Mindfulness and Self-Care: Why Should I Care?

Last updated on: April 4, 2016 at 8:36 pm By Justin Whitaker

A guest post by Edwin Ng with Ron Purser Editor’s note: this is the second in a two-part series by Edwin Ng and Ron Purser, part one can be found at the Huffington Post here. Part One considered the current hype surrounding workplace mindfulness against the dubious history of management science. Part Two here considers the use of critical mindfulness in experiments with ethical self-care. Though we are skeptical about celebratory claims, we actually do hope that mindfulness might become a disruptive technology to... Read more

Buddhists for Bernie: a breakdown of our March US Presidential Poll

Last updated on: April 2, 2016 at 10:57 pm By Justin Whitaker

Right off the bat, I should caution you that not much has changed since the last poll, and that once again our poll data is small and was not scientifically gathered. That said, a few new features this month add depth, and hopefully a touch more credibility, to the data gathered. For starters, respondents were asked if they would like to (optionally) provide a means of contact for follow-up questions, and to (also optionally) comment on why they’ve chosen the... Read more

Study shows most Americans shouldn’t meditate: repress awful life events instead

Last updated on: April 28, 2016 at 9:51 am By Justin Whitaker

Lead author Willow B. England of Orange University in upstate New York describes why meditation has become an increasing malice to the American public. Her scientific research conflicts with the increasingly incoherent ramblings of French monk Matthieu Ricard, who says: “Everyone would be helped by meditating for half-an-hour a day. Meditation is a very vague term and there’s a lot of cliché – like emptying your mind and relaxing and all that stuff. But it’s really a means to cultivate or... Read more

Mutuality at the Limits of Race – A Buddhist Perspective

Last updated on: April 3, 2016 at 3:44 pm By Justin Whitaker

A guest post by Doshin Nathan Woods “A Black Man is a person who must ride ‘Jim Crow’ in Georgia…” –W.E.B Du Bois As I walked to the Zendo the helicopters droned distantly overhead. The muffled announcement reverberating through the neighborhood: “White or Hispanic male….wearing a white t-shirt…..” Indistinct, my attention turned to the matter at hand, where, upon stepping into the Zendo, I was about my business: “Hi, excuse me, sorry to interrupt, but the Zendo is closed right now,... Read more

As North Carolina backslides on LGBT rights, we revisit our interview with the creators of transbuddhists.org

Last updated on: March 26, 2016 at 10:05 pm By Justin Whitaker

In spite of the many advances made in recent years in the United States and around the world toward greater awareness and acceptance of the variety of genders and sexual orientations and expressions in the human species, there will always be setbacks. One such setback was seen in North Carolina this week, where the most anti-LGBT law in the U.S. has been passed. A backlash of businesses, politicians, rights groups, individuals, and more have already spoken out. For our part, we’ll remind... Read more

Buddhism, Politics, and the 2016 US Presidential Race

Last updated on: March 26, 2016 at 3:23 pm By Justin Whitaker

As I mentioned last month, a Pew Survey found that Buddhists in the US are around 16% Republican (or leaning), 69% Democrat, and 16% Independent or other. That is from a 2014 Religious Landscape Study. So we sought to update that here at American Buddhist Perspectives, creating a simple poll that drew in over 350 responses. The data gathered (also here and here) and discussions following went even further, leading to the plan of regular (monthly) polls. This gives us opportunities to measure -however imprecisely- shifts in voter... Read more

Mindfulness, Buddhism, and Philosophy, for the love of language, and the limits of language

Last updated on: March 25, 2016 at 5:37 pm By Justin Whitaker

One of the highlights of the recent Mindfulness, MOOCs, and Money in Higher Education conference at Naropa University (March 18-21) was a small break-out session led by Carrie Bergman of The Center for Contemplative Mind in Society. We were joined by two Naropa faculty, Susan Burggraf and Cynthia Kneen (who co-founded Naropa and happens to be a classically trained clown), an undergraduate independent scholar from Amherst College named Vivian Mac, and James Rhem, Executive Director of the National Teaching & Learning Forum. Our ostensible... Read more

Building Bridges of Loving-kindness: Mongolia’s Rich History and Culture of Buddhism

Last updated on: March 23, 2016 at 11:46 am By Justin Whitaker

A guest post by Michael Fouts, Executive Director of the Grand Maitreya Project West In today’s world the majority of new construction projects and monuments are created with a commercial interest in mind. There seems to be fewer symbols of love and peace being created these days, especially in the west. With the current state of the world and the real need for peace on Earth, creating more universal symbols of love and peace seems to be more important than... Read more

Tibetans for Trump and other unintended consequences

Last updated on: March 21, 2016 at 9:52 pm By Justin Whitaker

Tenzin Pelkyi, a writer, law student, and editor at tibetanfeministcollective.org (and recent interviewee at this blog) has an intriguing article up today at medium.com examining some of the idiosyncrasies and unintended consequences of US-China-Tibet politics. In it she examines two allegedly Tibetan men holding up a sign reading “Tibetans for Trump. Kick China in the Balls for us, Donald #MakeAmericaGreatAgain.” As odd as it may seem for card carrying liberals and others who are simply confused by the popularity of... Read more

Mindfulness, MOOCs, and Money in Higher Education: or “how to overthrow the system”

Last updated on: May 31, 2016 at 9:14 am By Justin Whitaker

Today was our first full day (of only two full days) at the Mindfulness, MOOCs, and Money conference held in Boulder, CO at Naropa University. And, as one should expect after 10 hours of workshops, conversations, and lectures, I am far from being done in terms of digesting the day. That said, some notes: The day began with an “Opening Gathering” where we explored some of the backgrounds and identities that we are bringing to the conference. In general, we... Read more