Bhakti is the practice I use to turn ’emptiness’ into compassion. When you realize everything is empty, then you realize that everything is buddhanature. In Hindu or theist terms, buddhanature is divine. However, buddhanature is never separate from so-called relative reality, because as relative phenomena arises, emptiness or buddhanature arises with it. Buddhanature, or divinity, is intrinsic… Read More Bhakti and Buddhanature
Last night I listened to the CBC broadcast of Payam Akhavan’s speech on his work as a war crimes investigator for the UN, and as a jurist at the Int’l Court of Human Rights at the Hague. Akhavan is a B’hai, and he is now on my list of spiritual teachers that I hold on… Read More Payam Akhavan: B’Hai Human Rights Jurist on Empathy, Interdependence
I learn from teachers. I refuse to follow gurus. Modern history is replete with accounts of gurus and spiritual communities that are rife with sexual abuse; drug and alcohol abuse; extreme coercion for financial support; deference to “advanced practitioners”; and devaluation of the devotee so that they become emotionally dependent on the community and the guru. … Read More Teachers, Not Gurus
I spent the weekend learning about B.R. Ambedkar. What a brilliant man and powerful advocate for social justice for the Untouchables of India, for women, for labour, and the “depressed classes” the world over. I read his treatise “The Annihilation of Caste” [which I downloaded from Verso Books for less than $3], with commentary by Arundhati… Read More Dalit Buddhist Revolution: Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, We Salute You
“A migrant worker from Dublin, Dhammaloka was an autodidact, atheist and temperance campaigner who became known throughout colonial Asia as an implacable critic of Christian missionaries and a tireless transnational organizer of Asian Buddhists from Burma to Japan and from Singapore to Siam.” THE DHARMA BUM: The Untold Story of U Dhammaloka – The… Read More The Original Dharma Bum: Irishman U Dhammaloka
The following article by David Patt is a brilliant and hard-hitting analysis of Buddhism under global capitalism. From the Buddhist point of view, even to sustain the modest goal of happiness in this world, the way of life of consumer capitalism is a self-defeating path. Consuming objects to fulfill desire can never bring lasting happiness.… Read More Global Market Buddhism: When the Commodity We Consume is Buddhism Itself
