Can Buddhists celebrate Christmas – especially those of us living in the West? Of course we can! What is un-Buddhist about peace and goodwill to all men? About practising generosity and showing kindness to family, friends and strangers? All of these are in perfect accord with Buddhism, and it is wonderful to have a culturally-agreed...
A few months ago, if anyone had said I’d be writing a blog on how to pronounce my name, I’d have told them they were mad. Only a completely self-absorbed narcissist would think that a subject worthy of a blog. And I’m not one of those. Or am I?! It’s true that most people...
Having published nearly 100 blogs, I thought it might be fun to share a fresh voice on this blog from time to time. My first guest blogger is an amazingly talented young woman I have recently been in touch with – Cass Lane. There’s something about the sparkle and vitality of her work which I...
After publishing Buddhism for Busy People in 2004 and subsequent non-fiction books, I sometimes found myself talking to people who were voracious readers, and had a keen interest in the subjects I wrote about. They hadn’t read my books – and they didn’t plan to. The reason wasn’t personal, and was quite simple: they didn’t...
When was the last time you got shiny eyes? When you felt so excited by what just happened that you couldn’t wait to share it with others? When you felt gloriously lucky to be alive? It seems to me that as we get older, the less we experience moments of genuine wonderment. But one place...
Many of us have loved and lost an animal companion. It is truly one of life’s most harrowing ordeals. When we have especially close relationships with our pets, they are members of our family, often as loved as human members. Their passing creates a void we know can never be filled. Immediately after the passing...
Most of us can remember a few words that were spoken to us at a pivotal moment in our life which had a powerful impact. The person saying the words may – or may not – have been important to us. But whatever they communicated struck us with such compelling clarity that it made us...
Having moved from the Renaissance idea of mind as soul, through the materialist notion of mind as brain, Western scientists are now deepening their understanding of mind as a flow of energy, capable of consciousness and cognition. This explanation shares certain elements of the previous paradigms, while dealing with their more evident flaws. Like Descartes’s...
When we visit Africa, we feel like we’ve come home. The feeling may strike us in a myriad different ways. And not everyone experiences it as strongly. But over the years I’ve watched even the most sophisticated urbanites melt after a few days absorbing the unique energy of Africa. Africa is a whole continent,...
The most obvious problem with claiming that mind and brain are the same is the lack of an explanation as to how consciousness can arise from matter. In the past, some scientists adopted the denial strategy, saying that mind and consciousness didn’t actually exist. The American behaviourist B.F. Skinner went as far as to say...
