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CultureMagazine | Special Section
Earth Treasure Vases
Eco-Buddhists bring an ancient teaching from Tibet to help heal the land
CultureMagazine | Special Section
A Native Son of Spanish New Mexico
Zen Teacher Alfred Jitsudo Ancheta
CultureMagazine | Special Section
A River Runs Through It
From its headwaters north of Crestone, Colorado south to Albuquerque, New Mexico, the northern Rio Grande region is becoming home to a distinctly southwestern Buddhism.
CultureMagazine | Special Section
Buddha On The Rio Grande
For centuries, the northern stretch of the Rio Grande has lured religious seekers to its stark, awesome landscape. And as the people—among them Pueblo Indians, Spanish Catholics, and now a growing population of American and Asian…
CultureMagazine | Special Section
Buddhism in the Baca Grande
On a glorious July morning in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, a crowd made its way through crystalline air along a dirt road festooned with prayer flags towards the Tashi Gomang Stupa. Carmelite monks walked alongside…
IdeasMagazine | Special Section
Stupas Along The Rio Grande
The stupa, an ancient form of architecture, evolved significantly in both form and meaning with the coming of the Buddha. Cairns in ancient India were traditionally raised as monuments to kings and heroes and contained their…
MeditationMagazine | Special Section
Reading the Mountain
I take a level course along a steep north-facing slope, the bag of acorns tied to my belt slapping against my outer thigh. Every three strides, I jam the shovel down through ash, open a crack…
IdeasMagazine | Special Section
From the Roof of the World to the Land of Enchantment: The Tibet-Pueblo Connection
“When the iron bird flies, the dharma will come to the land of the red man.”—Eighth-century prophecy by Padmasambhava In the incongruous atmosphere of the Wilshire Hotel in Los Angeles, an extraordinary encounter took place in…
IdeasMagazine | Special Section
Fundamental Zen
An Interview with Joshu Sasaki Roshi
Features
Send a Young Buddhist To Camp
Children Mandala on the Mountain Dharma Summer Camp Dharma Rain Zen Center, Portland, OR, (503) 239-4846. August 20-24. For ages 9 to 13, this camp aims to help kids work on their self-identity within the group…
The Pentagon Meditation Club
Where Sitting Down is Taking a Stand
Reincarnation: A Debate
Buddhist practitioners and scholars Stephen Batchelor and Robert Thurman debate whether reincarnation is fundamental to Buddhism or not.
Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997)
Allen Ginsberg had an open life and an open death. From the time the word went out early Friday morning, April 4, that he had had a stroke and was in a coma, family, friends, lovers,…
Departments
Of Cults & Clones
Following the cloning of Dr. Wilmut’s ewe, we asked various people to comment on this historic event. In response Ravi Ravindra, Professor of Comparative Religion and of Physics at Dalhousie University in Halifax, said, “A more…
Zen Flies
In San Francisco during the early fifties fly fishing was an important part of the Beat scene. Widespread interest in Buddhism and nature naturally led to Zen Flies. It was admittedly a passing phenomenon—as one angler-poet…
The Five Houses of Zen
Sarah Fremerman reviews The Five Houses of Zen by Thomas Cleary
The Heart of Being: Moral and Ethical Teachings of Zen Buddhism
A Review by Amy Hollowell
TeachingsMagazine | Book Reviews
A Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life
A Review by John Pettit
Discipline of Freedom
Discipline of Freedom The Yoga Sutra Attributed to Patanjali Translated from the Sanskrit by Barbara Stoler Miller University of California Press, 1996. 114 pp., $17.95 (cloth) Yoga and Buddha are probably the two best-known and most-used…
TeachingsMagazine | On Practice
Place of Practice: Advice from the Masters
The Grass Mat Shakyamuni Buddha’s Diamond Throne Now, very late that afternoon, just as the rays of the westering sun gilded the trees with a prodigal burst of glowing color, Gautama rose up like a lion…
Endless Vow: The Zen Path of Soen Nakagawa
A Review by Lawrence Shainberg
Personal ReflectionsMagazine | On Gardening
Planting Paradise
Last summer about this time when the Dragon Tongue beans began to thicken their speckled fingers and clutch heavy to the vine, I helped plant a circular “house” of sunflowers with an eager passel of kids.…
TeachingsMagazine | Dharma Talk
The Death of the Dharma: A Prophecy
As far back as our sources can take us, Buddhism has taught that all things that emerge in time and consist of separate components (in technical terms, all “conditioned” phenomena) are subject to eventual destruction. And…
In the News Summer 1997
Murder in Dharamsala On February 5, 1997, three Tibetans were murdered on the campus of the Buddhist School of Dialectics, close to the Dalai Lama’s residence in McLeod Ganj, near Dharamsala, India. The victims were the…
MeditationMagazine | Ancestors
Return to Your Original State!
Teachers of Zen have a favorite saying, “Return to your original state!” To return to the original state means, in a word, “Go back home!” “Original state” signifies “original state of mind.” What is this original…
Zen Master Sokei-an
At the turn of the century, the United States became home to its first Zen master, Sokei-an Shigetsu Sasaki. Born in 1882 to a successful Shinto scholar and his concubine, Sokei-an first came to America as…
“Nothing Is Final Forever
This vignette is excerpted from A Journey with Elsa Cloud, just published by Books & Co./Turtle Point Press. The story opens with a telephone call to the narrator from her estranged daughter in India who, having…
Personal ReflectionsMagazine | Letters
Letters to the Editor Summer 1997
Buddhism with Belief Stephen Batchelor’s argument that the Buddha was a secular agnostic, denying knowledge of such questions as what happens after death, is based on two points: (1) a quotation from the texts in which…
Columns
Haiku Mind
An Interview With Clark Strand
Personal ReflectionsMagazine | Column
What Does Being A Buddhist Mean To You? Summer 1997
re: Cloning
Right Reading
Summer book recommendations