Comments on: A Call to Charity, will Buddhists in the West Answer?

By: Doug

Doug — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 18:27:30 +0000

Hi Amanda and welcome to the JLR. Glad you found it useful.

By: amanda w

amanda w — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 17:48:48 +0000

Great blog!! It was just what I needed to read today!

By: Doug

Doug — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 05:31:31 +0000

Thanks much Marcus. Now if I can only practice what I preach (more on that in a later post).

By: Marcus

Marcus — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 12:51:54 +0000

Great post Doug – needs to be widely read. Thank you.

By: Doug

Doug — Sun, 12 Sep 2010 19:23:12 +0000

I think you hit it right on the head, Wolfram.

P.S. Apologies for the late reply.

By: wolfram

wolfram — Sat, 11 Sep 2010 23:02:33 +0000

great post! i am often frustrated with “western (i.e. white convert) buddhists” for the reasons you ennumerate here. so much “buddhist” content strikes me as little more than navel gazing and disputes that seem to solidify the notion of a separate, permanent self…i would also agree that in my experience asian buddhist communities often avoid this, although of course they can have problems of their own.

i think the best course of action is to balance the “three trainings” of sila, samadhi and prajna in our lives, although as lay disciples we probably all need to devote more attention to sila.

By: Doug

Doug — Sat, 11 Sep 2010 17:41:43 +0000

Hi Ron and apologies for the late reply. I was hoping to jar people into turning their Buddhist faith outward more and in the local community more as opposed to turning inward and bickering or obsessing over things that look really trivial on the outside. It’s not aimed at anyone in particular but a whole community.

By: Ron

Ron — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 07:57:02 +0000

Posts like this are a big reason I like this blog so much. Those things that are kinda hard to hear (read) because they are true and hit so close to home. Makes me realize just how lazy I have been in actually contributing something to my community. I feel bad for that, but that is just the thing I needed to sort of “kick start” me into doing something.

My wife teaches 6th grade here where we live, and she tells me about kids that come to school that not only don’t have basic school supplies, but don’t even have electricity in their homes! The teachers band together and supply these children with what they can such as bottled water, soap, toothbrushes, food and so on. Right here in our town there is such poverty! To my own shame, I didn’t even realize there were people living here in our community who didn’t even have electricity because both parents have lost their jobs.

This is the slap in the face I needed to get off my backside and try to do something, anything to help another.