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The Buddhist Review
Back Issues
Rick Bass reflects on a life devoted to wilderness, and to environmental activism, and discovers that the one needn’t exclude the other.
A Buddhist screenwriter talks about the Beats, the bodhisattva ideal, and his award-winning screenplay of Neal Cassady.
A Buddhist nun bites off more than she can chew.
Is consumerism the new American religion? Is the market itself determining not only the students, but the teachers of Buddhism?
Why did a conscientious objector choose to join a Buddhist military organization? Kidder Smith looks back on his time with the Vajra Guard.
An interview with B. Alan Wallace
An interview with Tibetan scholar Jeffrey Hopkins and an excerpt from his new book.
When we are caring for someone who is sick, we lend them our body. We use the strength of our arms to move them from the bed to the commode, and we can also lend them the strength of our mind. We can help to create a calm and accepting environment. We can be a […]
Caregiving from a Buddhist perspective is a recognition that this person’s suffering is also my suffering. When I see this, whether I’m the person in the bed or the person making the bed, I have to confront this precariousness. Buddhist practice can help us enormously in continuing to give our attention to what’s actually appearing, […]
Jane Hirschfieldfrom Given Sugar, Given SaltHarperCollins: New York, 2001, 88pp.; $24 (cloth) Metapsychosis Some stories last many centuries,others only a moment.All alter over that lifetime like beach-glass,grow distant and more beautiful with salt. Yet even today, to look at a treeand ask the story Who are you? is to be transformed. There is a stage […]
I’d been away on a silent retreat for several weeks. We’d engaged in a Dzogchen preliminary practice of self-inquiry in which one asks, “Who is meditating? Who, what is aware?” By retreat’s end, wondering how my family was doing, I called home. Jonathan, who was three at the time, answered the phone. “Daddy!” he said, […]
When you are grounded in practice you can radiate presence and composure to everyone around you, writes Judith Lief.
Buddhist Symbolism in Tibetan ThangkasThe Story of Siddhartha and Other Buddhas Interpreted in Modern Nepalese Paintingby Ben MeulenbeldWeiser Books: Maine, 2001112 pp.; $19.95 (paper) This book is an introduction to the art of the Tibetan scroll painting, or thangka—literally, “something that can be rolled up.” The author comments on thirty-seven thangkas, reproduced here in full […]
Those who are fond of retreats—writers, ecstatics, parents with young children—often comment on the silence such time away allows. Silence becomes something present, almost palpable. The task shifts from keeping the world at a safe decibel distance to letting more of the world in. Thomas Aquinas said that beauty arrests motion. He meant, I think, […]
Spring washes over the garden; a torrent of sea-green buds swell with rainwater. Song sparrows and orange-crowned warblers begin their dawn chorus well before zazen, reminding cross-legged sitters in the ten directions that it is time to sow Tarahumara sunflowers and Trail o’ Tears beans. At Green Gulch Farm we lightly mark and honor the […]
Dakini’s Warm Breath The Feminine Principle in Tibetan Buddhism Judith Simmer-Brown Shambhala Publications: Boston, 2001 352 pp.; $29.95 (cloth) If you took the Virgin Mary in all her apparitions—from the carpenter’s gentle wife through the radiant Madonna to the transfigured miracle-maker—and gave her full angelic powers, you’d then have to add Athena, Aphrodite, Medusa, the […]
Tricycle welcomes letters to the editor. Letters are subject to editing. Please send correspondence to: Tricycle: The Buddhist Review 92 Vandam Street New York, NY 10013 Fax: (212) 645-1493 editorial@tricycle.com Nazi’s Archives As an ethnic Jew and Tibetan Buddhist, I read with ardent interest your article “Hitler and the Himalayas.” The article focused on Dr. […]
A dying person most needs to be shown as unconditional a love as possible, released from all expectations. Don’t think you have to be an expert in any way. Be natural, be yourself, be a true friend, and the dying person will be reassured that you are really with them, communicating with them simply and […]
How then do we most sensitively help ordinary spiritual practitioners who are dying? All of us will need the love and care that comes with emotional and practical support, but for spiritual practitioners the atmosphere, instensity, and dimension of spiritual help take on a special meaning. It would be ideal, and a great blessing, if […]
Caring For the Dying
Author Charles Johnson reviews two new books by African-American Buddhists.
An interview with Mirabai Bush on bringing contemplation into the inner sanctum of American power, from Harvard University to Monsanto.
I’d been working as a hospice volunteer for about six years when my friend Nando fell ill. We had been lovers for many years and though we were separated, we were still close friends. And then one day she collapsed, fainted, and was taken to the hospital. It turned out to be leukemia. First she […]
Around 1989, my partner Raymond, with whom I ended up living for eleven years, began to show some symptoms of HIV-related illness. Considering we were a Japanese and American couple, everyone thinks that I was the one who brought him to Buddhist practice, but actually it was the opposite. He had gotten hold of a […]
For you to be composed and concentrated will help the dying person continue with equanimity on their journey into the after-death state. It can be both calming and otherwise helpful to the dying patient for you to share with them the counting of their breath for periods of about twenty minutes, perhaps several times a […]
It’s not unusual for Tricycle to cover the enormous diversity of Buddhism, but in this particular issue, the spectrum is about as broad as it gets. At one end, we have the barbaric destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan. At the other, Mirabai Bush speaks of introducing contemplative practices to American power spots such as […]
Secret TibetFosco MarainiThe Harvill Press: London, 2001425 pp.; $35 (cloth) There is something about traveling in Tibet that makes Westerners reach for their pens. But of the literally dozens of travelers who have described their Tibetan adventures, few have possessed Fosco Maraini’s talent for writing. Maraini describing his bus journey across town would be enjoyable […]
Rob Schultheis, a journalist, painter, and adventurer, covers the destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan. He lives in the mountain town of Telluride, Colorado, with his wife-an artist and tour guide whom he married at a monastery at the base of Mt. Everest in a “casual ceremony.” His newest book is Fool’s Gold: Lives, Loves […]
In working with someone who is dying, there is a tremendous temptation to ignore our own relationship to death and immediately assume the role of the helper. But when we do so, we are losing our common ground with that person. Entering a dying person’s world takes courage and empathy. Only by accepting our own […]
The Buddhas of Bamiyan
At one point when I was sitting with my father, I said, “Dad, are you afraid of dying?” And he said, “I was, but not now.” He didn’t speak of death a lot. There wasn’t a lot to say, really, it was so in your face, so obvious. And he wanted to live up until […]
Julia was no one’s beloved friend. Imagine that. Her family was in Oregon and they didn’t know that she had already spent most of her short life trying to kick drugs. And she didn’t want them to know. I first met her at an NA meeting [Narcotics Anonymous]. I had been clean for about two […]
BuddhaKaren ArmstrongViking: New York, 2001205 pp.; $19.95 (cloth) How do you write a biography of a Tathagata, one who has “disappeared”? Anyone who aspires to the task of writing the life of the Buddha has to confront not only the total absence of recorded historical testimony but also the potentially even more intractable problem that […]
A few recommendations from…
Fading Hope The Dalai Lama makes a much-anticipated return to the United Stares this May. During his monthlong stay he will visit the cities of Minneapolis, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Jose, and Salt Lake City. Public events in the six cities have been sold out weeks in advance, with some organizers scrambling to […]
