What Is Dharmaecology?

Dharmaecology is an interweaving of dharma themes from the Buddhist tradition and ecology, which I define as natural systems theory. Dharmaecology indicates a strong focus on ecology and climate justice, dharma naturalism, and a systems ecology approach to dharma theory and practice. It’s about connectedness, networks and integration. It is neither 'religious' nor 'spiritual', and operates …

Emptiness as Emptying

Most Buddhist teachers I have heard talk about Emptiness as if it were a thing, a noun. If you know anything about Buddhist cosmology, you know there are no "things", no objects. There are qualities, perhaps, but in Buddhism, Emptiness is not a quality, but an absence of qualities. Well then it's an absence—but that is …

Naturalism, Further Defined

Buddhist Naturalism embraces the dualistic experience of life, because the appearance of duality is always already non-dual. A smattering of my ideas about Naturalism, which I claim will be one of the main features of religions of the future, including Buddhist Naturalism. Naturalism exceeds Humanism. Humanism places the human species at the center of the …

Buddhist Futures: Obtaining the Virtual Dharmakaya

Thus have I heard.... One day the Buddha was sitting at his desk in a corner of his living room, working on his computer. He recorded himself giving a talk in a Zoom session with hundreds of Bhikkhus and Bhikkhunis. When he finished the lecture, and the recording was done, the World-Honored One sent the …

Sotala: Mutli-Agent Models of Mind

Kaj Sotala offers a reading list on 'Mutliagent Models of the Mind', which he posits as a naturalistic explanation of the Buddhist 'anatman', or 'not self'. Sotala's website Less Wrong is certainly worth checking out in its entirety. Multiagent Models of Mind Jan 16, 2019by Kaj_Sotala A sequence of posts which tries to break down …

Catholic Hindu John Martin on Non-duality and Rebirth

The following article is a history of an ashram in Southern India that was founded by European Catholic missionaries, and is now directed by John Martin Sahajinanda, an Indian Catholic who is also a Hindu scholar. It's worthwhile to read the whole article, which is about non-dualism within both Christianity and Hinduism. But I wanted …

Mahavira: the Other Buddha

The Ancient History website has some interesting articles on early Buddhism, linked to articles on Jainism and Charvaka, two other Sramana sects that were prominent at the origin of Buddhism. Charvaka was an agnostic/atheistic sect that argued against all supernatural entities. They believed that only what you can detect with your senses is real. They …

On Whether to Identify as a Buddhist

The last and best bit of wisdom I got from Buddhism is the doctrine of Buddha Nature, which I interpret for myself thusly: your own awakened consciousness is a greater source of enlightenment than any Buddhist teaching or practice. This post is written in response to an article on Matthew O'Connell's  Post-Traditional Buddhism blog. https://imperfectbuddha.com/2019/12/01/being-buddhist-some-thoughts-on-identity/ …