I’m flying my 15y son 3,000 miles away tomorrow to join a hockey team and academy for the 2026/2027 season. I’m excited for him, but I’m so anxious and nauseated by the thought of him saying goodbye to his mom and sister tomorrow and to me on Sunday. This is part of his journey, but not easy.
Dan Arel | Radical Buddhism
@danarel.com
Buddhist, naturalist, Marxist dad interested in mindfulness, awareness and living a better life. As seen in: TIME, HuffPost, AlterNet, Salon, and more.
Rebuilding a social following and readership is no easy feat. I had 12,000+ Twitter followers and deleted it all for ethical reasons. Replaced that with 40 BlueSky followers. My Patheos blog had millions of readers a month. Replaced with 8 on Substack. I’m killing it!
Made a lot of updates to the @leaflet.pub site today. The yearly price is still a bit too high to justify, so I’m still without an email signup for those who don’t want to use Substack.
Moved my whole blog archive to @leaflet.pub last night. Will continue to post to Substack and Leaflet so you can subscribe to either. I missed their summer sale so you can’t sign up on Leaflet with email, but can use your BlueSky account. danarel.leaflet.pub
Sam Harris continues to refuse to listen to anyone that is opposed to Israel's genocide against the Palestinian people. As usual, he's more concerned with killing Muslims than looking at the actual truth.
Sam Harris is wrong about Palestine
danarel.leaflet.pub
I have been keeping an updated reading list on my website along with my rating for each book. #booksky You can check it out here: www.danarel.com/reading/
Rescued this baby bird today. A cat attacked a flock of them and this one wasn’t able to fly away. At the wildlife center now getting the care it needs.
Moved my whole blog archive to @leaflet.pub last night. Will continue to post to Substack and Leaflet so you can subscribe to either. I missed their summer sale so you can’t sign up on Leaflet with email, but can use your BlueSky account. danarel.leaflet.pub
Giving Leaflet a try and moving some of my latest posts there, for those who don't want to follow on Substack.
Why Buddhism is a call to organize
Beyond ending one's own suffering, the practice will help end suffering for all
danarel.leaflet.pub
Community question. I currently have a Substack that is very slowly growing. Would it be bad to also publish to @leaflet.pub and build the audience here, so I could eventually relocate my subscribers to Leaflet or would double posting hurt my growth? #writing #blogging #atmosphere
Ok so I was secretly working on an essay just like this, but Joan Westenberg took the words right out of my mouth. As people on Twitter, Bluesky, and beyond circle jerk, virtue signal, and complain at each other to death, the rest of us are just trying to have fun at the movies.
Hating Marvel Movies Is Not a Personality
The Emptiness of Cultural Elitism
joanwestenberg.com
New atheism has failed to grow or evolve in the last 20+ years. The arguments are the same, they continue to worship the same voices no matter how bad they get, and it’s just one online debate after another. The most it evolved was aligning with the far-right & oppressing marginalized communities
Atheist here. These books are trash. One written by an Iraq war proponent whose only argument is religion is evil. Another who lacks any philosophical discourse on religion and culture, who is also a rampant transphobe, and third by a pretend philosopher who denies genocide and is a vocal Zionist.
3 Atheist Books All Should Read: Join American Atheists & get their Magazine atheists.org / @ffrf.org @rsslmo.bsky.social @riatheists.bsky.social @rmatheists.bsky.social @godlessbitch.bsky.social @godlessprimate.bsky.social @godlessmom.bsky.social @nickfish.me @richardcarrier.info @atheist-memes.com
At temple tonight, at a class on Metta meditation, a man tried to argue with the practitioner that our temple was contradicting Buddhist teachings by claiming there is “no self” but then also participating in “identify politics” by marching in the Pride parade…
The Law of Attraction is a multi-billion dollar industry and it’s a massive scam. It preys on stay at home moms, and would be entrepreneurs, by asking them to spend money to make money, but with no way to deliver. I wrote about the industry today on the #blog: danarel.substack.com/p/the-flaw-o...
The flaw of attraction
A closer look at the business of manifesting
danarel.substack.com
I have been keeping an updated reading list on my website along with my rating for each book. #booksky You can check it out here: www.danarel.com/reading/
On my newsletter today, I think through how I have found #Buddhist practice has related to my professional life in #organizing and fighting #injustice. open.substack.com/pub/danarel/...
Stumbled across a clip of Christopher Hitchens debating a priest and I have to say. Hitchens was a terrible debater. He’s a great orator and his accent maybe hides the fact that he just uses big words to tell people they’re stupid and have stupid beliefs, just insulting with debating.
A robust first amendment while a bunch of people are going to prison for sharing anti-fascist literature.
I saw Suki Waterhouse last night and she was incredible.
I know it’s a waste of time, because Sam Harris doesn't want facts, but I felt the need to address some of his outlandish claims about Israel and Palestine and the fact he refuses to believe Israel can do any wrong in this war. open.substack.com/pub/danarel/...
Sam Harris is wrong about Palestine
Israel is carrying out an active genocide and Sam Harris wants to keep his eyes closed.
open.substack.com
"Isn’t there concern that this slippery slope to socialism inevitably ends up as full-blown communism?" Shit, I sure hope so!
Reporter: Isn’t there concern that this slippery slope to socialism inevitably ends up as full-blown communism? AOC: They want to call everything they don’t like communist because if people actually wake up to the fact that their elected officials are screwing them over when they get here
I know it’s a waste of time, because Sam Harris doesn't want facts, but I felt the need to address some of his outlandish claims about Israel and Palestine and the fact he refuses to believe Israel can do any wrong in this war. open.substack.com/pub/danarel/...
Sam Harris is wrong about Palestine
Israel is carrying out an active genocide and Sam Harris wants to keep his eyes closed.
open.substack.com
The DSA is growing because folks on the left who still vote for Dems out of pragmatism have realized that it’s impossible to change the party from the inside. You cannot be a revolutionary in an anti-revolutionary party.
Why has DSA grown? One argument from this research: not just ideology, but organization. Strong membership plus ongoing and continuous participation in social movements creates credibility, committed volunteers, political skills, and durable electoral capacity. www.niskanencenter.org/inside-the-d...
Chait and Katz can only punch left because at some point you run out of room on the right.
I appreciate the candor of critics who concede their principle is "don't punch left." Dispenses with the need to pretend they object to the substance of any individual act of left-criticism.