Battering upon the gummy silence I no longer feel any lever against this world. The deaths are too many, The births are too many, The headlines chronicle too many hatreds and wars. I have grown grey as much from the searing of ineffectuality as from individual decay. All I have left is a pencil, a voice, and a holy fire To reassert that beaches and rivers remain baptismal and beautiful, That youth remain fervent and devoted, That joy remains the only great liberator. I will strike … [Read more...]
Paul Fleischman
The Buddha Taught Nonviolence, Not Pacifism
Paul Fleischman is a psychiatrist and a Teacher of vipassanā meditation in the tradition of S.N. Goenka. He is the author, among other works, of Cultivating Inner Peace and Karma and Chaos. In the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, I have found myself musing about nonviolence, its contributions, its limits, and its place in the Buddha’s teaching. I have also been surprised to hear many of my acquaintances confuse the Buddha’s teaching of nonviolence with pacifism … [Read more...]
The Buddha Did Not Teach Buddhism
This presentation was made at the BCBS Forum “Buddhist Responses to Violence, ” on September 11th, 2005. The verbal component of the Buddha’s teaching is preserved in an ancient Indian vernacular known as Pali, which was the colloquial, street Sanskrit of the era around 600 BCE. Although particular components of the Pali texts can be questionable as to whether they truly represent the teaching of the Buddha, the Pali Canon as a whole presents a unique implosion into the human condition of a … [Read more...]
