Following on from a series of ever–improving health updates, Plum Village announced today that Thay has continued to heal, spending time outdoors in recent weeks and this week returning to his hermitage at Plum Village: Thay expressed his clear wish to return home, and arrived on Friday April 3, in time to enjoy the beautiful magnolia blossoms and the first spring leaves as they unfurl. We are all very glad that Thay can come back to his spiritual home, where his devoted team... Read more
As of right now (5pm MST), the Dalai Lama has received 73% YES votes and 27% NO. I didn’t check all 158 people nominated, but after clicking a few yes’s and no’s he stood out as a clear leader (nice sidenote, another favorite person of mine, transgender activist Laverne Cox, is also polling well above average at 59% YES, 41% NO). According to Time.com, the magazine’s editors will make the final choice on who is featured, but they welcome your... Read more
This month I had the pleasure of interviewing Josh Korda, a fascinating Buddhist teacher and human being who is bringing Buddhadharma out to the people through Dharma Punx in a way that is sure to be eye opening for those who are new to this particularly American brand of Buddhism. Let’s begin! ~ Thank you for taking the time for doing this interview and for sharing some of the topics you will be discussing in your upcoming retreat at the Garrison Institute.... Read more
Call it a Dharma talk, a guided meditation, existential philosophy, or just a bit of calm and sanity in our too-often superficial sound bite driven world. Whatever it is, it’s something worth hearing and reflecting upon. As On Being’s Trent Gillis notes, this was recorded last August after a screening of Murray’s recent film, St. Vincent. When asked by the interviewer, “What’s it like to be you?” – a question that could easily go in any number of directions – Murray avoids... Read more
Today is the 56th anniversary of the March 10, 1959 start of the Tibetan uprising against Chinese occupation. The history around that day is outlined below, but first, in today’s news the Associated Press (via MB and BBC World News) reports that: Indian police have detained about 100 Tibetans who were protesting outside the Chinese Embassy in New Delhi on the anniversary of a failed 1959 uprising against China’s rule in Tibet. Protesters interlocked their hands and tried to form a... Read more
Today Pat Robertson, on his well-known Christian Broadcasting Network show The 700 Club, told a viewer who works with Buddhists and fears she is being preached to by them that: If you are healthy and there is a mild contagion around you, the chances are you won’t get it. But if you put yourself in the middle of a hospital ward where everybody has the disease except you, sooner or later you will be infected by it. Now, it’s one thing for... Read more
THIS IS A BOOK THAT CAN TEACH US ALL. These words grace the back cover of The Way of Tenderness: Awakening Through Race, Sexuality and Gender. And Tanya McGinnity of Full Contact Enlightenment put it equally well when she wrote: “This book by Zenju Earthlyn Manuel is essential reading for all Buddhists. Essential.” Both statements are absolutely true. As are the several lines of advanced praise in the book’s opening pages, from American Buddhist greats including Jan Willis, author of Dreaming Me: Black, Baptist, and Buddhist, Lodro Rinzler,... Read more
His Holiness the 17th Karmapa, head of the 900 year-old Karma Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism, will begin his 3rd US tour beginning in less than two weeks. His first stop will be at Stanford University on March 17th, where he will talk about “Caring Connections: Compassion, Technology and the Environment.” This talk is sold out according to the tour website, but openings may become available and there is a notification list you can join at http://events.stanford.edu/events/499/49993/. March 24th he will be at University of... Read more
The Resource Innovation Group (TRIG), a non-profit organization affiliated with the Sustainability Institute at Willamette University, has asked faith leaders to join a “Call to Action for U.S. and World Leaders to Proactively Address the Adverse Psychological and Social Impacts of Climate Disruption.” According to their website, “TRIG’s mission is to address the human causes, impacts, and solutions to complex socio-economic-ecological challenges, with a special emphasis on climate change. By a decision of the TRIG Board of Directors in 2013, TRIG has decided to focus... Read more
Just over a year ago, in “Buddhism dominates Western States behind Christianity,” I wrote about the maps created by the ASARB (Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies). Those maps painted a dramatic sea of saffron across the Western United States, indicating that Buddhism was the largest religion behind Christianity in Hawaii, Alaska, Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Idaho, Montana, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Kansas, and Oklahoma. That map was made based on data collected about religious attendance. A friend and fellow religion scholar... Read more
American Buddhist Perspectives
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