A little update
Dear bloggists,
You may (or may not) have noticed my absence from the blog for a couple of weeks. No, I wasn’t abducted by aliens. I was very busy, with a sudden death in the family, two trips to Perth, and various other events to keep me occupied. On the writing front, I’ve been working on a long essay on Buddhism and psychotherapy. Also, I’ve finally got around to writing something on marriage equality, a topic I’ve wanted to address for ages. See below!
Thanks for all your comments. I’ll read them as soon as I get the chance, and as always will try to respond as best I can. If, over the next week or so, I haven’t responded to your comment and you still want a response, please help me out by reposting your comment.
Hi Bhante,
I am sorry to hear of your loss.
I’m looking forward to reading your piece on psychotherapy – on the one hand, the overlap between the aims and methods of Buddhism and psychotherapy seems to have been all too easily assumed in the West – in that the aim of psychoetherapy often seems to be, on the one hand, to deal with psychological ‘content’ as ‘content’ (rather than to SEE it MERELY as ‘content’), and also to encourage the aim of ‘flourishing’ in life (de-emphasising the Pali canon emphasis on the world as intrinsically a source of suffering, to be escaped rather than better enjoyed) – the latter being a trope we also see in secular Buddhism.
In that regard, I really liked, and keep going back to, Patrick Kearney’s essay ‘Still Crazy After All These Years: Why Meditation isn’t Psychotherapy.’ It’s a shame, though, that there is no discussion of therapy there from the perspective of someone who feels they have benefitted from it (better still, someone who is also a dedicated practitioner). Given, on the one hand, that your position doesn’t exactly fall into the ‘secular, take what works for me’ approach to Buddhism
but on the other, your ongoing engagement with psychology and psychotherapists, I can’t wait to see what you come up with!
With metta,
Rowan.
I wouldn’t have too much expectations! Actually, the essay itself is more of a general introductory chapter for a book that AABCAP is putting together. We touch on some of these issues, but more to signal them rather than going in depth…
Bhante
Sorry to hear about your loss
All the best
Geoff
Thanks, Geoff.
I am trying to find out if fracking and salinisation of aquifers are compatible with the geothermal industry
the idea about geothermal is that you generate energy from deep hot water and then re-inject it higher up as shallow cold water
Unfortunately if the deep water is full of chemicals from fracking or salinity then your shallow system is affected and the trees die. Hence a new form of desertification.
I am the only greenie on st georges tce Perth so I apologise if this web site has become my own form of psychotherapy. My demise here is imminent.
St Georges Tce is the WA epicentre of greed hatred and delusion. In addition I think women are as open to corruption as men are once they gain ‘equality’
Bhante you are a light I can only aspire too.
Cheers
Hi F,
I couldn’t work out if this was meant as a spiritual metaphor or what…;)
Turn around – oops, the light was inside you all along!