Tricycle | Awake in the World

It's the new year and many of us have the great state of Iowa on the brain today. But the Voice of America is reporting on Burma and the incredible poverty there that guarantees the tensions between the people and the "government" will not go away anytime soon. And Claude Arpi wonders whether 2007 was an annus horribilis or an annus mirabilis for the Dalai Lama, and for Tibet.

But is there even anything new to the new year? Ethan Nichtern says the new year is a perfect opportunity to assess our path. But in a poem (a villanelle, no less!) Barry Graham says, "At New Year, nothing new." And while we're on poetry, here's a collection of many poems for the New Year from the ZenFrog (with great images, as always.)

On the meditation front, Loden Jinpa points us to a great post on the Inexplicable Monks and their brains during meditation by Daniel Goleman. And The Worst Horse has checked into the Great Northern Hotel and is going David Lynch on us here and here.