An American Zen Buddhist training center in the Mountains and Rivers Order, offering Sunday programs, weekend retreats and month-long residencies.
ken mcleod |
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Unfettered Mind is Back!
Buddhist teacher Ken McLeod, who has long been on digital dharma's cutting edge, recently relaunched his website, Unfettered Mind. In September we will be launching a series of video teachings by Ken, in which he will be giving weekly dharma talks on the Thirty-Seven Practices of a Bodhisattva, which were written in the 14th century by the great Tibetan Buddhist scholar-monk Thogme Zangpo.I've been looking through Ken's new site today and there is a tremendous amount of material available— podcasts, articles, translations, and practices. The site is well designed and easy to navigate, with Ken's teachings separated into the categories of Basics, Training, Awareness, Life, and Traditional. Take a look, you won't be disappointed!Here are a few pieces I recommend: Who Am I? More » -
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Wake-up call: You don't have to do whatever your guru says
Buddhism's development in the West has sometimes been rocky, particularly with regard to teacher-student relationships. With decades of experience under his belt, Ken McLeod offers some sound advice in a 2002 interview: In the Vajrayana tradition it appears that you have to do whatever your guru says. But that’s absurd in this country. It just isn’t going to happen. America and most Western cultures are post-modern societies. They did away with the external structures that used to define role and position. Not so long ago, if your father was a shoemaker you would become one, and that sort of thing still prevails in a lot of places in the world. With modern education you have to figure out what you want to do — you have to develop the internal ability to define your own path. The same thing is true of marriage, economic position, education, political persuasion, and moral attitudes. More » -
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Ken McLeod on Intention
In a recent talk at Unfettered Mind, Ken McLeod discusses different strategies for being able to implement intention. Intention is only half the battle; you have to be able to see it through. You intend to do something and then you do it. By strengthening intention, McLeod says, you can make things manifest in the world, you can change the direction you’re going in and break free of negative habitual patterns. An example of one of his strategies: Another way, and this is very useful for working with difficult situations, either internally or externally. Follow the gesture. This is a way of knowing what is happening. When you follow the gesture, and you know what is happening, then go another way. Do something different. It doesn’t really matter what you do as long as it is different. More » -
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Angry, angry, angry
From Teabaggers (I never got used to "Tea Partiers" and stick with the name they gave themselves) to television news shriekers to the average Jane and Joe on the street (employed or not), Americans seem pretty testy lately. Just turn on cable or take public transportation—or read the blogs. Whether it's difficulty adjusting to the realities of the new century or to our much-changed role in the world, people are angry. More » -
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Blogwatch: Musings
I recommend checking out Musings by author, teacher, translator—and blogger—Ken McLeod. An excellent teacher, McLeod does just this in the vast majority of his blog: He teaches. Through simple practice tips and personal reflections, McLeod strikes an impressive balance between simplicity and depth which makes his blogs both instantly accessible as well as very useful. It is very practice-oriented and can serve as a great online resource for any regular meditator with an internet connection. While his recent Tricycle Online Retreat contained lengthy in-depth talks on his translation of the 11th-century Indian Tilopa's Ganges Mahamudra text, Ken's blog often contains much simpler references. For exam More » -
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Ken McLeod on Faith and Belief
In a recent post on his blog Musings, Ken McLeod discusses two familiar terms: faith and belief. How he understands these terms, however, might not be so familiar. He argues that belief is a closed system in which we rely on past conditioning and ideas to interpret our experiences. Faith, he says, is a much more open way of operating where we still allow past conditioning and ideas to arise, but we are not bound by them: We remain open to both mysteries and new ideas. Ken writes: In ordinary English usage, the words "faith" and "belief" are often used interchangeably and the difference between these two ways of meeting experience is confused or lost. More »
