Jon > Recent Status Updates

“Populist anti-elitism reflects anger against three different types of elites: business elites, political elites, and cultural elites. The Far Right typically targets cultural and political elites; the Left needs to redirect the anger toward economic elites, acknowledge the failings of political elites, and learn how to avoid making themselves the target of anger against cultural elites.”

“Anti-intellectualism and resentment of experts are abiding elements of the American class structure. Both represent the class anger of order-takers against order-givers.”

“What working-class families need are family-sustaining jobs to address people’s desire for dignity, meaning, marriage, and cash.”

“Buddhism has much to offer the West if it can be transmitted correctly and not watered down into just one more self-help fad.”

“In Zen, the teacher is more of a guide or a mentor than a guru, and it’s important to be clear about that.”

“Enlightenment is not about escaping from the world and one’s own suffering, Hakuin says. It is about offering oneself to the world to relieve the suffering of others.”

Dogen paraphrase: “Enlightenment is already present. The function of practice is to embody it.”

Paraphrase of Dogen: “To fully and mindfully engage in practice, to sit in meditation, to keep the precepts, to prepare a meal as a sacred offering and not as a chore, is to step into the circle of practice/enlightenment where enlightenment is forever unfolding.”

“The prerequisite of maleness for enlightenment has been a persistent belief throughout Buddhist Asia.”