Tricycle | Awake in the World

Some old bits on His Holiness the Dalai Lama: The Newsweek / Washington Post blog On Faith discusses his visit to Washington this fall. And Dan Rather interviews the DL in the melodramatically titled "One Man vs. China". Lama Surya Das talks about Burma on Beliefnet. And another Happy New Year message, this one from James of the Buddhist Blog. More »

December 18, 2007 For immediate release * Buddhist Delegation Finds Burma Cloaked in Fear * For more information, contact: Maia Duerr, Communications Director, Buddhist Peace Fellowship, maia@bpf.org, 510-333-3528 (See information for interview subjects at bottom of press release) Buddhist Delegation Finds Burma Cloaked in Fear December 18, 2007, San Francisco, CA — A delegation organized by the U.S.-based Buddhist Peace Fellowship (BPF) has returned from a eight-day visit with Burmese activists, monks, students, orphans, and citizens in Rangoon, Burma, and along the Thai-Burma border. Members of the delegation, who posed as tourists to be able to enter the country, collected a wealth of first-hand evidence that the situation in Burma has become even worse since the September peace marches undertaken by Buddhist monks. More »

Burma leads the world in number of child soldiers. Kids are literally pulled off the street and "drafted": While 15-year-old San Lin Aung stood waiting for a train home at Pyinmana railroad station, an army sergeant approached him and asked to see his ID. The boy couldn't produce one, so the soldier sent him to an army recruitment unit in Mingalardon, on the outskirts of Rangoon. The officer in charge of the unit refused to enlist him, but another unit in Mandalay accepted him without question. Two 14 year-olds, Kyaw Min Thu from South Dagon, and a youngster from North Okkalapa, were also forcibly recruited by the army in late April, according to reports. There may be as many as 70,000 child soldiers (and the number is growing) in Burma, according to a 2002 Human Rights Watch report. More »

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 »