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One Dharma

Joseph Goldstein

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As different Buddhist traditions take root in the West, is it possible to find an essential teaching that supports them all? In an adaptation from a talk given at Tricycle's recent Conference on Practice and Inquiry, Joseph Goldstein searches for the "One Dharma" of liberation.

©David Hurn/Magnum PhotosThis is a unique time in the history of Buddhism. Different Buddhist traditions are meeting and interacting with one another here in the West, often for the first time in centuries. Just as the dharma spread from India through many countries in Asia, each one finding its own voice, here, too, we're seeing the emergence of a Western Buddhism, something that is unique to our own time and culture.

The defining characteristic of this emerging Western Buddhism is a basic pragmatism, rather than an adherence to some philosophical system or sectarian viewpoint. What most characterizes the One Dharma of the West is an allegiance to a very simple question: What works? What works to free the mind from suffering? What works to accomplish the heart of compassion? What works to awaken us from the dream states of our ignorance?

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