Buddhism Posts

This is an index my posts on Buddhism or other “Eastern Philosophies”.
Last updated to Nov 2013.

Sub-indexes

• On Reincarnation: several of posts
• The Making of Buddhist Modernism :  Posts on David L. McMahan’s book

References

• Buddhism: a diagram  : Central doctrines in Buddhism
• My Buddhist Bookshelf : my limited knowledge

Sympathetic Buddhists Posts

• My Buddho-Blog Shift
• Embrace dirt, danger and death!
• The Counsel of Many
• The Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai
• T’aego’s Awakening
• Buddhist Faith  : Defining Faith in Buddhism
• The Juggernaut of Habit  : We habitual and rarely free
• Reality Eats Us  : How this phrase can help free us from idealism
• Aro Buddhism  : A strange Western Vajrayāna Buddhist sect
• Inseparable Thought-Emotions  : Emotions, ideas are inseparable
• Zen Slaps  : Fun techniques to help wake us up
• Taming the Monkey Mind  : Meditation as ways to understand the mind
• Well-Being inside of Sadness  : TED lecture by Matthieu Richard
• Mystical Defects:  : My sympathy for a Korean Zen Master’s mysticism
• The Will to say “No”  : Meditation nurtures real free will, perhaps
• Da Free John – Part 1 : A buddhish teacher I studied

Buddhist Superstitions

• Mandala: Buddhist Romanticism  : Romanticism in Western Buddhism
• Amulets for Buddhists and Atheists  : Superstitious Good Luck
• Enlightenment Crystals  : Cremated masters leave rocks behind.  Really? !
• Tibetan Weather Miracle : My Initiation
• NonSense Chanting Pragmatics  : Why people still chant nonsense.
• The Magic Language Bias  : The grass is always greener in someone else’s language.
• Zen Tree Prayer : Zen priest makes us pray for a dead tree.  Seriously!
• Dog Healed by Meditation: yeah, right!

Buddhist Doctrines

• On Reincarnation: an index
• On “Self”: No Unified Mind, No Soul
• On Enlightenment:
  • Global-Enlightenment Myths  (limited skills)
  • Can your Buddha change tires?  : giving Siddhartha too much credit

On “Being Buddhist”, or not

• My Atheist Buddhism: My Buddhism is unorthodox and lazy but …
• Do you care what the Buddha taught : How important is this to you?
• Do I qualify as a Buddhist : Some would say “yes”, some “no” — personally, I don’t care.
• The Buddha was not a mystic: Not Believing Buddhism 
• Buddhist & Christian Creedal Self-Deception : Do creeds matter?
• Comparing Buddhism & Christianity: An Offense?: How to piss off a Buddhist
• Religious Prescriptionists : “real Buddhist” –> yeah, right!
• Buddism is a Religion : no matter what Buddhists say

Westernized Buddhism: Critiques

• The Making of Buddhist Modernism :  Posts on David L. McMahan’s book
• Being Zen vs. Being Japanese  : Aspiring to a culture instead of a faith
• Buddhist vs. Christian Bells  : Grass is greener on the other side
• Buddhists LOVE their ancient holy Asian languages!  — inordinately so.
• Using Science to Market Buddhism  : From Quantum Mechanics to Neurology
• Cleaning Your Religious House
• Treating Mega-Metta :Insincere thank-you’s — Buddhist slimy righteousness
• NonSense Chanting Pragmatics
• “Mindfulness” Hype & Driving  : Mindfulness don’t see everything

Other Critiques of Buddhism

• Nature is not Beautiful, Life is not Suffering  : Idealization and Pessimism: Both are mistakes
• Buddhist Apologists  : Tibetan monks train in rhetoric, not meditation
• Nasty Buddhists  : The irony of finding many angry, frustrated, on-line Buddhists
• Conze on Doctrine  : Edward Coyne with thoughts of Westerners evaluating
• Buddha: Doubt vs. Belief  : Many everyday Buddhists in Asia and in the West are deeply
• Buddhist Contradictions

Fun & Interesting

• “Hara”: a Japanese Lesson : The lower belly (“hara”) is key to many meditation systems.
• Buddhist Dog-Brain :  Does meditation simply recapture our earlier mammal brain?
• Buddhist Hemmorhoids :  A lesson in the meaning of a Chinese/Japanese character
• Meditation, Urination and Inhibition Full bladder activates inhibition. Does it help meditation?
• Your Meditation Saddle Meditation on a horse
• Buddhist Creationism

Kids & Buddhism

• Buddhist Readiness  : Take it slow with kids

Taoism

• The I-Ching and Tofu: How the I-Ching “works” (one theory)
• Taoism, Awe and Self-Deceit