There’s a party in my mind. On the Buddhist path, we’re supposed to start with sila, or commitment to the five precepts, which are to refrain from harming other living creatures, refrain from taking what the owner has not freely offered, refrain from wrong speech, refrain from irresponsible sexual…

I continue to raise money for Red State Vihara. The link for donations is here. A vihara is a Buddhist meditation and education center. We may also have nuns and monks in residence. Red state because it seems obvious to me that the red states need a place of peace…

Shit. I’m content now. It is a paradox, in my mind, anyway, how the Buddha could have been profoundly content, which I think is an effect of awakening, and still been as energetic about teaching for the rest of his life as we know him to have been. He…

This is a post about my project, Red State Vihara. I kind of hate all advertising and try to avoid it as much as possible, which is not easy in our society. It is one reason why I do not watch television. I do not own a television and do…

I’m quite pleased with this. The point is implicit in a lot of what the Buddha said, but I don’t think he ever stated the point in just this way, and I have never heard any other Buddhist teacher put it this way. It may seem a bit odd to…

I have said before in this space that I can be a bit compulsive. This is actually not a bad quality on the Buddhist path. You have to have made up your mind that awakening is a valid, achievable goal and stick with it until you get there. It is…

Red State Vihara will be an oasis of genuine peace in the desert of Christian violence that has been such a consistent feature of life in “the Americas” since Christians invaded that it now seems entirely normal. Well, no. I don’t know if this man is aware that adherence…

Wu wei, historically, is a concept from Taoism, not Buddhism, but people on the Buddhist path can easily adopt it. According to Alan Watts, Zen is a Taoist cake with Buddhist icing on it. It is not unreasonable to see wu wei as a sort of intersection between Taoism and…

I have never fit in very well anywhere. Usually, I don’t care. I decided some time ago that the failure of fit between me and the world is more the fault of the world than of me. He didn’t put it that way, but one can read the life…