What Does Being a Buddhist Mean to You? Winter 1991

ALINA STRAND
Honduran Farmer in Kentucky
“Being mindful of thought and deed in daily life.”

NORA SAFRAN
Potter
Amagansett, NY
“Pain, pain, pain, pain,—that’s thinking of the fourth day of a seven-day retreat.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

JANET SKELTON VOORHEES
Public Health Administrator
Placitas, NM
“The difference between living fully and not living fully and dying fully and not dying fully.”

GARY CORTLAND
Teacher
Bellingham, WA
“It means getting my act together. Stop wasting time. No more feeling sorry for myself.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SHIBATA SENSEI
Archery Master
Boulder, CO
“Put others before the self. If we go around saying, ‘I am top, I am first,’ this is fruitless, without benefit. This is also the foundation code of the warrior.”

HEIDI CHAN
Boutique Owner Long Island, NY
“It’s a great opportunity to learn responsibility toward oneself and toward others.”

AMY DE SILVA
Journalist
Miami, FL
“It means being practical, learning methods, seeing reality as it is. Of course, reality is often not what it appears to be. And it’s seeing that, too. But not in a starry-eyed “mystical” sort of way, but with both feet on the ground.”

BOB WILLIAMSON
Screenwriter
Hudson, NY
“Pulling up your socks.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

REV. KARUNA DHARMA
Abbess of the International Meditation Center
Los Angeles, CA
“All of our lives are about going toward wholeness, completeness. To me, being a Buddhist is about living as complete a life as possible.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

GELEK RINPOCHE

Tibetan Lama
Ann Arbor, MI
“Two things: to be seeking the stage of Buddhahood and serving and helping everybody to that stage.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LEWIS MACADAMS
Poet, Writer
Los Angeles, CA
“Friends of the Los Angeles River.”

 

 

 

 

 

DANA ZED
Sculptress
San Francisco, CA
“Running a yoga studio in a neighborhood increasingly terrorized by crack addicts. Trying to stay light amidst darkness.”

 

 

 

 

 

NICHOLAS RAFTIS
Senior Engineer, General Motors
Saginaw, MI
“I never think of myself as a Buddhist. I don’t like it when people try to put that Buddhist thing on you, or anything else. It robs you of who you are and who you can be.”

JACK KORNFIELD
Insight Meditation Teacher
Mill Valley, CA
“I don’t know how to answer that question.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DEBORAH ANDERSEN
Dancer
Los Angeles, CA
“Being homeless with lots of tools. Being resourceful. And cheerful. If I were not a Buddhist, I would not recognize that I was homeless. There would not have been enough of a gap in my clinging and grasping to see that.”