2011
I recently turned thirty, and to celebrate, I spent a long weekend in a cabin in the woods with a group of my closest friends. Out of the ten of us that were there, none are married: one is engaged, another is in a serious relationship, and the rest are basically single. In other areas, [...]
We added another video on the Zen Chan Buddhist Catholic Dialogue, which took place at the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas. It is a short video conversation, featuring Sister Mary Ann Donovan and Professor Ronald Epstein. For further info and full listing of videos on the dialogue, please visit this page. [...]
The Monastic Immersion program has just kicked off with last Tuesday night’s orientation. The idea of the program is to learn Buddhism by living and practicing in a Monastery and maintaining the monastic schedule. Thirty participants from a wide spectrum of religious and educational backgrounds will come to CTTB to participate in the program for [...]
Gilles Deleuze (1925-1995) is a French philosopher and considered by many as one of the great thinkers of 20th century. His two-volume Capitalism and Schizophrenia (which he co-wrote with Felix Guattari) delivers insights into human nature and devastating critiques of capitalism. As part of a course on post-modernism and Buddhism he gave at the Graduate [...]
“If people wish to fully understand All Buddhas of the three periods of time, They should contemplate the nature of the dharma realm: Everything is made from mind alone.” — Avatamsaka Sutra My understanding of the above verse has evolved since I first read it as a teenager. I no longer read it as mainly [...]
We tend to think of good things as being positive, of positive things being good. When things are perfect, for example, that’s something positive, right? Everything is just how you want it; everything is just so. [...]
… it is extremely difficult to stay alert and attentive instead of getting hypnotized by the constant monologue inside your own head. Twenty years after my own graduation, I have come gradually to understand that the liberal-arts cliché about “teaching you how to think” is actually shorthand for a much deeper, more serious idea: “Learning [...]
On our way back from a visit to Dharma Realm Monastery in Liugui, a rural district of Kaohsiung, Taiwan, our local host took us to visit another Buddhist establishment in the vicinity. This particular monastery sits half-way up one of the many hills in this mountainous region in Southern Taiwan, and like many other hill-side [...]