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Quote by Stephen Batchelor

“The origin of the conflict, frustration, and anxiety we experience does not lie in the nature of the world itself but in our distorted conceptions of the world.”

Quote by Stephen Batchelor

Book:Alone with Others: An Existential Approach to Buddhism

Work

Alone with Others: An Existential Approach to Buddhism

This book delves into the principles of Buddhism, interpreting them through the lens of existentialist thought. It examines the human condition and the nature of existence as seen in Buddhist teachings. more

Author

Stephen Batchelor

Stephen Batchelor is a renowned author and Buddhist thinker. Born on April 7, 1953, he is known for his contributions to the modern interpretation of Buddhism. Batchelor began studying Buddhism in the early 1970s and has received extensive Buddhist training in the United Kingdom and Sri Lanka. His work seeks to combine the core teachings of Buddhism with modern life, emphasizing personal practice and spiritual freedom. more

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“Buddhism, I think, is probably facing the single most difficult transition from one historical epoch to another, which is really the transition to modernity.”

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“So the Buddha is presenting awakening not as a single mystical experience that may come upon us at some meditation, some private moment of transcendence, but rather as a new engagement with life. He is offering us a relationship to the world that is more sensitized to suffering and the causes of suffering, and he gives rise to the possibility of another kind of culture, another kind of civilization.”

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“I reject karma and rebirth not only because I find them unintelligible, but because I believe they obscure and distort what the Buddha was trying to say. Rather than offering the balm of consolation, the Buddha encouraged us to peer deep and unflinchingly into the heart of the bewildering and painful experience that life can so often be.”

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“As for the law of moral causation ('karma'): this is human justice dressed up as cosmic justice and then imputed to the impersonal workings of the natural world.”

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“To preserve the integrity of the tradition, we have to distinguish between what is central to that integrity and what is peripheral. We have to discern between what elements are vital for the survival of dharma practice and what are alien cultural artefacts that might obstruct that survival.”

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“The individuation of dharma practice occurs whenever priority is given to the resolution of a personal existential dilemma over the need to conform to the doctrines of a Buddhist orthodoxy. Individuation is a process of recovering personal authority through freeing ourselves from the constraints of collectively held belief systems.”

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“Each time the dharma moved into a different civilization or historical period, it faced a twofold challenge: to maintain its integrity as an internally coherent tradition, and to express its vision in a way that responded to the needs of the new situation.”

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