After reading much Buddhist text, I realize that what Buddhism teaches is to deconstruct the power of projection. “Our worlds” are a projection of our minds; tantric connection with a “deity” is a projection that we both create and destroy. Much of our klesha suffering is the result of our projections onto others and the… Read More Towards a Buddhist Sociology: The Power of Collective Projections
Sitting on #ShutItDown and Solidarity with Ferguson by Cristina Moon I’m sitting in my home in Oakland, California, meditating as police helicopters fly overhead. I am not at the protests demanding justice for Mike Brown, even though I live only a few minutes from where they are taking place. I am sitting because I want badly to… Read More Sitting on #ShutItDown and Solidarity with Ferguson
Tricycle promo: Now playing: Sandcastles: Buddhism and Global Finance (November 17–30) “Does Western Buddhism encourage its adherents to serenely ignore their participation in the capitalist machine? So says prominent Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek, whose pointed critique was inspired by this documentary. Featuring commentary from speakers as diverse as Tibetan Buddhist teacher Dzongzar Khyentse Rinpoche and economist Arnoud Boot, Sandcastles breaks open the… Read More Sandcastles: Buddhism and Global Finance
Let’s look to one of the saints of the 20th Century — Mahatma Gandhi. On October 22, 1925, Gandhi published a list he called the Seven Social Sins in his weekly newspaper Young India. Wealth without work. Pleasure without conscience. Knowledge without character. Commerce without morality. Science without humanity. Worship without sacrifice. Politics without principles.… Read More Gandhi’s Seven Social Sins
Tanzania accused of backtracking over sale of Masai’s ancestral land Masai told to leave historic homeland by end of the year so it can become a hunting reserve for the Dubai royal family. David Smith, Africa correspondent The Guardian, Sunday 16 November 2014 18.48 GMT The Tanzanian government has been accused of going back on a… Read More Dubai Royals to Rob Masai of Ancestral Homelands
Her last words were: “Remember me as a revolutionary communist.” By hir wife, Minnie Bruce Pratt. Leslie Feinberg, who identified as an anti-racist white, working-class, secular Jewish, transgender, lesbian, female, revolutionary communist, died on November 15. She succumbed to complications from multiple tick-borne co-infections, including Lyme disease, babeisiosis, and protomyxzoa rheumatica, after decades of illness.… Read More Remembering Leslie Feinberg, Revolutionary Communist
Tricycle: How do you account for Buddhist monasticism, at least as you experienced it, as having evolved in such a uninspiring way? Sangharakshita: Initially, the Buddha’s teachings had to be preserved through memorization and oral repetition. That was more easily accomplished by full-timers. So the monks inevitably gained a sort of monopoly. The original Buddhism was a… Read More Sangharakshita: Anti-establishment Buddhism
