Have you heard about the community of African Jews who are apparently one of the lost tribes of Israel? I understand there is Jewish DNA among them, and that their practices, held in their isolation over thousands of years, are still obviously Hebrew.

Well here's an unrelated (except by faith) community of Black Jews in Chicago.

I have feelings about this that are not comfortable, a little like having bees living in your head (but there they are).   I hope they run the Chinese out.
I realize that probably won't happen. There was never any reality to the Chinese rationale for invading Tibet and stealing the country from its' rightful tenants.

Now that I think about it, I'm angry that the Chinese have tormented these gentle people into striking back. Now they have begun to lose not just their home, but also their identity as a peaceful people. More so than Zen Buddhists, Tibetan Buddhists have extensive bodies of teachings about harmlessness, and equanimity in adversity. Had this been Japan instead of Tibet, I suspect the backlash would not have taken decades. I picture monks in black with katanas, mindfully carving-up Chinese soldiers, in respectful awareness that these enemies are human beings.

Here's the Dalai Lama's response:

Here's a video interview with Bill Aiken, vice secretary general of Sokka Gakkai of America, a strand of Nichiren Buddhist lineage to which Tina Turner belongs.

Here's a common misconception: that Buddhism (at least so far as the Buddha himself conceived it) is about worshiping the Buddha! The term Buddha means "the enlightened one". His insight into the nature of suffering is something that anyone can find, but they have to find it inside themselves, not by worshiping a statue or even the extraordinary but now-deceased human being it represents.

The Buddha would have been aghast over people worshiping him. Yes, devout Buddhists in some parts of the world have lost sight of this fact, so they probably do worship, reverence or otherwise adore the Buddha as if he were a God. That doesn't make him one. As I have noted earlier, the Buddha refused to give an answer to questions about the existence or nonexistence of a God or Gods. To give either answer would have put limits on That which is without limits. This proscription against declaring God to be existent or nonexistent is at heart the very same rule as the Jewish prohibition against saying the name of God. It's a deep and abiding reverence for the divine infinitude. So if you think you know who God really is, it goes to show you haven't a clue.


The people who in 1954 published the activity book from which this picture was taken thought they knew, so saw fit to disparage another faith tradition. I'm inclined to forgive them, for they knew not what they did...

The Karmapa is a spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists, a reincarnated teacher of a different lineage than the Dalai Lama.
The Karmapa is 22 years old and has a MySpace page of his own. The lineages, as I understand this, are analogous to denominations in Christianity.

"What about Me?" is a video you can see on YouTube. It's sung by Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, the spiritual leader of the Shambhala lineage of Tibetan Buddhism. Shambhala is an Americanized form of Buddhist practice. The Sakyong grew up in America, went to high school and college in America, so he is fluent in English, Tibetan, and American culture. You may have heard of his father, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, the late founder of Shambhala, and Harvard educated author of numerous books about Buddhist practice.

The video itself is pleasant to hear, not preachy or judgemental. It just offers the simplest of ideas about finding happiness: start putting others first...

Your Heart is the True Bethlehem,
We rejoice in the birth of your Savior there!
May He dwell and grow in you until the day
when people look into your eyes and it is He who looks back...

I wrote earlier about respecting the beliefs of atheists, and I meant that. Since God dwells in a realm not fenced-in by the limitations of nonexistence or existence, the atheists could be said to hold part of the whole truth about God. Still, there is something for which I am annoyed with them, or some of them. It's the way they fill Reddit with sneering put-downs of those of us who are religious, painting us as fools and sentimentalist saps.
Sure, atheists have been a disparaged minority, discriminated against and even persecuted in the United States. But that's no reason to...
OK, maybe it's kinda understandable that they are angry about it, and are feeling somewhat liberated in the internet, and are ready to give back some of what they got, but that was only happening for a few... centuries. Hmm.

Well,... if you atheists are trying to irritate the rest of us, it's working. I HOPE YOU"RE HAPPY!!!



  Phbbbtt!

...it would be OK. I would convert if my wife REALLY wanted me to, but she knows my heart is with Buddhism. Still, she says I have a Jewish soul. The Rabbi who presided at our wedding; I love that guy! He obviously delights in his work with his congregation. I give him a hug whenever I see him...not often enough since we live a little more than an hour away from his town.

Hell Houses are a recent-years product of Christian fundamentalist churches. They are a clever way of doing a terrible thing: frightening people into believing that the soul of the universe is a rigid and punitive God. That is not the loving God I was raised on in the Methodist church, nor the God I claim as my parent (and yours) today.

The site to which I've linked here is a Christian site devoted to tolerance in religious practice. Their section on Buddhism (that's MY team!) is pretty good, full of basic information presented without a tone of disapproval. I would point out however, that the Buddha himself almost certainly did not teach reincarnation, though that is a belief commonly found among Buddhists in some parts of the world. Neither did he teach about the existence or nonexistence of God, because as he said, that is not helpful. I personally make free to believe in God, though I know that I can never claim a full intellectual grasp of Him. As to reincarnation, I say the truth of it is that every life is God Himself reincarnated...

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/various/wheel170.html

What he did not teach is here...

"Original sin" does not hold a monopoly on the human soul, according to scientific evidence that human beings are naturally wired for acts of kindness.

James Webb, PhD writes about a kind of depression commonly found in young people of high intelligence.

This sounds like the very same problem that compelled the Buddha as a young man to leave his life of comfort and to look for an answer to suffering...

You can check out his answer by clicking on "The Four Noble Truths" elsewhere on this page.

I took my refuge vows this past Wednesday, May 2. This was my confirmation as a Buddhist. The Acharya (kind of like a bishop) gave me a new Tibetan name: Dawa Sang-gye. That's pronounced like "song-jay" and it means "Moon Buddha".

My wife was there, and my Dad, and my brother with his fiance. Also present was a dear friend who has been a coworker with my wife. I am touched that they shared this very important ceremony with me.

There were seven of us taking the vows, and each received a name that reflects some personal characteristic. We all liked our names, which seemed to really fit. One was "Compassion Warrior", another was "Awakened Awareness" and yet another, a woman, was "Generosity Jewel". I couldn't tell you the Tibetan for these...it took some repetition to learn my own new name! We were given papers showing our names in Tibetan script, which looks really exotic. Should I get my new name tattooed on my arm?

The Acharya says this begins a transformative process, that we are already different, and that people who pay attention will notice something about us that sets us apart. He says there is something subtle that marks a Buddhist, such that even from a distance it is possible to recognize a stranger as Buddhist.

I like that...To me, Buddhism is the gentlest of the religions. It emphasizes awareness and personal growth, and unselfishness, so it's a perfect religion for someone like myself who is in the mental health field. Maybe it's sanity that is the mark of a Buddhist...

This article from last year was posted today in Reddit, with a question, "Why are they illegal?"
I'll tell you: there is danger in using them. Yes, for me it was an unparalleled religious experience, but I had no latent emotional/mental instability. I was 22, and how could I have judged my own psychiatric status before eating them? As good as the experience can be, that's how bad it can be. My best friend of the time had a really bad trip on one occasion that I learned about after the fact.  It didn't send him over the edge then, but in later years he began to show paranoia and other psychiatric problems. (His dad had a very toxic paranoid mindset, and was on medication, so my friend's problem was probably an inherited instability.)

He's dead now, a victim of hepatitis C, multiple other medical problems, and opiate addiction.

It would be wrong to let these mushrooms be a freely available commodity. I didn't know the risk I was taking then, but I do now, and would never chance it again.

"You are the dream; God is the dreamer..."

"When you die, you will awaken!"

The Buddha said, "From full, perfect and complete enlightenment I gained not the slightest thing...therefore is it called, 'full, perfect and complete enlightenment'!"

That keeps sticking in my mind.

One interpretation of this is that there is no "I" anyway, so gain or loss are meaningless. True...

I also get another meaning: nothing has to change in order for you to be enlightened. It's your birthright, an inborn property of sentient beings. Only the cessation of egocentric activity is necessary, and what's left is enlightenment.

"Welcome home! Where have you been?"
"Never anywhere but here..."
"Right answer..."