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Spokane
Friday, March 29, 2024

Sarah Conover

Sarah Conover is a writer and teacher who, despite a fierce wanderlust, calls Spokane home. She has an MFA in poetry, and is the author of seven books on world wisdom traditions and spirituality. She and husband Doug Robnett are parents of two remarkable children long-ago nicknamed: “Swaminathan and the Material Girl.” Conover, getting old now, has enjoyed multiple careers. The best one yet is the latest: teaching creative writing, a course called “Making it Matter," to the eldering through Spokane Community College ACT 2 program. She hosted the Ask a BuddhistFāVS column for several years.

Ask a Buddhist: How is Dharma achieved?

I think the quick answer you’d get from any school of Buddhism might be: slowly, with patient perseverance.

Ask A Buddhist: Buddhism and Right Speech

The Buddha addressed the topic of speech very directly and specifically.

Ask A Buddhist: What are some conflicts between Buddhist values and sociocultural expectations?

Although he was an important reformer of Indian society and its religious practices, the Buddha’s concerns addressed the individual, not the fixing of social systems.

Ask A Buddhist: Do Buddhists harm things?

Buddhism stands only as a three-legged stool: sila, ethical behavior; samatha, or concentration; and panna, or wisdom.

Ask A Buddhist: What do Buddhists believe about demons?

To answer this question accurately, one would have to research every Buddhist denomination and enclave in the world throughout Buddhism’s long history.

Ask A Buddhist: Can I be an agnostic/atheist Buddhist?

In short, yes. Agnostic Buddhism is very much a thing, but commonly called secular Buddhism.

Ask a Buddhist: Kids and narcissism

What I’d like us to consider in this essay are two themes 1) according to the Dharma, we can only liberate ourselves, we can’t transform another person (and if we take a moment to consider the intractability of our own unskillful sankharas—habit formations—it becomes clear that our very best efforts to change ourselves yields slow results); 2) it’s possible that we aren’t raising anyone, but that we are simply in relationship.

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