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The Cloud in the Paper
In “Being Peace” Thich Nhat Hanh writes: “If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating in this sheet of paper....
Karma Chameleon
In a previous meditation I wrote about rebirth and why I don’t think it’s something we need to be concerned about. Now, I know what some...
Ritual Tea for Life
When we think of a Tea Ceremony we normally think of an hours long Japanese ritual that is as little understood in the West as it is...
Will I Have a Re-Birthday?
I don’t know... I’m a Pragmatic Buddhist and so I accept verifiable knowledge if it can fall into at least one of three types of...
If Zazen Won't Help Me Stop My Thoughts, Why Meditate?
Once, a monk presented the following verse to the Sixth Patriarch, composed by the Chan Master Wo Lun. Wo Lun has ways and means To cut...
How Can There Be No Self? I'm Me!
I think every time I teach about anatman I get some variation on this question. Most of the questions arise from a misunderstanding of...
Faith, Belief or Neither?
I’m reading another book by Alan Watts (highly recommend him to everyone) that brought up an interesting distinction between faith and...
Am I a Monk?
This is a question that comes up often, especially among new members of our Order. First let me say that we - like Western Soto Zen -...
The Gift of Western Buddhism
So is Pragmatic Buddhism really Buddhism? Is any Western Buddhism? Is any “Secular” Buddhism? To me the answer to all of these is not...
What's Pragmatism Got to Do With Buddhism?
Actually, most philosophers agree that Buddhism is the most pragmatic of religions. Usually they point to the passage in the Kalama...
