Magazine
The Buddhist Review
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In This Issue
Features
Personal ReflectionsMagazine | Feature
Trying to Speak: A Personal History of Stage Fright
David Guy discovers a method for confronting his deepest fears.
Eating and the Wheel of Life
How to resist that cookie? Sandra Weinberg explores the problem of craving in a world of abundance.
Personal ReflectionsMagazine | Feature
The Spice Of Life
Anne Cushman negotiates a life between the playground and the meditation hall.
What Are You Really Afraid Of?
David R. Loy argues that our true fear is not of dying but of not existing in the first place.
The Appetite of Birds: The Challenge of Nonkilling
Biologist Joe Franke asks: Is it possible to take refuge in the Buddha while killing off invasive species?
Peace: How Realistic Is It?
Tricycle asks four Buddhists—in Croatia, Israel, Britain, and Japan—to weigh in on war and the possibility of peace.
Personal ReflectionsMagazine | Feature
Eye on the Ball
George Mumford, sports psychologist and L.A. Lakers meditation coach, talks about his troubled youth, his encounter with Buddhism, and the peculiar challenge of putting a ball into a basket. Katy Butler talks with the man behind…
Departments
Becoming an Inner Peace Activist
An interview with Tara Brach and an excerpt from her book, Radical Acceptance
Not Enlightened Yet
While struggling to explain her quest for enlightenment to her sister, a Zen practitioner finds recourse in “No Problem Mind.”
Haikerouac
In a little-known manuscript, as well as in his published works, Jack Kerouac imbued the haiku poem with his Beat ethic, yielding poems that he called “pops.” In true Kerouacian spirit, “pops” both embrace and reject…
Contributors Summer 2003
David R. Loy [“What Are You Really Afraid Of?” and “Why We Love War”] reflects on the interface between traditional Buddhist teachings and contemporary issues: “Buddhist insights must inform, and be informed by, what the modern…
Dana Worksheet
Here are some questions to help you develop your practice of dana. Your answers will suggest what you might like to change—and what you might like to keep the same—about how you give and receive. Answer…
Much Ado About Nothingness
The Cult of Nothingness:The Philosophers and the BuddhaRoger-Pol DroitTranslated by David Streight and Pamela VohnsonChapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003288 pp.; $59.95 (cloth), $24.95 (paper) What do people think about when they think about…
John Muir and One Breath
In his book Caught in Fading Light, Gary Thorp recounts his quest to spot a cougar in the mountains of northern California. Using the literary form of nikki bungaku, a traditional Japanese diary-writing style, he explores…
MeditationMagazine | On Practice
The Wisdom of Giving
Q & A with Andrew Olendzki
Parting Words
What goes through the mind of the person who chooses to go to jail rather than betray his spiritual convictions? The person who, refusing to be swept up in the militant patriotism that precedes most…
Personal ReflectionsMagazine | On Practice
Three Grapefruits
One small act of giving can have enormous repercussions in an interconnected world.
Takuan’s Quick Movement
A Story of Zen Master Takuan
Breaking Taboos
On the Set with Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche
MeditationMagazine | Interview
The Easy Middle
A rare combination of youth and wisdom, Mingyur Rinpoche discusses his life as a young teacher and student of the dharma.
More Precious Than Gold Dust
Historically, Tibet, like other Buddhist countries in Asia, had built-in ways to support dedicated practitioners and scholars who translated important texts. Some monasteries received tax money; others owned property leased to farmers in return for a…
MeditationMagazine | On Practice
Dana: The Practice of Giving
Dana (pronounced “DAH-nuh”), noun. Sanskrit, Pali, roughly “gift, alms, donation”; voluntary giving of materials, energy, or wisdom (dharma) to others; generosity; regarded as one of the most important Buddhist virtues. Simple acts of giving—whether material, emotional,…
Personal ReflectionsMagazine | Dharma Talk
The “Helper” Syndrome
Ezra Bayda cautions us to take a closer look at our true motivations.
MeditationMagazine | On Practice
The Gift That Cannot Be Given
Q & A with Marcia Rose
A Taste as Old as Cold Water
Timeless spring has its sharp teeth buried in my back flank, urging me to finish the last plantings of April before summer rises up out of the warm ground to claim the garden. Today, Sarah and…
The Freelance Monotheist
An Interview With Karen Armstrong
The View From Above
Caught in the stress of everyday life, we lose perspective. Manjusura writes of a philosophy that can change our lives.
The Prince and the Elephant
The Vessantara Jataka Tale
Does a Cat Have Buddha-Nature? Meow.
These monks have found a new way to earn their stripes.
MeditationMagazine | On Practice
The Power of Receiving
Q & A with Judy Lief
Letters to the Editor Summer 2003
Faith In Faith?Andrew Cooper’s interesting article “Modernity’s God-Shaped Hole” [Spring 2003] concludes with the largely unsupported statement that “we humans are inescapably religious.” This declaration of faith in faith, which puts Cooper in the mythos camp…
Books in Brief Summer 2003
Though Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, founder of the San Francisco Zen Center, died in 1971, his influence lives on, as books by his students—and his students’ students—continue to roll out. Among the latest: No Beginning, No End:…
The Practice of Harmonica
At last, a practical use for breath awareness.
Desert Lotus: Tibetan Buddhism Blossoms in Southern Utah
A Wal-Mart shopper finds the dharma, and a sangha is born in southern Utah.
A Mind with a Mind of its Own
Wes Nisker discovers the hidden DJ of his own mind.
Study and Laugher: Portraits of Temple Life
Portfolio: Tri Luu’s photographs capture the unadorned moments of monastic life among young monks in Southeast Asia.
Carried From Here
Tsering Wangmo Dhompa grew up in the Tibetan communities of India and Nepal, and moved to the United States to attend college and graduate school. Her collection of poems, Rules of the House, the first book…
MeditationMagazine | On The Cushion
Receiving the Breath
A meditation Q&A with Christina Feldman
A Religion of Practice
To the chagrin of some and the delight of others, syncretic practices and novel applications of Buddhist wisdom continue to spring up in contemporary life. As we sent this issue to press, what struck me once…
MeditationMagazine | On Practice
Giving Full Circle
Robert Aitken Roshi offers a meditation on the ideal of circular giving, founded in an ancient Hawai'ian land-sharing custom
