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First Lesson, Best Lesson
Born in Baltimore in 1937, Philip Glass began studying the violin at age six but reports that his serious interest in music didn’t begin until he took up the flute two years later. After his sophomore…
The Shadow Side of Krishnamurti
Jiddu Krishnamurti mistrusted all religions and denounced the Eastern convention of deifying living spiritual masters. But by the time he died in Ojai, California, in 1986 at the age of 91, he had helped—perhaps more than…
Personal ReflectionsMagazine | Feature
The Lady and the Monk
In 1987, Pico Iyer, author of Video Night in Kathmandu, arrived in Kyoto, Japan, bearing two suitcases and the name of a local Buddhist temple. Determined to learn, from the inside, all that he could of…
Contradictions In Action
An eleventh-century Burmese king honored his conversion to Theravada Buddhism by building Pagan, an imposing city containing 13,000 temples and pagodas on the fertile plains of the Irrawaddy River. Slaves constructed this spectacular homage to the…
The Changing of the Guard
The procession carrying the body of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche was heralded by the wails of a lone bagpiper and the slow, steady heartbeat of a deep bass drum, followed by the hoarse guttural cries of Tibetan…
Lost Legacy
Tenzin Norbu Namseling, the sixth Khado Rinpoche, is the son of Namseling, as aristocrat and finance minister of the former Tibetan government. In 1958, the elder Namseling was sent to the south of Tibet to negotiate…
The Nuns’ Island
Here in the nunnery the afternoon is for sleep, study, contemplation. The night before, Ayya Khema suggested that we imagine we are going to die shortly and then see what we cling to. I find I…
Departments
Without Warning
Poems by Patricia Donegan
Profiles: Great Simplicity
On Friday afternoons, in a lecture room in the northwest corner of Philosophy Hall, at Columbia University, a small, wiry, and very aged Japanese named Dr. Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki regularly unwraps a shawlful of books in various…
Letters to the Editor Winter 1991
AUSPICIOUS BEGINNINGS The first issue of Tricycle was superb—a most auspicious beginning. I especially enjoyed Joel McCleary’s fine tribute to Geshe Wangyal, Dean Rolston’s moving “Memento Mori,” and the delightfully unorthodox Spalding Gray interview with His…
Many is More
Following the failed coup in Russia a cartoon in a New York newspaper featured two people standing in front of the Kremlin. One was saying to the other, “If you miss the one-party system, go to…
Anathemas and Admirations
Anathemas and Admirations By E. M. Cioran. Translated by Richard Howard. Arcade: New York, 1991. 256 pp. $22.95. I’ve always been a sucker for well-articulated despair and fin de siecle weariness, and what better way seemingly to…
Zen Seeds: Reflections of a Female Priest
By Shundo Aoyama
Enlightened Living: Teachings of Tibetan Buddhist Masters
Enlightened Living: Teachings of Tibetan Buddhist Masters Translated by Tulku Thondup. Edited by Harold Talbott. Shambhala Publications: Boston, 1990. 178 pp. $12.95 (paperback). In these cynical times, when political and religious scandals hit the newspapers daily…
The Anguish of Tibet
The Anguish of Tibet Edited by Petra K. Kelly, Gert Bastian, and Pat Aiello. Parallax Press: Berkeley, 1991. 382 pp. $17.00. Tibet may be in vogue in this International Year of Tibet, but the iron yoke of…
World as Lover, World as Self
World as Lover, World as Self By Joanna Macy Parallax Press: Berkeley, 1991. 251 pp. $15.00. Joanna Macy has always considered it perfectly natural to feel the sufferings of the world as her own. She has worked…
MeditationMagazine | Interview
In the Dukkha Magnet Zone
An Interview with Jon Kabat-Zinn
Wisdom and Compassion: Sacred Art of Tibet
Strains of long silver trumpets and the deepthroated chanting of monks greeted the arrival of His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco in April. The religious and temporal…
TeachingsMagazine | On Translation, Teachings And Texts
The Rectification of Names
“Dukkha is everywhere,” the Buddha said, by way of introducing his Four Noble Truths. “There is a cause of dukkha, there is liberation from it, and the way to this liberation is the Eightfold Path.” When…
Ta-mo’s Fighting Monks
In the sixth century the Indian monk Bodhidharma took up residence at the Chinese temple of Shao-lin, where he introduced Dhyana Buddhism, the Indian school of meditation that in time gave rise to Chinese Ch’an (Zen). Since…
Eating Time
All beings are dependent on food, that is, eating. There is food for the body, food for feeling, food for volitional action, and food for rebirth. The Buddha cried when he saw this endless cycle: the fly…
Capitol News, Something to Chew On, and Update: Ms. Serenity Meets Monsieur Égoiste
CAPITOL NEWS On a recent Washington Post list of best sellers, the predictable line-up of The T-Factor Fat Gram Counter and Revenge of the Baby-Sat was unpredictably followed by The Art of War by Sun Tzu.…
Mike’s Cartoon
ObituariesMagazine | In Transition
Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche
Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche (1910-1991)
TeachingsMagazine | Shakyamuni Buddha: A Life Retold
The Finger Bone Path of Angulimala
In this episode of the life of the historical Buddha, Shakyamuni encounters the treacherous murderer, Angulimala, who subsequently transforms into a monk “more gentle than a handful of earth.” Excerpted from Old Path White Clouds, Thich…
Hags, Nuns, and Magpie Scholars
Terigatha, poems of the sisters
TeachingsMagazine | Teachings And Texts
Bodhidharma’s Teachings
If you use your mind to study reality, you won’t understand either your mind or reality. If you study reality without using your mind, you’ll understand both. Those who don’t understand, don’t understand understanding. And those…
MeditationMagazine | Teachings And Texts
Teachings on the Nature of Mind and Practice
Like waves, all the activities of this life have rolled endless on, yet they have left us empty-handed. Myriads of thoughts have run through our minds, but all they have done is increase our confusion and…
Magazine | Teachings And Texts
From “Teachings on Mindfulness”
And how, monks, does a monk abide contemplating the body as body? Here a monk, having gone into the forest, or to the root of a tree, or to an empty place, sits down cross-legged, holding…
MeditationMagazine | Dharma Talk
Body as Body
This vipassana practice is based on the Mahasatipatthana Sutta, the scripture that deals with the four foundations of mindfulness. We started with the first domain of mindfulness: paying attention to body sensations. As a way of beginning,…
Magazine | What Does Being A Buddhist Mean To You
What Does Being a Buddhist Mean to You? Winter 1991
A diverse range of Buddhist practitioners across traditions on how they understand their Buddhist identity.
Bronze Mirror
by Jeanne Larsen
New and Noteworthy Texts in Translation
Dakini Teachings, Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand, Transmission of the Light, Discourse on the Fruits of Recluseship, and The Practice of the Kalachakra
Books for Children
The Death of Echadon, Where is Tibet?, Prince Siddhartha, Hero of the Land of Snow, and The Children of Nepal
Columns
Buddhist Journal Beat
RIVERS & MOUNTAINS The first issue of Buddhism at the Crossroads (formerly Spring Wind Buddhist Cultural Forum), published by the Zen Lotus Society in Toronto, focuses on the environment. In her article on environmental ethics, Stephanie Kaza…