Sumeru News — Buddhism in the West

The Toronto Buddhist Intra-faith event, On Inclusion! happening October 31 at the University of Toronto has added more keynote speakers, and a new block of free tickets. FULL DETAILS HERE.

I recently discovered this short piece from National Public Radio in the States on how Buddhist Chaplains are trained: http://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2016/05/26/buddhist-chaplains It was particularly interesting because Sumeru is pleased to announce that next year we will be publishing a new textbook for Buddhist chaplains: Kalyāṇamitra: A Buddhist Model for Spiritual Care This book will be only the fourth work ever published in the field of Buddhist spiritual care and the first to provide a comprehensive theory to guide the work of Buddhist chaplains. That theory is the Three Prajñās Framework for Spiritual Care. Prajñā means wisdom (roughly) and the Three Prajñās...

Here's an interview with Bonnie Sumana Ryan-Fisher on The Secular Buddhist podcast, episode 293 (May 13, 2018). http://secularbuddhism.org/2018/05/13/episode-293-bonnie-sumana-ryan-fisher-mindful-moment-52-weeks-of-mindfulness/ Bonnie Sumana Ryan-Fisher joins us to speak about her new book Mindful Moment: 52 Weeks of Mindfulness, Exercises and Reflections. "When I first heard about secular mindfulness programs like MBSR, I had a judgmental reaction. This isn’t Sati, you can’t condense mindfulness into eight weeks, this is a watering down… all of the usual criticisms from a traditional Buddhist point of view, even though I’m secular. Fortunately, this internal monologue did not go unnoticed, nor did it escape the reality of it being...

Sumeru author Richard Bryan McDaniel's latest book, Catholicism and Zen, was recently reviewed in the Canadian Journal of Buddhist Studies. The review, by Bradford McCall of the Claremont School of Theology, can be found here: https://thecjbs.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Catholicism-and-Zen_McCall_75-78-1.pdf You'll also notice that the CJBS has moved to a new web address. Glad to see they are thriving!

Richard Bryan McDaniel, author of three Sumeru books on the development of Zen Buddhism in America (The Third Step East, Cypress Trees in the Garden, and Catholicism and Zen), was recently interviewed by Ted Meissner at The Secular Buddhist podcast. Here's a link to the interview, for your listening pleasure... http://secularbuddhism.org/2017/12/23/episode-285-richard-bryan-mcdaniel-zen-in-the-west/