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Wonders of the Natural Mind: The Essence of Dzogchen in the Native Bon Tradition of Tibet
For most readers, these two books will serve as the first "insider" introductions to Bon, the indigenous spiritual tradition of Tibet that predates Buddhism in the Land of the Snows. Bon has been depicted by many Tibetan Buddhist teachers and their Western converts as the most primitive of religions, a sect of devilish animists who, failing to defeat Buddhism with black magic, sought instead to plagiarize and embellish its canon, grafting Buddhist ideas onto its own rituals. Most venal and unforgivable to many Buddhists is the Bonpos' (those who practice Bon) claim that their tradition predates the lineages of Shakyamuni Buddha by several thousand years and represents the teachings of the enlightened Persian prince Shenrab Miwoche. More » -
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The Country of Dreams and Dust
Russell Leong's The Country of Dreams and Dust is an outstanding book of contemporary American poetry. It is also, without question, a "Buddhist" book. The poems themselves are not formally or, for the most part, even in spirit Buddhist, but the humanistic and inclusive tradition of Buddhism clearly stands behind them all, giving them a context, a luminous complexity, and perhaps, finally, a moral authority that is lacking in most twentieth-century Western poetry. The poet's new-found Buddhist understanding makes this book a single work of art rather than merely a volume of "selected poems." Marked by sparkling imagery, the poems are consistently delivered in the phrasing and the rhythm of the spoken language of contemporary urban America. To read them aloud is to discover what a musical language that can be. More » -
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Lives of the Nuns
Lives of the Nuns, a collection of brief stories of notable Chinese Buddhist ordained women, comes from a world long gone and far away: China in the first flowering of Buddhism fifteen hundred years ago. Before the Lives, compiled by a literary monk of that era, we have only one volume on the community of Buddhist women, the Therigatha, which reports on a time almost a thousand years earlier, in India. The Indian women of the Therigatha had mostly lived simple lives before joining the sangha of ordained women. The Chinese women of the Lives, on the other hand, are mostly upper class and well-educated. More » -
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The Ground We Share
In her Paleolithic romances, Jean Auel imagines angry clashes between Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon humans over the power of their respective totems. The details are off (not all Cro-Magnon women were blond and buxom), but Auel's gloss on the prehistory of religions is surely right on target: interfaith encounter has always been with us. During our century, the exchange has improved enormously; the operative word now is not power or persecution, or even proselytization, but dialogue. The most flamboyant example of this recent sea-change is last year's Parliament of World Religions, a grand carnival of cross-denominational handshakes and self-approbation. But serious dialogue usually goes on in quieter corridors, as representatives of various religions meet in small conferences or one-on-one for scholarly exchange or shared practice. More » -
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Beyond Optimism
Beyond Optimism is good, albeit occasionally bitter, medicine for a species caught between two conflicting realities—total dependence on wealth created by unsustainable economic growth, and the deeper reality of a planet gradually withering under the impact of it. Ken jones, a long-practicing Buddhist and Welsh social activist, presents a scorching analysis of the contemporary human predicament, and even more poignantly, the ideologies we most often turn to for solace from it. His eloquent manifesto for political, social, and spiritual transformation casts a critical eye on all the current sacred cows. More » -
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Thank You and OK!
One of the biggest challenges facing American Buddhism is the unease many feel toward its Asian cultural trappings. It's the rare Nebraska farmer, for instance, who's going to feel comfortable encountering Tibetan chants in a brightly colored temple festooned with thankas. This clash of cultures escalates when Americans schooled in the ideals of equality and democracy engage in the authoritarian formalities of many Buddhist sects. It seems likely that as Buddhism finds its uniquely American expression, it will be divested of its Japanese, Tibetan, Chinese, Korean, Indian, Cambodian, and other accoutrements. But how to observe this often subtle phenomenon? More »
