I promised an update on priorities within a week in the recent post, Making decisions. So here it is: I am focusing on writing a sci-fi book next. The story will be about the withering away of the military industrial complex and its replacement by the multinational Entertainment-Food-Cosmetic Consortium–sponsors of extreme reality TV. Which will [...]
Thirty-one years ago, among other reasons, I began practicing Buddhism to make better decisions. Actually, not just to make better ones but to decide period. I had no difficulty seeing alternatives but real difficulty choosing among them. Over the years I have become better at it but from time to time it still comes back to [...]
For those whose loved ones are there now or who suffer after effects from time they spent in combat, Iraq and Afghanistan remain an immediate concern. For others, like myself, the conflicts are an abstraction. The sufferings of the soldiers and the civilians do not pain my psyche. I have to remind myself again and [...]
Continue reading about Iraq, Afghanistan and the American Psyche
A little more than a week ago we met a couple in a cafe in Pinos Altos, a village a few miles up the hill from Silver City (population about 10,000). We exhanged pleasantries, discussed the pros and cons of life in the vicinity (they had moved here a few years ago; we are contemplating it) [...]
Eclectic it may be, this blog still needs a focus. That focus is coming, in the form of attention to changes forthcoming in America. Not just the ones Obama hopes will put him in the White House, but the kinds that futurists talk about. Unlike other past and present futurists, I want to offer more realistic and [...]
With the recent addition of the Tsunesaburo Makiguchi website, the Soka Gakkai International now has a site devoted to each of the first three presidents of the organization. So what? The sites contain some pithy as well as historical information that explains the relevance of a 2,500 year old religion in the modern times. Islam [...]
I caught a bit of Good Morning America this AM. They featured a story about the seven month ordeal of Amanda Knox, an American student jailed in Italy without charges–apparently on suspicion of complicity in the death of her roommate. GMA painted a grim story, tugging at the heart strings of viewers by interviewing the [...]
The day before heading out on the road, I received ten copies of TODAY, the alumni magazine of Minnesota State University, Mankato. The magazine featured an essay by me, on how events at my undergraduate alma mater played a role in leading me to the successful quest of becoming a writer and becoming a Buddhist. [...]
Pittsburgh, Indianpolis, Bloomington (Indiana), Louisville and Frankfort. That’s where we have met fellow Buddhists for daimoku (chanting the mystic law of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo) so far since we set out on Saturday. I have dropped off free copies of Waiting for Westmoreland at three SGI-USA community centers thus far. Why? Because I want to share my experience [...]
The ecology movement (huh–what’s that?), just one of many things happening at the end of the sixties, running into and through the seventies. One of the things that appealed to me about Buddhism when I began the practice is that it recognizes the interrelationship of self and environment. Ecology is the holistic comprehension of how [...]