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“When you are practicing generosity, you should feel a little pinch when you give something away. That pinch is your stinginess protesting. If you give away your old, worn-out coat that you wouldn’t be caught dead wearing, that is not generosity. There is no pinch. You are doing nothing to overcome your stinginess; you’re just […]
The Eighth Zen Precept is about more than emptying your pockets.
How giving comes from gratitude.
We are the world unfolding.
A charismatic ex-con lures at-risk kids away from violence.
Dissecting devotion
Elijah, Muhammad, Milarepa, Francis of Assisi–all dwelled in the twilight of mountain caves. These didn’t have to be very deep. In fact, it was better if they weren’t. Such caves were selected because they were private, and a bit out of the way. But that was only the smallest part of it. What they really […]
Did you know Clark Strand led a Green Meditation online retreat from March 1st through March 22nd, 2010? Take a look here. At a press conference in April 2009, the White House science czar John Holdren described the impending catastrophe of global warming with an ominous metaphor: “We’re driving in a car with bad brakes […]
Under the cover of night, Clark Strand discovers a lost state essential to wakefulness.
Today when persimmons ripenToday when fox-kits come out of their den into snowToday when the spotted egg releases its wren songToday when the maple sets down its red leavesToday when windows keep their promise to openToday when fire keeps its promise to warmToday when someone you love has diedor someone you never met has diedToday […]
This past December, dressed in down coats and lined boots, representatives from over 190 countries met on the darkest and coldest days of the year in Copenhagen, Denmark, to discuss, of all things, legislation to prevent global temperatures from rising any higher. Over the course of two weeks, the 2009 United Nations Copenhagen Climate Change […]
Bonnie Myotai Treace, Sensei, honors her teacher.
The five ways I don’t belong to me
A tree-planting challenge
A shout-out to the lost ladies of Zen
Questioning Your Spirituality Since 2010
The earliest known dated print book in the world is the Chinese-language version of the “Diamond Sutra,” a seminal Mahayana Buddhist text pointing its readers to the Middle Way. Translated from the Sanskrit in the early fifth century CE, the “Diamond Sutra” appeared as the woodblock print pictured above on the “15th of the 4th […]
When Cyclone Nargis hit Burma in May 2008, it took the lives of nearly 150,000 people and left at least a million homeless. While relief organizations waited at the country’s borders to deliver aid, the Foundation for the People of Burma (FPB) was already there. Working with partners in Rangoon, the San Francisco–based foundation provided […]
A talk with Stephen Batchelor
People have always made sense of the present through understanding the past. Usually, we arrived at the past through a blend of myth, legend, spoken accounts of actual events, and perhaps written records. While historical study is often said to have begun in ancient Greece, with Herodotus and Thucydides, it is only in the modern […]
I Heart Tomatoes Tomatoes and avocados are my favorite fruit (after mangos, that is). Growing up, it was impossible for me to imagine life without them. In fact, in the diary my mother kept about me for the first two years of my life, tomatoes appear prominently as my favorite food. As an adult I […]
The story of a high lama raised in Communist China
You can’t get enlightened on an empty stomach
The members of the Nyingma Monlam Chenmo International, representing more than 300 Nyingma monasteries in Tibet, India, and Bhutan, unanimously nominated E. Gene Smith to receive a lifetime achievement award for his contributions to the preservation of the buddhadharma. Smith recently stepped down as Executive Director of the Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center (TBRC), which he […]
Completely immersed in the way, the way becomes you.
A visit with the dharma teacher Elizabeth Mattis-Namgyel.
Reinventing oneself in Bangkok
George Mumford sports-psychology consultant for the Boston College men’s basketball team and LA Lakers meditation coachAge: 59 Location: Newton Upper Falls, Massachusetts How did you get into dharma?I got into the practice via stressreduction, which was being taught by the HMO I was in. I had chronic pain and migraine headaches.What’s exciting about Buddhism for […]
Dear Abbey Dharma,I’m concerned that my mindfulness practice is making me indifferent. I still feel genuinely connected when I sit at the bedside of a dying person or with a person who comes to see me for counseling at church, but if I watch the news on TV , I feel curiously unmoved. I used […]
Searching for My Old Teacher Still looking for you in the high reeds near El Salto small pond in a dry country You told me I would be safe no matter where I went or what happened Only come back to the dark house and the flame lit under the earth The great mountain you […]
Snapshots of John Daido Loori Roshi
River-Horse: The Logbook of a Boat Across AmericaWilliam Least Heat-Moon Penguin, 2001 506 pp., $14 paper A River Sutra Gita Mehta Vintage, 1994 291 pp., $14.95 paper Dead Pool: Lake Powell, Global Warming, and the Future of Water in the West James Lawrence Powell University of California Press, 2008 304 pp., $27.50 cloth A book, […]
Serena Edwards contemporary dancer/bartender Age: 28 Location: New York City How did you get into dharma? The easy way: my parents got me in. Do you have a particular lineage subscription? Nyingma—from my parents. Vegetarian? I try and take it easy on the industrial-farming meat. All time hero? My teacher, Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche; Guru Rinpoche […]
“Runaway Moon” (SB Gallery, New York, 2010, $30.00 paperback, 48 pp.) is a series of paintings by the artist Minette Mangahas that tell the story of a frightened horse being chased by the moon. The moon morphs into new objects over the course of the night, assuming the shape of drums, a bubble, and a […]
“The Bhikkhu who, while still young, devotes himself to the Buddha’s Teaching, illuminates this world like the moon freed from a cloud.” –The Buddha […]
The first pet I ever had of my own was a fledgling mockingbird I named Brighty. I found him while I was staying at my grandmother’s in Texas one spring. I rescued him from the dive bombs of blue jays and the prowling of Aunt May’s feral cats. I was out playing bat-and-catch myself—hitting the […]
There is a word in German for a tune that gets lodged in your memory—Ohrwurm; literally translated it is “earworm.” I woke up one morning with the simple piano introduction to Nina Simone’s version of the Rogers and Hart song “Little Girl Blue” dominating my thoughts, and weeks later I realized it had become more […]
KHENPO TSÜLTRIM GYAMTSO is a Buddhist master who trained extensively with yogis living in the remote monasteries and caves of Tibet. In 1959, local nuns asked him for protection from the invading Communists, and he led them to safety in Bhutan. In 1977, he began teaching worldwide about the path of wisdom and compassion, which […]
Uncertainty is liberating.