The Claremont Journal of Religion has been launched and has a call for papers for its first issue, due out in early 2012. This “is a student led, peer-reviewed, online journal that focuses on the ways “religion” can be understood in the contemporary world.” I’ve joined as a referee and look forward to seeing what develops over the coming months. Have a look, submit a paper and encourage friends to do likewise! In other news, a big thanks to all... Read more
Last week I was interviewed by Emma Varvaloucas at tricycle.com and I’m happy to say that yesterday the result was posted online. Have a look. Some of it had to be cut to keep it at a reasonable length, which I can certainly appreciate. One question that was omitted asked what 5 books I thought any Buddhist scholar or practitioner should read. My answers are here, but please comment if you have a suggestion of your own: what one book... Read more
I’ve become a proper homebody lately, trying to wrap my head around Kant and Early Buddhism without causing myself any permanent injuries. So I don’t have a lot of photos from around here to post. But I have thousands still from India, Burma, and Korea to sort through. Here are just a couple of those from Korea (February 2011). Good coffee, computer (probably working on a blog post), and an excellent book, Sid Brown’s The Journey of One Buddhist Nun.... Read more
Words have meaning and names have power. ~Author Unknown Something that has been coming up a lot for me, in blogs, chats with friends, and so on, is the discussion over classifying Buddhism(s) and Buddhists into various categories. My friend Rev. Danny Fisher has a new podcast – which is simply awesome btw, do check it out – which discusses the book Buddhist Religions: A Historical Introduction. One of the ‘methodological issues’ discussed early on is that ‘s’ on Buddhist Religions.... Read more
A right-winged Christian killing spree in Norway. Amy Winehouse dies. And I finished off two, count them, two, jars of Sainsbury’s Basics Crunchy Peanut Butter. Yea, it’s been a tough one. In better news, this guy may be the heroic answer to much recent discussion on the digital sharing/stealing of books, a stunning new project to create a global public library: Like Google Books, it would have as its goal the eventual digitization of human culture, preserving the works of... Read more
Richard Gombrich is one of the heaviest hitters in contemporary Buddhist Studies. Read the wiki page on him. I need not say more. Well, two (or three) more quick things. First, I have and am continuing to utilized Gombrich’s work on metta (loving-kindness) and the brahma-viharas (Divine abodes) for my own studies on Buddhist ethics. Some of that was presented at an AAR conference in Montreal in 2009 and might be published soon, and some will no doubt filter into my... Read more
Caption Contest? In the spirit of The Onion… Leeds University in England has confirmed, scientifically, the impending downfall of the West. With the use of a treadmill, medieval body armour, scuba gear and unknown quantities of alcohol, a team of researchers has just how ridiculous education funding has become in England (as well as the weakness of the contemporary Englishman). “We had to cut an entire department to buy all this armour,” reported head researcher Nigel Failum, “But it was Classics, so I doubt... Read more
Subtitled “Memoirs of a Modern Dharma Pioneer,” Charles Prebish’s latest book is a tour de force of American Buddhist studies. While I give it 5 of 5 stars, it won’t be a book for everyone. As memoirs go, it is excellent: comprehensive, revealing, honest, and straightforward. But unless you’re in one of the relatively small fields of American Buddhist Studies or Buddhist Ethics, Charles Prebish might be little more than a curiosity to you. But, if you’re like me, and... Read more
How many are there? A new AFP article discusses a recent Trinity College* study which suggests the amazingly, surprisingly low number of 1.19 million as of 2008. The study is cited relating to a recent Pew study in which less than half of the respondents could identify the religion of H.H. the Dalai Lama. Arun of the Angry Asian Buddhist has a good post on why we might be better off ignoring Pew studies. Right now there seems to be no accurate... Read more
Yesterday over lunch with a dear old friend, Achintya (a member of the Triratna Buddhist Community), amongst our many conversation topics was social media. To be sure, this is an exciting an often confusing aspect of our lives today. Buddhists sometimes worry that sites like facebook are nothing more than a feeding tube of ignorance, greed/addiction, and aversion. Twitter (I’m on here) can seem even worse, as saying something meaningful in 140 characters seems a bit absurd. And this trending... Read more
American Buddhist Perspectives
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