Dalai Lama biography: “Man of Peace” seeks crowdfunding

Last updated on: June 4, 2015 at 8:28 pm By Justin Whitaker

The Dalai Lama is the subject of a five-part illustrated biography, currently seeking funding. As scholar Robert Thurman describes him: The Dalai Lama is the world’s leader of the win-win solution of hte non-violent response to violence. Of non-violent dialogue instead of war. And this is his story. And this is his battle with the great giants of the military industrial complexes of China and other countries. And his battle is a battle of peace. Speaking of the illustrated biography itself,... Read more

Happy Saga Dawa Düchen – Tibetan Buddhism’s holiest day

Last updated on: June 3, 2015 at 12:57 am By Justin Whitaker

[updated and reposted from June 2014] Saga Dawa is the fourth lunar month of the Tibetan calendar, this year falling between May 18 and June 16. It is the holiest time of the year for Tibetan Buddhists. The middle of the month, the full moon day, is the most important. On that day the fruits of one’s karma (actions) are said to increase one billion (1,000,000,000) times or more. It is the day that Tibetan Buddhists celebrate the birth, awakening, and... Read more

From the Dalai Lama’s cat to Deke, the Dharma Dog, animals offer the Buddha’s teachings

Last updated on: May 31, 2015 at 10:07 pm By Justin Whitaker

In the Theragatha, or Poems of the Elders, the Buddha’s close friend, cousin, and attendant Ananda tells us that he has received 82,000 teachings from the Buddha and 2,000 more from his disciples for a total of 84,000. This great vastness of the Buddha’s body of teaching later became a metaphor for the many ways that Truth, Dharma, or simply ‘the teachings’ could come to a person. In The Complete Book of Buddha’s Lists — Explained (available for free on google-books) David... Read more

Phenomenology as a doorway into Indian Philosophy

Last updated on: May 27, 2015 at 7:06 pm By Justin Whitaker

The Journal of the British Society of Phenomenology has announced a selection of free articles from past issues. Included, along with heavyweights of the Western phenomenological tradition such as Nancy, Lyotard, Gadamer, Sartre, Warnock, Heidegger and Husserl, is J.N. Mohanty’s “Phenomenology and Indian Philosophy: The Concept of Rationality”, Vol. 19, No. 3, 1988, pp. 269-281. (direct link here) In the paper Mohanty shows the struggles we face in understanding non-Western philosophies. This was especially interesting following a recent post at The Indian Philosophy Blog on Graham Priest’s discussion of studying... Read more

All Good Intentions: But does Sam Harris have what it takes to be Buddhist?

Last updated on: May 30, 2015 at 8:40 pm By Justin Whitaker

A guest post by Marek Sullivan: The recent email scuffle between linguistics professor and political commentator Noam Chomsky, and atheist neuroscientist Sam Harris has brought to light the severity of Harris’s emphasis on intention as the ultimate moral parameter in questions of military ethics. According to Harris, “Ethically speaking, intention is (nearly) the whole story.” This is how he can claim that Bill Clinton and Osama Bin Laden live “in a different moral universe entirely,” or elsewhere that “There is... Read more

Buddhist Ethics for an Age of Technological Change

Last updated on: May 21, 2015 at 5:06 pm By Justin Whitaker

A guest post by Doug Smith: We live at the apex of a long era of revolutionary change, with deep roots in history. This change has accelerated over the past centuries due to the technologies gained from empirical and scientific investigation. Our change stems from a process of increasing knowledge of our world, leading to an increasing effectiveness with which we manipulate it to suit our wishes. Perhaps the biggest evidence of this change is the precipitous growth in human... Read more

Dalai Lama’s ‘Sexist’ Snafu?

Last updated on: May 20, 2015 at 4:55 am By Justin Whitaker

Over the weekend, the Dalai Lama spoke about his prospects for reincarnation, telling the UK’s Sunday Times that he may come back as a “mischievous blonde woman” adding that “then her face must be very attractive” or “nobody pay much attention.” Fellow Patheos writer Elizabeth Scalia responds: Got that? The Dalai Lama says if a woman isn’t pretty, no one will pay attention to her. Her looks are her passport to credibility. And no one is screaming of fainting about it. This on her... Read more

U.S. Campaign for Burma calls on Obama to help the Rohingya

Last updated on: May 19, 2015 at 3:51 am By Justin Whitaker

Is Myanmar approaching genocide? This was the question, and in fact the headline haunting my google news feed for much of the month of May. A report from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum suggests that it very well might be (you can read the full report here). It has been over a year since I have written about the Rohingya people of Burma. But that is not because they have seen improving conditions. In fact, things have deteriorated dramatically for many there, living in... Read more

Bhikkhu Bodhi on mindfulness, ethics, responsibility and justice with angel Kyodo williams

Last updated on: May 16, 2015 at 12:30 am By Justin Whitaker

Mindfulness is the “pop-tune of the 21st Century.” So suggests Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi with a smile in an interview published today with Ven. angel Kyodo williams. He continues by praising mindfulness teaching insofar as it is helping people but he worries that mindfulness is perhaps being taught only to make workers more productive or soldiers better combatants. williams responds, suggesting that he means that a Buddhist ethical framework is missing and is really needed for mindfulness to reach its true... Read more

Buddhist mindfulness, morality, and Protestant presumptions

Last updated on: May 15, 2015 at 8:53 pm By Justin Whitaker

In case you’ve been living under a rock, mindfulness is all the rage these days. Since January I have filed away nearly every story on or popular mention of ‘mindfulness’ that crossed my path. At current, I’m at 43 links and I’m certain it’s just a drop in the bucket of what’s out there. I have a lawyer in Florida explaining “Mindfulness: What it is and how it helps” a Cosmopolitan article explaining (above a picture of Jennifer Aniston): Jo Usmar, Cosmo’s... Read more