Stephen Batchelor is a teacher and scholar of Buddhism. He is the author of numerous works, including Buddhism without Beliefs, Living with the Devil, Confession of a Buddhist Atheist, Secular Buddhism, and After Buddhism. Read More from Stephen Batchelor The Art of Solitude In a time of social distancing and isolation, a meditation on
Stephen Batchelor— Even on long summer days in rural England when it would not get dark until 10 pm, my mother insisted on sending her two sons to bed early, which I thought both unfair and pointless. Unable to sleep, I would close my eyes and imagine my prone body
Stephen Batchelor— Taking photographs and practicing meditation might seem at first glance to be unrelated activities. For while photography looks outward at the visual world through the medium of a camera, meditation focuses inward on unmediated experience. And whereas photography is concerned with producing images of reality, meditation is about
Stephen Batchelor— Our current use of the terms “religious” and “secular” are determined by the senses they have acquired in modernity. Since they have no equivalents in any of the classical Buddhist languages, we must use them with caution when talking of premodern Buddhism. The same is true of the