Evolving Dharma [Expanding Mind]
Jay Michaelson talks about new school dharma, McMindfulness, and activism with Erik and Maja
The Beats: Remember the Tea
Jack Kerouac called from a phone booth while his friends Allen
Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky anxiously paced outside. "Hello, I'd like to meet with Dr. Suzuki . . . Right
NOW!" The scholar's secretary told him to be there in a half hour. Elated, the
three friends skipped down First Avenue to hail a cab.
Beyond the Anguish of Impossibility
The tragic sense is
the power behind religion. God is an impossible concept. This has led, on
the one hand, to rampant agnosticism and, on the other, to the silence of the
Buddha. Today, instead of recognizing and accepting impossibility, we defiantly demand the impossible.
The Missing Dharma of Modern Yoga
The unconscious bait and
switch of communing with reality becomes engraved into the synaptic patterns of a
soon to be disappointed, nostalgic sucker who thinks the reflection is actually in the mirror.
The yoga I'm interested in
teaching is to perceive the mirror-like nature of all
objects.
Further Reflections on Psychotic Knowledge
The conscious choice of one's life purpose
should be considered carefully before stumbling into karmic
entanglements that can swallow one up for a lifetime. This is
especially true now, as we near the end of civilization as we know it.
Drugs and Dharma in the 21st Century
Two great directions in human thought and activity have recently been coming into sharper focus. Interest in Buddhism has not been greater since it was first introduced to China where it proceeded to grow steadily for 500 years, and the serious and thoughtful use of psychedelics is making a resurgence, perhaps more profoundly than in the Sixties.