Rethinking the Dharma / Reimagining Community #48 September 2023
Welcome to our September 2023 newsletter. This month we highlight new articles by Pedro Bellora, Tom Cummings, and Linda Modaro/Nelly Kaufer. In addition, we introduce a new tool to facilitate the formation of local sanghas and highlight a workshop on secular Buddhism and socially engaged Buddhism..
For those who are curious about or interested in secular Buddhism and want to learn about this relatively new trend within Buddhism, this article will provide a helpful starting point for exploring a secular approach to the dharma.
The core concept of secular Buddhism: the four tasks
The core teachings and insights of Gotama are not ‘truths’ to be believed but a ‘fourfold’ task to help us live our lives in a mindful and compassionate way.
Mike Slott offers a ‘map’ of contemporary Buddhism to represent the multiplicity of approaches available to practitioners. The map can used by practitioners to understand how their own interests, values, and attitudes connect with the dharma.
Secular Buddhists can and do practice meditation in a variety of ways, but there is no secular Buddhist meditation practice per se. Instead, secular Buddhists bring a secular outlook and orientation to existing forms of meditation practice.
Three marks of existence, or three factors of human experience?
Mike Slott contends that, from secular Buddhist perspective, it is more appropriate to view impermancence, not-self, and dukkha as aspects of our experience rather than ontological characteristics of reality.