Category: Buddhism

Born to Be Good

…we are all born with the loving kindness (compassion) and wisdom of the Buddha, but we don’t know it

Evil

During a four-day Thanksgiving Weekend retreat at the Bhavana Society a dozen years ago, I was listening to the society’s founder and abbot, Bhante Henepola Gunaratana, give a dharma talk. A Sri Lankan monk from the age of 12, Bhante G came to the United States in 1968, when he was 40. He earned a bachelor’s, a…

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Acceptance

My own experience tells me that, with a few very rare exceptions, we are born with the intention to do good in the world…

Noise

With all due respect for the wisdom of the monastics, I wonder why they seek such total silence for meditation.

Spooky Stuff

It’s comforting and predictable to believe in spooky stuff after the death of a loved one, but that doesn’t mean the spooky stuff didn’t happen and didn’t mean what it seemed to mean.

The Sabbath

…experiencing the world as it is can be emotionally draining work. As poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti said many years ago, “even in heaven they don’t sing all the time.”

The Fifth Precept

…more than half of all adults have a family history of alcoholism. Do we really want to nurture our children with a family tradition of wine with every dinner?

American Capitalism Ain’t All Bad

Buddhism teaches that there is no this without that. There’s a bright side to American capitalism that might not exist without the dark side.