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GEORGE JOHNSON (“Worlds Apart,” page 80) writes: “I was surprised whenTricycle asked me to go to Washington to write about the Dalai Lama’s controversial appearance at the Society for Neuroscience’s Annual Meeting. My review of his recent book on science and spirituality in the New York Times Book Review had angered some Buddhists—one called me a fanatic—and I welcomed the chance to expand on my argument that science and religion, Buddhism included, are as immiscible as oil and water. They simply don’t mix.”

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COLLEEN MORTON BUSCH‘s profile on Jane Hirshfield appears on page 72. “I have admired Hirshfield’s poems since I first read them while getting my M.F.A. in poetry in the early ’90s. As I’m at work on a novel now, I relished the chance writing this piece gave me to return to my first love, poetry, and to discover the kinship between the poems and the person behind them—both quietly astonishing, deeply familiar, and mysterious at the same time.”

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REGGIE RAY (“Touching Enlightenment,” page 38) writes: “When we work with the body as yoga practitioners, somatic therapists, or simply as meditators, we often come upon some compelling questions: Why does the body seem so critical to spiritual and psychological practice in the contemporary world? When we explore the body, why does such intense ‘personal’ material seem to surface? And in what ways might the body be a unique vehicle to accomplish spiritual aims’ My article outlines some of the answers that Buddhism offers.”

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ANDREW GOODWIN reviewed The Schopenhauer Cure for this issue (“Sympathy for Schopenhauer,” page 113). He tells us: “Despite what some people think, teaching Media Studies involves a little more thought than moaning on about the hairstyles of TV news anchors. But it was only when I started sitting meditation a few years ago that I really came to see how close the links are between Kant, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and the dharma. And it was only when I started sitting zazen at Berkeley Zen Center last year that I saw the point of Wittgenstein. I wish that I could live long enough to see the complete breakdown of the phony division between ‘Eastern’ and ‘Western’ existential practices. Still, I have lived to see Chelsea F.C. win the English Premier League, so rebirth isn’t something I’m attached to.”

contributors5MICHAEL WENGER‘s contribution to our special section on the Lotus Sutra appears on page 70. “I started to study the Lotus Sutra when I was dissatisfied with my life. The Lotus was inspiring and had a big perspective. While I wanted to go to the world of the sutra, the sutra itself was saying that my frustrating life, as it was, was the unfolding of the Lotus Sutra. What a surprise.”

Reggie Ray: © Amy Rinchen Metok Stahl.

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