dickinson’s poem, “Awake ye muses nine, sing me a strain divine,” written in 1850 when she was aged nineteen. Insofar as anybody knows, it’s the first poem she’d ever written … Continue reading
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Tagged atheism, Buddha, Buddhism, Emily Dickinson, Lao Tzu, literature, poetry, Tao, William Blake
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What’s the Point of Having a Buddhist Meditation Practice?
Is the goal of the Buddhist meditator the same as the scientist (the breaking of spells and the dispelling of ignorance)? Ron Liefer, psychiatrist and Buddhist meditator, in his book The Happiness Project (Snow Lion 1997), writes the following (14): … Continue reading
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Tagged acceptance, atheism, Buddha, Buddhism, meditation, psychology, science, therapy
2 Comments
Which Religion is Best? The Admirable Superhero Criterion
There are five major world religions: Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. They can be judged by any number of criteria. Which one has the most admirable superhero? There are certainly compelling characters in four of the five: Jesus is awesome … Continue reading
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Tagged Arjuna, atheism, Buddha, Christianity, God, Islam, Jesus, Judaism, philosophy, religion
9 Comments
Buddha’s Take on Suffering vs. Nietzsche’s
If you think about it, we respond to whatever arises into consciousness with desire, aversion, or neutrality. And the things that appear to consciousness are always in flux: they arise, they ripen, they decline from attention and disappear. Then others … Continue reading
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Tagged Buddha, Buddhism, happiness, life, Nietzsche, nihilism, philosophy, psychology, suffering
11 Comments
Camille Paglia on the New Atheism and Contemporary Humanism
In an interview posted at Salon today, Camille Paglia lets loose on godless chic, arguing that it has poisoned contemporary film and art: People in the humanities have sunk into this shallow, snobby, liberal style of stereotyping religious believers as … Continue reading
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Tagged art, atheism, atheist, books, Buddha, Camille Paglia, Christopher Hitchens, humanism, Jesus, religion, Richard Dawkins, samsara
29 Comments
Onward American Theocrats, Marching As To War
A preacher introduces Rick Santorum at a rally in Louisiana: “We don’t worship Buddha; we don’t worship Muhammad; we don’t worship Allah. We worship God; we worship God’s son, Jesus Christ!” Red meat.
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Tagged America, atheism, Buddha, conservatism, Jesus, religion, rick santorum, right wing, stupidity, theocracy
4 Comments
Should Atheists Insert Themselves into Religious Discussions and Theological Disputes?
The reason atheists can (and should) enter into religious discussions and theological disputes, judging religions, is because Jesus, Muhammad, Moses, Krishna, and Buddha do not belong to the faiths to which they are associated. In the 21st century, these figures … Continue reading
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Tagged agnostic, apologetics, atheism, atheist, Buddha, globalism, God, Jesus, krishna, muhammad, the Internet, yoga
3 Comments
If You’re Angry, And Words Fail
Don’t shoot! Try gesture: . Or, how about this? (Buddhist equanimity.) . The above painting is from a Laotian monastery. It’s an image of the Buddha leading monks through a treacherous path. He is silent and calm, walking through … Continue reading
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Tagged anger, Buddha, Buddhism, grace, Hinduism, life, light, love, meditation, revenge, truth, yoga
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The Problem of Pure Consciousness
. Sunlight rivers through the shimmering Sycamore tree, pools on the ground, Makes of shadow a living shoreline. I vibrate there. The juggler’s balls are Frightfully high in the rarified air. Eight Sheriff’s deputies in four cars came, but They did … Continue reading
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Tagged Buddha, consciousness, enlightenment, life, literature, love, poems, poetry, Santi Tafarella, the ontological mystery, yoga
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Two Paths to Self-Control: The Buddha and Jesus vs. Ulysses and Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor
Dan Ariely, a professor of psychology at Duke University, has an interesting recent blog post on self-control, which he frames as a dual dilemma: should we intensively train ourselves to be serene Buddhas, indifferent in the presence of immediate pleasures that might undermine our larger … Continue reading
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Tagged Buddha, crucifixion, Jesus, life, meditation, psychology, sailing, self control, sin, sirens, temptation, Ulysses
1 Comment
Change Your Mind, Change Your Brain?
This was in the Los Angeles Times this past month: For the Trappist monks at the Abbey of New Clairvaux, life follows a pattern centuries old. They spend their days in the field and their nights in silence. They gather in prayer … Continue reading
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Tagged Buddha, Buddhism, Christianity, discipline, habits, hypnosis, Jesus, meditation, prayer, religion, Sartre, zig ziglar
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Teach Your Children (Mandarin) Well: Ian Morris Makes a Prediction
Ian Morris, the super-giant brained academic who belongs to, not one, but three academic departments at Stanford University (Classics, History, and Archeology), thinks we are fast entering the era of Far Eastern economic and political dominance and that it could … Continue reading
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Tagged America, Buddha, China, economics, economy, ian morris, Japan, korea, mandarin, predictions, prophecy, the future
25 Comments
Lama Surya Das says that the Buddha represents “the fullest actualized potential of human beings.” My six-year-old daughter’s response: “This is wrong!”
In an essay at the Huffington Post today, Buddhist author Lama Surya Das characterizes in this way what the meditating stone Buddha in your spring garden symbolizes: The Buddha is actually an archetype representing enlightenment, an icon symbolizing inner wisdom, a pointer … Continue reading
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Tagged Buddha, Buddhism, exercise, existentialism, health, lama surya das, life, meaning, meditation, yoga
9 Comments
My Daughter Won a Certificate of Merit from Her School for—Generosity!
My oldest daughter is six years old, and from her school today she received a certificate of merit, not for attendance or academic achievement, but just for being a generous person! Her teacher praised her for being a good friend to her … Continue reading
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Tagged Allen Ginsberg, Buddha, character, family, friendship, generosity, kids, kindness, life, love, meditation, yoga
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Some Perpective on the New Year: A Bit of Pessimistic Buddha-Wisdom from Arthur Schopenhauer (and Monty Python)
A little something to keep life and the New Year in perspective. Arthur Schopenhauer, from Book 1, Section 16 of The World as Will and Representation (1818, translated from the German by E.F. Payne): For whenever a man in any … Continue reading
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Tagged arthur schopenhauer, Buddha, Buddhism, Job, life, monty python, pessimism, philosophy, stoicism, suffering, the problem of suffering, yoga
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Prometheus Unbound 