To most people Buddhism is an ancient Eastern religion, although a very special one. It has no god, it has no central creed or dogma and its primary goal is the expansion of consciousness, or ...

Presented here is the Yogācāra account of unity of consciousness, showing how it relates to contemporary philosophical accounts. Section 1 briefly charts the relevant Abhidharma background and the ...

One of the greatest twists in the recent history of nonfiction came at the end of Sam Harris’s The End of Faith (2004). The book gave physical form to the message-board atheism of the early internet ...

This heady if overly technical study by psychotherapist Dennison (The Bojjhaṅgās) explores the Buddhist practice of jhāna meditation, which aims to develop “states of deep absorption leading to ...

The other day, I found a baby scorpion on my kitchen floor. Being a Buddhist, my only thought was how to remove it from inside my house to outside. With the help of a drinking glass and a piece of ...

This post provoked an inbox deluge. It probably wasn't the best way to back into a discussion of Buddhism - and it's worth restating that I post lots of material on this blog for the purposes of ...

In mapping human consciousness, what is the difference between the witness function and the self? If you had asked me this question 15 years ago, as I was writing my first book, A New Unified Theory ...

Researchers take a mind-blowing journey to investigate the mysteries of consciousness. What is the science behind consciousness? Six brilliant researchers from around the world—a brain scientist, a ...

You don’t have to be Buddhist to appreciate the finale of The OA, but it doesn’t hurt. I’ll explain that in a minute or two. But first, a few words about existentialist television. In the 1960s, ...