The Stream, Part I
Ryan of Ryan’s Lair writes that more and more Buddhist stuff is beginning to show up in Google Books. Ryan tells us of many prizes he has found, among them, “Feer’s catalog of Eugène Burnouf’s papers, Sylvain Lévi’s history of Nepal, … Hermann Oldenberg’s Ancient India: its language and religions, as well as the English translation of his seminal Buddha.”
Jigdral Dawa, in his new blog Buddha’s Children, begun in January, writes this week of his arduous spiritual quest that has landed him, gratefully, in the meadow of Buddhism. He writes, “my goal as a bodhisattva: not to make others into what I want them to be, but to be what others need.”
Tyson Williams of tysonwilliams.com often quotes Sogral Rimpoche, as he does again this week. Here are some of the quoted words, “…until we reach enlightenment there will inevitably be doubts, because doubt is a fundamental activity of the unenlightened mind, and the only way to deal with doubts is neither to suppress nor indulge them.”
Qalmlea, A Musing Taoist, is not so amusing this week. Her grandmother dies and Qalmlea considers how she feels, moment to moment.
Amanzi of Amanziblog finds himself stressed and agitated and looks to his breath to calm things down.
Coolmel of www.coolmel.com is ga-ga for the new W Bros film, just out. He writes, “V for Vendetta is a revolution about perspectives on self, culture, and nature.”
American Buddhist Perspective’s Justin writes about words, Buddha-nature and an emotional roller coaster he is riding. First, he is flying high in elation and then "criticized for a poor performance."
Nacho plays the racism card
[There will be no links in this section.] Nacho of WoodMoor Village has put up a post that accuses a longtime columnist, who syndicates her work in the state of Washington, of racism. Though the online publication of the column has been withdrawn, Nacho linked to a vigilante's scanned image of it in hardcopy presentation and posted the mailing addresses of the journal where it appeared and of the columnist. Both objective definitions and subjective ideas of what racism is vary, but the word is highly charged and Nacho has been irresponsible in his use of it and in trying to rally his readers to hound or humiliate the accused columnist. In addition, according to a comment-thread in another blog, Nacho and others are endeavoring to extract an apology from the publisher that meets their wording requirements. There can be little doubt from the text of the column in the Washington journal that the columnist was sincere and non-hateful in her intent – even as what she wrote seems paternalistic, a throwback to liberal-white sentiment of the 1930s. It is an important question for Buddhists -- or anyone: What is an appropriate action when one believes he/she perceives racist expression?
Whack-a-Buddha
I’m not intending to imply I want to roast Renegade Buddha, nor that I have a beef with him, but Arby’s – I mean, ‘RB has’ – returned to the flock of Buddhist bloggers three times this week. You needed a scorecard to try to keep up with him, he kept popping up here and then there, like a whack-a-mole. First, he started the blog Buddhism in Houston, which is ongoing and valuable; then, he resurrected his eponymous blog at Blogger before, perhaps finally, settling in at www.renegadebuddha.com. RB had been away for about 8 ½ months. We are glad to have him and his distinctive voice back, contributing to the choir of melodious voices in the Buddhoblogosphere. And he has come back, big time, with ten substantial posts this week. Here are just three of them:
- RB calls for more Buddhist video on the ‘net! He makes “an appeal to individual practitioners, teachers (especially teachers), sanghas, centers, temples, and buddhist bloggers. Start filming and sharing!”
- In the 70s, there was nothing Buddhist going on at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. But nowadays Buddhism is thriving at MIT with a growing community and a wide variety of events and activities.
- RB writes, “My work brings me into contact with a lot of folks who are facing death. It’s difficult at times but of course I have no room to complain. Today one of them told me how painful the last few days had been but then paused and said ‘but every day is a good day.’”
The Stream, Part II
tsykoduk [aka, Greg Nokes] of The Roost answers a reader's question with a fascinating answer [well more than a paragraph in length, btw] and a thread of interesting comments flies from there. The question is this: "Let me ask you something else. In a simple paragraph, can you answer why I should follow Buddhism? What benefits it will give me and what I will miss out on if I don’t?"
In his post, “The Tao of Black Dogs,” Moose, The Contemporary Taoist, begins, “There are no answers, only ways of coping with this strange life we have been given. This life is an opportunity - our challenge is to make the most of it.”Great thanks to James of The Buddhist Blog from whose blogroll this gem of a blog was found: domanassa: depression from the Buddhist perspective. The blog is in all ways beautiful and valuable. The blog is only just underway, but already there is a library of links to valuable resources regarding depression as seen through Buddhist eyes. Terrific stuff. I wish blogger "ts" a feeling of accomplishment for creating this wonderful resource. I look forward to each new blog post and article find.
Speaking of The Buddhist Blog, a post there this week is about Pleasures, Enjoyments and Austerities. Writes James, “ … some pleasure and austerity is o.k. but it is much like a stick burning. It can help me see through the confusion and fear of the dark but if I hold onto it too long it will burn me …”
Modus Ponens
Will of thinkBuddha, Gareth of Green Clouds and Dharmasattva of the same-name blog are inspired in linked posts to write about karma and other chains of events that constitute life and the journey to end suffering.
Will begins, blogging sick on the Ides of March, with a post that teaches some symbolic logic and then, uses it and different perspectives, to explore the Four Noble Truths. In one tangential thoughtstorm he writes this: “As the conditions giving rise to any particular thing are infinite, in everyday practical terms we must exclude all kinds of conditions from our thinking. We know that most of the time we can rely on a fairly small set of conditions to get a good cake: a hot oven, a good recipe, nice fresh ingredients, and sufficient care in the cooking.”
Having read the insights in Will’s post Gareth writes, “I find it impossible to comprehend how vast and complex this web really is. And yet every day it’s essential that I try.”
Dharmasattva reads Will’s and Gareth’s words, ponders them, and writes from the nexus of events that are pulled together in a few minutes of inspired blogging. Here’s one paragraph:
I heard an interesting blurb on NPR yesterday. A gentleman was explaining how Julius Caesar's last out-breath was comprised of billions (or trillions) of molecules, which left his mouth at the moment of his death and were dispersed into the atmosphere in a very mathematically predictable way. He went on to say that those molecules, in one form or the other, are still floating around somewhere--at the bottom of the ocean, in the air, in the soil, etc.--and that every breath we take likely contains one or two of the trillion molecules that Julius Caesar exhaled when he died on the floor of the Roman Senate on March 15, 44 B.C.E.
