Buddhism

Sorry this is political, if we don't want this here I will remove it. The only reason I thought this was worth sharing is the tidbits he shares on how his suffering brought him to Buddhism and the importance of acting as a Buddhist:

His quest for a way to deal with his suffering eventually led him to the Buddha’s teachings.

Mr. Mahdawi played a key role in organizing Vesak 2023 — a major joint celebration hosted by BCNY and CUBA to commemorate the Buddha’s birth, enlightenment, and passing.

The Buddhist Council of New York stands in firm support of Mr. Mohsen Mahdawi and affirms his steadfast dedication to nonviolence, inclusion, and respectful dialogue. His leadership exemplifies the values of mutual understanding, coexistence, and a commitment to the greater good.

As Buddhist Association president, Mohsen was committed to expanding the club’s reach to all members of Columbia’s community and beyond, constantly emphasizing the need for a compassionate and mindfully engaged world. He led collaborations with the Buddhist Council of New York, connecting community members with students, all in the hope of sharing Buddhist principles and practice. He hosted board meetings at his apartment, always ready with tea, snacks, and a deeply welcoming presence. Within our club, he spoke of his path to Buddhism in light of his harrowing experiences as a Palestinian refugee in the Israeli occupied West Bank. Our weekly meditations were a grounding space for him; they served as a place of healing and cultivated his passion for peacemaking and justice for all oppressed peoples.

s a Buddhist club on Columbia’s campus, we must remind ourselves that our practice transcends our meditation circles and theoretical conversations we have about interconnectedness and oneness. We must always turn outward to recognize the suffering, injustice, and oppression we witness around us. We must have the courage to speak out against, and engage with, this suffering, even when we feel fearful. Only then can we say we are truly living in the present moment.

I think this last line connects well with our Buddhist practice. A good reminder that it must not exist solely on the cushion and in our books.

Thich Nhat Hanh lived at 306 West 109th Street from 1962 to 1963 while studying and teaching at Union Theological Seminary (UTS) and Columbia University. This period marked a formative chapter in his life as a young scholar, teacher, and activist.

The street co-naming takes on added historical resonance as it coincides closely with the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War — a conflict during which Thich Nhat Hanh, born in Vietnam in 1926 and affectionately known as “Thay” by his students, was exiled for his outspoken advocacy for peace and reconciliation.

His efforts to end the violence led Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1967, calling him “an Apostle of peace and nonviolence.” Over the decades, his teachings and writings on mindfulness and compassion have reached millions around the world, earning him recognition as “The Father of Mindfulness.”

Since your question has zero details I’m going to answer it in a personal way, the authenticity of the Buddha’s teaching. As the Buddha taught, one of his disciples Ananda was able to memorize them through the repetitive manner that the Buddha framed his speeches. During the first Buddhist council Ananda was the primary monastic responsible for orally reciting the Buddha’s teachings to confirm everyone heard it correctly.

Over the next couple hundred years these oral traditions shifting to a written one while maintaining the same format. Many sutras start with “Thus have I heard” as that is how Ananda recited the teachings during the Buddha’s life and at the first Buddhist council.

When Mahayana Buddhism came into being slowly many new sutras appeared which would include two methods of confirming for their readers their authentic status. One was to being the texts with “Thus have I heard” to call back to the Buddha’s disciple Ananda. It must be true if you can trace it to someone who knew him personally! Two was to self reference the importance and level of the teaching within the text, such as the Heart Sutra describing its own mantra as the highest, and the Lotus Sutra describing the Lotus Sutra as the highest sutra in a very meta manner.

Another method that Mahayana writers and teachings use is to say they’re not from the historical Buddha. The most famous sutra, the heart sutra, is framed as Guanyin, Avalokitesvara, teaching to Sariputra.

So forgeries were prevented by calling on people or beings of religious importance and including the sutras importance and thus authenticity within the text itself.

The advent of western scholarship on Buddhist studies created a crisis especially in East Asian Mahayana schools who began to doubt the authenticity of their own teachers. This first was imported into Japan through their early contact with the West then America in the 19th century. Richard Jaffe’s Seeming Sakyamuni is about these Japanese priests doubting Japanese Buddhism authenticity to the point of traveling all the way to Sri Lanka and Indian where sutra weren’t adding methods of authenticity within the texts.

These western ideas were passed through Japan into China where there was a lesser but similar reaction through figures such as Ouyang Jian wanting to go back to Indian Buddhism.

cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/19319593

These are some thoughts I had after meditating.

Interesting way to view common century early Indian Buddhism

Two views:

God is all that is eternal, unchanging, unceasing….

Consciousness is separate from mind, which is all the one consciousness, or Brahman.

I really appreciate Buddhist thought because I find it deeply logical and true. Impermanence and no-self are freeing ideas to me. Whereas, these advaita ideas are a very romantic view of the world, I don’t find them true.

They do make me want to know more about Buddhist emptiness and Buddha-nature in relation to those ideas.

That said, I will complement something the speaker replied to the question “how to practice detachment when being a father?” He said, don’t, that would make you a bad father. Lol! You should treat each person as if they’re Brahman then all your actions are sacred.

I think the Buddhist version of this is commonly seen in Tibetan Buddhism, making all of your world and actions part of a Mandala. Garchen Rinpoche discussed this in his documentary when in prison.

Listening to advaita overall is enjoyable because it posses interesting thoughts and questions that makes me want to understand the different views more while deepening my Buddhist path.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advaita_Vedanta?wprov=sfti1#Differences_from_Buddhism

Another of their big things in nondualism? How does this exist in Buddhism?

Some regard tathagatagarbha do be a form of nondualism, saying all beings are not separate from Buddha nature or the ability to become enlightened.

In Madhyamaka there is no separation between conventional and ultimate truth, nirvana and samsara.

Yogacara says there is no duality between subject and object. But unlike Advaita, mind streams don’t have a singular origin.

Not just how non-Buddhist people are finding it useful outside of the Buddhist context but how university health programs are promoting it for general well-being, acting as if they came up with these methods ie Koru.

This is a really good read for academics, Buddhist practitioners, and the general public seeking to understand Zen Buddhism in Japan. Most interesting fact you will learn is the average Zen monastic probably never meditated.

Popular understanding of Zen Buddhism typically involves a stereotyped image of isolated individuals in meditation, contemplating nothingness. This book presents the "other side of Zen," by examining the movement's explosive growth during the Tokugawa period (1600-1867) in Japan and by shedding light on the broader Japanese religious landscape during the era. Using newly-discovered manuscripts, Duncan Ryuken Williams argues that the success of Soto Zen was due neither to what is most often associated with the sect, Zen meditation, nor to the teachings of its medieval founder Dogen, but rather to the social benefits it conveyed.

Zen Buddhism promised followers many tangible and attractive rewards, including the bestowal of such perquisites as healing, rain-making, and fire protection, as well as "funerary Zen" rites that assured salvation in the next world. Zen temples also provided for the orderly registration of the entire Japanese populace, as ordered by the Tokugawa government, which led to stable parish membership.

Williams investigates both the sect's distinctive religious and ritual practices and its nonsectarian participation in broader currents of Japanese life. While much previous work on the subject has consisted of passages on great medieval Zen masters and their thoughts strung together and then published as "the history of Zen," Williams' work is based on care ul examination of archival sources including temple logbooks, prayer and funerary manuals, death registries, miracle tales of popular Buddhist deities, secret initiation papers, villagers' diaries, and fund-raising donor lists.

I also find their store a good resource for Zen items: https://monasterystore.org/

I really don't know of many Buddhist stores in America.

It takes a fascinating overview of hundreds of years of Mongolian Buddhism among various groups, nations, and traditions.

Really good way to learn about contemporary academic topics as well as a wide array of Buddhist cultures and history.

Having been to both I enjoyed the former much more as it felt more sacred and less touristy. Beautiful view of Renshou from the top of the mountain too.

Journey to the West (Chinese: 西遊記; pinyin: Xīyóu Jì) is a Chinese novel published in the 16th century during the Ming dynasty and attributed to Wu Cheng'en. It is regarded as one of the great Chinese novels, and has been described as arguably the most popular literary work in East Asia. It is widely known in English-speaking countries through Arthur Waley's 1942 abridged translation, Monkey. The novel is a fictionalized and fantastic account of the pilgrimage of the Chinese Buddhist monk Xuanzang, who journeyed to India in the 7th century AD to seek out and collect Buddhist scriptures (sūtras). The novel retains the broad outline of Xuanzang's own account, Great Tang Records on the Western Regions, but embellishes it with fantasy elements from folk tales and the author's invention. In the story, the Buddha tasks the monk Tang Sanzang (or "Tripitaka"), with...