My weight today is 202 pounds.
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When I wrote my first Foundations post, I forgot that I already wrote about one of my foundational books, Mindful Eating. I will add it to the Foundations page.
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Kathy and I barbecued vegetables and vegetarian sausages yesterday, a kind of farewell to summer. They were extraordinarily delicious; zucchini, eggplant, portabello mushrooms, red and yellow peppers, and sweet corn. Such a very beautiful meal. (No, these aren't ours, but they looked sorta like that).
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One of you wrote a comment yesterday saying that she was "sort of Buddhist". To me, that's the perfect place to be. I firmly believe that the Buddha never intended for his teachings to become some new sort of religion or dogma. He taught freedom and did not want to create a new yoke for us to wear. There is a book by Stephen Bachelor, Buddhism Without Beliefs, that I have not yet read, but which I understand covers much the same territory. Even calling ourselves "Buddhists" is antithetical to what the Buddha taught, as it instantly sets up a duality of those who are and those who are not Buddhists. Is it any wonder that the next step in that progression is that some groups of practitioners come to believe that they have the "true" Buddhism and everyone else is not doing it right? There has, ironically enough, even been violent clashes between sects and also against other religions. Could there be any clearer indication that both sides completely forgot the very teachings they were trying to defend? So, for Buddha's sake, be cautious about becoming a professed Buddhist. Being a "sort of" Buddhist is a fine place to be.
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When I wrote my first Foundations post, I forgot that I already wrote about one of my foundational books, Mindful Eating. I will add it to the Foundations page.
****************************************************************
Kathy and I barbecued vegetables and vegetarian sausages yesterday, a kind of farewell to summer. They were extraordinarily delicious; zucchini, eggplant, portabello mushrooms, red and yellow peppers, and sweet corn. Such a very beautiful meal. (No, these aren't ours, but they looked sorta like that).***************************************************************
One of you wrote a comment yesterday saying that she was "sort of Buddhist". To me, that's the perfect place to be. I firmly believe that the Buddha never intended for his teachings to become some new sort of religion or dogma. He taught freedom and did not want to create a new yoke for us to wear. There is a book by Stephen Bachelor, Buddhism Without Beliefs, that I have not yet read, but which I understand covers much the same territory. Even calling ourselves "Buddhists" is antithetical to what the Buddha taught, as it instantly sets up a duality of those who are and those who are not Buddhists. Is it any wonder that the next step in that progression is that some groups of practitioners come to believe that they have the "true" Buddhism and everyone else is not doing it right? There has, ironically enough, even been violent clashes between sects and also against other religions. Could there be any clearer indication that both sides completely forgot the very teachings they were trying to defend? So, for Buddha's sake, be cautious about becoming a professed Buddhist. Being a "sort of" Buddhist is a fine place to be.
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