@WaterLily I recently became acquainted with Shambala Buddhism. You can get a free e-book, Radical Compassion here:
http://www.shambhala.com/

The Lion's Roar and Buddhadharma are excellent periodicals:
https://www.lionsroar.com/

A beginner's guide:
https://www.lionsroar.com/beginning-with-buddhism-and-meditation/

Ten best Buddhist books:
https://www.lionsroar.com/buddhism-z-basic-buddhist-library/. (I highly recommend "Mindfulness In Plain English")

I have a couple of "Great Courses" CD's on my wish list. Mind Body Philosophy and The Science of Meditation:
http://www.thegreatcourses.com/search/sort-by/relevance/sort-direction/d...

#1 I have no personal experience with Buddhism -- I left the Catholic church 20 years ago and vowed never to associate with organized religion again -- but theirs is the only philosophy that makes a modicum of sense to me.

As I once said to my still-practicing mother: "My church is the woods."

Pissed her right off. But it's true.

@WaterLily a.k.a. Saint Francis of Assisi, his likeness is splattered all over the Bay Area. I always thought San Francisco was named for him. Not sure if Pope Francis is anything like his namesake, a little bit maybe.

Character and legacy (from wiki)
...

He and his followers celebrated and even venerated poverty. Poverty was so central to his character that in his last written work, the Testament, he said that absolute personal and corporate poverty was the essential lifestyle for the members of his Order.

He believed that nature itself was the mirror of God. He called all creatures his “brothers” and “sisters”, and even preached to the birds and supposedly persuaded a wolf to stop attacking some locals if they agreed to feed the wolf. In his Canticle of the Creatures (“Praises of Creatures” or “Canticle of the Sun”), he mentioned the “Brother Sun” and “Sister Moon”, the wind and water, and “Sister Death”. He referred to his chronic illnesses as his “sisters". His deep sense of brotherhood under God embraced others, and he declared that “he considered himself no friend of Christ if he did not cherish those for whom Christ died”.

Francis' visit to Egypt and attempted rapprochement with the Muslim world had far-reaching consequences, long past his own death, since after the fall of the Crusader Kingdom, it would be the Franciscans, of all Catholics, who would be allowed to stay on in the Holy Land and be recognized as "Custodians of the Holy Land" on behalf of the Catholic Church.
...

While we're on religion, it's no wonder SV is filled with a bunch of Buddhists. lol Read What Silicon Valley Can Learn From Buddha's Diet

Zigmond works in the building below, overseeing data analytics for the Facebook News Feed and other parts of the world's most popular social network. That means he analyzes the massive of amounts of online data generated by News Feed, looking for ways to improve the service and other parts of Facebook. He's also a Zen priest who studied with the same Buddhist monk as Steve Jobs. And that means he's part of a long tradition inside Northern California tech circles. As we walk through Facebook's rooftop park, he hands me a copy of a 1986 academic monograph called From Satori to Silicon Valley. A thin paperback small enough to fit into my back pocket, it explores the link between Silicon Valley and the American counter culture of the 1960s and 70s, including so many hippie attitudes lifted from Buddhism. On the cover, two black-and-white symbols merge together: the ying-yang and the transistor.

Barf bag anyone? Oops my monkey mind failed on "no judgments" again. Only the SV bubble can take "no judgments" to mean "do whatever the fuck you want, regardless." Politicians too! Steve Jobs, I hope he is learning something in whatever reincarnated form he came back as. Hopefully it is not another useless bag of water like the last time. What a dick.

#1 I have no personal experience with Buddhism -- I left the Catholic church 20 years ago and vowed never to associate with organized religion again -- but theirs is the only philosophy that makes a modicum of sense to me.

As I once said to my still-practicing mother: "My church is the woods."

Pissed her right off. But it's true.

@enhydra lutris

#5
critical of the Catholic Church(tm).