Tricycle | Awake in the World

The following letter turned up at the Tricycle office in late November and we decided it would make a nice Christmas post for obvious reasons... My name is Bob Anger and I have been a Buddhist for 36 years and a Bonpo for the last 14 years.  I was very fortunate to meet Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche in 1971 and Deshung Rinpoche a year of so later.  Through the years I have met and studied with a number of other wonderful teachers.  For the last 10 years, or so, I have focused on the practices, teachings and tradition that Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche has presented.  I love him very much and he is my teacher. About 13 years ago I was asked to take over the Santa Claus duties in the small rural community of Topanga Canyon which is in the Santa Monica Mountains just north of the Los Angeles basin.  This request was made because my physical features resemble those of the jolly rotund elf in the red suit.  The elderly gentleman who had been doing Santa was getting too old to continue and More »

Look out, Myanmar, Laura Bush is gonna getcha! Pop quiz: What was her First Lady project? Whatever it was, she's letting the junta have it in no uncertain terms: "The junta has made no meaningful attempt to meet and talk with democratic activists. Instead it has continued to harass and detain them," Laura Bush said. "The junta leaders continue to sell the country's natural resources to enrich themselves. While they reject international calls for a democratic transition, they have put Burma in shambles and placed its people in a perilous state," she said. "Children are being trafficked and subject to forced recruitment into the military; citizens are fleeing the country to seek work and basic healthcare; meanwhile infectious diseases, including AIDS and malaria, continue to spread unchecked," said Laura Bush. Right on. More »

The Burmese junta has released 96 monks from the September protests -- maybe some of them will find a way to tell the story of their months in captivity. And the headline says it all: "Rapping Monks, Nuns Hit Catwalk". This one comes courtesy of The Worst Horse and was also noticed by Urban Monk. What's Wal-Mart up to now? Killing Amur (Siberian) tigers, apparently. More »

A very cool movie by Andy Ferguson on the burial site of Bodhidharma is up on YouTube. The site has only recently been rediscovered and, even more recently, been refurbished. This will become a major pilgrimage site for Zen practitioners in the years to come. Thanks to the ZenFrog for pointing it out. More »

Despite Europe's interest in eating local foods to reduce food miles, "Europeans are eating — and importing — more food from outside the E.U. than ever before," according to DotEarth, a New York Times blog. In May the Times of London reported: Scottish prawns are being hand-shelled in China, Atlantic haddock caught off Scotland is being prepared in Poland and Welsh cockles are being sent to Holland to be put in jars before going on sale in Britain. Eating local is simply not possible in a world of 6.7 billion people (and counting) says Andrew Revkin, who writes the blog. So what to do? Find alternative, less-polluting fuel sources. More »

The junta is firmly back in control, and international "efforts" to bring change to Burma has failed, according to the New York Times, and it's hard to argue. The junta toyed with the NLD and waited out the international indignation, all the while being enabled by ASEAN. And the crackdown was bloodier than reported (of course) according to Human Rights Watch. Now, back to business. Rubies, anyone? More »

Joan Duncan Oliver wrote a piece for Tricycle about compassionate gift-giving that might help with some tricky decisions this holiday season. Singapore - City - Zen links to an amazing article on alternet.org, Dress for Excess: The Cost of Our Clothing Addiction. (S-C-Z often has great environmental links.) Here's some brief passages from the Alternet article: The numbers are astonishing. Apparel is easily the second-biggest consumer sector after food. We're spending $282 billion on new clothes annually, up from $162 billion in 1992, based on U.S. Census figures. . . More »

More bloody confrontations unavoidable, says a Burmese monk, now in exile. (The Guardian Weekly out of the U.K. reported on November 16th (using reportage from Le Monde) that monks in Pakokku said, "If prices keep going up there will be more rallies. We didn't like the army entering the monasteries." They also reported a while ago that international outrage was fading fast over Burma. Ask Pamela Gayle White! The translator, writer, and teacher of Tibetan Buddhism is available for your questions on the tricycle website until December 21st. More »

Reading about perfectionism / OCD in the New York Times. A counselor at U.C. Davis treating perfectionists gives them this advice: Leave work on time. Don’t arrive early. Take all the breaks allowed. Leave the desk a mess. Allow yourself a set number of tries to finish a job; then turn in what you have. David Brooks, in another part of the paper, talks about China being a radical meritocracy (no one leaves work on time there): When you talk to Americans, you find that they have all these weird notions about Chinese communism. You try to tell them that China isn’t a communist country anymore. It’s got a different system: meritocratic paternalism. You joke: Imagine the Ivy League taking over the shell of the Communist Party and deciding not to change the name. More »