Seems like the quiet, gentle, eminently reasonable teachings of the Buddha, dating back to 500 BC, are, like leaven, now bringing new life into our culture. Thank God. or Thank Buddha.
Of course, as might be expected, we have people saying “This,” is the real Buddhism and “That” is not, just as people do in every other tradition. (Our experience of new Truth, Joy, Prosperity always seems very personal, and thus divisive, at least in the beginning.)
In the beginning, my own introduction, a hundred years ago, was via reading D. T. Suzuki, Alan Watts, Lin Yutang and, then, face to face, with Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, four teachers as widely different as mist, rain, snow and ice. (Chogyam was the hard ass’d m.f.)
And then, of course, there’s the Dali Lama. Here’s a good piece about him, entitled http://www.businessinsider.com/i-took-the-dalai-lama-to-a-ski-resort-and-he-told-me-the-meaning-of-life-2014-11.
We’ll talk more of these things. I do see the New Methodist Church and Art Studio not only as a new Christian community but also as a Buddhist sangha. So sue me!
Question of the Week
For the past 20 or 30 years or so, a number of us have been meeting on a weekly basis to discuss topics of “Buddhist Methodist” import. Ten years or so ago (unlike most Methodists and a majority of Buddhists, our archives and record keeping are kept more spontaneously than rigorously) we started sending out a “question of the week” prior to our meeting in order to kick off our
discussion. Most of us, find the “discussion starters” to be quite useful, though a few find such a format restrictive. Nevertheless, recently, it was suggested I start posting these questions of the week here on our website., for the growing number of “non-locals” who find this site useful, or at least interesting. I’ll add more questions– both new and from the archives, as time and inclination allow.4/22/18 Question of the Week: Big I and Little I, Ram Dass , Don Juan and Joel Goldsmith
