Blog
Welcome to the Infinite Smile Blog. We’ve set up shop at Substack.
Partial Enlightenment
If it feels like I'm picking on Deepak Chopra a lot, pleas know that this isn't my intention. It's just that he's so prolific that he leaves himself vulnerable to spiritual nit-pickers like me. Over at IntentBlog, Deepak endeavors to define "enlightenment" as: ... the...
Happy Birthday Dad
70 years young. Keep inspiring, Dad. Love, Michael
No Room for Superstition
Mary Midgley over at the Guardian suggests that we quit seeing ourselves as God, thereby reversing the trends that accompany this mindset: If we ask, then, what religious change is most urgently needed today, the best answer surely is that we should debunk and explode...
War on Warren
I must admit that I was surprised when I saw this story glide across my computer screen this morning. Certainly there were individuals of the cloth that might have been picked that could have reflected a deeper sense of post-fundamentalist spirituality than Rick...
That Kind of Silence
In a letter to God, guardian.co.uk's Mark Vernon wants to uncover the depth of true Silence. The kind that Thomas Aquinas uncovered on 6th December 1273 when he uttered his final "Ite missa est" (the mass is ended) and then left the altar for good. He [Aquinas] told...
Biblically Guided Foreign Policy?
Matt Duss, over at The Guardian has some policy analysis worthy of attention. What happens when a developmental orientation focused on a fundamentalist approach inspires foreign policy? What happens when this thinking becomes contagious through the (ahem... viral)...
Video: Buddhism in the Heartland
Enjoy this. (Bows to The Worst Horse and Rev. Danny Fisher)
The Drunk as the Bodhisattva
Over at Tricycle, Alexandra Kolyanides posts a wonderful bit on Faulkner's advice to writers back when he won the Nobel Prize. I was struck by how his words sounded like the Path. The young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in...
Faith That Lacks Faith
TIME Magazine's David van Biema gives us 2008's Top 10 stories on religion. For my money, this story is especially fascinating since it applies to our sangha in really specific ways. A 35,000-person poll by the Pew Forum for Religion & Public Life found that 28%...
A Tribute to Thomas Merton
Thanks to Digita Dharma for remnding us of Thomas Merton's contribution to the integration of wisdom beyond wisdom, regardless of tradition. Forty years after his premature death many of us still owe him so much for clarifying the Path. Merton saw Buddhism not as a...