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    Stirring the Victorian Imagination Paid Member

    By Wendell Piez
    LIKE EVERYTHING the British poet Edwin Arnold wrote, The Light of Asia was quickly written: a poem in eight books of about five hundred lines each, mostly in blank verse, composed over a period of several months when Arnold was busy with other concerns. Immediately upon its publication in the summer of 1879, the poem began to sell copies and win attention. It was a life of Siddhartha Gautama, told from the point of view of "an Indian Buddhist" (so read the title page) in high English style. The immediate sensation surrounding The Light of Asia was remarkable: for some time on both sides of the Atlantic, newspapers and dining rooms were charged with discussion about the Buddha, his teaching, and Arnold's presentation of Buddhism. The book's success was also sustained. By 1885 the authorized English version had gone through thirty editions. More »
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    Tea on the Dead Sea Paid Member

    By Sean Murphy
    From the early 1960s through the early 80s, Soen Nakagawa, who had been influential in the training of such early American Zen students as Philip Kapleau and Robert Aitken, began to come regularly to the States to lead sesshins, or sitting retreats, when his responsibilities as abbot of Ryutakuji Monastery in Japan would allow it. Soen Roshi, as his American students called him, was famed for his unconventional teaching methods, which were eccentric even by Zen standards. One often-reported trick was the time he placed a pumpkin on his sitting cushion in the interview room during sesshin. He then called participants in for private interviews and hid behind a screen, watching while the baffled students did their customary prostrations before the impassive gourd. More »
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    The Sensualist Paid Member

    By Mira Tweti
    While the usually sleepy English village of Chislehurst was being bombarded by German aircraft in the early morning of January 6, 1915, Alan Watts—who was to become one of the foremost interpreters of ancient Eastern wisdom for the modern West—was born to Laurence Wilson Watts and Emily Mary Buchan. The elder Watts was an executive with the Michelin tire company in London, and his wife taught at a local school for daughters of missionaries to China. It was because of his mother that Alan had early exposure to Asian culture, via art and other gifts brought by parents returning from China. A Sinophile all his life, Alan attributed the start of his interest in the writings of Chinese poets and sages to his mother’s gift of a Chinese translation of the New Testament. More »
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    The Bodhisattva of Rock Creek Cemetery Paid Member

    By Henry Whitfield
    But we, who cannot fly the world, must seekTo live two separate lives: one, in the worldWhich we must ever seem to treat as real;The other in ourselves, behind a veilNot to be raised without disturbing both. —Henry Adams, 1891 In the northeastern quadrant of Washington, DC, there is an old cemetery named Rock Creek. The area surrounding it was once an affluent leafy suburb overlooking the often sweltering city, but the neighborhood that now presses at the cemetery’s iron fence is working-class. Behind that fence, for whatever it may be worth to the tenants, a genteel atmosphere endures. Rock Creek’s hundred rolling acres are covered with traditional burial works from the last three centuries - an impressive landscape of obelisks and angels, twining laurel, and weeping willow. More »
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    Remembering Alan Watts Paid Member

    The remarkable life of Zen pioneer Alan Watts [1915-1973] is featured in the Fall 2007 issue ("The Sensualist," by Mira Tweti). In this special web exclusive we celebrate the work and legacy of Watts with audio, video, and art by and about Alan Watts. Enjoy!   Alan Watts Theater. Several animated movies from South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone. The image pictured is from an animation by Tim Sisco.   Also, take a look at the Alan Watts Story featuring his TV and autobiographic lecture series.   Excerpt from Eastern Wisdom. Modern Life by Alan Watts, published by New World Library.   More »
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    Lost Stories Paid Member

    By Sallie Jiko Tisdale
    My sangha chants a lineage of female ancestors, alternating day by day with our traditional lineage. When we began doing this a few years ago, it was like harvesting fruit from a very old tree. The seeds were planted when Mahapajapati became the first female Buddhist monk and leader of a thriving women’s monastic community in ancient India. From the beginning of my Soto Zen practice, I’ve known both male and female monks, priests and lay students, and have seen men and women holding equal ranks. In my own sangha, men and women serve in varying roles without gender distinction.More »