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The Buddhist Review
Back Issues
How is the business of pilgrimage transforming Bodh Gaya? Liesl Schwabe reports on modernization at the site of the Buddha’s awakening.
Pioneering Tibetan teacher Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche [1939-1987], founder of the Shambhala Buddhist community, examines Zen from a Tantric perspective in this talk he gave in 1974 in Barnet, Vermont.
Pagan Kennedy recounts the story of Michael Dillion, a transgender man and aspiring Buddhist monk
On a monthlong retreat in a Himalayan meditation cave, Kate Wheeler learns more from companionship than solitude.
Voluptuous tree spirits, maternal nurturers, potent protectors, and dancing female Buddhas—the Indo-Himalayan Buddhist world abounds with goddesses of amazing diversity. Miranda Shaw reveals some of the many powers, symbols, and stories of this often overlooked and misunderstood pantheon.
With a faith in the power of storytelling and an eye for unexpected imagery, filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul has challenged the boundaries of cinema in his native Thailand.
Zen Master Who? A Guide to the People and Stories of ZenJames Ishmael FordWisdom Publications, 2006280 pp.; $15.95 (paper) Ford, a Soto Zen priest and Unitarian Universalist minister, has put together a rich and eminently readable resource on Zen in the West. He begins with an overview of the history of Zen, then thoroughly covers […]
Buddhism’s crowded bookshelf
A few years back—not long before revelations of torture at Abu Ghraib—U.S. Army Specialist Benjamin Thompson wrote us from the soon-to-become notorious prison site with a simple request: Could we send him a few issues of Tricycle for support in his meditation practice? Thompson’s unit had arrived at Abu Ghraib to replace those who were […]
Keeping your head in a mindless world
For many Korean Zen practitioners, Chinese Zen master So Sahn’s compendium of teachings The Mirror of Zen is second in importance only to the Buddha’s teachings. Here, he comments on the importance and risk of self-confidence.
A handbook for practice and study
Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche discusses the relevance of science as a tool for meditators.
What happens when a Buddhist goes to war? Benjamin Thompson speaks about his year as a guard at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and the overlooked humanitarian crisis there.
The Dalai Lama reflects on praise and blame in his commentary on lines from Longchen Rabjam’s Finding Comfort and Ease in Meditation on the Great Perfection.
A new discovery reveals the deep roots of the gardener’s lineage
Sex, violence, and the Awakened One
CHALLENGING THE CHALLENGE As a longtime reader of your magazine and a daily meditator, I was distressed by the “Commit To Sit” practice section that appears in the Spring 2007 issue. I am certain that your intentions were good, but I believe that it is not helpful to present daily meditation as some sort of […]
The films of Ellen Bruno
Eliot Fintushel remembers his time with Zen teacher Toni Packer
For most of us born in the Western world, remote from Buddhism of any institutional kind, knowledge of the dhamma has come entirely from books and, occasionally, spoken words, some quite excellent and informative, certainly. But this kind of learning still retains a somewhat ethereal air in the absence of actions, traditions, and spiritual observances […]
Only by tethering our senses to the stake of mindfulness can we achieve true freedom.
PAGAN KENNEDY, whose article “Man-Made Monk” is in this issue, tells us : “Three years ago, I learned that a British aristocrat named Laura Dillon, who become Michael Dillon in 1943, was the first to undergo a female-to-male sex change. After he’d refashioned his body, Michael Dillon fled the West for India, where he became […]
Have Westerners created a new and viable form of Buddhism, or has something been lost in translation? Berkeley professor Robert Sharf argues that with our emphasis on individual experience and meditation, we risk cutting ourselves off from the benefits of a greater tradition. Photographs by Christine Alicino
Beloved Cambodian Buddhist teacher Maha Ghosananda [1929–2007], Supreme Buddhist Patriarch of Cambodia, passed away on March 12 in Northampton, Massachusetts. In the late 1970s, he ministered to refugees fleeing the genocidal Killing Fields of the Khmer Rouge regime. He became a prominent peace activist on the world stage, and was a revered meditation teacher. Jack […]
Dzigar Kongtrül Rinpoche offers advice for facing up to our egos.
A teacher is impelled by a student’s troubles to confront the human suffering in the Middle East.
Sekkei Harada Roshi guides us to liberation through the breath.
Although many believe that the ego is just a source of trouble, Thanissaro Bhikkhu teaches that a healthy, functioning ego is a crucial tool on the path to Awakening.
Bodhipaksa guides us through the Buddha’s powerful Six Element practice to equanimity, pure and bright.
Revisiting an interfaith classic
Could a new generation of Indian Buddhist converts hold the key to ending Sri Lanka’s decades-long civil war?
