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Advice Regarding Spiritual Teachers July 3, 2009

Posted by Philip Ryan in : General , add a comment

In our Spring 2000 issue, the scholar Alexander Berzin examined the guru-disciple relationship in the West. He wrote:

With a new millennium at hand, many Westerners called for a purely Western Buddhism, free of irrelevant religious and cultural trappings of the East. Differentiating the essence from the trappings, however, is never simple. People sometimes discard important factors in haste, without deeply examining the possible effects. Consequently, furious debate flared up between “traditionalists” and “modernists” within the Western Buddhist community. Debates included the language to use for performing ritual practices and the place of belief in rebirth in following the Buddhist path.

Today, the student-teacher relationship as understood and developed in the West needs reexamination. However, any approach at restructuring needs to avoid two extremes. The first is justifying the deification of the teacher to the point that it encourages a cult mentality and whitewashes abuse. The second is justifying the demonization of the teacher to the point that paranoia and distrust prevent the benefits to be gained from a healthy disciple-mentor relationship. In trying to prevent the first extreme, we need great care not to fall to the second.

Read the rest, from Tricycle’s archives, whcih go back to our first issue in 1991.

Daily Dharma, June 3rd, 2009 - Tangled Together

Posted by Philip Ryan in : Daily Dharma , add a comment

The roots of all living things are tied together. Deep in the ground
of being, they tangle and embrace. This understanding is expressed in
the term nonduality. If we look deeply, we find that we do not have a
separate self-identity, a self that does not include sun and wind,
earth and water, creatures and plants, and one another.

Joan Halifax Roshi, Essential Zen (Harper Collins)

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The Shifty Identity of Michael Jackson July 2, 2009

Posted by Shane Michael Manieri in : Buddhist Teachings, Events, General, Meditation, Tricycle , add a comment

Ever since Michael Jackson died last week, I can’t stop thinking about identity and how clinging to one—or several in his case— can bring much suffering. Yes, Michael was mesmerizing. But like the article, A Sequined Glove That Mesmerized the World, in the New York Times said last week, “There is no way to know what was on Michael Jackson’s mind…” And even if we did know what was on his mind, mind is shifty, which is un-reassuring.  The idea of “mind is shifty” lead me to this article in Tricycle’s Summer 2007 issue, The Spookiness of Ego-Mind. Of course the whole notion of “mind shifting” is the perfect charnel ground for practicing letting go, which is much harder than it sounds. I know meditation helps. Any other suggestions?

Nirvana in 140 characters or less

Posted by James Shaheen in : General , add a comment

It’s Thursday and we’ve posted our second Twitter challenge. It works like this

Your take on NIRVANA in 140 characters or less. Best one today gets free sub to Tricycle: The Buddhist Review–print or digital edition, your choice. Use #tri140 to be counted.

We’ll accept your takes until 3am EST.

You’ll need to sign onto Twitter if you haven’t already.

Last week’s winner came from Hokai Sobol, in Croatia. The topic was karma:

If what you do and who you are don’t match now, they will, for better or worse.

Take a stab at it! You might be surprised how limiting your words can help to focus your thoughts. We appreciate the accurate, creative and clever.

Daily Dharma, July 2nd, 2009 - Things As They Are

Posted by Philip Ryan in : Daily Dharma , 1 comment so far

Dharma, the truth of things-as-they-are, acts upon us to help us awaken to liberation. Dharma isn’t a person; it isn’t a being to be supplicated to. It’s just the way things work, the reality of the universe unfolding as a process in time. The Buddha discovered and taught about a portion of this universe, and science can reveal a portion too, as can any contemplation or activity that accords with the way things actually are…. This is deep trust in the Dharma.

Jeff Wilson, Buddhism of the Heart (Wisdom Publications)

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Saplding Gray’s interview with the Dalai Lama July 1, 2009

Posted by Philip Ryan in : Dalai Lama , add a comment

The Dalai Lama interviewed by the late writer, actor, and performance artist Spalding Gray. This was from our first issue and the unconventional discussion set the tone for things to come. To wit:

Spalding Gray: Do you dream?

The Dalai Lama: Yes. A few days ago, for three nights in succession, I had some very clear dreams. One night in my dream I met my teacher from when I was a young boy. He was seventy-five years old then. And in my dream he was wearing a Western suit. It was something unexpected (long laugh). As usual, he was very kind. Another night my mother was in my dream with my elder brother, my younger brother, and myself, three of us there in Dharamsala where I live now. I was in my room and my mother was there. In my mind, my mother already prepared one momo (a Tibetan dumpling). So then I felt, “Oh, my mother will give us those momos made in Amdo style, which are especially delicious.” Amdo is the province where I was born. So you see, this is a very happy dream.

Spalding Gray: Do you ever try to make your own dreams or control them?

The Dalai Lama: No, that I can’t do. Actually you see, occasionally I experience an awareness that I am dreaming in the dream itself, like a lucid dream.

Spalding Gray: Do you try to create that?

The Dalai Lama: No, not deliberately. But sometimes I have these experiences of lucid dreaming where I have the mindfulness that it is a dream state. Sometimes it depends on the physical posture that you adopt.

Spalding Gray: In sleep?

The Dalai Lama: Actually there are some methods for experiencing lucid dreaming. You should not be in a deep sleep. Not quite awake, not deep asleep. Then there is the possibility of having a clear dream. Also it is related to what you eat. As a Buddhist monk, I usually have no solid meal after lunch, no dinner. So that is also a benefit.

Spalding Gray: When I passed your room last night, I saw six empty ice-cream sundae dishes outside your door.

Translator (after much laughter): It was members of the entourage.

Inspired by this morning’s Daily Dharma

Posted by Allison Steinberg in : Uncategorized , 4 comments

Inspired by this morning’s Daily Dharma, I began to ponder just how overwhelming starting out on the path can be and, completely ignoring Dean Sluyter’s good advice, wondered what might be some tangible, helpful entry points to Buddhism. One such resource might be Tricycle’s Spring 1997 issue, Dharma 101: Back to Basics. What was your first book, practice, or teaching? What brought you to Buddhism? And what would you recommend to folks who have an interest in getting their feet wet?

Daily Dharma, July 1, 2009 - How to Start on the Path

Posted by Philip Ryan in : Daily Dharma , 3 comments

Don’t be overwhelmed by the number of teachers and teachings. Just start by doing a little bit of something, even five minutes of meditation, but do it every day…. Once you put one foot in front of another, the dharma path has a way of leading you where you need to go.

Dean Sluyter, Cinema Nirvana (Three Rivers Press)

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In Dharamsala India, Buddhism meets the Big Bang June 30, 2009

Posted by Rachel Hiles in : India, News, Science, Tibetan Buddhism , add a comment

An article appearing in yesterday’s New York Times highlights an emerging month-long math and science program designed for Tibetan nuns and monks living in Dharamsala, India. Students in the Emory Tibet Science Initiative, which is backed by Emory University in Atlanta, attend a wide range of courses including biology, physics, neuroscience, math, and logic. In its second session this past spring 91 monastics enrolled in the rigorous program which introduces concepts such as the Big Bang Theory, cloning, and climate change. The Times article explores Tibetans’ emerging interest in modern science despite a Buddhist curriculum that remains largely unchanged:

Tibetans marked the 50th anniversary of their exile this year, and a return to their homeland remains elusive. The need to keep Tibetan cultural identity alive, yet modern and relevant, has grown increasingly urgent as the 73-year-old Dalai Lama ages.

“If you remain isolated, you will disappear,” said Lhakdor, director of the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, in Dharamsala, who goes by one name. The Dalai Lama himself has often remarked that isolation from the world only aided Tibet’s fall to China.

In the past resistance from senior monks stood in the way of such initiatives, but support from the Dalai Lama coupled with an increasing recognition of the need to integrate modern science into traditional Tibetan teachings has opened the door and a handful of modern educational programs have taken root. Emory University’s program coordinators envision a symbiotic exchange between visiting teachers and monastics emerging in the coming years:

Science may be far advanced in the West, but a moral vacuum exists, said Bryce Johnson, an environmental engineer who coordinates the Science for Monks program. “There’s something lost in the West,” Dr. Johnson said. The meeting of science and Buddhism is “a healthy exchange that is as much for the scientists.”

To read the Times article in its entirety Click Here

The General Tendency of Ego

Posted by Shane Michael Manieri in : Books, General, Retreats , 5 comments

As a student of Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche, I recently attended his yearly sangha retreat at Nalanda West in Seattle, WA. Yearly retreats usually focus on a particular topic. This year’s topic was Mahamudra (Great Seal or Great Symbol), which is an advanced meditation practice and one that I am just embarking upon.

However, I left the retreat thinking more of a basic Buddhist doctrine, the teaching on anatman, “no self,” and the related idea of the skandhas, or aggregates, and how clinging to them cause suffering. Why? I don’t know. Perhaps it’s because I was paying too much attention to my own ego, trying to establish my wants and needs. And I thought I was being intelligent about it too—an intellectual. But I wasn’t completely content; I was constantly worried about what others thought of my establishment, wondering if they noticed my egomania. In short, I was suffering.

Looking back, I see that those afflictions arose from clinging to an identity, to the parts of myself that wanted things to be a certain way. Retreats do have a way of shedding light on areas—both in practice and study—that need attention. Along these lines, I came across an insightful chapter called “Intellect” in, The Sanity We Are Born With by Chögyam Trungpa, which helped me put my thoughts into words:

Looking at the general picture of psychology as we get involved with more and more complex patterns of the skandhas, it becomes clear that it is a pattern of duality developing stronger and stronger. The general tendency of ego is uncertain at the beginning how to establish its link with the world, its identity, its individuality. As it gradually develops more certainty, it finds new ways of evolving; it becomes more and more brave and daring in stepping out and exploring new areas of possible territory or new ways of interpreting and appropriating the world available around it. So it is a pattern of a kind of stubborn bravery making itself more complicated patterns. The fourth skandha, samskara, is a continuation of this pattern. It could be called “intellect.” Samskara is intellect in the sense of being the intelligence, which enables the ego to gather further territory, further substance, more things.