The Wisdom Mind of Thinley Norbu: A Selection of Teachings
Wednesday, May 23, 2012 at 11:08AM
Wisdom Mind and the Birth of Samsara
I bow to my own Wisdom Mind
which is my best wisdom teacher,
the source of all visible and invisible qualities.
Sentient beings are always in time and place.
I bow to my own Wisdom Mind
which is my best wisdom teacher,
the source of all visible and invisible qualities.
Sentient beings are always in time and place.
Journeys: No Ordinary Teacher
Tuesday, May 15, 2012 at 8:19PM
Illustration by Kim ScafuroBy Julianne Victoria Sometimes a teacher will come into our lives at just the right time, regardless of whether we’re looking for one or even know we need one. Two years ago this happened to me, quite unexpectedly, when I met Simba. My teacher wasn’t a Zen master, or a lama at the local Buddhist center. He was a dog.
in 
Journeys, Summer 2012
Journeys, Summer 2012 Profile: Rangjung Yeshe Institute
Tuesday, May 15, 2012 at 8:14PM
Photo by Michael EisenbachBy Andrea MillerChokyi Nyima Rinpoche was inspired to teach Western students by his own teacher, the Sixteenth Karmapa. “He told me many times that you’ve got to teach whoever is interested in the dharma,” says Chokyi Nyima, “and Westerners are really hungry.”
The firstborn son of Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, Chokyi Nyima was twenty-five when he became the abbot of Ka-Nying Shedrub Ling Monastery in Boudhanath, Nepal, in 1976. He soon began to give weekend teachings to Western travelers, but thought it was important to offer nonmonastics (Western and otherwise) a more comprehensive Buddhist education.
Inside Film: Johanna Demetrakas, Crazy Wisdom
Tuesday, May 15, 2012 at 7:50PM
Photo by Karen RoperWhat inspired you to make a film about your teacher, Chögyam Trungpa?In 1983 I was in Boulder editing the film The Lion’s Roar. At a private interview with Rinpoche, he asked me to make a “Shambhala film.” Frankly, I didn’t know what a Shambhala film would or could be, but I said yes. Four years later, he was gone. I directed the filming of his cremation and made a short edit from the sixteen-millimeter footage, but there was no funding to develop a proper film. Years went by, during which I taught a lot of Shambhala training. Then one day I woke up and realized what my Shambhala film had to be.
Book Briefs
Tuesday, May 15, 2012 at 7:06PM
by Michael Sheehy
What’s striking about Tsoknyi Rinpoche’s new book, Open Heart, Open Mind (Harmony Books 2012), is that it’s so personal. It’s unusual for a lama to open up about his own vulnerabilities and fears, particularly in print, and Tsoknyi Rinpoche does so in a way that is both touching and reassuring for practitioners. He writes about being a father, husband, and Dzogchen teacher, and growing up among some of the legendary Tibetan meditation masters of the previous generation.
What’s striking about Tsoknyi Rinpoche’s new book, Open Heart, Open Mind (Harmony Books 2012), is that it’s so personal. It’s unusual for a lama to open up about his own vulnerabilities and fears, particularly in print, and Tsoknyi Rinpoche does so in a way that is both touching and reassuring for practitioners. He writes about being a father, husband, and Dzogchen teacher, and growing up among some of the legendary Tibetan meditation masters of the previous generation.
An Ambitious and Unorthodox Pioneer
Tuesday, May 15, 2012 at 6:30PM
Photo Courtesy of the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology and the Regents of the University of California Theos Bernard, The White Lama: Tibet, Yoga, and American Religious Life
By Paul G. Hackett
Columbia University Press, 2012
$32.95; 494 pages
White Lama:The Life of Tantric Yogi Theos Bernard, Tibet’s Lost Emissary to the New World
By Douglas Veenhof
Harmony Books, 2011
$27.50; 446 pages
Reviewed by Michael J. Sweet
The Dharma of Ubuntu
Sunday, May 13, 2012 at 10:32PM
Photo by ThanissaraIn
a country ravaged by poverty, violence, and AIDS, Buddhists Thanissara
and Kittisaro are finding ways to make a difference in people’s
lives—and discovering South Africans’ own deep sense of
interconnectedness. All dharmas are forms of emptiness, not born, not destroyed, not stained, not pure, without loss, without gain. Bodhisattvas benefit living beings, but do not see any living beings. This is indeed a difficult and yet exquisite point; one cannot grasp it.
—Nagarjuna
Are We Really Taking Refuge?
Sunday, May 13, 2012 at 10:28PM
Photo by Craig J. Barber Carolyn Rose Gimian reflects on modern-day practitioners’ ambivalent commitment to the three jewels and considers what we might be losing out on.How remarkable it must have been to be one of Buddha’s direct students. But surely it was no walk in the park. The first followers of the Buddha were a tiny minority within their society. Although there may have been an acceptance of contemplative and ascetic practice in India, the Buddha and his students were doing something radical and unique.
Commentary: Don’t Blame the Messenger
Sometimes I am accused of “genderizing the dharma.” It is true that I have taught and written extensively about Buddhism and gender, including in my book Buddhism After Patriarchy: A Feminist History, Analysis, and Reconstruction of Buddhism. But why leap to the claim that I’m genderizing the dharma in that work? How could anyone possibly genderize the dharma if the dharma were gender neutral and gender free, if there were no gender biases and hierarchies in its institutional and doctrinal expressions?