How Meditation Can Help Us To Make More Moral Choices
Meditation and mindfulness can help us to be more aligned with our highest values in challenging situations.
Book Review: “Spiritual Enlightenment: The Damnedest Thing”, by Jed McKenna
I just finished reading the book “Spiritual Enlightenment: The Damnedest Thing“, which was written anonymously under the pen name “Jed McKenna”. I had heard about this book for years, but had formed mostly negative impression based on the words and actions of those who said that they had read it. Several friends who I trust…
Morality Part II: A Balance Of Ascending And Descending
The most mature spiritual paths are those with that balance between a simultaneous rising up towards the one and sinking down into the many; this means realizing that the imminent and the transcendent are both Divine
Morality Part I: Moral Rules
A friend of mine posted on Facebook a graphic making fun of religious notions of morality as “handed down from God”. I responded: I think a lot of atheistic objections to religion are a reaction to a simple-minded concept of the Divine. Yes, many people do indeed think of Divinity as an all-powerful Man with a White Beard who has a bunch of rules, a bunch of demands, and a quick temper. But that vision does not fit with the more sublime and subtle Divinity that, for example, the deep spiritual mystics and sages throughout the millennia have talked about experiencing.
Buddhist Practices For Dealing With Addictions
In Buddhism, it is taught that, ultimately, liberation comes though insight. It’s difficult for me to explain what “insight” means in this context, but I suppose in simple terms you could call it, seeing existence as it truly is. The traditional teaching, though, is that deep insight usually requires a concentrated focused mind, and that developing concentration usually requires a foundation of ethical behavior.
Hooking Up
I have read that there is scientific-evolutionary-biological evidence that homo sapiens were not meant to be completely monogamous. For example, they’ve found that only a small percentage of sperm actually are able to impregnate an egg; the function of more than half of sperm is actually to destroy any other males’ seed that may…
Dating, Sexuality, and Buddhist Teachings
I once read a book on sex that suggested that healthy sex has at least three aspects: respect, honesty, and consent. Within that framework, the book suggested, do whatever your dirty li’l minds come up with. That definition made a positive impression on me. And now, years later, having developed in my Buddhist practice, I like those three as good guidelines for a basic foundation of “right sexuality” that fits with the modern world that I live in.
“A Disciple of Buddha Does Not Kill But Rather Cultivates and Encourages Life.”
I trust the tradition when it says that killing creates bad karma, and that bad karma interferes with happiness, clarity, and the potential transcendence. I also find it instructive that all mature religions/world religions advise against unprovoked killing.
What Does It Mean To Be A Buddhist?
To me, the heart of Buddhist practice is daily sitting. I find sitting in general makes me less reactive and more aware in life. I tend to feel better about the choices that I make and how I interact with people when I am sitting regularly compared with when I am not. I also have noticed that I enjoy life, going about it more consciously and with greater choice, patience, and spaciousness, when I have been sitting.
A Different Drummer: Friedrich Nietzsche and Morality
Sigmund Freud evidently believed that Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche had a more “penetrating self-knowledge” than any other human being has ever had. If Freud’s analysis is accurate, perhaps it explains why Nietzsche’s written output so closely reflects aspect of the human psyche; like our minds, his philosophy is powerful but occasionally difficult to untangle, given apparent contradictions and complications. From among the strands of his thought, however, emerge coherent patterns. For example, although the ideas involved are convoluted, Nietzsche repeatedly asserted that a morality rooted in notions of good and evil originated in weakness, is destructive, and is arbitrary. Instead of morality, Nietzsche affirmed a value system that was based on embracing the worldly, the paradoxical, and the “evil” of noble strength and joyous independence.
Søren Kierkegaard and Abraham Maslow Confront Hegelianism
“In healthy people only is there a good correlation between subjective delight in the experience, impulse to the experience, or wish for it, and “basic need” for the experience (it’s good for him, and society, in the long run). Only such people uniformly yearn for what is good for them and others. This unity, this network of positive intercorrelation falls apart, however, as the person gets psychologically sick. Then what he wants to do may be bad for him, and his is impulses, desires, and enjoyments then become a poor guide to living. So far as philosophical theory is concerned, many historical dilemmas and contradictions are resolved by this finding.”
Two Philosophies and Two Levels of Insight
I am happy because yesterday I arrived at a new understanding of what the ultimate reality of the universe – the essence that people have labeled “God” – may be. I know that theories about the universal oneness are spurned by mainstream Buddhism, but I am still going to share here the idea that…