Secular meditations

Does your boner die when someone mentions “religious devotion”? Mine sure doesn’t. But still, that doesn’t give secularists an excuse. Try these mantras to ease stress and tap into the mind’s power to purify itself. They can also help you identify covered resentments of the immediate past that can hinder you from having a fully [...]

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Visualizing oneself as a “river”

A very simple analogy for how a Buddhist sees the human composition can be a river. What we grasp at and cling to futilely (our anger, greed, delusions) have a watery nature, a fluidity that is in fact quite liberating because we know that like the current of a river it is always moving, coming [...]

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Know your Buddha

As Buddhologists, we must distinguish between the Theravadin conception of the Buddha from the Mahayana conception as well as from the Vajrayana conception. My allegiance is to the second of the three, the Buddha of the Mahayana. Allow me to introduce Him to you.
Any word ending with “-theistic” is technically an inaccurate word to describe [...]

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More outlines of Mahayana Buddhism

1. Incorporates core monasticism, but reaches out impartially to lay society to transform society and social ethics through karuna (compassion) and prajna (wisdom)
2. Buddha-nature: The doctrine that all sentient beings have the potential for Buddhahood. Through practice all beings can gradually uncover this Buddha-nature within themselves.
3. Central theme of the previously obscure Bodhisattva, hero/heroine who [...]

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My idol

A real teacher! Link here.
By the looks of it I’m not sure if he has officially taken refuge and accepted the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha as his teachers, but although I myself have done so, as far as I’m concerned, he’s doing more than many in enlightening others about the Buddha’s work. I also plan [...]

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Wrap-up of current events

Every week the American conservative smear campaign intensifies. The bogus spam slander that piles on is astounding and speaks of a disturbing social and spiritual malaise within the entirety of American society. So Obama is a fundamentalist Muslim who is gay and dealt with drugs, and his election will prompt white Americans to “take back [...]

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Japan sucks and you think Japanese people suck. Alright, we get it.

Usually the only news website I read is the Buddhist Channel. Unfortunately, no media outlet is free from bullshit and tonight I got a load of it flung in my face after reading this article. Some guy (with a suspiciously Western name) in Korea thinks he’s an expert on Japan, Buddhism, and staying grounded in [...]

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Entertainment update

New movie that doesn’t insult or patronize Asians (at least, the trailer gives that impression):

Hit or miss? You decide. But if you’re like me and are an activist against the negative images (of every race except the white one) perpetuated by America’s brainwashed racists and filmwriters (I use the word “filmwriters” [...]

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