An interview with Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche about the leadership of Shambhala, the legacy of his father, Trungpa Rinpoche, and the future of Buddhism in the West.

A Meeting of Images

Lawrence Shainberg interviews Robert Jay Lifton on Aum Shinrikyo

Screenwriter Melissa Mathison speaks with the Dalai Lama about getting the script of Kundun right

In 1928, Julius Goldwater took Buddhist vows. During World War II, he was priest to thousands of interned Japanese. Today, Goldwater—perhaps the oldest living Western convert to Buddhism—continues to expound and explore his American dharma. Julius…

The legacy of Lost Horizon

Orville Schell interviews Becky Johnston, screenwriter of Seven Years in Tibet

By Les Kaye

The Masters of Meditation and Miracles: The Longchen Nyingthig Lineage of Tibetan BuddhismTulku ThondupEdited by Harold TalbottShambhala Publications: Boston, 1996.383 pp., $35 (cloth). The Longchen Nyingthig lineage of Tibetan Buddhism is said to have originated with…

Death Matters In the article “What Is Death?” by  Robert Thurman, published in your Fall 1997 issue, Mr. Thur­man criticizes materialists for a view that no modern, educated materialist would ever hold: i.e., that consciousness is…

By Sandy Boucher

By Myla and Jon Kabat-Zinn

By Gretel Ehrlich

My infant daughter Jordan doesn’t let me sit zazen. All day, she conspires with her older sister Erin so that when the toddler naps, the infant is awake and when the infant naps, the toddler is…

The movies Kundun and Seven Years in Tibet will introduce millions of Westerners to the cultural and religious heritage of Tibet, as well as to the Chinese takeover. Indeed, the hope of both screenwritersMelissa Mathison and Becky…

By Colin Hester

Upright, well-mannered gardens, with tidy beds of manicured lettuce corseted by tightly clipped boxwood hedges, make me itch. I have a naughty mind that wants to scratch rank pigwood seed between all neat and trim rows.…

THE GOLDSMITH Shakyamuni Buddha THERE ARE THESE GROSS IMPURITlES in gold: dirty sand, gravel, and grit. The dirt-washer, having placed the gold in a vat, washes it again and again until he has washed them away.…

Theravada Monk and Pioneer Publisher

Even though we practice, we continue to fall for pleasant feelings. Feelings are illusory on many levels. We don’t realize that they’re changeable and unreliable. Instead of offering pleasure, they offer us nothing but stress—yet we’re…

Aide to Tibet In a move that marks a new era in American diplomatic relations with Tibet, Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright announced in July that she would appoint a “special coordinator” to handle American…

Edited by Donald Lopez, Jr.

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