A New Idiom for a Pragmatic, Ethical Culture Based on the Teachings of Gotama Stephen teaches courses on Buddhism and leads meditation retreats all over the world. He is a guiding teacher at Gaia House and translator and author of various books and articles including the bestselling Buddhism Without Beliefs, Living with the Devil: A Meditation on Good and Evil, and Confession of a Buddhist Atheist. Stephen's new book, After Buddhism: Rethinking the Dharma for a Secular Age, will be available … [Read more...]
Seeing the Truth of Freedom
Sharda Rogell has been teaching retreats at IMS for more than ten years. After living in England for the last three years, she will soon be moving back to the US. People have come to the practice by many different paths. What brought you to meditation, Sharda? When I was about 27 I was going through a very difficult time in my life and was experiencing an extreme amount of dukkha [suffering]. I was living in North Carolina at the time and was at a point where I really didn't have any … [Read more...]
A Simple Turning in Place: Forty Years in the Dharma
At a program held at the study center in September 2008, Joseph Goldstein was asked to reflect upon his long experience with meditation and the Dharma. These words have been extracted from that presentation. My first real inquiry into any kind of spiritual dimension happened when I was a freshman in college. I became obsessed, as only a college freshman can, with the effort to figure out whether or not God existed. My mind was filled with it, day and night. It felt like my whole life depended … [Read more...]
Secular mindfulness: potential & pitfalls
This article is based on a presentation at last year's conference at BCBS on Secular Buddhism. Introduction Imagine for a moment that you are a health & fitness trainer—you work with people who go the gym regularly and work out daily, to support them in their efforts to cultivate a perfectly-toned body. Over the past few years you've noticed that many other people in society are beginning to do some exercise—they don't work out daily, but perhaps they attend a weekly yoga class or go … [Read more...]
The Evolving Sangha
Jay Michaelson holds a Ph.D from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a J.D. from Yale. He is currently a visiting scholar at Brown University, where he is an adviser to the Varieties of Meditative Experience project. Jay is affiliated with the Practical Dharma movement and the Contemplative Development Mapping Project, and has done a number of long-term vipassanā retreats in the United States and Nepal. He is the author of five books, most recently Evolving Dharma: Meditation, Buddhism and … [Read more...]
How is the Medium Changing the Message?
Although we think of technology as a new influence, in fact, markets, technologies, and the teachings of the Buddha have shaped each other in complex reverberations since earliest times. At the conference on secular Buddhism held at BCBS one year ago this month, Ken McLeod led the assembled scholar-teachers through an exercise to examine Western Buddhism through the lens of Marshall McLuhan's "four effects" from McLuhan's Laws of Media. Insight Journal asked McLeod to expand on these ideas about … [Read more...]
Silent Illumination
"Silent Illumination," or mozhao, is often associated with the Caodong (Jp. Soto) School of Chan (Jp. Zen), and specifically with master Hongzhi Zhengjue (1091-1157). Never before had anyone articulated this teaching so clearly. Hongzhi was prompted to write about Silent Illumination because it was so misunderstood and unfairly criticized. He wished to show that Silent Illumination was the realization of Chan, the awakening of one's true nature. In Buddhism, there may be different expressions … [Read more...]
True & False: Dharma After the Western Enlightenment
Insight Journal: How do Western Buddhists, in spite of our many modern views, take their forms too literally? Rita Gross: Since I often teach in a Mahāyāna setting, let me use an example from that tradition. According to Mahāyāna legend, the Buddha hid his Mahāyāna teachings in the realm of the nāgas, serpent-like creatures who dwell under the sea, because his students were not yet ready to receive them. Eventually these teachings were retrieved by the great 2nd-century master Nāgārjuna. This … [Read more...]
A Conversation with Bhikkhu Anālayo
This month we have an interview with Bhikkhu Anālayo, probably best known to students of Dhamma in the West for his 2004 book, Satipaṭṭhāna: The Direct Path to Realization, which has since become a touchstone modern interpretation of that key sutta. He paid an informal visit to Barre earlier this summer as part of larger trip to the U.S. (He lives & teaches in Germany.) Bhikkhu Anālayo graciously answered some questions for Insight Journal. His 2004 book, while very approachable for those … [Read more...]
What’s Left of the True Teaching
samaṇassa ahū cintā pupphitamhi mahāvane ekaggassa nisinnassa pavivittassa jhāyino: [Thag 920] This thought occurred to the wanderer Who was seated, single minded, Among the flowers of the forest, Meditating in seclusion: aññathā lokanāthamhi tiṭṭhante purisuttame iriyaṃ āsi bhikkūhnaṃ aññathā dāni dissate. [Thag 921] Compared to when that best of men, The guide of all the world, remained, The behavior of the bhikkhus Appears to be so different now! araññe … [Read more...]