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The Latest in the Wisdom Collection

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    In the Land of the First Noble Truth Paid Member

    By Robert Hirschfield
    We had just opened our building in lower Manhattan when we saw smoke sliding out from under Rooster Vargas's door. My then supervisor, a sultry woman in her mid-twenties who did not know what she was getting into (and who soon became conveniently pregnant and left), pounded on Rooster's door. She got no response. She barged into his room with a fire extinguisher so shiny and immaculate it resembled a religious object. We found a chicken defrosting under a scalding shower. Rooster had gone shopping. Seven years have since past. Rooster's residence is without Rooster. After interminably shooting up, snorting, tormenting staff, inflicting on other residents his bug-laden cart that clung to him like a second body, Rooster was evicted. I am still a case manager at the forty-four-unit independent housing facility run by my agency for people who are mentally ill (there are also rooms for people who are handicapped, either physically or financially). More »
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    The Dignity of Restraint Paid Member

    By Thanissaro Bhikkhu
    It’s always interesting to notice how words disappear from common usage. We have them in our passive vocabulary, we know their meaning, but they tend to disappear from day-to-day conversation—which usually means that they’ve disappeared from the way we shape our lives. Several years back I gave a dhamma talk in which I happened to mention the word dignity. After the talk, a woman in the audience who had emigrated from Russia came up to me and said that she had never heard Americans use the word dignity before. She had learned it when she studied English in Russia, but she had never heard people use it here. And it’s good to think about why. Where and why did it disappear? More »
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    Self as Verb Paid Member

    By Andrew Olendzki
    The core insight of the Buddhist tradition—the relentless emptiness of phenomena—has profound implications for all of us who are trying to understand the nature of life. It points to the disturbing fact that all nouns are arbitrary constructions. A person, place or thing is just an idea invented to freeze the fluid flow of the world into objects that can be labeled and manipulated by adroit but shallow modes of mind. Beyond and behind these snapshots we take for ourselves is a vast and unnamable process. More »
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    Prayer: Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche Paid Member

    By Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche
    Why do we pray? We might think that if we do the Buddha, or God, or the deity will look kindly upon us, bestow blessings, protect us. We might believe that if we don’t, the deity won’t like us, might even punish us. But the purpose of prayer is not to win the approval or avert the wrath of an exterior God. To the extent that we understand Buddha, God, the deity, to be an expression of ultimate reality, to that extent we receive blessings when we pray. To the extent that we have faith in the boundless qualities of the deity’s love and compassion, to that extent we receive the blessings of those qualities. More »
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    Prayer: Glenn Mullin Paid Member

    By Glenn Mullin
    Most Western Buddhists were raised in one of the three Semitic religions: Judaism, Christianity, or Islam. All three of these hold prayer as their principal spiritual method. This left many of us with a bad case of prayerphobia. We turned to Buddhism for its meditation, its lofty philosophy, its colorful tantric yogas, and its zany Zen poetry. Traditional Buddhists, however, do pray. Any visitor to the monasteries and meditation centers of Asia can testify to this. For example, in Dharamsala one may witness the Dalai Lama and his monks performing some ritual involving chanting, much of which could be classified as “prayer.” The same scene with different monk faces can be seen in Japan, Korea, or Sri Lanka. More »
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    Prayer: Interview with Dr. Larry Dossey Paid Member

    In Reinventing Medicine, (HarperSanFrancisco, 1999), Dr. Larry Dossey cites several scientific studies about the effectiveness of prayer. Medical evidence now supports the view that prayer helps in the healing process, and some studies have documented positive results of Tibetan prayer as an intercessory tool. Dr. Dossey has written eight books including Healing Words: The Power of Prayer & The Practice of Medicine (HarperSanFrancisco, 1993) and is executive editor of the journal Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine. Today Dr. Dossey lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He is former chief of staff at Humana Medical City Dallas and former co-chair of the Panel on Mind/Body interventions, Office of Complementary and Alternative Medicine, National Institutes of Health. What is your definition of prayer? More »