POSTS:
All Posts
Engaged Buddhists need radical social theory
We need both the Buddha's insights on the human condition and a non-deterministic, humanistic Marxism to create a 'culture of awakening' and just society in which all human beings have the opportunity to flourish. As each perspective has strengths and weaknesses, we need to bring these perspectives together in a complementary, mutually enriching way.
My journey to secular Buddhism and the creation of the Exeter Meditation Circle
After many years of Soto Zen practice, John Danvers created a home for secular Buddhists by establishing the Exeter Meditation Circle in England in October 2016. The meetings of the group are simple and non-ritualistic, non-dogmatic and free of attachment to any particular teacher or tradition. Together, the group members are developing a secular Buddhist way of life that is of our time and place.
Buddhism and Hellenistic philosophies: secular wisdoms on the Silk Road
Counter to the stereotype that sees East and West as two distant worlds, with entirely different cultures and value systems, the Buddha and the ancient Greeks spoke a very similar language and provided us with wise insights that we can rediscover today for our secular practice.
How to stop confrontations in 2020
I’m not questioning the wonders of critical thinking, but the reactivity and lack of awareness with which we engage in mental and communicative patterns. We listen to find fault, we exaggerate the positions of others, and we look for that one example which does not work so we can disagree or invalidate. What if discussions were not about arguing, refuting and convincing?
Swimming against the stream
Our challenge is to remain lucid, aware, and present. This is Gotama’s injunction and one of his main teachings. To understand this reality means, in traditional Buddhist terms, to understand the middle way, emptiness and not-self. It means entering the stream of the river of life to go against the current.
Pine Street Sangha is 8 years old
Pine Street Sangha is now 8 years old. Located in Portland, Oregon, USA, the sangha is a community of dharma friends and teachers offering a reflective meditation approach based on early Buddhist teaching in support of spiritual development and healing.
Review of Rhonda V. Magee’s ‘The Inner Work of Racial Justice’
This book skillfully weaves together personal stories of Magee and other workshop participants, meditative and reflective practices which help us develop mindfulness and compassion in the context of confronting racism, and an account of how racism affects all of us – people of color as well as those who our society labels as ‘white.’
Touching the earth: exploring a new, secular self-help mindfulness group approach
Touching the Earth groups aspire to treat participants as equals, where no one is paid to lead or facilitate, and each participant takes responsibility for cultivating their own path and for supporting others in cultivating theirs. The basic format involves meditation, journaling one’s meditation experience, and then exploring the meditation in triads.
Meditating in a secular world
Meditative practice enables us to develop a more present, lucid and conscious connection with what surrounds us, in the precise moment and place where we find ourselves. Meditative practice does not take us beyond that present moment in its totality. If anything, it leads us deeper, to union with it.
Interview with Dave Smith on teaching meditation and the Secular Dharma Foundation
Dave Smith is an internationally recognized Buddhist meditation teacher, addiction treatment specialist, and published author. We recently interviewed Dave about his approach to being a meditation teacher and his Secular Dharma Foundation.
An unconventional glossary of Buddhist qualities, translated from meditative experience and Pali
This unconventional glossary provides us with grounded, experienced-based definitions of qualities, attitudes, skills, and concepts which are relevant to all meditators.
Defining secular Buddhism: beware of certain traps
Secular Buddhism doesn’t need to be understood as a new ‘Buddhism’ but more as a different approach to practice. This approach starts from our perspective as modern people, and thanks to this lens, revises the meaning of the teachings of an ancient tradition so that they can speak to human beings today.
New horizons for emerging sanghas: community groups and lay women dharma teachers
In a talk given to the June 2019 Sakyadita Australia conference Anna Markey discusses how there is an emergence of many small community-based clusters of intimate dharma groups in Australia, either leaderless or led by lay teachers. And many of these teachers are women.
What next? two years of path in the Secular Dharma with Bodhi College
Stefano Bettera offers his reflections on the two year course on the Secular Dharma at Bodhi College and what the next steps are for the course participants. He asserts that it is the 'creative, adaptable, non-dogmatic and unorthodox characteristic of the secular Dharma that is an opportunity' for contributing to a culture in which awareness and compassion are predominant.
Ongoing meetings of secular Buddhist groups and sanghas
Workshops, retreats, meetings and other events of interest to secular Buddhists, and the curious
EXPLORE BY SECTION
SEARCH THE SITE
RECENT POSTS
