This Spring we introduced a new advice column in the pages of Tricycle. In “Dear Abbey Dharma,” Sylvia Boorstein, a psychotherapist and a founding teacher at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in California, answers Tricycle readers’ toughest dharma questions.
Questions for Sylvia can be submitted directly to askabbey@tricycle.com. Who knows, your question just might be answered in the next issue of Tricycle!
Check out Sylvia’s response to this question from a politically torn sangha member:
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 everything on the right side of the spectrum. I have a hard time listening to a Buddhist teacher going on about how much he despises George W. Bush or Sarah Palin or people like me. No one but me even notices, or at least is affected by it. How can I remain part of the Western Buddhist community under these conditions?—Up North
Read her answer here, or ask a question of your own!