Given that the vast majority of American Buddhists are converts and spend years circling around meditational deities such as Tārā, how do we listen to songs written with her mantra as the lyrics?
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The Blog
Wouldn't we do better to ask why the apocalypse is so compelling? What is it about the times we live in that would make rational people accept the idea that the end of the world was upon us?
In every image that I have ever seen, the Buddha is smiling. Not just ha ha, but grinning from ear to ear. He is in fact laughing. He knows something that we don't.
When you walk into a 12-Step meeting you drop a big part of your identity. The Buddha takes this idea even further when he declares that the very idea of a separate self is a misperception.
We actually know very little about the life of Jesus, a fact not often discussed by church leaders. What experiences might have shaped Jesus into the man he became?
The whole truth is not so simple. At the heart of the Buddha's teaching is something not graspable by intellect alone, not expressible in words alone, not comprehensible by logic alone.
Enlightenment is not restricted to ancient monks living in harmony with nature. It is an experience open to all, regardless of where or when they live.
It is not recommended to use meditation as a way of repressing our emotions by forcibly silencing them in order to achieve a superficially imposed sense of peace and quiet.
I imagined a father-son film where the son would wake up and recognize his reincarnation, return to Tibet and be enthroned in the monastery waiting for him. But when I told Yeshi of my filmmaking dream, he said I should forget it.
American Buddhist music has not had any breakout stars or even viral songs, but in the coming weeks I hope to introduce readers to more artists that are musically accomplished and lyrically devoted to the dharma.
It may come as a surprise to many that despite its peaceful and somewhat progressive image in the West, the Tibetan Buddhist tradition does not know full ordination for women.
My Zen colleagues may object that it is a stretch to call Zen meditation "prayer," or to describe it as a method "to reach our divine nature." But we must never stop trying to find common ground.
India continues to mystify scholars. While most Americans are familiar with the terms such as "yoga" and "Bollywood," Indian perspectives toward the ecology seem to be largely unknown.
As weather-related disasters increase every year and the world begins to burn, the very fate of our species is being treated as a mere "externality" by free market ideology.
Just because everyone else was taking pictures of him didn't make it okay to do it. I knew in my heart that the Dalai Lama had requested no pictures.
I agreed that the questioning of the president's birth place was a conscious form of race baiting, and I considered that day a very sad day in this country, illuminating a great deal of divisiveness, bigotry, and ignorance.
Investigation is the effort to see things clearly, to see them just as they are. In Vipassana meditation, this is what we are doing, investigating the present moment.
Satisfying as the meditation high can be -- one prominent teacher half-joked, "That's why we do it" -- there are no short cuts to the benefits of tough, prolonged practice.
The critics of Rob Bell hold biblical authority up as an idol without caring much for the character of the biblical message. They are traitors to Jesus, but within their faith tradition they have the upper hand.
Christian salvation is a solution to the problem of Eternal Damnation caused by Original Sin. But that problem does not exist within the dharma traditions.
In my ongoing effort to find ways to adapt Buddhism to modern American life, I have long been influenced by the example of Vimala-Kirti, the "householder sage" of ancient India.
