Festival Media offers the best Buddhist cinema on DVD. A service of the nonprofit Buddhist Film Foundation, Inc., home of the International Buddhist Film Festival.
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Jungle Beast
Our guide, an ambitious young Nepali, told us what to look for on our hike out into the jungle. We would be walking among close-standing trees and underbrush; we must stay together, follow him, and do exactly as he said. More » -
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Free Speech / Right Speech
AS A STRANGE NEW MEDIUM, the Internet's true nature is difficult to grasp. Is there anything special or uniquely valuable about it or is it simply being over-hyped. Could the Net even be dangerous-to children, for instance, by exposing them to unsuitable material? We see and hear endless media reports, some favorable, some not, on this subject. Millions are exploring the Net for themselves with enthusiasm, while others wait behind on the on-ramp, often with fear and loathing. The Internet has entered into our cultural consciousness as an object onto which we project our hopes and fears. This fundamental ambiguity is nowhere more clearly on display than in the issue of right speech, an ancient Buddhist application of the principle that human sanity as well as social harmony calls for communication that is honest, helpful, clear, and wholesome, rather than deceptive, coercive, and harmful. More » -
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Impossible Vacation
This is an excerpt from Spalding Gray's novel Impossible Vacation, to be published by Alfred A. Knopf this month. It is the story of Brewster North, a pleasure-seeking puritan and control freak who likes to create his own hells before the real ones can get to him. The film version of Gray's performance piece about writing the book, entitled Monster in a Box, has just been released in New York. More » -
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Magpie Sisters
WHEN I FIRST came to the Therigatha, or The Psalms of the Sisters, I couldn't believe my ears. Here were texts composed on the tongue by Buddhist women that captivated my attention and imagination so completely that I could literally feel their presences hovering close by. These women seemed vivid inhabitants of the apparitional realm or "enjoyment body" Buddhists call Sambhogakaya, whose attributes are compassion and communication. The poems-really a collection of many diverse expressions… More » -
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Sudden Awakening
In 1993, I went to Lucknow, India to receive teachings from the Advaita master H.W. L. Poonjaji, a disciple of Ramana Maharshi. Many of my friends and colleagues, including several dedicated teachers of Vipassana meditation, had preceded me to Poonjaji’s door. By the time I arrived, his fame had blossomed and his small living room bulged with seekers from around the world who had elbowed their way into his morning satsang. I found a flat square saffron cushion in the back of the room and squeezed onto it, my knees bumping my neighbors on both sides. Ceiling fans spun in a feeble attempt to cool the already rising temperatures of the still early morning, and stifling a yawn as I wiped sweat from my brow, I wondered what I was doing in this steamy room at the foot of a guru. I didn’t believe in gurus. More »
