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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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 » -
Mindful Music
“This is why we come early,” Buddhist singer-songwriter Ravenna Michalsen says for the third time this trip, as we search for the correct turn into Wellesley College. She’s playing a show for the college’s Buddhist Community tonight, and we’ve driven up to Massachusetts from New Haven, Connecticut, where various karmic causes and conditions have brought the two of us together again for another semester. More » -
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Gatha by the Boatman Monk
A thousand-foot fishing line hangs straight down.One wave moves, ten thousand follow.The night is still, the water cold, the bait untouched.The empty boat carries home a full load of moonlight. [Image: Hattachi #346, Tokihoro Sato, 2000, gelatin-silver print ©Tokihoro Sato, courtesy of the Leslie Tonkonow Gallery, New York] More » -
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Reel to Real
BRUCE JOEL RUBIN, 48, was recently awarded the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for Ghost, 1990's top-grossing film. He also wrote the original screenplay, Jacob's Ladder. Influenced by The Tibetan Book of the Dead, Jacob's Ladder was acknowledged as one of the" best unproduced screenplays" in Hollywood for a decade until Adrian Lyne took it on last year. Rubin's life has been informed by his encounters with Buddhism in the Himalayas and by his continuing meditation practice. Recently he spoke with Tricycle's On Film editor Gaetano Kazuo Maida about film and spirituality. Tricycle: What has inspired your work in film? More »















