- What Did the Buddha Tell a Grieving Father?
Doug starts from the Buddha's encounter with a father grieving his only child, and asks what exactly we love when we love a particular person. Drawing on dementia, the Capgras delusion, and Derek Parfit's thought experiments, he examines…
- Is a Guru Necessary?
Do you need a guru or teacher to make progress along the Buddhist path? We'll look first at how the Buddha suggested his disciples should investigate their teacher with an eye to deciding if it was worth studying under them. Then we'll…
- Hidden History: Were There Originally Two Buddhist Refuges?
Nowadays traditional Buddhism involves taking the so-called "three refuges": refuge in the Buddha, dharma, and sangha. How many refuges were there in the Buddha's day? We'll look at the early accounts where the Buddha recommended we have…