I get comments sometimes from people who say they find Buddhism interesting except for the supernatural parts, like reincarnation and karma. Most of the time, people misunderstand Buddhist teachings on reincarnation. But in any event, merely "believing in" rebirth seems to have no purpose, and I think it's all right if you don't. Just don't close your mind to it.

Karma is different. I don't think of karma as supernatural, but that's because once you understand what it is you can observe it happening, both through you and through other people. Science doesn't explain it, but I don't rule out the possibility that some branch of science -- neurophysiology, perhaps --  will explain it someday. And if not, I'm still seeing it happen, so I can't very well disbelieve it.

Read more...

"The Buddha," a documentary by David Grubin and narrated by Richard Gere, will be premiering on PBS television April 7. I bring it up early because the website for the documentary is worth checking out now. You can watch sections of the documentary online.

And if you click on the section called "Faces of Buddha: Ancient Wisdom for Modern Times," there are more links to essays by teachers such as Joan Halifax, Ajahn Brahm, and Joseph Goldstein, addressing "how the Buddha's teachings can resonate in your life." It's a lovely online resource.

Jiryu Mark Rutschman-Byler, a priest at the San Francisco Zen Center, is concerned there aren't enough younger people taking up Zen in the U.S. "Even in college towns it's all old folks," he writes. There is concern that when we Baby Boomers check out, many existing Zen centers will dry up and blow away. Is this true, and if so, what's to be done about it?

First, I don't think this is true of my Zen-Center-of-membership. There seems to be a nice mix of ages, or at least, most people there seem younger than I am. But, um, that's true of just about every group of people I mix with, so it doesn't prove anything.

Let's assume the age problem is real, and that younger people aren't "getting into" Zen at the same rate we Boomers did. Is this a problem only with Zen? Well, it might be, come to think of it. Forty and more years ago, if you were a non-ethnic-Asian westerner interested in Buddhism, Zen was the most familiar brand in the shop.

Read more...

I was reading an article about how people get stuck in unhappy relationships, and I learned about neural networks. Neural networks are made of neurons, which are cells that carry information through your body. For example, neurons carry a sensation (e.g., vibration in the ear canal) to the brain (experience of sound). Neural networks are the way neurons connect with each other to function. And neural networks reminded me of the skandhas.

When you experience something, your brain creates a neural network to accommodate the experience. But it's also the case that your nervous system will use existing neural networks to process similar information. In other words, your nervous system will take the information it is receiving from a new experience and fit it into old neural patterns.

Because our brains process information this way, it's hard for us to see people or things or events as they are.  Instead, we unconsciously connect what we're experiencing now to something we've experienced before, and this  affects the experience.

Read more...