Another wonderful post my friend.

An instant classic. Hilarious!

Excellent post, as always John. A few things I would like to make small points to:

“It is the woman carrying the fetus, and no one else, who must in the end make this most difficult decision and live with it for the rest of her life. As Buddhists, we can only encourage her to make a decision that is both thoughtful and compassionate.”

- while on the surface, this is mostly correct, I would venture to say that in some situations we have to consider the outlook of individual karma vs. shared karma.

"It is a choice born of compassion tempered by wisdom – made by one person, the woman carrying the fetus."

- final decision yes - I agree, but, again, certain situations may dictate that the corresponding party (the male involved) be an ear to listen to, and sometimes provide input towards the outlook on the decision. (Please note, I did NOT say the final decision - that, is hers. It is her body, and her final decision.) We need to be responsible for being there to support her, either way.

"To view the karma of another with compassion, that is the action of a Bodhisattva."

- to me, this statement is mostly true. But, if I was in this situation, I could not - as someone on the path of a Bodhisattva - consider it the karma of another. It is a shared karma between two individuals. I would say the law of cause and effect dictates that, even though we do not have the final decision, we share in the karma of that decision as we were partly responsible for the causes of that original action.

my two cents.
...joining palms
Kris

Love Bill, he definitely calls it like he sees it with the heart of a lion! A good man. :)

I think they're fine and agree with Brian C.'s comment. "Significant to me as a Buddhist"

I have a grouping of 3 lotus flowers: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mindonly/4781446519/

That said, I was once discussing this exact topic with a monastic and stated I had considered getting a tattoo of Buddha. He stopped me, said "you do not need Buddha on your skin, only Buddha here (pointed to my head)". It was a great moment, and no - I do not have an actual Buddha tattooed on me because of it. Made sense to my path, may not to others, which is fine too.

"Yet he promises he will still continue teaching Big Mind® and he will truly integrate Soto Zen Buddhist Ethics into his life. There is something seriously wrong with this picture. Deeply, deeply wrong."
&
"Doing the right thing would have been remaining as a monk and ending the whole Big Mind® program."

--- exactly.
Those of you complaining that Brad is celebrating his failure may want to read the article again. He is in no way doing that, heck, there's not even a hint of "I told you so" in this article - something that would have been EASY for Brad to state. What he is stating is if Genpo truly wanted to show any intention in working back towards the precepts he took, it may have been a better idea to continue with Zen, and drop the act as a cult leader.

True, but when looking at the ingredient listing it seems a bit vague:

"French Fries:
Potatoes, vegetable oil (canola oil, hydrogenated soybean oil, natural beef flavor [wheat and milk derivatives]*, citric acid [preservative]), dextrose, sodium acid
pyrophosphate (maintain color), salt. Prepared in vegetable oil (Canola oil, corn oil, soybean oil, hydrogenated soybean oil with TBHQ and citric acid added to preserve freshness). Dimethylpolysiloxane added as an antifoaming agent.
CONTAINS: WHEAT AND MILK *(Natural beef flavor contains hydrolyzed wheat and hydrolyzed milk as starting ingredients)."

then, when you look up "natural beef flavor" in other products it defines what looks like a different type of "beef flavor":
natural beef flavor [beef broth, yeast extract, maltodextrin, salt, lactic acid, natural flavor (plant source), beef fat, citric acid]

interesting.

You hate melons,, I knew it.

This is great. Makes me want to look for some older comics at Comic Con this year. Thanks Blake!