Interlog

Grace

The last post spoke of "grace" and the following quote has provided a window into the nembutsu for me. I have been brought up in a christian culture, and these words resonate with me and, in turn, reflect Amida's grace.

Faith

In response to the post "Wounded Faith", I would like to refer to the work of Marcus Borg, who writes of how faith can be described in four different ways, the first of which, faith as belief, has become dominant in the Modern Period and has significantly distorted the meaning of faith and the Christian life. The other three, he argues, are all relational understandings of faith with rich meanings for the present time.

What's Real?

Part I - What is Ego?
There seems to be a bit of confusion about who is Enlightened and who is not, about ego and no ego, about dualism and nondualism. Let us look into some facts. First of all, no human can function with any facility without ego. What is ego? Identification with the flesh, the time/space world, the human mind and all that. I hear so much talk in yoga circles that really is a lot of nonsense. The idea being that

Wounded Faith

The Budha taught a lot about the pitfalls of attachment to opinions. Attachment often is a function of fear. When we are asserting a view the energy in that assertion may come not so much from our commitment to the view itself as from what we fear will be let in if the view is abandoned. There are many people in Christian countries, for instance, who have turned away from their ancestral religion for a wide range of reasons. One of these reasons is

"zen" cinema

Friends,

I recently watched the 1954 movie "Floating Weeds" by Japanese director  Yasujiro Ozu (a remake of one by the same title he had done about 20 years before).  It was so good that I watched it again, this time with the commentary (by Roger Ebert) turned on.  And in the commentary I struck with

Rebirth?

What are your thoughts -- anyone reading this -- on the topic of rebirth, or, as we'd say in Christianity, "life after life"? - This question was posted by Steve in an earlier post, but it is worth an entry on its own.

Pureland, "Buddhism Itself", Christianity & Western Buddhism

There are three new items in Question and Answer form at
Questions in the Sand