A second major earthquake, measuring 7.3 on the Richter scale, has struck Nepal. This one hit roughly 50 miles west of Kathmandu, halfway between there and Mt Everest, just south of the border with Tibet. Chinese news agencies have reported one death in Tibet, adding to the 26 killed in last month’s 7.8 magnitude quake. CNN reports that at least 66 people have died in Nepal as a result of today’s quake. Additionally, an American helicopter has been reported missing after... Read more
Throughout the day I’ve seen messages of gratitude, comfort, and joy, as well as discontent, despair, and derision. All over a holiday dedicated to mothers. Granted, these feelings all come from authentic experiences and true hearts. Yet the effort to expand our celebration of motherhood seems to me far wiser than either blindly praising an exclusive ‘in-crowd’ of nuclear families, an ideal of a bygone era, or turning one’s back on it all. Today at the Unitarian Universalist fellowship I attend, a poem*... Read more
The situation in Nepal is still desperate. Aid and relief efforts have reached Kathmandu, though more is still needed there and many isolated villages still have seen no supplies or medical help. The Government is ill-prepared for such a disaster and is known for corruption. And while the first reaction of many is to turn to international NGOs, specifically those with disaster training and expertise (see the recent post on 5 ways to help victims of the Nepal earthquake; which has now been... Read more
Today the Supreme Court heard arguments about gay marriage, and so, in a timely update on the climate of same-sex marriage acceptance across religions, the Public Religion Research Institute posted an article last week creatively titled Attitudes on Same-sex Marriage by Religious Affiliation and Denominational Family. The outcome of the study was that, “The most supportive major religious groups are Buddhists (84 percent), Jews (77 percent), and Americans who select “Other religion” (75 percent); additionally, more than three-quarters (77 percent) of the religiously unaffiliated... Read more
Devastation continues in Nepal where the death toll from Saturday’s quake is now over 4000. That number is expected to rise as aftershocks rock already damaged buildings (a friend in Kathmandu reported another one less than an hour ago as of 11 a.m. MST) and information comes in from the many remote villages affected by the quake. “Some of the initial surveys that we’re hearing of from the zones closer to the epicenter talk about total or near total destruction,” said... Read more
(UPDATED, Sunday, April 26, 10 a.m. MST): For extensive coverage of the updates from Buddhist leaders and monasteries in the area, see the Lion’s Roar article here. The death toll now stands at over 2400 as aftershocks hit throughout the country and will surely climb as ever more remote areas are surveyed. Continued offerings of prayers, meditations, transferences of merit, etc are still no doubt deeply welcomed. Some commenters have asked for a more “Buddhist” organization to donate to, for... Read more
In 1.5 of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle observes that there are three types of life thought to be happy: the life of enjoyment, the political life, and the life of contemplation. The life of enjoyment is a hedonistic life focused on conventional pleasures. The political life is the life of a states- person. It may aim at despotic power, or be lived for the sake of winning public honors, but in its most proper form its aim is the exercise of moral virtue and political and... Read more
This week The Guardian published a selection of short essays titled, “I watch therefore I am: seven movies that teach us key philosophy lessons.” The newspaper deserves great praise for bringing together a wonderful variety of philosophers to draw our attention to the moral and epistemological issues in films. Greats like Julian Baggini, who I had the fortune of seeing with Owen Flanagan and Tim Lott last spring (video), Christine Korsgaard, an exemplary Kant scholar and philosopher in her own right (who... Read more
In major cities across the country today activists rose up (and sat) to protest our countries unfair minimum wages. In L.A. 1000+ protesters chanted “We want 15” or “Sí se puede” as they followed a marching band around a McDonalds. Hundreds more gathered in Berkeley (photos) and across the Bay Area: These were part of a nation-wide “Fight for 15” campaign seeking higher minimum wages as well as rights to unionize. As the Washington Post states, “Their success would increase family incomes... Read more
While mindfulness and meditation have taken off in the popular media in the last couple of years, it has been a while since I’ve seen a celebrity openly acknowledging a conversion to Buddhism. But this week in a CNN article, ABC anchorman Dan Harris does just that, writing: If you had told me as recently as a few years ago that I’d ever become a Buddhist — never mind that I might even admit to it publicly — I would... Read more
American Buddhist Perspectives
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