Is Hate Conquered by Love?
After the mass shooting in Orlando, Florida, it seemed like every Buddhist organization with any kind of on line presence was posting a quotation attributed to the Buddha that went, “Hate is not conquered by hate. Hate is conquered by love. This law is eternal.” This is the go-to quotation that every Western-born Buddhist is […]
Orlando
Last Saturday, a crazy person with a gun shot and killed fifty people in a nightclub in Florida. But maybe the details don’t matter. Of course those fifty people matter. What I mean is, in terms of this blog, maybe you’re reading this six months after I wrote it following the next mass killing in […]
Are We Living in a Computer Simulation?
NOTE: I have some new upcoming events in Cleveland, Ohio and Seattle, Washington. See below! Yesterday in the discussion after zazen, one of my regular customers brought up the idea that maybe we’re living in a computer simulation. Then, after I went home, I went back to reading Chuck Klosterman’s new book, But What If We’re […]
Gorillas and Zen Masters
A few days ago (May 28, 2016) a little kid fell into a gorilla enclosure at the Cincinnati Zoo. A 450 lb. (220 kg.) male silverback gorilla named Harambe dragged the kid around until zookeepers shot and killed the gorilla. Then the Internet went crazy. Everybody has an opinion — about how the gorilla should have […]
Can Meditation Make You Morally Perfect?
Today I posted the following quote from my teacher Gudo Wafu Nishijima on my Facebook page: Trying to obey the precepts is a hopeless task. The harder we try the more difficult it becomes. Gautama Buddha, Master Dogen, and the great patriarchs all gave up trying to obey the precepts. They found they could not […]
