The Institute of Buddhist Studies provides graduate level education in the entirety of the Buddhist tradition with specialized instruction supporting Jodo Shinshu Buddhist ministry.
Arts & Culture |
The growing influence of Buddhist artistic expression in contemporary culture |
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Right Acting
You’ve said before that your skills as an actor are some of the very same skills you use in your practice. Can you talk about that? I went to the Lee Strasburg Institute, which teaches an approach to acting that originated with Stanislavski in the Moscow Art Theatre. The first thing you do when you start to study is, you sit in a chair and try to become aware of your body and your muscles, releasing all tension. Then you make a resonant sound—an “ahhh”—and try to connect to your emotion and see what’s there. It took me a while to put it together, but it’s a lot like meditation. It’s about simple things: creating simple sensory realities. Another exercise uses an imaginary coffee cup. You create it and feel the weight of the thing—not by pantomime, but through your senses. More » -
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Spontaneous Intelligence
Allen Ginsberg was an undergraduate at Columbia University in the early 1940s when he met Jack Kerouac. Together they became charter members of what would become known as the Beat Generation. In 1972, he began studying with Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, and continues practicing in the Shambhala tradition, as well as practicing with Gelek Rimpoche. Tricycle interviewed Mr. Ginsberg in his apartment in New York City in the Spring of 1995. More » -
Topping the Charts for Freedom
In your book you speak openly about your childhood with a father who routinely beat you and a mother who was unable to intervene. How has your practice of Buddhism helped you make sense of the past? What happened happened; I can’t undo it. I’ve learned that it’s stupid to live in that unpleasant experience forever. The most painful situation took place long ago, but as you relive it you make yourself suffer over and over again. The main question is how much you want to break free of your patterns and dissatisfaction regarding what you’ve been through. More » -
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Soteriology & Apotheosis
if you could imagine,or visualize the entire Wheel of Time mandala in the drop the size of amustard seed at the tip on one’s nose & see the whites of the eyes of 722deities all rooting for the enlightened you the wide-awake youif you could imagine an enemy who would it be?visualize the whites of their eyesdon’t shoot!would it not be the proverbial enemy within (why did my brain incubate all those long years . . . ) plotting its great overthrow & thrust of all that stuff toward its own sweetentropyguarded in the night why would you not travel in this kind of visualization what not accomplish with 24 arms as you shift the ecliptic . . . . .From Manatee/Humanity, © 2009 by Anne Waldman. Reprinted with permission from Penguin. More »
