mmm…. post retreat bliss. I am just returning from two nights in the mountains of northern Idaho where I embarked on my first ever Soto Zen retreat. The retreat was led by Rev. Master Zensho of the Order of Buddhist Contemplatives, founded by Reverend Master Jiyu-Kennett (1924-1996).It was an incredibly well-needed retreat. I was certainly feeling a bit out of sorts (as my last post should indicate). I was accompanied/brought along by my dear friend, Sally, a long time Soto... Read more

Why is it that philosophers get caught up in such inconsequential minutia – why is it that they (we) revel in criticizing one another? Why can’t we all just get along? Find a common cause to devote our fantastical brain-power to? (one professor of mine has reminded us several times that we are the elites – that there are far more people who don’t understand any of this philosophy stuff and can’t). So we’re the best of society, intellectually? So... Read more

Sunday marked a first in most of our worlds: the Blogisattva Awards hosted by Tom over at Blogmandu. My initial reaction (see #9 here) to the nomination(s) was a kind of ‘wow, how odd… but nice’. For the most part I think this is how other bloggers took it as well (Tyson was happily surprised, Eric at Virtual Zen observed his ego swell). However, the comment section under the announcements post did receive some less-than-positive remarks. One nominee, Amadeus, commented:... Read more

A couple of my good friends from England are now in India and, well, for the moment at least, I’m not jealous. A report from the first, Allison (another MA Student in Buddhist Studies) contains the following (WARNING: GRAPHIC) description of a night near Delhi: [first a nice part, at a bird sanctuary] It was dusk and they [the birds] were coming back from feeding. It was absolutely amazing. I’ll show you the pictures when we get back. There were... Read more

From Thich Nhat Hanh’s book, “Old Path White Clouds“, a compilation of stories from the life of the Buddha (slightly abridged): [The Buddha is visiting his father, King Suddhodana of the Sakyas] The Buddha wished to return to Bamboo Forest in time for the rainy season retreat, as he had promised King Bimbisara and the bhikkhus [monks] who had remained there. King Suddhodana invited the Buddha for a last meal before his departure and asked him to give a discourse... Read more

I stumbled across another set of videos on quantum physics (I need all of these I can get). We, in class, are still trying to piece together what the heck it all means, philosophically. I mean, what good is it that we know the earth revolves around the sun, or that matter is constructed out of tiny particles, wavefunctions, or superstrings? One might surmise that all these new developments in physics are leading to a much more Buddhist way of... Read more

I prepared this for a professor last week and thought I’d toss it online (I’ve added the links). Let me know if anything stands out as erroneous… I had a run through my Sanskrit book* and a couple others (it’s good for me to keep up on this stuff) and here is what I gathered for pronouncing words in Sanskrit (the same goes for Pali). There is no stress on ultimate or penultimate (or other) syllables; all are stressed equally,... Read more

Hey folks. I’ve volunteered to give a talk on the Buddhist Philosophy in “I [heart] Huckabees” for our Philosophy Society in the near future. I found the following online: “Anyone who has been regularly following trends in spiritual books knows of the widespread interest in Buddhism. Call this movie Buddhism 101. Screenplay writers Russell and Jeff Baena have done a bang-up job exploring the spiritual practice of connections or what Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh calls “interbeing” — everything... Read more

I love to learn through videos. Perhaps I’m a ‘visual learner’, or perhaps I’m lazy, or better yet, probably I was just raised watching the Discovery Channel, MacGyver, and reruns of Gilligan’s Island. Jacques Cousteau, MacGyver himself, and the Professor from Gilligan’s Island were my childhood rolemodels. Yes, I’ve always been a dork. Anyhow, I’ve found some lovely new visuals to keep me happy in my current TV-free life. The first is The Elegant Universe from NOVA. It stars and... Read more