Philosophy

There are many quite specific rules in Buddhist traditions for which foods monastics should and shouldn't eat, and these rules vary by tradition, by climate, by the strictness of the monastic order, etc. In general, monastics are karmically protected from the complexities of eating by the efforts of the laity. Monastics may eat almost whatever they are "offered", and laity must make things "allowable" (i.e., agree to take on the karma of having harmed the food). No one but the lay person guards their own karmic exposure to food.

Many westerners, especially people my age, are quite obsessed with the notion of finding true love, soul mates, etc. But to what extent could such a thing exist, and is finding it even desirable, from a Buddhist perspective, since Buddhism famously espouses the notion of anatman/anatta (literally, no aspect of the things perceived by people in this world constitute an essentially permanent/stable "self")?

Perhaps at least since the neo-platonic influence on Christianity, the western world has hallowed discursive thought, treating it as more pure or perfect than this world. The Gospel of John begins in this way: "The Word was in the beginning, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (my literal translation of the Greek). Liddell and Scott, the most widely used ancient Greek lexicon, defines the Greek word λόγος (English: "word") as "1. the word by which the inward thought is expressed: also 2.

Emptiness (Sanskrit: śūnyatā, Pali: suññata, Chinese & Japanese: 空) is important to all Buddhist traditions, and has been argued by many scholars and monastics as being a core feature of many Asian philosophical systems. The Buddha's view on emptiness (according to the Theravada tradition) went like this:

In ancient Greek (and, subsequently, most western) culture, the word "love" can have many meanings: brotherly love, familial love, romantic love, etc. In Greek, these phrases are not multiple words, but individual words referring to qualitatively different things, and more than a 100 such words exist. However, for Buddhists, there is only really one kind of love, namely good-will, loving-kindness, love-without-clinging (mettā). The closest Greek concept is probably αγάπη (agāpé; divine, unconditional love).

Probably because most popular Buddhism seems to focus on loving-kindness (mettā) and compassion (karuṇā), which also correspond to the first two stages of jhānic trance meditation, most people seem to think of monks as always kind and loving, preferring the pleasant whenever possible. The proliferation of fat and jolly Budai-style Buddha statues only furthers this myth. (In addition to the mythologization of Budai, those statues may also be a mis-interpretation of the famous Chinese Ten Oxherding paintings.

Life is a rollercoaster. Being tossed around is inevitable, but safety bars exist that can make the ride feel less turbulent. One needs something stable upon which to base one's happiness. If one invests only in worldly circumstances, one's happiness will change with that fast tide of success and failure. If one has a sense (i.e., feeling or state of mind) of something non-worldly, which is more permanent or stable than worldly circumstances (e.g., nirvana, Brahma, God, soul), giving that feeling more mental and emotional investment than worldly events will produce a more stable happiness.

(Many of the historical accounts in this essay are based on Gombrich, 1988. They need not be perfectly accurate, for the point of referencing them is merely to provide a counterpoint to the contemporary world.)

I once heard a buddhist studies professor complain privately that "the Middle Way isn't middle enough" for mainstream westerners to be interested in it, by which he meant that what qualified as a "middle way" in ancient India -- between very worldly Vedic Hinduism and very ascetic Jainism -- was too austere for today's westerners. First, some historical context...

This is my humble perspective on the larger Buddhism & Science dialog, to which my last post alluded:

Einstein once said: "The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It should transcend personal God and avoid dogma and theology. Covering both the natural and the spiritual, it should be based on a religious sense arising from the experience of all things natural and spiritual as a meaningful unity. Buddhism answers this description. If there is any religion that could cope with modern scientific needs it would be Buddhism" (Einstein, 1954).

A pretty nice summary of potentials for collaboration and current initiatives:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism_and_science