The Buddha: Our Spiritual 'Contemporary'

However, because the Buddha embraced the mind as the sixth sense, his empiricism did not succumb to simple materialism. Through use of the mind, refined in meditation, he verified the reality of karma and rebirth, and thus confirmed that while we lack a permanent soul, we possess a morally conditioned stream of consciousness (Pali: vinnana-sota) going back through many lives.

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Al Gore: Rejection and redemption

It seems almost a lifetime ago that Al Gore was one of the few prominent people around that talked about the impending environmental crisis as a result of global warming. In spite of the ridicule heaped upon him, he kept up his efforts to inform the world and finally it seems that the world has caught up with him.

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Buddhism and the Self

In fact, it is significant that when asked by Vacchagotta the wanderer whether there is a self, the Buddha refused to answer. Despite this, many writers, including the Orientalist Dr Rhys Davids, have treated the anatta doctrine as a metaphysical assertion that there is no such thing as the self, but I argue that this interpretation is mistaken.

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