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The Video Clip of the Dalai Lama and the Small Child. A Buddhist Critique

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I first met the Dalai Lama, aged 36, in 1972 when he came to pay respect to Ajahn Buddhadasa of Thailand, a Buddhist monk-teacher with a radical vision, who lived in the forest in southern Thailand. …

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12 Rules for Life. By Jordan B. Peterson. A Critique from a Buddhist Perspective.

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Until December 2022, I had never heard of Jordan Peterson, a Canadian professor of psychology, clinical psychologist and contemporary philosopher with strong views on gender issues, evolutionary origins of hierarchy, chaos, order, telling the truth and Being. …

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Our beloved Prajna Vihar School, Bodh Gaya, India. A photo collection from 2018 – 2022

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In 1985, the Abbot of the Royal Thai Monastery in Bodh Gaya kindly gave me permission to offer a meditation class for the poorest children in Bodh Gaya, Bihar India – the poorest state in India. Many of the children were beggars appealing to pilgrims worldwide for some rupees to feed themselves and their families. …

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A Nose and a Hand-kerchief. Cultural Differences. Different Strokes for Different Folks

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While teaching a residential course last week in the Pauenhof Buddhist Zentrum, in Germany, I heard a graphic example of differences in culture. I have expanded on it to make a point.
A person went to India and witnessed Indians blowing their nose with head pointing down to the ground – one finger on one nostril and then the other nostril.
The Westerner said to her travelling companion: “That’s disgusting.”
A little while later, a Westerner in India blew his nose into their handkerchief and then put their handkerchief back into their pocket.
An Indian turned to his companion and said: ” She put her handkerchief back into her pocket. That’s disgusting.”
To summarise: We easily jump to conclusions about the behaviour of another with no idea how our behaviour may appear to others.
From The Ballad of East and West by poet Rudyard Kiplin (1865-1936)
Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat;
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth! |
Do you have an example of cultural differences?

This weekend Queen Elizabeth has been sitting on the Throne for 70 years – an Equanimity Portrait. Buddhist meditators often struggle sitting through a seven-day retreat. But…

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This weekend, the Queen of England has been sitting on the throne for 70 years. I remember my mother buying a 12 inch (30 centimetres) black and white television with a very grain screen in early June 1953 to watch the Queen’s coronation in Westminster Abbey. …

This weekend Queen Elizabeth has been sitting on the Throne for 70 years – an Equanimity Portrait. Buddhist meditators often struggle sitting through a seven-day retreat. But…Read More »

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