What does the word religion mean? I often hear that Buddhism is not a religion, but many Buddhists disagree and say it depends on how religion is defined. Many dictionary definitions make religion out to be something connected to the belief in and worship of God or gods, which leaves Buddhism out. How else is religion defined? I direct you to an essay in the online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy on “The Concept of Religion.” It makes the point that... Read more
I recently moved, and this morning while unpacking a box of books I came across one I probably haven’t looked at for 50 years — The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran. When I was in college — 1969 to 1973 — this was one of the books everybody read, or claimed to have read, or at least carried around and cited occcasionally. The Prophet was first published a century ago in 1923, and I doubt that it has ever been out... Read more
Child labor is making a comeback in the U.S. Several states are passing laws to weaken protections for child labor so that younger children may be gainfully employed for hours every day. This is just one more “What century is this, again?” issue; they seem to be becoming more common. Violations of federal child labor laws are on the rise. Earlier this year the U.S. Department of Labor fined a meatpacking company $1.5 million after the agency found it had... Read more
Juneteenth — June 19 — is an official holiday now, commemorating the ending of slavery in the U.S. This is an accomplishment worthy of commemoration, of course. But I do wish that politicians and news media would get the history right. Every year we’re subjected to a mangled narrative of what happened on June 19. 1865, that doesn’t exactly match the facts. Compulsive history nerd that I am, I must explain what the narratives get wrong. On June 19, 1865,... Read more
The Temperance movement was one of the most long-lasting and influential religious/social activist movements in history. That’s right; the Temperance movement, which you may associate with prim old ladies breaking up saloons with axes. Temperance impacted U.S. politics for more than a century. It also was an international cause, or at least a trans-Atlantic one, with temperance organizations in Europe as well as North America. And although I speak of it in the past tense, it never completely went away.... Read more
The giant Buddhas of Bamiyan, central Afghanistan, were destroyed in March 2001 on orders of the leader of the Taliban. Now the Washington Post reports that the Taliban is selling tickets to view the Buddhas’ smashed remains. “Authorities have set up a ticket office at the foot of the larger of the two figures, where they charge Afghans 58 cents and foreigners $3.45 to visit,” correspondent Rick Noack writes. “Armed guards sit next to an ice cream vendor nearby. There... Read more
The first Buddhist same-sex wedding (that we know of) took place in about 1970 in San Francisco. That much is widely agreed on, even if the exact date of the event is uncertain. It’s also widely agreed that the wedding raised no controversy or objections from clergy. And this may have something to tell us about how religion, culture, and social convention tend to blend together. This first Buddhist same-sex wedding was conducted by the Rev. Koshin Ogui of the... Read more
Pat Robertson died today, June 8, in his home at the age of 93. He’s being lauded by his admirers as a man of God. He is also being denounced as an ignorant bigot who made Christianity look ridiculous. What was Pat Robertson’s legacy? It is a fact that in the late 1970s, 90 percent of Americans self-identified as Christian. According to the Pew Research Center, by 2020 that percentage had fallen to 64 percent. It’s projected that in a... Read more
A long overlooked document has shed a bit of new light on the life of Moses Ben Maimon, better known as Maimonides (c. 1138–1204), one of the most prominent rabbis of Jewish history. Maimonides was one of the great philosophers of the Medieval period. His work influenced many who came after, including Thomas Aquinas, Baruch Spinoza, and Isaac Newton. And his commentaries on Jewish Law are influential to this day. Maimonides also was a renowned astronomer and physician. For a... Read more
Tina Turner (1939-2023) was a force of nature, and her music touched countless people. She also was a Buddhist, a practitioner of a tradition called Nichiren, after its Japanese founder. Tributes to the late entertainer include this lovely piece from the Los Angeles Times by Jonah Valdez, “How Tina Turner’s Buddhist faith gave her the strength to leave Ike Turner.” I’d like to provide a bit of background into Tina Turner’s Buddhism. Buddhism, not unlike Christianity, is made up of... Read more
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