Tricycle | Awake in the World

This weekend, Tricycle's hometown of New York City was lucky (or big and rich) enough to host His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama. In lieu of his usual barnstorming, His Holiness gave three full days of teachings at a Manhattan landmark, Radio City Music Hall, home of the Rockettes (yes, they're alive and... kicking). Did they welcome him to town with a saffron kick-line? Sadly, no, but Radio City made for a magnificent venue, the huge arched ceiling lit a subtle orange. (Here's a photo from flickr that gives you an idea, despite the biblical scene.) I've always found there to be a certain jolly energy in the air before and after HHDL events (this is my 4th, if you count the one in central park that I didn't end up getting into up but did show up at). Perhaps that's why waiting in enormous lines to see His Holiness is a somehow pleasant chore. More »

Donald S. Lopez Jr.'s article on the term "aryan" from the Winter 2006 issue of Tricycle is available here. Buddhist extremists gang up on Catholics in Sri Lanka. Those Sri Lankan Buddhists aren't playing, either. Many monks have been militarized by the long, brutal civil war with Tamil rebels in the north. Buddhist movie plot #427: Tiny Jodo Shu church represented by a spunky little law firm fights the big mother church in Japan, which is of course backed by a huge faceless corporate Firm. Buddhist Relics do Edmonton. More »

Big Buddhist week in New York last week: Thich Nhat Hanh and the Dalai Lama were in town (see the Worst Horse tracking Gawker Stalker as HH rolls through the Village), and the Tricycle office had a little gathering attended by many fine readers from the area plus Sharon Salzberg and Lama Surya Das. British PM Gordon Brown is working to put pressure on Burma. More »

TIME has a piece on the Burmese protests from which comes the title of this post. When in our recent past have Buddhist monks other than the Dalai Lama been so prominent in the American consciousness? Maybe not since Vietnam. Apparently Mandalay didn't suffer the same treatment the rest of the country did. Read about it in "Buddha's Peace Prevailed." ASEAN issues a statement condemning violence to Buddhist monks in Burma. From the article by George Yao, foreign minister of Singapore: When Western countries cheered us for speaking out, it worried us. Strident calls to bring down the regime showed a lack of understanding of the problem. More »

Interesting article on how hard Cubans must work in order to blog. They have to pretend to be foreign and sneak into the big hotels that have unfiltered -- or at least more open than elsewhere on the island -- internet pipelines to the rest of the world. (The blog mentioned, in Spanish of course, is here.) This is a small part of what our fellow humans living under totalitarianism must do to have their voices heard. More »

As reported here previously, the Asian Classics Input Project is doing great work making classic Buddhist texts available, in a searchable database, no less-- they're now on Release number 6 -- check it out. The junta claims weapons were found in Buddhist monasteries after the crackdown on the democratic protests Maybe they were and maybe they weren't but no one believes the Bulldog and his clowns anyway. The Dalai Lama spoke with the fine folks at the Ithaca Journal about his book, The Good Heart: A Buddhist Perspective on the teachings of Jesus. More »

As long as there is attention on Burma, there's hope, from the San Francisco Chronicle. Malaysia presses its southeast Aisan neighbors for talks on Burma, from the BBC. Authorities are still rounding up dissidents in Burma, says the Bangkok Post. Forget conflict diamonds -- here come the blood-red rubies of Mogok. More »

Russia and China vote to take no action on Burma in the Security Council. Again, if the U.S. hadn't abused and exploited the U.N., it would be easier to benefit from the good things the Security Council can actually do. The Myanmar state media says 2,093 people had been arrested in the crackdown and that 692 of them have been released. Human Rights Watch calls these numbers "very plausible." The Wall Street Journal discusses politically active monks and says the junta has used Buddhism to its own ends over the years. More »

From Reuters, Junta rounds up scores more, and Detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's party dismissed a Myanmar junta offer of talks as unreal on Friday, while China said the ruthless suppression of pro-democracy protests did not require international action. Does the international community agree with China on this? One City / the Interdependence Project has a post recommending action for Burma. Danny Fisher points us to Amnesty International's efforts on Burma -- They are organizing demonstrations across the globe. More »