A couple episodes back, we tossed out this idea, off the cuff, of hardcore practice. We finally get to it now, asking directly, what is hardcore Shin Buddhist practice? Of course, this raises the important question of what is Shin practice? What do Shin Buddhists actually do? Is it all the temple stuff, Sunday services,… Continue reading Hardcore Shin Buddhist Practice
We pick up our conversation from last time about the attrition problem in American Shin Buddhism, its possible causes, and solutions. This time we focus on our listener's suggestion that there is an essential anti-institutionalism within Shin Buddhism. We're on the fence on that one; we want to be cautious about reading too much of… Continue reading Institutionalism, anti-institutionalism
Even though this week's episode isn't really about humanism per se, we pick up where we left off last time, allowing Scott a moment to clarify what he meant when he said that Buddhism doesn't care about the individual. This week is really all about individual practice versus community practice, what does it mean to… Continue reading Individual practice, community practice
In the second installment of our live show, we answer two listener questions. First, we received a question about Shin Buddhist nembutsu practice and the concern that chanting the nembutsu might be something of a crutch, that while making one more calm it might distract us from very real world social problems. We frame this… Continue reading Live show part two: nembutsu and music
Prompted by a listener who asked us to speculate on the next century of Buddhism in America, this time around we talk about some current trends and social issues that will no doubt have an influence on the direction of Buddhist sanghas. We start, oddly enough, in the past and consider the surprising twists and… Continue reading Listener question: the future
This time around we respond to a listener question about Shin practice, an issue we've tried to tackle before, and one that we're likely to tackle again. Shin practice raises some complex, doctrinal issues. S we begin with a look at Shan Dao's Five Practices which include, of course, reciting the name of Amida Buddha.… Continue reading Listener question: Shin Buddhist practice
This episode was inspired by a listener's question about the relevance of a "Dharma Punx" model to Jodo Shinshu. We start off talking about how Shin Buddhism and the BCA in particular can be seen as "family Buddhism," a double-edge sword in that it's great for families but can be a little off-putting for folks… Continue reading Listener questions: alternative approaches
One of the issues that came up for us in our post-modern conversations was the idea that here in the post-modern world, we're all free to choose whatever religion we want, to choose whatever we want to believe or practice — which raises the specter of heresy! In this episode, we talk about Buddhist heresy… Continue reading Heresy
Somewhat related to our last episode on the one thing that unites all Buddhist schools, this week Harry and Scott talk about a post-modern Shin Buddhism. To really talk about post-modernity, of course, we needed to dwell a bit on modernity and how its use of meta-narratives helped explain the world. But the meta-narratives also… Continue reading Post-modern Shinshu: part one
And we're back! After a long winter's break, the DharmaRealm podcast launches its second year "on the air," so to speak. Prompted by a listener question about why Buddhism "works" for us, we talk about how we each came to discover Buddhism and Shin Buddhism in particular. Harry talks about his experiences growing up in… Continue reading Listener questions: about us
