
Feature
New Age Orientalism: The Case of Tibet
Tibetan Buddhism has been portrayed as the most corrupt deviation of the Buddha’s teaching, and as its most direct descendant. Lopez takes another look at our romance with Tibet.
The Buddhist Review
Back IssuesTibetan Buddhism has been portrayed as the most corrupt deviation of the Buddha’s teaching, and as its most direct descendant. Lopez takes another look at our romance with Tibet.
The Life Story and Love Poems of the Sixth Dalai Lama
This is the first of two excerpts adapted from a book of the same name, to be published in the fall by Shambhala Publications. The first installment features extracts of a travel journal written in Thailand; the second excerpt, which picks up the journey in Burma and Cambodia, will appear in the Summer Issue. Snapshots by the author.
We must ask ourselves if the Americanization of Zen now under way is a necessary cultural adaptation or a justification for the co-optation of Zen by secular materialists.
An Interview With Oliver Stone
Approach to Zen
Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
Zen Poems of Ryokan
In Oliver Stone’s new movie Heaven and Earth, Buddhism plays a major role in a Hollywood movie for the first time. (See interview with Oliver Stone in this issue.) Earlier, What’s Love Got to Do with It offered a glimpse of Tina Turner’s conversion to the Nichiren Shoshu Buddhist sect, and Bernardo Bertolucci’s film Little Buddha […]
Shakyamuni Buddha: A Life Retold
Re: Daily Practice
A vital link in the westward transmission of the dharma, Dwight Goddard’s A Buddhist Bible is about to be republished this spring by Beacon Press. Originally printed more than sixty years ago, it was the first English-language anthology of Buddhist teachings and was crucial to the development of Buddhism in America. This is an excerpt […]
It takes a while for a new magazine to find its voice. How sad that Tricycle‘s is maturing with the rasp of a feminist tract.George Fradin Ann Arbor, Michigan Too much politics!—referring to the Winter 1993 Environmental Issue with the Zen spin. Cannot Tricycle be a refuge from writers who can’t save themselves much less […]
A Few Notes on the Endless Quest for Meditation Posture
What we call “I” is just a swinging door which moves when we inhale and when we exhale. When we practice zazen our mind always follows our breathing. When we inhale, the air comes into the inner world. When we exhale, the air goes out to the outer world. The inner world is limitless, and […]
A Zen master on the universal guidelines for zazen, or sitting meditation.
With dharma discourse from Bodhidharma
1. Sit on the forward third of a chair or cushion. 2. Arrange your legs in a position you can maintain comfortably. In the Half Lotus position, place your left leg on your right thigh (or vice versa). In the Full Lotus position, put your feet on opposite thighs. You may also sit simply with […]
The Dark Journey of Werner Erhard from est to Exile
Four Monks Arrested in Vietnam Following the largest Vietnamese public protest since the Vietnam War, four Buddhist monks were convicted and sentenced to prison terms of three and four years by the Vietnamese government on November 14, 1993. According to The New York Times, the protest, which took place on May 23, 1993, was orchestrated […]
A Life of the Buddha
Looking for Spiritual Value in Modern Art
Satsang with H.W.L. PoonjaVolume 1Pacific Center Press: Maui, 1992.171 pp., $12.00 (paper).Wake Up and RoarSatsang with H.W.L. PoonjaVolume 2Pacific Center Press: Maui, 1993.175 pp., $12.00 (paper). Once, in the midst of a particularly poignant time in her psychotherapy, a patient of mine asked if she could tape-record her therapy sessions to listen to on her […]
How I Learned and Practiced Social Change in Vietnam
A Translation of The Avatamsaka Sutra
Drawings by Lois Long You carry a small portable rice cooker and an immersion heater, various plugs, extension cords, and converters for foreign exchange in your luggage. It is extremely important to be knowledgeable about the various shapes and forms and power of plugs for different countries. There have recently been advertisements concerning a single […]
Lama Zopa Rinpoche.Edited by Ailsa Cameron and Robina Courtin.Wisdom Publications: Boston, 1993.88 pp., $10.00 (paper). Nobody likes to suffer, and that’s probably why those with physical pains, mental problems, and spiritual crises are the target market for the recent outpouring of “how to overcome” books. And at first glance, Transforming Problems into Happinessmight be regarded […]
A Soul Approach to Illness