There is no Pure Buddhism

Last updated on: December 1, 2011 at 6:38 pm By Justin Whitaker

Several topics have been bouncing around my head lately all somewhat revolving around the above idea: there is no pure Buddhism. All Buddhism is syncretic (borrows from multiple traditions sources). The Buddha himself was syncretic, the Abhidhammists/Abhidharmists were syncretic (see Noa Ronkin’s recent great work, Early Buddhist Metaphysics), early Mahayana, as far as we can tell, was syncretic, and so on and so forth. So when scholars or others point at Tantric Buddhism and say, “that’s not Buddhism, but a... Read more

Review of The Buddha Walks into a Bar

Last updated on: November 30, 2011 at 6:42 pm By Justin Whitaker

As an introduction to Buddhist practice “for a new generation,” Lodro Rinzler’s first venture into the world of writing is well done. The Buddha Walks into a Bar is broken into four parts, each progressing a little further, from “how to get your act together” to eventually “relaxing into magic.” Rinzler does a good job of weaving ancient wisdom with the kinds of situations many young people will find themselves in today: from relationship break-ups to experimenting with alcohol. His... Read more

Thanksgiving, American Buddhist (in England) Style

Last updated on: November 29, 2011 at 8:21 pm By Justin Whitaker

I’ve been away for a while. And in a sense that feels very good. It feels good to get away from the computer, from the constant onslaught of news, status updates, tweets, and emails. Mostly, I have been catching up on real-life projects, spending time with real-life people, and even reading physical books. I was fortunate enough to have a very wonderful visitor and travel companion for a little journey taking us to London, Liverpool, Cork, and Dublin. Thanksgiving was... Read more

Buddhist Modernism

Last updated on: April 11, 2014 at 9:23 pm By Justin Whitaker

I finally read David McMahan’s book, The Making of Buddhist Modernism, over this last week or so. I have pretty mixed feelings about the book, and the few scholars I’ve discussed the book with have largely concurred. On the one hand it is a “must read” because of its sweeping scope and rhetorical force. It really has many more positive things I could say about it than negative. On the other hand, it shouldn’t be taken as gospel – at... Read more

Tantric sex and kissing nuns (Video)

Last updated on: February 7, 2012 at 11:43 am By Justin Whitaker

Warning: potentially disturbing images and manipulation to follow. I’m just back from a mini-conference held here in Bristol, and I can only say “my mind was blown.” Yes, this is going to be an academic post. Though all of the talks were stimulating, the ‘keynote’ of sorts was on the topic of the use of religious imagery in corporate advertising by Katie Edwards. While her paper focused on Christian imagery, principally Catholic because that seems to have drawn the most... Read more

What is Buddhism?

Last updated on: May 28, 2014 at 6:47 pm By Justin Whitaker

A friend and colleague in academia, David Webster, recently posted an interesting article on teaching Buddhism to college students. It’s called, What Buddhism is Not: Presenting Buddhism to Students in the Twentyfirst Century, and it’s short and readable and very much worth a look. He writes of doing a simple web search comparing Buddhism and Islam: I also ran, recently, a google-news search on UK media mentions on Buddhism—which resulted in stories about meditation, music, more meditation (mindfulness, mostly), spirituality, and... Read more

Race in American Buddhism

Last updated on: November 14, 2011 at 11:37 am By Justin Whitaker

This week Sam Mowe over at Tricycle interviewed Zenju Earthlyn Manuel, who I recognized from her days at the Buddhist Peace Fellowship. It is an interview that everyone should read, perhaps twice. Reading about her moves from the Church of Christ to Soka Gakai, and finally Zen, a great sense of spiritual tolerance and openness comes through. She doesn’t say “I realized that the Church of Christ was wrong and then that Soka Gaka was wrong…” But instead that both... Read more

Learning Hindi (Humor)

Last updated on: November 10, 2011 at 2:30 am By Justin Whitaker

For the last year and a half I have been ‘studying’ Hindi. I haven’t really gotten very far -too many other projects- but now that I live with a handful of Hindi speakers, I figured I’d give it another go. Part of my studies involves daily email lessons. Here is a bit of today’s lesson entitled: USEFUL SENTENCES: यह मरुस्थल ( desert ) वीरान (desolate ) है | ( Yah marusthal veeraan hai. ) It is a desolate desert. Yep,... Read more

China and Running

Last updated on: November 9, 2011 at 10:01 am By Justin Whitaker

An odd pair of things seem to be on my mind (and floating around the internet) today: China and running. Perhaps not so odd. When I spent 3 weeks in China a couple years back, I was training for my first marathon, so a lot of my fond memories of the country are connected with running. (Click on the map here for a virtual tour of the trip.) So… China. Despite that trip and subsequent travels and reading, I still... Read more

Be good, Be happy

Last updated on: November 8, 2011 at 1:25 pm By Justin Whitaker

A common interpretation of karma is that “what goes around, comes around.” Or, in other words, your actions now will form the world you inhabit in the future. Logically, then, the world you inhabit now is a product (or at least influenced by) your past actions. Understanding just how we can think of this concept today was a major issue in the recent Contemporary Buddhist Ethics conference. There seem to be two extremes in how we can understand karma today:... Read more