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Introduction 13th Beach a Postpositive is a little video I made while staying with family after returning home from a long Indian field trip for my Ph.D (I write about the circumstances of creating the video in more detail in the BTS section below). For now, some prefatory remarks if I may. I am slightly reticent to say too much about the ideas to follow before you have a chance to watch the short-film. That being said, I would like to make a small comment about the use of the grammatical term "postpositive." First, its important to know I am using this term as a bit of a play on words rather...

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1. The Words What does it mean to be a writer? When does one get to call himself a "writer." Could it be that a writer is someone who is paid to write? Or perhaps a writer is someone who simply puts pen to paper? Maybe its simply a state of mind, or even just a label we use to make it easy for others to understand what it is we do. For me, a writer, at least in one sense, is all of the above and yet in another it is none of them. For writing is communication. Of course, it's not the only kind of communication but, at its heart, is the flow of an idea from one human to another....

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In a recent discussion generated by Alan Wallace's bold article Distorted Visions of Buddhism: Agnostic and Atheist,  I put forward a couple claims that some of you might like to read. As my comments were a response to the topic in general, and  not anyone persons thoughts, I pass them on. Not because they are correct, not even because they are useful, but because someone somewhere might get something from them. Couple of points. First, the issue surrounding the development between the time of the Buddha and creation of the canon is perhaps not all that straight forward, as you have suggested....

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please note this is a draft version: 23/2/2010 1. Introduction Does Buddhism need science? That is to say, does Buddhism need the validation of science? Perhaps not, however, in order to lift the essence of Buddhism out of the cultural setting from which we as practitioners have learnt this science of the mind we call Buddhism, we need to test the claims presented. In this article, I want to explore the possibility that science and Buddhism need each other. Most would agree I think when I say that calling Buddhism a religion is really a misnomer. For the Buddha himself urged his students...

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Buddha said more than two and a half millennia ago: all beings want happiness and wish to avoid suffering. At first glance, this may seem like a simplistic observation, however, a closer examination will reveal an extraordinary implication. Everyone has this innate wish, the wish for greater happiness—a flourishing life— it is not a selfish wish, however, we often employee erroneous methods in our endeavors to find happiness. Many people believing that happiness can be found through external conditions such as physical stimuli or financial security, spend their entire lives chasing after...

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Buddhism is not simply a religion. It is a pragmatic description of life that details our very existence and shows methods for eliminating the dissatisfactory nature of many everyday experiences. The Buddha showed us the true nature of conditioned existence and thus It can be said the teachings of the Buddha are a set of mind training instructions that lead anyone who diligently practices these trainings to a flourishing life. Not in the sense of the happiness found through good external conditions, or physical stimuli but rather, from the inner conditions of functional states of mind. for...

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It seems that my assertion from the article Philosophy as Practice raised some eyebrows among Buddhists. Here is the section of in question: ...without the ability to analyze and use critical thinking, even the compassion spoken of in Buddhism cannot be fully developed. Therefore the wisdom lineage, as in “method and wisdom”, pervades the method lineage. I was surprised by the doubt raised by this statement, as it seems to me to be quite clear. However, in order to practice what I advocate, that is, doing philosophy, since last Thursday when the doubt was surreptitiously raised during...

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Please do not quote as I am in the process of rewriting this article. Some think: meditators do not need to study; those who teach need to study. Actually, learning is more necessary for the meditator; teachers may just incur the fault of explaining something incorrectly. It is vital for a meditator to study in order to properly understand what to meditate on. This may sound obvious, however, many people think that studying or the doing of philosophy gets in the way of real practice. However, the great Kadampa masters of old Tibet tell us it is more important for a meditator to study...

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Note: below I have described "mindfulness" as it is popularly known in modern cognitive psychology. This is but a small piece of the pie of the Buddhist practice called mindfulness. Mindfulness is a technique usually spoken of in terms of meditation. However it can be defined as: being intentionally phenomenally aware of cognitive states. That is, being intentionally aware of your thoughts and actions in the present moment without placing values, labels or categories on these mental phenomena. It is a process of observing thoughts, feelings,, sensations, everything around you, and staying...

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Meditation is an integral part of a larger process of becoming healthy, and as such, it is both a diagnostic and therapeutic tool used in this endeavor. In the Buddhist context, the term meditation is used to translate the Sanskrit term bhavana. While the Tibetan equivalent is gom. To receive notification of articles as they are published subscribe below: Subscribe via RSS Enter your email address: The Sanskrit term bhavana carries with it the connotation of cultivating particular cognitive states. While it's Tibetan equivalent gom has the idea of developing a familiarity...

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