Indholdsfortegnelse for Summer 2018 i Buddhadharma: The Practitioner's Quarterly

LAMA TSULT RIM ALLIONE is the founder of Tara Mandala, a Vajrayana retreat center in Colorado, and she was the first American woman to become a Tibetan Buddhist nun, taking vows in 1970 with the Sixteenth Karmapa. She later gave back her monastic vows, married, and raised a family. Her work has been inspired by a deep connection with Machig Labdrön, the eleventh-century yogini who founded the Chöd lineage. Her new book, Wisdom Rising: Journey into the Mandala of the Empowered Feminine, was released in May. GAYLON FERGUSON is an acharya in the Shambhala International Buddhist community and an associate professor of religious studies at Naropa University. He teaches in a Peace Warriors/Basic Goodness meditation instructor training program in Chicago, working with community activists to reduce youth violence, and also…

CHAGDUD KHADRO: According to the teachings I have heard and the realized masters I have observed, emotions such as grief and sorrow—as well as disappointment, frustration, and fear—do arise. But such masters liberate emotions by recognizing their ephemeral, empty nature. A realization holder can avoid compounding emotions with the thoughts, concepts, words, and actions that produce karmic patterns. They can simply watch and be aware of their emotions arising and subsiding. The Tibetan language has two main words for compassion: nyingje, which refers to heartfelt, empathetic compassion, and thukje, the mind’s nonreferential, all-encompassing compassion. Whoever enters the Mahayana path cultivates nyingje by recognizing and responding to the dissatisfaction and suffering of all sentient beings, caught as they are in endless cycles of conditioned existence. One’s own emotions and experiences of…

I HAVE NEVER FELT ALONE. I have always felt touched by an unseen world; the world of ghosts, spirits, demons, and angels has dwelled at times as close as a hand’s length, at others as far as a galaxy away. I understood as a child that these two worlds maintain a precious balance, that they are continually rubbing up against one another. I knew people with psychic ability who could see and talk to spirits. It was a gift I yearned to have. I grew up in the Black church in the South. My upbringing was rich in mythologies passed down from our African and slave ancestors. Though we rarely talked about them, we intuitively knew we were inhabiting a world with many different reflections. Even in the context of…

Clear Serenity, Quiet Insight University of Hawai‘i Press 2,256 pages (3 volumes); $90 Clear Serenity, Quiet Insight is Paul Swanson’s English translation of the Mohe zhiguan (Jpn., Maka shikan; literally, “great calming and insight”), a massive compendium on Buddhist practice by the Tiantai master Zhiyi (538–597), compiled by his disciple Guanding. No single work, one might argue, has more profoundly shaped the development of East Asian Buddhism. The Mohe zhiguan is not only foundational to the Tiantai (Kor., Cheontae; Jpn., Tendai) and Nichiren schools but has also influenced Chan (Zen), Huayan, Pure Land, and esoteric traditions. Its vastness and complexity, however, have long hindered appreciation of its content. Swanson’s meticulous, readable, and superbly annotated translation, the product of some thirty years’ labor, makes the whole of this magisterial work available…

Without tsewa, is there any other source of happiness?” This is the question posed by Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche in TRAINING IN TENDERNESS (Shambhala 2018). Always circling back to this Tibetan word meaning love, tenderness, or warmth, Kongtrul pushes us to honestly examine what fulfills us and what doesn’t. Is physical comfort enough? What about the ideal job? Financial stability? The American Dream? Only when accompanied by tsewa, Kongtrul argues, can any of these bring lasting fulfillment. Toward that end, he outlines numerous Buddhist reflective techniques aimed at bringing tsewa into our self-perception, our relationships, and even our experience of dying. HYECHO’S JOURNEY (Chicago 2017) tells the remarkable story of an eighth-century Korean monk who set out to see the world. It is an outstanding product of scholarly collaboration: a team…

Peruvian photographer and performance artist Cecilia Paredes (featured in “Breaking the Silence on Sexual Misconduct”) plays the central role in her series “Landscapes,” where boundaries between her body and backdrops all but disappear: “I wrap, cover, or paint my body with the same pattern of the material and represent myself as part of that landscape,” explains Paredes. Her last name, which means “walls” in Spanish, is fitting for her uncanny ability to camouflage herself in the walls behind her. In her art she communicates a theme of dislocation and the quest to find home. The scene depicted on this issue’s cover represents the annual ceremony of cleaning the Great Buddha of the Todai-ji Temple in Japan. About 230 people, including priests, clean and dust this fifteen-meter statue, the largest and…

Playing in a garden among the cherry trees, I stretch out for a nap in my little hut. —Ryokan (1758–1831), translation by John Stevens AS A YOUNG MONK, I loved this poem and the many like it, the images of Ryokan and other great Zen masters of old living out the fulfillment of the Buddha Way by wandering the forests, giggling with children, resting when tired, and eating when hungry. So pure! So free! So refreshing! My teachers and elders appreciated Ryokan’s napping as well, but when I did it, they didn’t appreciate it nearly as much. My naps simply ended in my teachers exhorting me to return to meditation. The message seems to be that there is some big difference between Ryokan’s napping and my own. Of course, the…

Rebirth in Early Buddhism and Current Research Wisdom Publications, 2018 304 pages; $29.95 What happens when we die? This question has vexed us humans for as long as we’ve been able to conceive of a future. Opinions abound. The materialist believes nothing happens; everything simply ends. The eternalist believes we will all have everlasting existence in either eternal joy or misery. The agnostic says we can’t know, so it’s not worth thinking about. Some Buddhists believe we will be reborn, and that the circumstances of one’s rebirth are influenced by past actions. These stances are often strongly held even though, if pressed, those who hold them will admit they don’t actually know. In Rebirth in Early Buddhism and Current Research, Bhikkhu Analayo, author of the highly regarded book Satipatthana: The…

CALIFORNIA AGAINST THE STREAM BUDDHIST MEDITATION SOCIETY 4300 Melrose Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90029. (323) 665-4300, Fax: (323) 665-4404, service@againstthestream.org, www.againstthestream.org • Against The Stream has two centers in Los Angeles and Santa Monica offering weekly classes, daylong retreats, and special class series. AGAINST THE STREAM BUDDHIST MEDITATION SOCIETY 2701 Folsom St, San Francisco, CA 94110. bayarea@againstthestream.org, www.againstthestream.org • Meditation center in the Mission offers weekly classes, daylongs, class series and residential retreats. CHAGDUD GONPA RIGDZIN LING PO Box 279, Junction City, CA 96048. (530) 623-2714, FAX: (530) 623-6709, sangha@chagdudgonpa.org, www.chagdudgonpa.org • Nyingma Buddhist center in serene Northern California Alps. Founded by Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche. Daily meditation; teaching and retreat programs; individual retreat facilities. DHARMA ZEN CENTER 1025 S Cloverdale Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90019. (323) 934-0330, info@dharmazen.com, www.dharmazen.com •…

SOMETIMES I FEEL overwhelmed. In our climate of unending gun violence, extreme rhetoric in domestic and international politics, and environmental crisis, I find myself needing to lean not only on my practice but also on my lineage for support. After all, lineage gives the dharma the familiar forms we’ve grown accustomed to. Lately, however, my experience of lineage is bittersweet. I’ve grown increasingly aware of my lineage’s slowness to get with the times. Debates around whether it dilutes the Buddha’s teaching to address the real-life needs of those I love and serve through dharma seem hopelessly closed-minded, as does the hesitancy to openly explore how whiteness, colonialism, and patriarchy helped form the structures through which lineage has taken root here in the West. The radical creativity that allowed the buddhadharma…