After the Honeymoon
Thursday, August 4, 2011 at 1:42PM
Amour by Ligia BlatFalling
in love is easy, but staying in love takes work. Thich Nhat Hanh offers
advice for cultivating a relationship that’s loving and strong.
To commit to another person is to embark on a
very adventurous journey. There is no one “right person” who will make
it easier. You must be very wise and patient to keep your love alive, so
that it will last for a long time.
The Real Path
Thursday, August 4, 2011 at 1:40PM
Norman Fischer explains why it’s suffering that gives us the incentive, vision, and strength to transform our lives.
On January 12, 2009, my dear friend of forty
years, my best friend who was more than a brother to me, Rabbi Alan Lew,
died without any warning or any known illness. I won’t go on about our
long friendship; there’s too much to say. Suffice it to say, we were as
close as people can be; we were spiritually linked. We knew each other
before either of us had started on our religious paths, and then we
began practicing Zen at the same time. We studied for many years
together at the Zen Center in Berkeley and went to Tassajara Zen
Mountain Center where we were monks together. As time went on, we
created our own version of Jewish meditation and together we founded
Makor Or, a Jewish meditation center in San Francisco. We practiced
there together, side by side, for more than a decade.
Trust
Thursday, August 4, 2011 at 1:34PM
Illustration by Keith Abbott The
job of the dharma teacher, says Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, is to help
students see deeply into the nature of things. But what happens when the
teacher gets lost along the way?
Main Case
One day Guishan sat in zazen, and after
sitting, he pointed at the straw sandals and said to Yangshan, “All
hours of the day, we receive people’s support. Don’t betray them.”
The Face of Western Buddhism
Thursday, August 4, 2011 at 1:31PM
Image by Katherine Streeter According
to the latest research, Buddhism is one of the fastest-growing
religions in the United States. Sociologist James Coleman looks at the
emerging Buddhist population and who will shape the new public face of
Buddhism.
Like it or not, Western Buddhism is heading
into the cultural mainstream, and it may well be a rough ride. Although
the population of American Buddhists has been growing rapidly for
decades, to this point Buddhism has remained something of a stealth
religion, virtually invisible to most people outside our cosmopolitan
coastal enclaves. It has, for example, become commonplace for
politicians to include Islam in their rhetoric about American cultural
diversity, while Buddhism is seldom given a mention, though by even the
most conservative estimates there are almost twice as many Buddhists as
Muslims in the United States.
in 
Fall 2011
Fall 2011 The Challenges Ahead
Thursday, August 4, 2011 at 1:28PM
Two Hundred Teachers Gather to Discuss the Future of Buddhism in the West
Introduction By Tynette Deveaux
This past June, about two hundred Buddhist
teachers from across North America and Europe gathered at the Garrison
Institute near New York for a three-day conference that had been several
years in the planning. In his opening address, Jack Kornfield, one the
key organizers, pointed out that this “Buddhist Teachers Council” was
part of a tradition of councils that have been held since the Buddha’s
paranirvana, most recently in the West at Spirit Rock Meditation Center
in 2000.
A Sane Life
Thursday, August 4, 2011 at 1:23PM
American Zen pioneer Charlotte
Joko Beck died in June at the age of 94. In this teaching she reminds us
that having a sane and satisfying life comes from having a sane and
balanced practice.
My dog doesn’t worry about the meaning of life.
She may worry if she doesn’t get her breakfast, but she doesn’t sit
around worrying about whether she will get fulfilled or liberated or
enlightened. As long as she gets some food and a little affection, her
life is fine. But we human beings are not like dogs. We have
self-centered minds which get us into plenty of trouble. If we do not
come to understand the error in the way we think, our self-awareness,
which is our greatest blessing, is also our downfall.
In Memoriam: Joko Beck
Thursday, August 4, 2011 at 1:20PM
By Barry Magid
It is not an overstatement to say that Joko
Beck transformed the face of Zen in America, not in the least by making
it the face of a woman. She was among the first generation of Westerners
to inherit the dharma from their Japanese masters, at a time when a
focus on the experience of kensho, or awakening, led to a
dismissive attitude toward problems that were “merely” psychological.
Having fully mastered the traditional koan system, Joko worked to
restore a sense of emotional reality to a scene that had become
increasingly plagued by scandal and misconduct by our allegedly
enlightened role models. She had the courage to say that her own
teacher’s training had done little to curb his alcoholism or deal with
his character problems. Furthermore, his wasn’t an unfortunate
exception, but pointed to a deeply ingrained tendency to enshrine
emotional bypassing into the very heart of traditional Zen training. She
put dealing with anger, anxiety, pride, and sexual exploitation of
students into the center of what we must deal with in our practice.
in Fall 2011
Fall 2011 The Taste of Thusness
Thursday, August 4, 2011 at 1:17PM
Photo by Renshin Bunce Hoko Jan Karnegis explains how nyoho, or the dharma of thusness, guides the menu at a Zen kitchen.
It was the last day of sesshin, and something
about the teacher’s dharma talk puzzled one of the members of my kitchen
crew. “If we are supposed to avoid picking and choosing, and not have
opinions, how can we go to the grocery store?” he asked.
The Daughter I Love
Thursday, August 4, 2011 at 12:58PM
Photo by Sharon Holoviak With
the help of Thich Nhat Hanh’s teachings on emptiness, Stephen Holoviak
realizes that to fully know and accept his autistic daughter he must let
go of his hopes and dreams for her.
Our daughter, now thirty, is autistic,
nonverbal, and has pervasive communication issues. She was an infant
when diagnosed in 1981. Back then there was little knowledge of autism,
even among health care professionals, and not much in the way of
support.
What Kind of World Do We Want?
Thursday, August 4, 2011 at 12:55PM
By Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi For many of us in the West, Buddhism first appears on the horizon as a path to inner peace offering relief from the tensions of daily living. This perception is reinforced by popular culture, which pictures the Buddha as a man sitting motionless with crossed legs and closed eyes, seemingly lost to his surroundings. Seldom do we think that Buddhism might hold out practical clues for resolving the complex problems that weigh so heavily on our planet. The problems seem just too big for an ancient system of contemplative spirituality.
Yet, I believe, if we as Buddhists are to adequately respond to the needs of our age, we will have to rise to the challenge. It won’t suffice for us merely to adopt Buddhist teachings as a route to deeper self-fulfillment. A predominantly personal approach to spiritual growth falls short of Buddhism’s ethical ideals and misses half its message. Greed, hatred, and delusion are not only in our mind but in the food we eat, the gas we put into our cars, and the movies we turn to for entertainment.