As those of you who read this blog know, I’m a strong supporter of Tibetan independence from China. Real autonomy, as advocated by H.H. the Dalai Lama, would be a welcome step, but in truth, the people of Tibet deserve the return of the country that was violently stolen from them just 60 years ago (between 1951 and 1959). The realities on the ground are incredibly complicated, as roughly 1/6 of the population of Tibetans has been wiped out under... Read more
Watch The Life of Dorothy Day on PBS. See more from Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly. If you don’t already subscribe to PBS’s Religion and Ethics News Weekly, I highly recommend that you do. This story alone is worth it. It focuses on the life of Dorothy Day, a devout Catholic, a socialist, an anarchist, and, perhaps very soon, a Saint. Dorothy Day has always loomed large in the back of my mind. Growing up Catholic, to two very liberal parents... Read more
One of the most astonishing facts of the 21st century is the unprecedented rise in cosmopolitanism. Like never before in human history, each and every one of us is connected, or potentially connected, to literally billions of other people around the planet. We can even get news updates from people living beyond our planet. It’s very true that poverty, lack of access to health, education, and technology are still major issues for humanity. Violence is still abundant, and with the rise in... Read more
Breaking News from The Buddhas of Aynak (via facebook): I have some unfortunate news – archaeologists only have SIX MONTHS from now to perform rescue archaeology at Mes Aynak. So they do NOT have until 2014. They have until June 2013. I feel that now is the time to submit all signatures for our two official petitions to show the significant international support for saving Mes Aynak. As I wrote 3 months ago: The site, in the rugged and arid mountains... Read more
It’s not that often that I post about practice these days. But last night, unable to sleep for a variety of reasons (green tea, cola, and a very dramatic film included), I spent some time browsing Access to Insight (because that’s what people do when they have free time, right?). So I checked the simile section, which is fantastic – you all should go there now. The first simile (in alphabetical order) is acrobats. Not too interesting. Then the “ancient... Read more
Professor Bob Thurman today released a statement on the issue of recent self-immolations by Tibetans in protest of the Chinese occupation. He does a great job of weaving through the ethical issues involved from the Tibetan Buddhist point of view, including suggesting that the overriding motivation must be compassion and never hatred for one’s enemies. Update: as immolations continue, newspapers across the world report on them. Here is the latest, from ABC News. Read more
One of my new year’s resolutions this year was to focus more clearly and fully on my phd work, including here at this blog. 26 days in, and I’m ready to start (procrastination is okay). Where were we? Oh yes, Buddhist Ethics. To put it succinctly, I’m re-evaluating Buddhist ethics and comparing it to Kantian ethics. This is difficult because Buddhist ethics is very difficult to pin down: do we mean sila? Vinaya? Everything suggested as kusala? To simplify things I just work on the... Read more
When many Western practitioners speak of learning Tibetan, they don’t often realize that the Tibetan language is actually composed of a number of dialects and could even include different languages – some being Mongolic languages, Wutun (spoken by only an estimated 2000 people in the world today), Naxi, Minyak and Gyarong (no wiki), and Chinese dialects influenced heavily by local languages. The three main dialects are the Amdo, Kham, and U-Tsang dialects, representing the three main political-economic areas of Tibet. Smaller areas, however, may... Read more
These are a few of the topics, essays, and projects you should know about this week. First, the Two Buddhisms story. I’ve written about this quite a bit and consider Charles Prebish, the man who coined the term, to be a good friend. Today he passed me the link to a new blog post by Suwanda H J Sugunasiri, a Sri Lankan scholar in Canada, who discusses the use of these and other categories. Give it a read. Let me know... Read more
Below are the youtube recordings of this year’s Mind and Life conference, “Mind, Brain and Matter – Critical Conversations Between Buddhist Thought and Science.” You can watch them individually or download them (as video or mp3) at their website. The description from there reads: Twenty of the world’s foremost scientists and philosophers with His Holiness the Dalai Lama and other senior Tibetan scholars will address topics over the course of the week that include the historical sweep of science and... Read more
American Buddhist Perspectives
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