Monthly Archives: July 2011

Let us turn now, O sisters and brothers, to the Satipatthana Sutta, I:1:6: If a monk sees a corpse dead one, two, or three days—swollen, blue and festering—he should think: “My own body is of the same nature; such it … Continue reading →

Buddhist meditation methods have been forced through a series of filters over the last 120 years: Christianity: Everything offensive to Victorian Christian morality had to be removed, in Asia, in the 1800s. Scientism: Meditation has to claim to be compatible … Continue reading →

Some people think it goes something like this: “Through social and cultural conditioning, we each build a false self—an ego—and imagine that is who we really are. This ego is a harmful illusion that prevents us from perceiving reality as … Continue reading →

Vipassana meditation is the most Buddhist thing in “Consensus Buddhism.” This post starts to ask how Buddhist vipassana is, by tracing its history. It appears that, in the early 1800s, vipassana had been completely, or almost completely, lost in the … Continue reading →

Do you know the Rogers & Hammerstein musical The King and I? Or the movie Anna and the King of Siam? They are about Mongkut, the King of Siam. More than any other single person, he invented Western Buddhism. The … Continue reading →

It would be an exaggeration to say that “Zen” was invented as a defense against American gunboats. It would not be completely wrong, however. This is a post in my Crumbling Buddhist Consensus series. Modernized Zen is one of the … Continue reading →