The relationship between “experience” and “knowledge” is one that crops up repeatedly, in conjunction with the issue of the relationship between “practice” and “principle”. On this issue, I find quite different opinions in the (mostly western) Buddhist community and the…
The ability to metaphorically project meaning from one sphere of experience to another is a very powerful tool that we human beings have. If it were merely a weak tool allowing us to make simple analogies but did not give…
Almost a lifetime ago, when it looked like the BJP was going to romp home in the 2004 elections and their NRI supporters were crying themselves hoarse about the perfidy of Muslims and other minorities as well as defending the…
I was lying in bed a few nights ago, unable to sleep when I had a flash of insight. I was thinking of the reality of the waking world and why it has such a powerful hold on our lives.…
Let me start with a question: “What are our needs and how can we know them?”There is a famous saying of Gandhi to the effect that the world has enough for our needs but not enough for our greed, which…
This is a long topic — but to give a one line slogan, what I would say is the following: “IS = OUGHT” In other words, reality does not distinguish between the way we live and the way things are. While one…
A curious reader might wonder why I have juxtaposed Einstein and the Buddha in one phrase. After all, one is the legendary founder of a world religion and the other was a physicist. The kind of person who takes one…
If you need any further proof that the New York Times is incorrigibly racist when it comes to international affairs, look no further than today’s (Saturday, December 10th, 2005) Times, here and here. On page 3, they have a rather…
By universalism, I mean the idea that there are some fundamental principles that are true of (or apply to) all individuals in some domain (my definition is more general than the wikipedia definition articulated in the article I have linked…
I was thinking about Descartes’ classic example of doubt. His attempts to identify the most secure form of knowledge lead him to his own consciousness as the unassailable ground of knowing. I agree with his assessment though I think it…