The Dharma Realm is Ready

Buddhist, Yoga, Dharma friends: the Mastodon Instance Dharma Realm is ready! Invite: https://ganesha.masto.host/invite/g6LzfAjs Dharma Realm is hosted at ganesha.masto.host Dharma Realm is a Mastodon Instance for Buddhism, Dharma, Yoga, Advaita, and related spiritualities (Secular Buddhism, Naturalism, Tao, etc).I'm looking for a hosting partner to help moderate the site. If you're interested in working on this project, please …

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Calling All Nerds

Dharma Nerds aims to be a hub for intellectual and creative exploration of dharma themes in Buddhism and related Engaged Contemplative traditions. I welcome submission of your articles, photos, film and other visual art, poetry, creative writing and sound explorations. I love articles on modern and post-modern dharma scholarship, but also heterodox and counter-cultural explorations …

The Unity of Form and Emptiness

One Buddhist scholar said that the 'form and emptiness' doctrine (f is e / e is f) is about the unity or inseparability of emptiness and form. Which means that as you realize more expansive levels of non-dualism, you also come to know the particularities of the form-world with ever greater acuity, sensitivity and empathy. …

Post-Buddhism: No Grand Narrative

One Non-Buddhist writer (I can't remember who) described the Buddha as "a pre-modern post-modernist." Buddha's method of inquiry was one of relentless deconstruction. His teachings deconstruct experience, physical and mental phenomena, religious doctrine, philosophical propositions, making the Buddha a consummate post-modernist. One of the key features of post-modernism is the assertion that there is no grand narrative that is the authoritative interpretation …

Yoga, Samkhya and Buddhism

https://youtu.be/92J-JPChaeI This short documentary brings together the scholarly research on the history of Samkhya Philosophy and Yoga, and its influence throughout Indian spirituality, through early Yoga, Vedanta, Buddhism Jainism, to Hatha Yoga and its contemporary forms. This is what I mean when I say that I practice 'dharma' and not just 'Buddhism.' Buddhism is just …

Get the Gamma!

You've probably already seen this article. It was published on Sept. 18 2018 and it's been the rounds of social media. Research on Gamma brain waves describes what might be thought of as the neurological correlates of 'enlightenment.' Hyped? Probably. It doesn't give you the actual laboratory research in a peer-reviewed publication, which would be a …

Dharma as Ideology

[Editor: I wrote this in response to some writings of Matt O'Connell from Post-Traditional Buddhism on Buddhism as Ideology.] I’m interested in following up on your invitation to explore Buddhism as an ideology. About the best explanation of ideology I have read is Althusser’s “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses” (1970, 56 pages). (I tried to …

Naturalism vs. Orthodox Buddhism

This is how my version of Dharma Naturalism differs from orthodox Buddhism, but also incorporates it. The premises of my version of Dharma Naturalism begin like this: Everything is connected. There is cause and effect. Everything that exists consists of networked processes, and is part of larger networked patterns of systems, stable over varying lengths …

Radical Mindfulness Pt. 2

[Editor: This the second installment by London Radical Mindfulness (a third installment is coming), a project run by Graham Jones of the UK, about re-thinking the dharma in contemporary and radical terms. Graham and I plan to do a podcast soon on his forthcoming book and plans for London Radical Mindfulness.] Three characteristics of reality With the …