Notes from Revamp: Writings on secular Buddhism

Gathered notes

Open-minded, not-knowing, scepticism.
An ethic of care (or non-uncaringness). A path of practice.
We are not fixed entities – we are dynamic processes.
Just process. Nothing solid. But not nothing either.
Nirvana is a transitory mind state free of greed, hatred, and delusion. Life continues, but with added clarity and commitment.
Embrace the whole of the human condition and work with it.
Dukkha is the inescapable aspects of the human condition, whether we indulge in “craving” or not.
Perfectionism seeks an exit from the human condition, not an exploration and enrichment of it.

“the flexible appropriation of tradition”.
at its core, secularity insists of the cultural specificities of time and place.
Not a belief system, not a badge of identity or of ethnic belonging, but rather a meaningful way of life or path of practice …
typically Buddhist in its open-minded scepticism.
Appamāda: care, non-carelessness, non-uncaringness, non-indifference.

Tradition as intergenerational conversation, where the participants know the founder’s generative questions.
Traditions, when vital, embody continuities of conflict.
Contextualist school of historical interpretation, not contextless iterations of timeless truths.
Our embeddedness in a particular culture and its stage of development moulds our receptivity or resistance to various values and beliefs.
Secular Buddhism as it exists today is a developmental tendency only.
Buddha’s awakening as “existential readjustment.”
An ethos of sceptical not-knowing.
The four tasks enhance each other, constitute a lifelong feedback loop.
A truth-claim should be judged by its usefulness to human wellbeing.
The mystical does not transcend the world but saturates it.

We are not fixed entities – we are dynamic chains of events or processes.
A favourite image for thing kind of being is the artisan … while at work they’re indistinguishable from the tools and the work they’re doing.
Constant awareness of our personal finitude is the touchstone of sanity.
Just process. Nothing solid. But not nothing either.
Secular faith has three aspects: an existential commitment to sustaining fragile but significant relationships and projects; accepting uncertainty as a basic condition; using the precariousness of every aspect of our lives as a motivational force.
… life just continues, now with added clarity and commitment.
Nirvana is a transitory mind state free of greed, hatred, and delusion.
Dukkha stands for inescapable aspects of the human condition, whether we indulge in “craving” or not.
Practice should be vibrant, fresh, vivid.

An ethic: a challenge to our self-responsibility, intelligence, sensitivity.
Embrace the whole of the human condition and work with it.
Works-in-progress unto death.
Perfectionism … constitutes one of humanity’s greatest frailties. It … seeks an exist from the human condition, not an exploration and enrichment of it.
We still live in cultures that affirm busyness as a virtue in itself.
All lives contain tragic elements, and we have to receive them in our sits as we would any other experience.

Sangha is a process of being-with-others, not a resource.
Each of us must own – and seek to identify and overcome – our sangha’s shortfalls.
Our sangha must have humour pumping through its veins.

Act generously, compassionately and fairly towards others, including strangers in need.
Society is a compact between the dead, the living, and the as-yet unborn.
‘Democratic socialism’ denotes a progressive development trend, not any sort of end state.
Secularity eschews revelations and beliefs about entities and forms of existence outside of time.
Secularity insists that thought and practice should address particular times and circumstances.

Added 2024-11-10.