Stephen Batchelor is one of my favorite Buddhist teachers. I like the way he presents “Buddhism without Beliefs.” I think he is now teaching at the Upaya Zen Center near Santa Fe, New Mexico.
This quote is definitely in line with his stand on being a Buddhist atheist! He answers the question, how do we make the new future.
What is the ground that gives us the freedom to make the new future? …”The stilling of inclinations, the relinquishing of bases, the fading away of reactivity, desirelessness, stopping, nirvana.” Nirvana is that space within ourselves that’s not inflected or determined by our impulses, habits, reactivity, and so on, and that allows the possibility of another way of life which is called the Eightfold Path…
-Stephen Batchelor
As we saw on Sunday in Reaching the Ultimate Dimension, the greatest relief comes when we enter nirvana, the “Kingdom of God,” the “Pure Land” of the Buddha. This is really another way of expressing what Thich Nhat Hanh said in that article. Nirvana is the ground that shows us how we make the new future.
Now I would say that Stephen Batchelor would tend to agree with Thich Nhat Hanh. What do you think?
Books by Stephen Batchelor
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Buddhism Without Beliefs: A Contemporary Guide to Awakeningby A national bestseller and acclaimed guide to Buddhism for beginners and practitioners alike In this simple but important volume, Stephen Batchelor reminds us that the Buddha was not a mystic who claimed privileged, esoteric knowledge of the universe, but a man who challenged us to und… [Read More…] |
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