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The Buddhist Review
Back Issues
“The only thing worse than being talked about,” said Oscar Wilde, “is not being talked about.” I love gossip. I love to hear it, I love to spread it, and most of all I love to be its subject, target, and victim. In fact, I actively cultivate and disseminate disinformation about myself and others, especially […]
When we were teenagers, my brother had a funny little routine about gossip. He would begin with “I never say anything about anyone that isn’t good,” and then, leaning over as if to whisper in your ear, he would add, “and, boy, is this good!” Usually that was followed by something really juicy. We find […]
The Sixth Precept: Stop bad mouthing people, you idiot!
Is what we are born with enough or could we use a little help? A conversation with Transhumanist James Hughes
What will it take to establish a truly Western dharma?
Setting the Record Straight on D.T. Suzuki
Published here for the first time, this commentary by one of the great Tibetan masters of the 20th century, Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, will appear in The Collected Works of Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche (Shambhala, 2010).
Chaos and Enlightenment in Bodhgaya
A conversation with Lewis Richmond
Dear Abbey Dharma, In my lifetime of professional work in Canadian social service, I have gone from being left-leaning to Social Conservative. I don’t find a place for myself in any Western Buddhist sangha where being politically left is the norm. Even my current dharma teacher spews out hateful speech against just about anyone and […]
Bitter buffaloberrydevil’s club, tangled dogtoothnarrowleaf arrowheadWhat are the lineages of life?ground water, radiant heat—listen, they form the underlying beatof the watershed,gifts with no motive the way of the ancientsskyrocket chicory bluestemfew-flowered shooting starIndian pipeall the paradise you need’s outside your doorthe medicine Buddha wears a lapis lazuli headdressfeathers & turquoise beadscan you give thanks with […]
104 Poems by Gendun Chopel
The easy-to-make Tibetan dish dresti is traditionally served for ceremonial occasions but also makes for good midweek comfort food.
With all the talk of print’s decline, Tricycle’s newsstand sales are flourishing. We did not experience the same sharp drop that general-interest magazines suffered over the past year. As a publication serving what’s referred to as a “niche audience”—that’s you—we’ve navigated a tough print environment well. At the same time, I think there are other […]
Using the Wisdom of Homer’s Odyssey to Navigate Life’s Perils and Pitfalls
The Essential Teachings
Midnight in the garden
In God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World—and Why Their Differences Matter(HarperOne, 2010, $26.99 hardcover, 400 pp.), Stephen Prothero argues against the assertion that all religions are simply paths to the same God. The book systematically breaks down eight religions—Islam, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Yoruba religion, […]
Recapturing the Dark “Turn Out The Lights” by Clark Strand (Spring 2010) was an excellent article! Now we have to figure out how to recapture natural silence. The din of the marketplace in the days of yore—or even the roar of a Roman colosseum—was nothing compared to today’s car alarms, boom boxes, and blaring TVs […]
Ordinary nirvana
Buddha’s Orphans Samrat Upadhyay Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, July 2010448 pp., $26.00 cloth At first blush, Buddhism might seem hostile to fiction. Our practice asks us to reject all illusions, allowing ourselves to see things only as they are. The dharma offers us a chance, even a duty, to rouse from our own waking dreams. Against […]
The Radically Experiential Psychology of Buddhism
Gil Fronsdal tells us how to get the most out of it.
Profession: Poet Age : 73 Location: NYC What are you working on right now? At the moment I am just finishing a piece about Garcia Lorca. How do you view poetry? All art, and poetry being one, is wisdom. Pure wisdom arises in various forms. Vegetarian? No. All-time hero? My teacher, Dudjom Rinpoche. Do you […]
Becoming Whole
Noa Jones writes fiction and creative nonfiction. She is the writer and editor of Art in Action: Nature, Creativity, and Our Collective Future. Her first book was Travellers & Magicians, about the making of Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche’s film of the same name. Jones is from New York and Colorado. She is currently working on […]
The fantastic creatures of reality
When we are deeply involved in the practice of the Buddha dharma, the sages advise that we practice a common sense of balance by learning to structure our mundane activities and dharma practice in ways that allow us success in both areas of our life. We should not fall into extremes, either of procrastinating in […]
The Radically Experiential Psychology of Buddhism
The Prison & The American Imagination Caleb Smith Yale University Press, 2009 272 pp. $40.00 cloth Solitude can be a vehicle for liberation, or it can tear a person apart. To say nothing of sagely hermits—the American cult of reclusive individualism delivers at once intrepid pioneers and desperate housewives, mountaintop transcendentalists and deranged unabombers. As […]
Mahamudra, or “great seal,” is a term used in Vajrayana Buddhism to refer to the mark, or nature, of all experience: emptiness. Mahamudra practice is most commonly associated with the Kagyü tradition of Tibet. What follows is taken from Ken McLeod’s “The Way of Freedom,” a Tricycle Online Retreat. For instance, consider space: what depends […]
Why you need both to strike a balance
In May 2006, Buddha Jyoti Himalayan Youth Club Nepal (BJHYC) started its latest social service project, Maitri Griha, or “House of Friendship,” a home for mentally disabled children in Kathmandu, Nepal. Perceiving a lack of care for this vulnerable group, BJHYC rented a house and began counseling families struggling to raise mentally handicapped children. Eventually, […]
The craving of one given to heedless living grows like a creeper. Like the monkey seeking fruits in the forest, he leaps from life to life (tasting the fruit of his kamma). Whoever is overcome by this wretched and sticky craving, his sorrows grow like grass after the rains. But whoever overcomes this wretched craving, […]
Mayordomo: Chronicle of an Acequia in Northern New Mexico Stanley Crawford University of New Mexico Press, 1993 243 pp., $18.95 paper Far Tortuga Peter Matthiessen Vintage Books, 1988 416 pp., $16.95 paper In a time of water emergencies everywhere every week, of giant floods, continental drought, images virtually statistical of the Pacific Ocean circulating plastic […]