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    Old Wine, New Bottles Paid Member

    By Helen Tworkov
    Lama Surya Das, the American founder of the Dzogchen Foundation, a lay practice center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was born Jeffrey Miller in Brooklyn, New York, in 1950. He spent nearly thirty years studying with many of the great spiritual masters of Tibet, including Kalu Rinpoche, Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, Gyalwa Karmapa, and Nyoshul Khenpo Rinpoche. A dzogchen lineage holder, Lama Surya Das has twice completed the traditional three-year Vajrayana meditation retreat at Shechen Monastery in Dordogne, France. In addition to leading dzogchen retreats, he is the author of several books, including Awakening the Buddha Within. This interview was conducted at Lama Surya Das’s home in Concord, Massachusetts, by Helen Tworkov, and ran in the Fall 2000 issue of Tricycle. More »
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    Contemplating Corporate Culture Paid Member

    By Helen Tworkov
    Mirabai Bush is the director of The Center for Contemplative Mind in Society. Based in Massachusetts, its mission is to bring contemplative practice into mainstream institutional life. Corporations, media organizations, law schools, and universities have sponsored programs directed by the Center. Prior to co-founding the Center in 1996, Bush was the director of the Guatemala Project and the Compassionate Action Project for Seva Foundation. A Buddhist practitioner for the past thirty years, she is also co-author, with Ram Dass, of Compassion in Action: Setting Out on the Path of Service. This interview was conducted in New York City by Helen Tworkov in March 2001. What was the initial motivation behind the Center for Contemplative Mind? More »
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    Enlightenment In This Lifetime: Meetings With A Remarkable Woman Paid Member

    Among the first wave of young Americans venturing into Asia in the early 1970s were Jack Engler, now a prominent psychotherapist and supervising psychologist at Harvard University, and Joseph Goldstein, cofounder of the Insight Meditation Society, in Barre, Massachusetts. Both men were deeply influenced by Indian meditation master Nani Barua (1911-1989), affectionately known as “Dipa Ma,” and her teacher, Anagarika Munindra (1914-2003). Perhaps what most characterized these young Americans and their approach to the dharma was their boundless enthusiasm—and the plucky belief that enlightenment could be attained in this lifetime. While many Asians had come to believe that such high aspirations were best deferred to a future life, Munindraji and Dipa Ma insisted that such goals were not only to be encouraged but that they were also entirely realizable. More »
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    Just As It Is Paid Member

    “You have to be somebody before you can be nobody,” Jack Engler wrote twenty years ago in Transformations of Consciousness, and recently revisited in Psychoanalysis and Buddhism. A supervising psychologist and instructor at Harvard Medical School, where he teaches psychotherapy, Engler has a private practice in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He is a former president of the board of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts and a founding member and teacher at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies. More »
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    The Ghost of Eden Paid Member

    A poet and Zen student, Chase Twichell is a recipient of awards from the Artists Foundation (Boston), the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters, as well as fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. She has written five volumes of poetry, the latest of which are The Snow Watcher and The Ghost of Eden. Twichell has taught widely, most recently at Princeton University. In 1999 she left Princeton to found Ausable Press, which publishes poetry and poetry-related prose that “investigates and expresses human consciousness in language that goes where prose cannot.” She lives in upstate New York. Poet Joel Whitney, winner of the 2003 Discovery Prize, awarded by The Nation, conducted this interview as an e-mail correspondence during the summer of 2000. More »
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    In Exile from Siam Paid Member

    In September 1991, Sulak Sivaraksa was accused of lese majesté for remarks made at Thammasat University in Bangkok which were critical of Thailand's authorities. Under threat of arrest by Thailand's military junta, Sulak—as he is known—fled his country and has since been in exile from Siam (the country's original name, which Sulak insists on using). One of Asia's leading social activists, Sulak is the founder of the International Network of Engaged Buddhists. He has taught all over the United States, and his most recent publication is Seeds of Peace (Parallax Press). In April, he was interviewed at the Tricycle office by editor Helen Tworkov. More »