Summing It All Up
My professor in my Buddhist Traditions class, Peter Harvey, made this comment on our class’ online discussion forum: “[M]aterial abundance is not a reliable source of happiness.” ‘Nuff said!

Teaching in the Oral Tradition
My Buddhist Traditions professor assigned us to answer the following questions in up to 150 words: If you wanted to carefully pass on the content of a long talk without being able to tape it or write anything down, how might you go about doing so by purely oral methods? What difficulties might you face? The central difficulty of exclusively oral transmission is that human beings only retain about 15% of what they hear!  As a college professor, I have found three ways to improve that percentage.  First, I have students repeat aloud short, key definitions and lists.  I do this periodically over a long lect

Do Buddhists Relate to Their Scriptures as Christians do to the Bible?
Most Christians in my experience view the Bible as the “inerrant word of God.”  The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, written at an international conference of evangelical Christian leaders in 1978, states, “Holy Scripture, being God’s own Word, written by men prepared and superintended by His Spirit, is of infallible divine authority in all matters upon which it touches…”  (Center for Reformed Theology and Apologetics.) In contrast, “…Buddhism, as a whole, does not possess a ‘canon’ of scriptures in the manner of…th

Where do I Fit?
My closest affiliation is with Zen.  There’s a simplicity and lack of distraction that I find useful.  I used to think of Tibetan – vajrayana – Buddhism as too complicated.  I’m the sort of person who wants to know everything about a given subject, and I realized that would be impossible with Tibetan Buddhism.  While there’s a lot one can study “about” Zen, there doesn’t seem to be as much to “understand.”  Once I began to study Tibetan Buddhism, however, I realized it’s the same way!  Many paths to the same point – or many rafts to the other shore.

The Relationship of Buddhism to Belief
I think of Buddhism as existing, and being able to be followed, without beliefs.  The Eightfold Path can be followed even if one believes in a creator god who will save him after death.  Buddhism can help one now, and it certainly can’t hurt after death. Even if a person didn’t believe in an afterlife at all, being a better person by practicing the Eightfold Path won’t cause any additional suffering, and at best, can lead to a happier life now.  Perhaps the only belief necessary is that the Eightfold Path can lead to the end of suffering.  But even that isn’t absolutely necessary, because the Buddha himself taught to try the Dharma