http://atbv.net/jack Virtually Buddhist Sat, 04 Aug 2007 02:09:28 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en The Hua Hu Ching is a lesser known collection of the oral teaching of Lao Tzu of Tao te Ching fame. The version I have is translated by Brian Walker. It is short, excellent, and in my opinion a worthy part of every Mahayana Buddhist library. It is Taoist in the ... http://atbv.net/jack/2007/08/01/hua-hu-ching-the-buddha-and-the-plains/ This reflection on useful delusions is admittedly a delusion of sorts, and it may not even be of the useful sort. Who knows? I listened to a recent debate between Chris Hedges and Sam Harris on religion and politics. The Sam Harris rhetoric was in fine form, excoriating religion, and portraying ... http://atbv.net/jack/2007/07/31/useful-delusions/ I'm coming to a conclusion to leave this mountain. While it has been useful to be here, its value to me seems to be dimming. And it has not seemed that useful to others in general. Within a few weeks, I will wind my way down to the plains below. The ... http://atbv.net/jack/2007/07/26/on-the-downside-of-the-mountain/ "Resist not evil" is an explicit Christian directive from the lips of Christ himself, though it is almost universally ignored and rejected by Christians. "It's not practical. It doesn't really mean what it says. It only applies to saints, not ordinary mortals. Etc., etc." Honest, strong, Christians struggle and squirm ... http://atbv.net/jack/2007/07/13/resisting-evil/ In Buddhism the three poisons are greed, hate, and delusion. Some versions have anger as one of the poisons. I've never had much difficulty with an explosive temper. Rather, my form of poison is a grinding arthritic frustration with the eventual effect of judging people very harshly in my mind, ... http://atbv.net/jack/2007/07/04/poison/ I found this in a recent Lama Shenpen email teaching to one of her students. Many people have this attitude of dismissing their own experience as of no consequence and it’s the biggest obstacle to progress towards Awakening. You have to have confidence in your own experience and your own judgment and ... http://atbv.net/jack/2007/06/26/zen-and-books/ My experience with Buddhism during the last several years can most simply be characterized using the words "mind mirror." No other religion that I've come across asks one to persistently look at how the mind works with tools to help one clear away the fog and see more clearly. Even ... http://atbv.net/jack/2007/03/27/the-mind-mirror/ I finished Red Pine's The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma, a very short book. Of the four writings included, only one, Outline of Practice, is reliably the work of Bodhidharma; he didn't write very much. This short work in less than 3 full book pages provides the core of Zen in ... http://atbv.net/jack/2007/02/14/four-simple-things/ A Turkish Muslim author's book, The Atlas of Creation, sent to French schools, in sort of a mass mailing campaign prompted an outcry from WoodMoor Village Zendo in an article titled Turkish Creationist Book. I agree with the repugnance of religious cosmogony as a substitute for science. I also think this ... http://atbv.net/jack/2007/02/14/in-response-to-turkish-creationism/ The "heart" has never made a lot of sense to me. Intelligence, intellect, thinking, mind -- these are terms I use and understand growing out of normal consciousness. But recently the "heart" matter has seemed to come to my attention from several different sources. (I've learned to pay attention when the ... http://atbv.net/jack/2007/01/15/the-heart-of-the-matter/