American Buddhist Net

The Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hanh explains in his new book how a Buddhist approach could benefit ecology

LINK TO ORIGINAL

LINK TO ORIGINAL

I get questions from people from time to time about how they should "become" a Buddhist. This isn't a silly question because a lot of religions have a very intricate process one must go through before they can call themselves a member of that faith. Unless you're becoming a monk there isn't exactly the same process in Buddhism. Traditionally a practitioner became a monk after taking formal refuge in the "Three Jewels" (The Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha). The idea of refuge is vital to understanding these. By coming to the monastery the novice was renouncing the failed appeasements of the world and embracing the shelter or refuge and help of the Buddha's example, his teachings (the Dharma) and the community of monks (Sangha).

LINK TO ORIGINAL

Sooner or later, every traditional faith has to confront sexual impropriety by its spiritual leaders: extramarital sex, or sex with the wrong people (members of the congregation, minors), or, for supposedly celibate clergy, any sex at all.

LINK TO ORIGINAL

Ethan Nichtern

Critical theorist Slavoj Zizek has an interestingly harsh critique of Western Buddhism and the meditation tools it employs. Framing his critique in Marxist terms, he argues that Buddhism is the perfect spiritual tradition to be co-opted by our self-absorbed, destructive, and consumeristic society. For him, Buddhism represents the perfect ideology for passive acquiescence to the world as it is, a panacea of inner peace that fits neatly into an advertising culture where, by now, "be present" could just as well be the slogan of a credit card company as an instruction from a meditation teacher.

LINK TO ORIGINAL

Good essay. Worth reading. The misconceptions Nichtern describes are very common and worth addressing from time to time. ABN

The monks in Burma (Myanmar) have been leaders in past protests for democracy, a role expected of them by the Buddhist faithful who honor them for their charity and humility. Any ruler fears the monkhood in its power to withhold legitimacy.

LINK TO ORIGINAL

Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche

We often talk about Siddhartha, the young man who became known as the Buddha, as if he were a god. The fact is that he was just a simple Indian guy, a human being like you and me. We think of him as some kind of super-genius for having attained complete spiritual awakening, but in fact his real genius was in showing how any one of us can attain the same awakening as he did. We describe him as a prince and a member of the elite royalty of his time, and we think that must have given him an advantage over us -- but the reality is that most of us today are probably better off, in material terms, than Siddhartha was.

LINK TO ORIGINAL

Well-worth reading. The main point of this essay should be very clear to all American Buddhists, and of course others as well. ABN

LINK TO ORIGINAL

Calling on the government to immediately initiate a programme to reconstruct Buddhist temples that were destroyed during the war in the north and resettle the Sinhalese people who were displaced during the terrorist domination in the area, a fast-unto-death had been launched by the Chief Incumbent of the Mangalaramaya in Batticaloa who is also the Anunayake of Ampara and Batticaloa- Ven.Ampitiye Sumanarathna, yesterday morning.

LINK TO ORIGINAL

Darwin. ABN

Finance Minister Sammy Wilson is losing his inner peace over a health trust's decision to offer "happy, calm and content" sessions with a Buddhist monk.

LINK TO ORIGINAL

Project Description and Invitation

In recent decades some attention has been given to a connection between the contemporary practice of Buddhism and the use of psychedelic substances. In a survey conducted in 1996 by the popular Buddhist magazine, Tricycle, 89% of the 1454 respondents indicated that they were engaged in Buddhist practice and 83% admitted they had taken psychedelics. 40% claimed that their interest in Buddhism was sparked by psychedelics and 24% said they were currently taking psychedelics. In a more recent monograph (J. W. Coleman, The New Buddhism, Oxford UP, 2002: 201), 62% of Western Buddhists surveyed confessed that they had used psychedelics (this number was 80% among practitioners of Tibetan Buddhism). These numbers are significantly higher than the 8% among the general public who admit to psychedelic use according to U.S. government surveys (Coleman 2002). From the 1996 issue of Tricycle and a more recent collection of essays published in the book Zig Zag Zen: Buddhism and Psychedelics (2002), it is clear that there exists a subculture of American Buddhists that continue to use psychoactive substances possibly for religious reasons.

LINK TO ORIGINAL

This has only just come to my attention, but it looks like an interesting project. See also this: Are We Misunderstanding the Fifth Precept? ABN

The great Buddhist teacher Padmasambava warned of a dangerous time when "the snow mountains wear black hats."

The sage, revered by Tibetans as the second coming of Buddha, made his prophecy more than a millennium ago.

Many Buddhists believe that his prediction is being fulfilled today as mountain glaciers around the world recede as a result of global warming. And a growing number are responding to the threat of ecological catastrophe by embracing eco-Buddhism, a movement that injects Buddhist principles of compassion and mindfulness into environmentalism.

LINK TO ORIGINAL

Tuesday is known as Wan Khao Phansa, and starts the interlude during which monks “retreat” from the world and devote their time to study and meditation. This is after the grand finale Monday night of Asarnha Bucha day, one of the three most important Buddhist holidays in Thailand.

LINK TO ORIGINAL

THIMPHU, Bhutan (CDN) — The ambiguity in Bhutan over the status of Christians has brought with it a new difficulties. A national daily recently reported that at least eight graves of Christians had been exhumed and the skulls and thigh bones extracted for a Buddhist ritual.

LINK TO ORIGINAL

Who am I? What am I? How am I? We’ve all asked these questions. Throughout history, people have asked these questions, and come up with countless answers and religions and philosophies to answer them. Just who or what is this “self” we all have to deal with?

LINK TO ORIGINAL

This lifetime of ours is transient as autumn clouds.
To watch the birth and death of beings
Is like looking at the movements of a dance.
A lifetime is like a flash of lightning in the sky.
Rushing by, like a torrent down a steep mountain.

-- Buddha

LINK TO ORIGINAL

LINK TO ORIGINAL

Bernie Glassman, founder of Zen Peacemakers, has been a student of Zen for over 50 years. Since 1996, he has been leading Bearing Witness retreats in the Auschwitz concentration camp with people from all different faiths and nations. This November, Zen Peacemakers are planning the first retreat involving young adults from key conflict areas. The three tenets of the Zen Peacemakers are not-knowing, bearing witness and loving actions. They deepen the practice of bearing witness at Auschwitz and on the streets, and they practice loving actions based on the first two tenets through their service projects of the Montague Farm Zen House. In the following interview, Bernie Glassman discusses Zen Peacemakers' Auschwitz retreat.

LINK TO ORIGINAL

MARFORK, W.Va. – Protestors associated with Climate Ground Zero and Mountain Justice have locked to and shut down a highwall miner on Coal River Mountain today. Colin Flood, 22, and Katie Huszcza, 21, are locked to the mining equipment on Massey Energy’s Bee Tree Surface Mine, near to the Brushy Fork Sludge Impoundment. Their banner states “Save Coal River Mountain” alongside images of ginseng, a morel, a deer and a bear.

LINK TO ORIGINAL

Colin Flood, 22, and Katie Huszcza, 21, thank you. Here is a map of the area in question: Coal River Mountain. Take a look, zoom in and out. These destructive mines are huge and scattered all over the area. ABN

...The former journalist [Australian Donna Mulhearn] and one-time political adviser to NSW education minister John Aquilina, was one of a number of Australians opposed to the war who answered an appeal on a Triple J interview for volunteers to go to Iraq in 2003 and act as human shields during the US bombing.

...Disillusioned with conventional politics, she had embarked on a spiritual pilgrimage and just spent three months in Tibet in a Buddhist nunnery and studying the philosophy of Christian non-violence.

LINK TO ORIGINAL

LINK TO AUDIO

Well-worth listening to this short audio. ABN

Precious relics believed to be part of the skull of Gautama Buddha, the founder of Buddhism, found three years ago, were enshrined on Saturday at Qixia Temple in Jiangsu province in China.

LINK TO ORIGINAL

My four-year-old wouldn’t come to me to comb her hair. After calling her several times I told her “Oh, look at that red bird eating berries.” Of course, there was no bird and no berries. She quickly ran to me, keen on looking at the bird. “Where’s the bird ....?” she looked around.

LINK TO ORIGINAL

ATLANTA, Georgia - You could call it true performance art with religious connotations. As part of Emory University's annual "Tibet Week" earlier this spring, Buddhist Monks spent six days creating a Mandala of colored sand.

LINK TO ORIGINAL

A Buddhist monk burnt himself to death Monday to protest the administration’s controversial four rivers project, according to police.

Locals found 47-year-old monk Moonsu of the Jogye Order, Korea’s largest Buddhist sect, dead near a stream in Gunwi County, North Gyeongsang, at around 3 p.m. on Monday. He left a suicide note inside his clothes that read, “The Lee Myung-bak administration must stop its four rivers restoration project immediately, eradicate corruption and do its best for poor and underprivileged people instead of the rich.”

LINK TO ORIGINAL

Monk burns himself to death

A monk’s suicide

Buddha’s birthday has been celebrated all week in most pagodas of Hanoi, but many Buddhist followers made a point of admonishing themselves to do good things by visiting pagodas again on May 28 (April 15 on the lunar calendar).

LINK TO ORIGINAL

..."Some release their own pets, but the animals can't live in such wild environments. This, in reality, hurts the animal and that's definitely not what we advocate," said Sik Chuan Hou, Chief Officer-in-Charge, Kong Meng San Phor Kark See Monastery.

LINK TO ORIGINAL

Good! Wise monks everywhere should either end this practice or amend it in a way that makes it good for the animals and the environment. Instead of releasing some fatigued animal into the wrong environment, people might clean up habitats, reclaim habitats, vow to pollute less, or possibly release beneficial insects after consulting with a knowledgeable ecologist. ABN

New Delhi, May 27 (IANS) Thousands of Buddhists from all over the world, including the Dalai Lama and the Karmapa, Thursday led the Buddha Purnima celebrations in India that was attended by hundreds of monks from as far as Tibet and Nepal.

The Dalai Lama, leader of the Tibetan community, inaugurated a sprawling 22-acre park in Patna to commemorate Lord Buddha's 2,554th birth anniversary that is celebrated as Buddha Purnima.

LINK TO ORIGINAL

Nearly 800 Buddhist monks and lamas from Tibet, Nepal and India will gather here Thursday to offer special prayers on the occasion of Buddha Purnima -- which, they say, for the first time will fall on the same day as per the Hindu and Tibetan calendars.

LINK TO ORIGINAL