Happy May Day, fellow workers. Since I already have had a very long day myself, mostly spent on buses to/from/in London, I’ll simply re-post, with minor modifications, a favorite blog from last year, one which I later found out was even re-posted at Disinfo.org. And just so you don’t think I’ve forgotten Buddhism completely in this post, please may I introduce (if you don’t know him already) Tenzin Tsundue (here is a 2013 HuffPo interview with Tsundue), and of course we cannot... Read more
Perhaps the greatest human rights tragedy of our time is unfolding now in Burma (Myanmar). A number of conferences have been convened over the last couple years to discuss various aspects of the violence there and today we are lucky enough to have global access to one of these conferences, held at the London School of Economics. While academic writers such as myself, Danny Fisher, Paul Fuller and others have consistently written about events in Burma and discussions around them,... Read more
I have slipped a bit further behind this week, I’m afraid, and with some upcoming writing and travel commitments upon me the slide will likely continue. In week four Prof. Wright covered a fair amount of ground in psychology, discussing modular theories of the mind. The modular theory is based on questions about how we make decisions, how variations in our environment might change those decisions, and how we (in both 1st and 3rd person) understand that decision making process.... Read more
Coming just off the heals of the 20th anniversary of the beginning of the Rwandan genocide, we are called ever more clearly to understand conflicts in the world that might lead to such horrors. What is happening in Burma today eerily reflects the ethnic divides and hateful rhetoric that precipitated the murder of over 800,000 Rwandans (primarily ethnic Tutsis) in 1994. In addition to attacks in recent years, this January, mobs of (ethnic Rakhine) Buddhists massacred Rohingya Muslims in the western... Read more
Earlier this month, Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche gave a one-day seminar on the topic of Universal Responsibility to students at Harvard Divinity School. From the video page: In this one night seminar given to students at Harvard University’s School of Divinity, Kongtrul Rinpoche explains that not all learning is academic. In fact, the best kind of education shapes our hearts just as much as our minds. Self-reflecting upon experience and coming to see that all beings share the same internal life —... Read more
I’m a bit later than usual posting on week 3 (week 4 lectures have just been posted). Such is life. Part of the reason is that the topic this week was “not-self”(anātman in Sanskrit, anattā in Pāli) in Buddhism and in Modern Psychology, which I am not terribly interested in writing more about at this time. I’ve written extensively about the topic here, here (on metaphysics),here (comparing with Sartre), and here; along with guest posts at Danny Fisher’s blog and (around the topic of purification)... Read more
This recently posted video gives a rare and direct look inside the Tibetan community in exile as their thoughts and lives ebb and flow between India and their homeland. Further reading: The Future of Tibet, a re-post in honor of Tibetan Uprising Day (March 2014) Spanish court rules for Tibetan victims of Chinese genocide (November 2013) Read more
I found this today and thought it was interesting. Nothing too profound. Nothing too new. But interesting as another aspect of Buddhist thought trickling into Western culture. According to Entertainment Weekly, “He is perhaps the greatest character actor alive… A short list of the directors he’s worked with includes Alfred Hitchcock, Sam Peckinpah, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, John Carpenter, John Huston, Ridley Scott, David Lynch, and Terry Gilliam. He played a romantic leading man just once, to stoic, heartbreaking effect,... Read more
Editor’s note: It is a great honour to introduce this essay by Dharmavidya, Dr. David Brazier. As regular readers will know, I am interested in the question of concepts and how they are used in our study of things (or processes?) like Buddhism. When we call Buddhism a “philosophy”, what does that mean? Well, what do we mean by “philosophy” and what do we mean by “Buddhism”? I explored the question last fall in Buddhism: religion or philosophy? and returned to... Read more
Ben Haggerty, known by his stage name Macklemore and formerly Professor Macklemore, has announced that he will live out his remaining years as a Thai Theravadin monk. Since 2000, the well known lyrical gangsta has independently released three EPs, two albums, introduced a successful line of designer fur tracksuits, and significantly collaborated with producer and friend Ryan Lewis. Last year he became engaged to long-time girlfriend, Tricia Davis. All of that is behind him now, as he announced from Bangkok... Read more
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