Damien Keown’s The Nature of Buddhist Ethics closes by arguing for parallels between Buddhist and Aristotelian ethics. He claims that “there are many formal parallels between the ideal of human perfection conceived by the Buddha and that envisaged by Aristotle” Continue reading
Ron Purser’s critique of McMindfulness is in line with William Edelglass’s critique of the “happiness turn” in Western Buddhism. Purser and Edelglass are both right to note that something new, less traditional, is going on in modern mindfulness. For there Continue reading
The mainstreaming of mindfulness meditation continues at a rapid clip. According to the Center for Disease Control, in the years 2012 to 2017 the percentage of adults meditating in the United States more than tripled, to 17%. The American market Continue reading
As mindfulness meditation practices become ever more popular and widespread, their claim to be a “non-sectarian technique” takes on progressively greater importance, just as it does with yoga. By claiming their practices to be secular techniques, teachers not only can Continue reading
Please see the following link for a short but illuminating talk by Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad which reflects on some of the reasons given for why Philosophy should be thought of as a largely Western affair and why those reasons fail.
We are surely familiar with the pattern by now: members of an Asian tradition are concerned about supposed corruptions in their tradition which depart from the intentions of the tradition’s historic founders, so they turn with renewed focus to the Continue reading
This post is not about Indian philosophy until its last paragraph. However, it is a direct response to a comment made here on the IPB, so I thought IPB readers might still want to see it. (It is also cross-posted Continue reading
I hope that readers will bear with me while I keep on exploiting the metaphor of wrestling with the angel. There are a few more indications, in fact, we can take out of it. First, Jacob fights. He does not Continue reading
The conflict between Buddhism and qualitative individualism is a major difficulty for my own philosophy. In addressing that conflict, there is one approach that has repeatedly stuck out at me. I don’t think it actually solves the problem, but it Continue reading
Jorge Cham PhD Comics Recently I was asked for advice by an incoming graduate student who was interested in research in Indian philosophy. As I’ve given a lot of the same advice to my own students during the past few Continue reading