Buddhish deathcare is successful in Australia because of its compassionate and pragmatic approach. It also occupies a middle way, drawing on but also distinct from the biomedical, religious, and spiritual. In analysing the triangulation of buddhish death in this manner, this article advances our understanding of postmodern or new death movements, theories of worldview complexity in the post-secular age, and how Buddhism is contributing to both.

Buddhist art, if there is such a thing, is perhaps too important to be left to art historians

The Western category of “Art” asks us to appreciate the craftsmanship and aesthetic beauty of religious artifacts, but in doing so it deemphasizes their intended meanings and uses. In this essay, Bernard Fauré encourages us to look beyond the “art” (or even “anthropology”) of “Buddhist art” to see, if we can, its “aura.”

In themselves, the forms are indeed empty and many of them are utterly arbitrary, but they are also profound and precious.

A short exploration of Buddhist rituals and objects, the work that they do for the Saṅgha, and the various ways people relate to the religious aspects of communal Buddhist practice.

We found a large number of different categories that go beyond those identified in previous research. Reasons changed with increasing meditation practice, although spiritual goals tended to become more important only for practitioners with a spiritual background.

This paper investigates the impacts worldviews have on the nature and trajectory of meditation-related challenges, as well as how worldviews change or are impacted by such challenges. […] We identify and discuss the various impacts that religious and scientific worldviews have on meditation practitioners and meditation teachers who navigate periods of challenge associated with the practice.

Minds need a context. Mind needs fire and water, breath and ritual, it needs stories and song… it needs to establish a living relationship with those that came before and those yet to come, to offer in devotion and to enact its place in the cosmos. Such realizations return us to the sacredness of form. We find that all of the supposedly ‘non-essential’, ritual, form-based aspects of tradition actually architect a mind that has true fullness

For most of the history of Buddhism, “devotional” practices like prayer, invocation, and offerings have not been at odds or even very distinctly separated from “contempla- tive” practices such as meditation, sutra copying, and sutra recitation.

As Zen aspirants beat a path to Suzuki’s door, he seemed to embrace his new role as Zen’s champion [in the West]. By then his earlier goals of rehabilitating Buddhism in Japan and legitimating Mahayana were largely accomplished.

A fairly thorough biography of one of modern Buddhism’s most influential thinkers.

The modern idea of religion as divorced from power succeeded in dislodging the influence that Buddhism had over Sri Lankan politics, but only for a short time…

The Sinhalese Sangha refused to be “privatized” by the British government, or overpowered by the Sri Lankan elites. Using its immense historical knowledge, the Buddhist Sangha took its totalizing vision of Sri Lankan society public with pamphlets and preaching, leading up to the 1940’s Colombo college-monks’ movement…

Our findings could be laid out along a developmental continuum: portrayals were seen to range from unreflective voicing of a reified self, to more developed self-narratives in which mindful awareness (a meta-position) was portrayed in dialogue: bringing an inquisitive, present-focused, and compassionate awareness to habitual reactions. The telos of development, as seen from both [Dialogical Self Theory and Buddhist] perspectives, entails de-positioning: describing simple awareness of being. Our analyses display how the voice de-reifies self, and how that voice may be taken up by practitioners, to varying extents.

You can get the booklets for both albums here:

• Dhammapada
• Therigatha

What does it mean to meditate on anger?

How Buddhism engages with modern, Western social critique.

So there’s a tension in the Buddha’s recommendations about faith and empiricism. Few of Asian Buddhists I know find the tension uncomfortable, but Western Buddhists — raised in a culture where religion and faith have long been at war with science and empiricism — find it very disconcerting.

The delicate, but wonderful balance of faith and empiricism in Buddhism.

Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu highlights that it is direct seeing that liberates a practitioner, and faith operates as a working hypothesis. The essay also focuses on the psychological importance of faith.

Participation in the program predicted increases in subjective well-being and mindfulness over time compared to the control group. Regardless of condition, frequency of meditation predicted lower psychological inflexibility and higher mindfulness, well-being, and progress toward values. Length of meditation session predicted a greater ability to observe experience, and prior meditation experience predicted greater nonreactivity to experience.

Western Buddhist communities must acquire an entirely different system of communicating – one in which silence occupies a central position.

Buddhism does, in fact, contain transcendence and mystery and it is quite capable of taking a seat at the open table of postmodern spirituality.

Three fundamental ways of approaching the relationship between Buddhism and science are outlined: (a) rejection (Buddhism and science are not, and cannot be, compatible); (b) acceptance (Buddhism and science share important commonalities); (c) construction (Buddhism and science are compatible because they have been made compatible in the course of specific historical processes).

… with special emphasis on the distinction between construing Buddhism as a “living” versus “dead” tradition.

I want to theorize, broadly, the role of culture in meditative practices. I ask the general question, what role does culture play in meditation?—as well as the more specific question: what role has modern, western, secular, and elite-transnational culture played in its constituting its current forms?

You conquer it? Why this unfriendly feeling? Aren’t you glad the mountain could lift you up so high in the air, so as to enjoy the view?

They ask their communities to “wait and see” whether these allegations are true, with the unspoken assumption that they are not. I assert these responses use Buddhist teachings to uphold cis-masculine innocence by using hegemonic logics and commitments to downplay and delegitimize the phenomenon of sexual violence.

… mindfulness and sati have [relationships] to particular conceptions of Temporality, Affect, Power, Ethics, and Selfhood.

Based on ethnographic data gathered from over 700 psychiatrists, Buddhist monks, lay practitioners, and others in Thailand, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, and the United States, the article suggests some key mental associations in mindfulness and sati that converge and diverge across different cultural contexts.

One of the main paradoxes of Buddhism’s coming to the West is that the teaching on karma, which in Asia is probably the most basic Buddhist teaching, is the one most Westerns don’t like and is most often dropped from the teaching one way or another.

This lecture describes the various ways karma has been misunderstood in the West and how a close reading of the Buddha’s words correct such views.

It gave me a chance to step out of go go go San Francisco culture, and take time to breathe — which I didn’t find time to do in the rest of my life.

On the Westerners who call Katog Rit’hröd Retreat Center in Arkansas their home.

Despite their shared goal of spreading the Dharma to bring about world peace, Japanese and American Buddhist youth groups largely accommodated imperialism, while those in British colonies became fiercely anti-imperialist.

In the quantitative analysis of a survey of 417 13- to 20-year-old [British] Buddhists, the 48% who had undergone a religious or spiritual experience (RSE) were significantly more likely to self-identify as a spiritual person.

Buddhists who had undergone RSEs were also more positive about spiritual teachers, a monastic vocation, attitude to Buddhism, supernatural phenomena and mystical orientation.

Fourteen writers here describe how they came to be Buddhists.

The Tsars and the Communists have come and gone, but Buryatians have managed to hang on to their faith.

We had decided to sell up and establish a forest monastery somewhere in the countryside.

How the first, Thai forest monastery came to be established in England.

… white supremacy has created an American culture in which other practitioners, namely White practitioners, have been granted the freedom to be Buddhist in safer and more public ways. Instead of facing systemic injustice for embracing a spirituality that departs from the Judeo-Christian norm, White Buddhists are often lauded for this difference.

A straightforward account of how racism has shaped Buddhism in America.

… monasticism in general is not ideal for some Western Buddhists—it is seen by some as too restrictive or anti-modern. While others find value in monasticism, they are aware of those who critique it, and some of these therefore offer instead a model that removes what they see as problematic, anti-modern elements.

… although they were wedded to scientific worldviews, science was not seen as offering meaning to them. Buddhism gave them what they needed, offering a scientifically-compatible ethical framework which they could draw upon in their day-to-day decision-making.

A deep, ethnographic study of young adult Buddhists in Britain.

… on the Western side of the Caspian Sea…

… stereotypes flew in both directions: white Buddhists were called arrogant, over-focused on enlightenment, self-absorbed. Asian Buddhists were called too devotional, too hierarchical, over-focused on social and cultural activities.

An examination of racial categorization in American Buddhism.

… what do Buddhists do in the absence of resources to set up temples and attract monastics?

Although Gunamuniratana and Dhammaratana did not go to Britain to teach the Dhamma they still stand as the first Buddhist monks to arrive in Europe, an extraordinary adventure in itself.

Buddha-branded advertisements cater to all socio-economic classes not just the elite. Buddha is used as a spiritual resource to promote desire, reinforcing rather than challenging consumer culture. Buddha-branded advertisements are shaped by American cultural principles, and in return, the advertisements reshape various facets of identity and everyday American life.

Having lost much of their following in the West, churches are now beginning to look for opportunities elsewhere.

A reminder that Christian, missionary zeal in Asia continues to this day.

Understanding this three-fold structure involves adding a third term to the common opposition of religion as the transcendent sacred and science as the mundane secular.

At these meetings a group of international European scholars developed a shared understanding of Buddhist doctrine and meditation that has become widespread, namely, the notion that Buddhism is, first and foremost, a noetic science the principal concern of which is the transformation of human psychology.

The nacent, Western engagements with Buddhism and psychology became entangled during the 1930s, forever reshaping both.

180 years ago nobody really knew anything authentic about King Asoka

In the end money did come, from a most unexpected and unusual source

The story of the Hawaiian heiress who bankrolled Anagarika Dharmapala’s missionary activities.

For fascists, yoga was an occult tool for purifying and exalting the individual body as a microcosm of the triumphant nation.

Intuition is the key to establishing any organization

In 1909 Lama Dorjev proposed to the Tsarist government that a Buddhist temple be set up in St. Petersburg

… advice to Saṅgha members teaching to Americans; to Buddhist lay teachers and practicioners, both present and future, who are interested in engaging in [missionary] activities.

A collection of essays from a monk who’s been teaching in California for 42 years.

What impresses me most about that encounter is how unimpressive it was.

As Buddhism comes West, what should we do with this problem of “Buddhist culture?”

While the number of nominal Buddhists is still relatively low in Denmark, Danes’ appreciation of Buddhism is high.

The Buddhist Modernist Monk: a figure now familiar and beloved in American culture as an embodiment of compassion and rationality, yet with a history of prejudice and politics that has yet to be meaningfully explored.

How British and American antagonism to Catholicism shaped the English-speaking world’s engagement with Asia’s Buddhist traditions.

a Barua caste member [and] an essential link between the Burmese vipassanā masters with whom he studied and his western students who have now become important meditation teachers

The Lord Buddha bestowed the Sāsana impartially to all human beings. [Buddhism] can become the wealth of people at each and every level depending on the interest they take in it.

A dozen transcribed Dhamma talks delivered during Luangta Mahabua’s June 1974 trip to London.

With a convert’s zeal, the young monk resolved to travel

The story of the Venerable Lokanatha and his many—successful and unsuccessful—attempts to win over converts to Buddhism across the modern world.

Through the goodness that arises from my practice…

A group of Brits chants a translation of a traditional, Thai prayer.

… mindfulness is being used to reinforce the capitalist system

Because he’s neutral. I mean if we threw Christ up there, he is controversial. Everybody has got a deal about him. But Buddha, nobody seems to be that perturbed about a Buddha.

… fundraising is a form of Dharma practice, gathering with peers is a way to raise money, and Buddhism is practiced as a form of group solidarity and support. These tight weaves have enabled temples to thrive in racially and religiously hostile lands

Was Baker’s commitment to Zen practice much greater than a number of other of Suzuki’s close, very committed senior disciples? Or was it that Baker, in addition to his commitment to Zen, was more committed to institutional growth than the others, and importantly, was the only disciple who possessed the necessary skills and qualities to achieve the growth that Suzuki desired?

The recent and (relatively) well-documented passing of the SF Zen Center from Suzuki Roshi to his American student Dick Baker offers a fascinating and rare glimpse into the inner dynamics of a “Dharma Transmission” and the social role it plays in Mahayana institutions.

Why were women not ordaining at a time when our world is so in need of the wise counsel and compassion of women monastic leaders?

… the boundary between colonizer and colonized always is dangerously and excitingly permeable

My interest is in the fact that the young Rudyard Kipling’s first exposure to Buddhism was in London, not India or Tibet or Japan; that he wrote the novel Kim for the most part from Rottingdean in Sussex; that most of the textual sources on which he drew were written and published in England, not Asia. My focus is upon the textualized Buddhism fashioned by Englishmen

[which] was, as Max Müller once labeled it, a form of madness, but the madness was not, as he intended, among Buddhists; it was the madness of Westerners confronted with concepts and doctrines so utterly incommensurable with their most cherished ideals that they could not be assimilated.

My analysis begins from the publications of comparative religion starting in the 1850s and 1860s, incorporates the lively dialogue about Buddhism that occurred in the periodical literature soon thereafter, and then focuses on the works of fiction, poetry, religion, and philosophy that emerged especially in the 1870s to the 1890s.

The claim that Zen is the foundation of Japanese culture has the felicitous result of rendering the Japanese spiritual experience both unique and universal at the same time.

How globalization reshaped Zen.

Don’t think of this as “cosmic.” It’s not. It’s practical.

Venerable Courtin gives an emphatic exhortation on the purpose of Buddhist practice.

Note: I do not recommend the second or third parts of this talk as they take a sectarian turn.

This book describes the basics of Buddhist philosophy and practice within the contexts of a number of dramatic, not documentary, films. It introduces some of the main traditions of Buddhism. Little or no knowledge of Buddhism is assumed of the reader. Instead, Buddhist concepts, practices, and histories are presented in progression so that this might serve as an introduction to Buddhism particularly accessible to those interested in film.

… humans are driven by feelings. We feel the world, and when things feel right, we get a greater sense of meaning. And so it is with Buddhism.

There’s form, feeling, perception, fabrications, and consciousness. These are the things that, if you cling to them, are going to be suffering. But you have to use them for the path. I think it’s important to realize that when the Buddha talks about “the raft” image, he’s not talking about a yacht: You put together the things you’ve been using in the past in a new way.

… you can’t escape them

Buddhists in Asia and the West who adapted Buddhism to a range of nonviolent social activist projects

A lengthy encyclopedia article introducing “Engaged Buddhism.”

If the fragmenting forces of late modernity have shattered the illusion of a fixed self, anātman provides a way of rethinking subjectivity in its absence.

From suffering arises desire to end suffering. The secular humanistic activist sets himself the endless task of satisfying that desire, and perhaps hopes to end social suffering by constructing utopias. The Buddhist, on the other hand, is concerned ultimately with the transformation of desire.

Capitalist industrial society has created conditions of extreme impermanence, and the struggle with a conflict-creating mood of dissatisfaction and frustration. It would be difficult to imagine any social order for which Buddhism is more relevant and needed.

… it may be America’s destiny not to make Buddhism perfect but to make it banal

… anything that offers success in our unjust society without trying to change it is not revolutionary—it just helps people cope.

We are committed to living simply and sharing our time, energy, and material resources with those in need.

We must have a system of spiritual culture which is appropriate to the modern world and which can accord with the principles of every religion

A collection of talks, interviews, and booklets by Ajahn Buddhadāsa giving his view of the world and outline for the future.

… he believed in nothing but himself. Actually, this is neither Buddhism nor Chan

Notice in particular how the looting was worse during the Cold War than during the colonial period, with American-backed militias instrumental in the efforts on both sides of the border.

It is as if an arrow has been pulled out of your heart.

The comprehensive biography of one of the most revered of the modern Thai masters.

You can find the official audiobook here.

We found that participants typically did not enjoy spending 6 to 15 minutes in a room by themselves with nothing to do […] and that many preferred to administer electric shocks to themselves instead of being left alone with their thoughts.

… the vast majority of Americans (97 percent) are forfeiting the chance to enhance their well-being by practicing real generosity with their money.

… teachings from twelve of the greatest masters and monasteries in the Theravāda tradition

This classic book on insight meditation introduced the West to the Theravāda Tradition of Southeast Asia and launched the career of not only its author, but also many of his readers who subsequently sought out, learned from, and carried on the tradition of these venerable masters.

It’s basically impossible to understand modern Theravāda Buddhism without being familiar with at least most of the teachers featured in this outstanding book, but its value isn’t strictly historical as the wisdom and advice it contains is invaluable not just to scholars but also to any serious meditator intent on realizing the fruits of insight practice.

An interview with the first author of the book by the same name.

Psychopaths are more likely to be attracted to singing, dancing, love, light, miracles, and channeling. Usually psychopaths have a great deal of trouble sitting quiet and still. I appreciate the boring facade of Buddhism, as it is a great protection.

A new age mystic gives his advice on how to identify psychopaths on the spiritual journey.

Despite Bill’s many painful experiences, he never lost his faith in the transformative, human potential to awaken. His lifetime of spiritual stumbling is a rich source of warnings and advice, especially for Westerners still struggling to get a foothold in a tradition.

That said, however, the book’s interpretation of “enlightenment” should be taken cautiously, as his understanding seems to come from ecumenical assumptions that the various “contemplative traditions” (never defined) all describe the same goal. A bit of a black sheep even within the heterodox, secular “Insight” community, Bill Hamilton is best read with his own warning in mind, that “monks and nuns make safer teachers than laypeople, especially if they are actively associated with their tradition.”

I have never yet had the question why good things happen.

Robina Courtin talks about how to teach the theory of karma to Westerners.

I have seen much death in my lifetime–war, famine, disease. I am at the end of my life now. One day soon I will die. The lesson of the flood is still with me. I know that there is no use worrying about death. The important thing is to live fully until the moment when it comes.

A modern Zen master tells his story of hardship and diaspora, showing how Buddhism moved from China to Taiwan and, eventually, the West.

For the 2020 documentary, see Master Sheng Yen (Film).

Growing tolerance toward Asian peoples and cultures was fostered in a mass-mediated environment in which the role of the visual image took on increasing importance. While this environment allowed a popular engagement with Asian religious traditions, it also relied on and reinforced certain racialized notions of Asianness and Asian religiosity. These notions form patterns of representation that, because they are linked to such positive images, go unchallenged and unseen.

This fascinating and compelling history of the “Oriental Monk” figure in 20th century American media shows how Americans came to have certain feelings and expectations (that is to say, stereotypes) about Eastern spirituality in general and monks in particular which continue to shape Buddhism to this day.

When Westerners come to Buddhism, they usually approach it through the doors of psychology, history of religions, or perennial philosophy, all of which are dominated by Romantic ways of thinking.

Thanissaro Bhikkhu takes us on a long tour of Romantic philosophy before eventually showing how Romantic sensibilities affected the reception of Buddhism in the West. Most helpful is his list in chapter 7 where he outlines specifically the differences he sees between Buddhism and Western Romanticism.

Even if you ultimately disagree with Ajahn Geoff’s analysis, this is still an important work to engage with seriously, as it forces a direct confrontation with Western religious assumptions and motivations.

… deliverance from saṃsāra, i.e., the sorrow-laden round of existence, cannot consist in the re-absorption into an eternal Absolute which is at the root of all manifoldness, but can only be achieved by a complete extinguishing of all factors which condition the processes constituting life and world.

Interesting to note: one of the methods mentioned was tried recently, with results exactly as reported.

In the context of Christian missionary activity, it seems again entirely natural that rebirth is seen as one type of belief that needs to be replaced with another belief, which in this case is belief in an almighty god. However, the perception of the rebirth doctrine as a belief to be either accepted on faith or else rejected does not seem to capture fully the position this doctrine occupies in early Buddhist thought.

See also, Bhante Suddhaso’s translation of this sutta

We wouldn’t say “this is proof of reincarnation,” but I would say it’s strong evidence of something like it.

Meditation may seem disappointing and even almost useless for quite a long time, but if you persevere in it, results are bound to come. But these results may not be at all the sort of thing you expect. And you may not even be the person who first becomes aware of them. So press on regardless, and don’t look for results. If you can see the point of this piece of advice you have already in fact made useful progress.

A collection of four rather different but equally warm essays dedicated to the memory of S.F. de Silva.

… when counterfeit dhamma appears, the true Dhamma disappears, in the same way that when counterfeit money appears, true money disappears.

As Buddhism spread around Asia, many new teachings were introduced, and some of them miss the mark. Today, as all remaining traditions have their share of shady teachers, deity cults, and doctrinal confusion, Ajahn Geoff reminds us that we have to be discerning where we place our faith.

Co-incidence of two phenomena, even when repeated, does not mean that one phenomenon is the cause of the other. To claim that activity in the brain causes awareness, or mind, is plainly unscientific.

Ajahm Brahm explains how science can be dogmatic and religion scientific.

…when these people meditate they’re awfully grim.

Ajahn Geoff reminds Westerners to ground their meditation practice in generosity.

The idea of the Buddha nature, or the earlier idea that “this mind is brightly shining, but it is defiled by visiting defilements,” point to a potential for good deep in everyone…

A defense of Buddhism in light of some Western critiques and an encouragement to try out one particular Eastern practice.

The Monastic Sangha is both training ground and dwelling place for the Noble Sangha, much like a university is both a training ground and a dwelling place for scholars.

Given the thousands of years separating us from the Buddha, Bhikkhu Cintita asks the excellent question of how it is that Buddhism has survived so well across time and cultures, and then uses this theory to ponder how modern, Western practitioners should approach this question of “Sasana.” An excellent and rare introduction to the sociology of Buddhism “from the inside,” this book is a must-read.

…recognize that this view is not scientific discovery: it is ideology.

Many Westerners come to Buddhism wed to scientific materialism and find themselves unable to overcome their “Science Delusion.” White tackles this subject head-on in this striking interview.

Freud in particular developed the concept that freedom means acting on one’s desires. … From a Buddhist standpoint, this notion is totally twisted

Buddhism has a lot to contribute to the pressing problems of modernity. In this article, Powers briefly explores four such domains: individualism, science, freedom, and morality.