Universal “Brotherhood” in the New Age

May 8, 2018
[This is an excerpt from my book "Electrical Christianity: A Revolutionary Guide to Jesus' Teachings and Spiritual Enlightenment," which is available in Kindle and paperback at Amazon.]

Q: Is the Aquarian Age the panacea that will lead to universal brotherhood and a true New Age?

A: Not necessarily. To my taste buds, the current New Age (of Aquarius) movement is hardly a bowl of fresh, delectable cherries; it’s more like pabulum or packaged tapioca. Instead of profound Truth doctrines, it proffers assorted versions of dumbed-down Dharma drivel. When a clueless, fogged-out mystic like Eckhart Tolle (Sun sign in Aquarius, by the way) is your movement’s shining star, then you know that Dystopia, rather than Utopia, is the likely outcome of your brotherhood-and-unity babble.

Aquarius, like every other astrological sign, has its dark side, or weaknesses. Though usually friendly, it is impersonal and dissociative. I’ve had a number of Aquarius girlfriends over the years, and not one of them was good at intimate, interpersonal relations. But a positive aspect of the Aquarian vibration is increased tolerance.… Read the full article

The Lankavatara Sutra: New Perspectives

March 27, 2018
[This is a raw ,unedited article that will be included in my forthcoming book on Zen. It includes excerpts from my previous writings on the Lankavatara Sutra.]

The Lankavatara Sutra (abbreviated LS or Lankavatara) is a profound and important Mahayana Buddhist sutra. It propounds the doctrine of Cittamatra, a sub-system of Yogacara which asserts that a single universal Mind (or Consciousness) has become everything. As such, the LS is akin to Hindu Kashmir Shaivism and Tibetan Dzogchen, which likewise assert that a single omnipresent Consciousness or Awareness (Siva or Dharmakaya), has manifested as all existents.


Unfortunately, however, if an impressive LS commentary has been penned since D.T. Suzuki’s in his Studies in the Lankavatara Sutra and The Lankavatara Sutra in the early 1930s, I haven’t encountered it. What separates Suzuki’s analysis from those of other LS exegetes is his understanding of LS’s Cittamatra philosophy. Unlike other authors on the said subject, he groks the important distinctions between the Yogacara Cittamatra of the LS and the Yogacara Vijnaptimatra/Vijnanavada of Asanga, Vasubandu, and others.
… Read the full article

Buddhist Politics 501

March 19, 2018
[This is a raw, unedited chapter (which I just finished writing today) from my forthcoming Zen book. If you have any recommendations for improving it, please let me know.]

According to the Pew Research Center’s party affiliation among Buddhists by political ideology survey in 2014 (http://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/compare/political-ideology/by/party-affiliation/among/religious-tradition/buddhist/), 12% of American Buddhists identify themselves as conservatives, 32% as moderates, 54% as liberals, and 2% “don’t know.” There is little reason to doubt the veracity of this survey, because other such surveys provide similar results.

Left-wing Buddhists not only outnumber right-wingers by more than a 4/1 ratio, but many of them are now devoted to combining Buddhism with a “progressive” political agenda. At his blog Hardcore Zen (hardcorezen.info), Brad Warner comments on this phenomenon:

“What bugs me is when it appears that liberal, left-leaning Buddhists are trying to mix Buddhism with their political agenda in precisely the same way people like Pat Robertson mix Christianity with their conservative political agenda.… Read the full article

Mind and No-mind

February 14, 2018


[This is a just-finished, raw and unedited, excerpt from a chapter of the Zen book I'm writing (concurrently with one on Dzogchen). Any suggestions for improvements from the cognoscenti would be appreciated.]

There is nothing in Buddhism more confusing than the usage and meaning of the terms Mind, mind, no-mind, Awareness, and awareness, which are often used loosely, contradictorily, and/or synonymously. It would take a book to properly consider this subject, but in the confines of a couple-thousand-word article, I’ll attempt to shed some light on it by briefly elaborating these terms.

Mind

When “Mind” is capitalized, it should mean universal, transcendental Mind, or Consciousness, or Awareness. This Mind, in Sanskrit, is Cit. This unborn, unmanifest Mind never enters creation, and is a synonym for Ultimate Reality.

In his Introduction to the Lankavatara Sutra, D.T. Suzuki writes: ‘Mind- only’ means absolute mind, to be distinguished from an empirical mind which is the subject of psychological study.
… Read the full article

Sam Harris on Waking Up

February 3, 2018

[This is a raw, unedited article that will be included in my forthcoming book on Zen, which, barring unforeseen circumstances, will be published in 2019.]

Sam “Hardly a Sage” Harris

Many people consider Sam Harris a paragon of rationality and gnosis, an exemplar of enlightened post-postmodern wisdom who marries science and spirit. I don’t. And in this article, I seek to expose Sam’s ignorance regarding religion and spirituality. I aim to “behead” him with my “Dharma Sword” and reveal him as an overrated thinker and a clueless mystic.

“Soapbox” Sam is a philosophic “bottom-feeder” who specializes in pontificating on exoteric subjects with mass appeal. His books--Letter to a Christian Nation, The Moral Landscape, Free Will, Lying, and The End of Faith--are geared to the common man who rejects conventional religion and seeks answers through science and reason.

Sam “the Sham,” however, doesn’t just want to denigrate conventional religion—especially Islam and Christianity—he also wants to be the “guru,” or knowledgeable guide, who educates the common man about spiritual awakening.… Read the full article

← Previous Entries

Next Entries →