In the first week of December last year the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies held a five-day residential course on Buddhist Psychology. The intention of the course was to introduce students to the classical models of mind and mental processing contained in the primary texts of the Pali Canon and other Buddhist texts, and then to review this material from the contemporary perspectives of modern psychology. The program was co-sponsored by the Cambridge Institute of Meditation and … [Read more...]
Various
The Pilgrims’ Experience
This story combines recollections from several people on the 2010 BCBS pilgrimage. Contributing were Helen Rosen, Steve McKay, Jim Dailey, Justin Kelley, Victor Bradford, Jeane van Gemert, Mu Soeng, Indira Maini, Edith Haenel, Kristy Arbon, Catherine Brousseau, Emily Carpenter, Amita Chopra and Jaylene Summers. In February 2010, twenty BCBS pilgrims set out to see Siddhartha’s stomping grounds, to walk and sit where he did 2,500 years ago. We found them in twenty-first century India, an … [Read more...]
A Discussion Among Psychologists
This material comes from a weekend program offered at BCBS in January that was specially intended for psychotherapists. The program consisted of continuous, silent practice of insight meditation, from Friday evening to Sunday morning, and then concluded with an open discussion. The program was meant as a gathering of peers and was led by Trudy Goodman and Chris Germer, both members of the Institute for Meditation and Psychotherapy. There are a number of different … [Read more...]
Theravada in the West
The multifaceted challenges of contemporary Buddhism were explored during an historic weekend conference—to our knowledge, the first of its kind—held last June at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies. Twelve leading teachers of Theravada Buddhism, equally representing the lay and monastic traditions, addressed cutting-edge issues arising from the relatively recent introduction of Theravada Buddhism to the West. Throughout its long history, Theravada Buddhism has existed in a protected … [Read more...]
