Tricycle | Awake in the World

For the better part of the last year, Ken McLeod has been offering video teachings on the 37 Practices of the Bodhisattva, the classical Tibetan text by Gyalse Tokme Zanpo (1297-1371). The text offers practical advice on how to follow the bodhisattva path, and Ken's concise teachings on the verses each week are compellingly relevant to the life of the contempoary practitioner. Ken offers wisdom that we can contemplate and apply through the course of our day. This week, he comments on verse 32: You undermine yourself when you react emotionally and Grumble about the imperfections of other bodhisattvas. Of the imperfections of those who have entered the Great Way, Don’t say anything — this is the practice of a bodhisattva. "When we criticize someone else," Ken begins, "almost always people listening form a negative impression of you. Even if they agree, you are reinforcing a critical attitude in them." More »

On his entry form, short film showcase contestant SeungAh Lee described his motivation for making the film "In SHAPE" like this: One day while I was walking down a busy city street, it suddenly seemed that everyone around me was controlled by the shape of squares. It was as though the shape of squares had cast a lengthening shadow on everyone's existence, obscuring people's bright and open-ended awareness with the dreary repetitiveness of day-to-day living, and in a way that no one even noticed. Lee's got a point. Right now I'm typing away at a square keyboard with square keys, staring at a square computer monitor that is sitting on a square desk. I'm surrounded by square-shaped books, notepads, and post-its. Thank goodness my chair is circular, or I'd be starting to get really alarmed. More »

Robert Bellah, who is widely considered to be North America's foremost sociologist of religion, has been featured previously in Tricycle. In the current issue of the magazine, contributing editor Linda Heuman reviews his long-anticipated magnum opus, Religion in Human Evolution. The book has generated high praise and enthusiastic endorsements from reviewers and scholars, including such intellectual heavyweights as Charles Taylor and Jurgen Habermas, and in scope and importance is being compared to the work of the greatest thinkers in the field, most notably that of Max Weber and Emile Durkheim. To give just one example, Hans Joas of the University of Chicago writes: More »

Counting today, there's only three days left to decide who our Short Films Showcase winner is going to be. I hate to sound like a politician, but (I'm putting on my stern face now) your votes count. This is your chance to alter Short Films Showcase history. All right, the politico-speech is over now. Let's talk short films. More »

Many films in our Short Films Showcase went for the tried and true technique of answering the competition's challenge question: they asked other people. "What does it mean to be awake in the world," an aptly-named short by filmmakers Fred Yi and Lauren Talley, stands out from the bunch precisely because they interviewed those among us who don't particularly stand out. You know, the Everyman! (Or in the lexicon of just-past politics, Joe the Plumber.) Except for Geshe Nicholas Vreeland, a Tibetan Buddhist monk and the abbot of Rato monastery in India, all of the people that Yi and Talley interview are just...normal people. And it's wonderful, because they answer the question like normal people, using normal people language. More »

More than 2,500 years ago, Buddhists established a sprawling monastery complex in the barren desert just 25 miles southeast of present-day Kabul, Afghanistan, attracted to the remote location because of its rich copper deposits. Mes Aynak, the once vibrant home to hundreds of Buddha statues and Bronze Age treasures, fell into ruin for centuries.The former spiritual center rose again to prevalence thousands of years later when the disregarded ruins became an Al-Qaeda training ground, playing host to high-ranking members of the terrorist organization beginning in 1999. Eight years later, in 2007, the red-brown metal that first caught the Buddhists’ eyes brought an international giant onto the scene. More »

If you haven't already heard about our Short Films Showcase, we have twenty-five original films all competing for your votes here, trying to answer the question "What does it mean to be Awake in the World?" Voting goes until June 8, when the entry that receives the highest combination of votes and average rating will win $1,000 in cash and two 4-Day All Festival Passes to BuddhaFest. More »

Two months ago, we launched a short films competition with the question: "What does it mean to be Awake in the World?"Twenty-five filmmakers responded with original, five-minute videos that range in content from beekeeping in Virginia to skateboarding in East Harlem. These filmmakers answered with visual stories of meditation, mindful awareness, compassion, and service to the world. And now it's your turn to vote for the winner. (The grand prize is $1,000 to the filmmaker, so vote wisely!)Watch all twenty-five short films here. More »

My thanks to everyone and anyone who has been reading Buddha Buzz these past few weeks. Because, as we all know, it's been a bit depressing. Murder, rape, theft, deception—a smorgasbord of horrible activities seems to have hit the Buddhist international community as of late, and I feel somewhat responsible for relaying the information onward to you. I'm making amends this week. So if you can get through the first story about the perversion of Buddhist teachings and the second story about the passing of a beloved South Korean teacher, I promise you'll be rewarded with some lovely (and pertinent) photos of puppies. More »