Samadhi Cushions and Store: Meditation cushions and benches made here in Vermont. A nonprofit carrying incense, gongs, books, cds, and other meditation supplies.
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Tricycle Talk: Sensei Ryodo Hawley
This week's Tricycle Talk is with Kipp Ryodo Hawley, author of the book Three Steps To Mindfulness : Bringing Zen Awareness into Your Life. Sensei Ryodo recieved Dharma Transmission from Roshi Wendy Egyoku Nakao, abbot of Zen Center of Los Angeles, in 2007. This certified him as an independent lay Zen teacher after 30 years of training and study. Currently Ryodo leads the Westchester Zen Circle on the Westside of Los Angeles while continuing to offer Zen Mindfulness programs.
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Practice for Young American Buddhists
This is part three of a three-part guest blog series by Charles Prebish, Emeritus Professor of Religious Studies at Pennsylvania State University and Utah State University. In the current issue of Tricycle, Prebish is interviewed by Linda Heuman (read "Pursuing an American Buddhism" here), but they had so many topics to cover in such a short time that there were many items Prebish would have liked to discuss more fully. Last week we featured "Scholar-Practitioners in American Buddhism." Join the discussion of this blog post, and the two others, on the interview page.
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Week 3 of Sylvia Boorstein's Retreat Begins Today!
Week 3 of Sylvia Boorstein's Tricycle Retreat begins today! The talk this week is "Mental Discipline: Minfulness and Lovingkindness."
For those of you just tuning in, Sylvia's retreat is called, "The Whole of Life as Practice," guiding us through the Metta Sutta as a focal point for exploring the Buddha's teachings on morality, mental disciple, and wisdom. Sylvia's short article in our Spring 2012 issue highlights the retreat, which can be read here.
If you haven't signed up as a Sustaining or Supporting Member, please do so here to watch Sylvia's retreat—along with our other 28 previous retreat teachings!
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Buddha Buzz: The Cult's Ian Astbury and Some Hard Partyin' Monks
It's Friday the thirteenth (paraskevidekatriaphobics, beware) and what better way to celebrate than with an interview with "smash-and-grab Buddhist" Ian Astbury, veteran grunger and bandmember of The Cult? As the interview begins on the Huffington Post, "It might be argued that the visceral whack of The Cult's brand of heavy, dharma-conscious rock is just the kind of Zen stick a sleepy pop culture needs administered to its backside."
I missed the fan cult of The Cult back in the 80s, so I can't really throw in my opinion on this. But we don't have to take the interviewer at his word: we have YouTube! Here's The Cult performing "She Sells Sanctuary" and perhaps whacking you with their dharma-conscious Zen music stick:
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Tricycle Talk with Professional Organizer Andrew Mellen
Spring for me is always the same. Come March, the flowers are blossoming, the birds are chirping, and the grumpy New Yorkers around me are glaring with slightly less menace. Everything is a little brighter and a little warmer. With the feeling of newness wafting in the air, I finally drudge up enough courage to look around at the mess I've made all winter long and clean.
Spring cleaning! It always starts so well. But in an hour I'm quite like the Mole in the first page of Kenneth Grahame's book The Wind in the Willows:
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Himalayan Buddhist Art 101: The Buddha
Buddhist practice and Buddhist art have been inseparable in the Himalayas ever since Buddhism arrived to the region in the eighth century. But for the casual observer it can be difficult to make sense of the complex iconography. Not to worry—Himalayan art scholar Jeff Watt is here to help. In this "Himalayan Buddhist Art 101" series, Jeff will make sense of this rich artistic tradition by presenting a weekly image from the Himalayan Art Resources archives and explaining its role in the Buddhist tradition. This week we explore the image of the Buddha.The Buddha is the most iconic visual form found in Buddhist art in general and this is also true for Tibetan and Himalayan Buddhist art in particular.
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Scholar-Practitioners in American Buddhism
This is part two of a three-part guest blog series by Charles Prebish, Emeritus Professor of Religious Studies at Pennsylvania State University and Utah State University. In the current issue of Tricycle, Prebish is interviewed by Linda Heuman (Read "Pursuing an American Buddhism" here), however, they had so many topics to cover in such a short time there were many items Prebish would have liked to discuss more fully. Last week we featured "Precepts as Practice in American Buddhism." Join the discussion of this blog post, and the two others, on the interview page.
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Occupy Sravasti: How Buddhism Inspires Me to Occupy
This guest blog post comes our way from Joshua Eaton, an editor, writer and translator. Eaton holds an M Div in Buddhist Studies from Harvard University. His most recent piece for tricycle.com is "Making Buddhism accessible to working-class people."
Occupy Sravasti: How Buddhism Inspires Me to Occupy
By Joshua Eaton
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Week 2 of Sylvia Boorstein's Retreat Begins Today!
Week 2 of Sylvia Boorstein's Tricycle Retreat begins today! The talk for this week is titled Ethics: The Bliss of Blamelessness.
Thanks to those of you are sharing thoughts and questions on our discussion board following the retreat, it really helps bring these talks to life.
For those of you just tuning in, the retreat is called, "The Whole of Life as Practice," guiding us through the Metta Sutta as a focal point for exploring the Buddha's teachings on morality, mental disciple, and wisdom. Sylvia's short article in our Spring 2012 issue highlighted the retreat, which can be read here.
If you haven't signed up as a Sustaining or Supporting Member, please do so here to watch Sylvia's retreat—along with our other 28 previous retreat teachings!
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Himalayan Buddhist Art 101: Calm Abiding
Buddhist practice and Buddhist art have been inseparable in the Himalayas ever since Buddhism arrived to the region in the eighth century. But for the casual observer it can be difficult to make sense of the complex iconography. Not to worry—Himalayan art scholar Jeff Watt is here to help. Beginning with this post and future posts, Jeff will make sense of this rich artistic tradition by presenting a weekly image from the Himalayan Art Resources archives and explaining its role in the Buddhist tradition. We begin with shamatha, or "calm abiding."
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His Eminence Garchen Rinpoche to teach in Memphis, Tennessee
His Eminence Garchen Rinpoche is giving two days of teachings in Memphis, Tennessee at the Pema Karpo Meditation Center later this month. Pema Karpo is headed by Khenpo Gawang Rinpoche, a student of His Holiness Penor Rinpoche.
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Precepts as Practice in American Buddhism
This guest blog post comes our way from Charles Prebish, Emeritus Professor of Religious Studies at Pennsylvania State University and Utah State University. In the current issue of Tricycle, Prebish is interviewed by Linda Heuman (Read "Pursuing an American Buddhism" here). They had so many topics to cover in such a short time, however, that there were many items Prebish would have liked to discuss more fully. In the coming weeks two more blog posts by Prebish will be posted on tricycle.com. Prebish believes each of these topics has been, and will be, critical in the ongoing development of American Buddhism.
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Eido Shimano and the Zen Studies Society on Sweeping Zen
Stories of sexual abuse in Buddhist communities touch something raw in us, often rocking us to our core. For some, this leads to overwhelming feelings of betrayal, shock, and outrage; for others, the airing of criticism of one’s teacher evokes many of the same feelings, but now toward those who do the criticizing. Discussions quickly become difficult and divisive, and sanghas may well break apart as a result.
But much too often, these discussions never happen in the first place. Teachers and sanghas can sit on allegations for years, hoping that they will never see the light of day. As the victims of the abuse become pressured to keep things under wraps, the media—both Buddhist and mainstream—shy away from printing their stories, unable to publish accusations without a willing accuser.
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Tricycle Talks: Jenny Phillips on The Dhamma Brothers
Jenny Phillips is a cultural anthropologist, psychotherapist, and a documentary filmmaker. She is the director of this month's selection at the Tricycle Film Club, The Dhamma Brothers, a film that follows a 10-day meditation retreat in Donaldson Correctional Facility, a maximum-security prison outside Birmingham, Alabama. Listen to Tricycle's Sam Mowe speak with Phillips about the meditation program at Donaldson, the effects that the program has on participants, and the possibility of meditation entering other prisons.
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Sylvia Boorstein's Retreat Begins Today!
Week 1 of Sylvia Boorstein's Tricycle Retreat begins today! We are very honored and grateful to have Sylvia with us at Tricycle, and we hope this month will be as fruitful and joyful for you as it will be for us in the office! The retreat is called, "The Whole of Life as Practice," guiding us through the Metta Sutta as a focal point for exploring the Buddha's teachings on morality, mental disciple, and wisdom. Sylvia's short article in our Spring 2012 issue highlighted the retreat, which can be read here.
If you haven't signed up as a Sustaining or Supporting Member, please do so here to watch Sylvia's retreat—along with our other 28 previous retreat teachings!
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Buddha Buzz: Excessive Consumerism, the Templeton Prize, and Everything In Between
Being the writer of Buddha Buzz blog posts certainly has its advantages. For one, I get to spend my time reading and writing about subjects that are important to me. But the main advantage by far is that during the time I spend scouring the Internet each week for Buddhist-related news, I'm often (or so I like to think) one of the first people to be alerted when something really, really awesome—and Buddhist—goes on sale. Like this $28.5 million yacht.
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BuddhaFest Short Film Submissions
The BuddhaFest film festival, taking place June 14th-17th in Washington DC and sponsored by Tricycle, is looking for your short film submissions!
This Short Film Showcase is a chance to participate in the events and to share your ideas with the Buddhist community. BuddhaFest is asking for a film, just five minutes or less, that deals with the question, "What Does it Mean to be Awake in the World?" A $1000 prize goes to the top film!
Here's what our friends at BuddhaFest have to say about the showcase:
"We’re looking for films from new and experienced filmmakers that explore such themes as meditation, living mindfully, mindful awareness, compassion, and service to the world."
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Zen and the Art: How do you balance your practice and your art?
This blog post comes our way from Henry Shukman, a prize-winning poet and novelist. His most recent novel, The Lost City, was a New York Times Editor’s Choice. He is also an authorized Zen teacher in the Sanbo Kyodan Zen lineage, and he teaches at Mountain Cloud Zen Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico. In the current issue of Tricycle, Shukman wrote a feature article on the "Zen and the Art" phenomenon.
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Tricycle Film Club April Selection: The Dhamma Brothers
Get ready for the April selection of the Tricycle Film Club! On Monday, April 2, The Dhamma Brothers will begin streaming on our website. This powerful story recounts a small group of inmates in Donaldson Correctional Facility in Alabama who decide to partake in the first-ever Vipassana meditation program in the US prison system. We are grateful for director Jenny Phillips's desire to document and share such a moving story in our country's questionable treatment of our growing population of prison inmates.
The film touches on many important issues such as social justice, politics, religion in the South, so be sure to take part in the discussion with Jenny Phillips following the film. Please join us in watching this film, available at tricycle.com for the month of April. The Dhamma Brothers is produced by Northern Light Productions.
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Tricycle Talks: Jules Shell and Foundation Rwanda
I recently spoke with Jules Shell, co-founder and executive director of Foundation Rwanda. Begun in July of 2008, Foundation Rwanda has the primary goal of helping mothers fulfill the wish for their children to have secondary school education.
From Foundation Rwanda's site:
"In February of 2006, photojournalist Jonathan Torgovnik traveled to East Africa with then Newsweek health editor Geoffrey Cowley to report on a story for Newsweek Magazine about the 25th year anniversary of the inception of HIV/AIDS.
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