Nan-in and the Professor โ A Western Zen Parable
โA Cup of Teaโ is a short Zen story that is quite famous and popular among Western (Zen) Buddhists. Itโs a bit of a peculiar story, however, as I hope to make clear in the following. Before we turn to that, letโs start with the story itself: Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868-1912), received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen.Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitorโs cup full, and then kept on pouring.The professor watched the [cup] overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. โIt is overfull. No more will go in!โโLike this...
Uchiyama, Marx, and Gramsci on Ideological Superstitions
In 2019 typhoon Hagibis destroyed part of the railroad that leads to Hakone, a small town near a volcanic lake in Japan that has a long history as a resort town. One of the stops on the line that can no longer be reached by train is ลhiradai. About fifty meter south of the station there is a small and inconspicuous temple named Rinsenji. In 1909, during the railroadโs construction, the police searched that temple. They found dynamite used for building the railroad that was temporarily stored there. They also found an illegal printing press under the main altar. That...
On Secular and Radical Buddhism
In a number of influential books and articles, Stephen Batchelor has proposed, developed, and defended something he has called (among others) โsecular Buddhismโ and โBuddhism 2.0โ. The idea of such a secular or scientific or naturalistic or otherwise not traditionally religious kind of Buddhism isnโt new โ it has been especially popular among 20th and 21st Western converts to Buddhism, but there have been Asian precursors as well. Nevertheless, the idea is also somewhat controversial. Adherents of โsecular Buddhismโ like Batchelor typically consider it a return to the roots of Buddhism and to the original teachings of the Buddha, but...