Via Sarvodaya.org comes the news that activist Dr. A.T. (Ahangamage Tudor) Ariyaratne, founder of the socially engaged Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement — “Sri Lanka’s most broadly embedded community-based development organization,” dedicated to “the awakening of all” — and a major inspiration for engaged Buddhists worldwide, has died. He was 92. Born November 5, 1931, in the Galle District of Ceylon, Ariuyaratne was, as the Sarvodaya website puts it: A former high school teacher at Nalanda College, he conducted the first Shramadana work camp in 1958, which eventually led to the establishment of ..read more

Bhutan is pioneering the creation of the world’s first “Mindfulness City,” a sustainable economic hub located in the town of Gelephu along the country’s southern border with India. King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck of Bhutan announced plans for the city in December, which when built will cover about 250,000 acres. The plans for the city aim to incorporate the natural ecology of the land and serve as a center for sustainable investment and development.  Bhutan is well-known for its creation and value of the Gross National Happiness (GNH) index, a philosophy and series of nine measurable ..read more

Un rasgo clave del Zen es el gran énfasis que se pone en la transmisión directa de la sabiduría de mente a mente, de maestro a discípulo, más allá de las palabras. Pero esto no significa que las palabras sobren, sino que pueden ser empleadas por el maestro como medios hábiles (upāya) que ayudan al discípulo a encaminarse en la dirección conducente a la sabiduría. En ningún otro lugar se ilustra esto tan claramente como en la leyenda del Buda y su discípulo Mahakasyapa y la flor. Se cuenta que un día el Buda estaba con sus discípulos y decidió exponerles una enseñanza sin palabras, para lo cual ..read more

El Chan se considera una escuela budista surgida en China. Pero desde la perspectiva del Chan mismo, no es una escuela, una práctica fija, ni algo que alcanzar; ni siquiera se trata de una experiencia. Es simplemente la manifestación del buddhadharma tal y como se expone en la triple práctica de la virtud, la meditación y la sabiduría. Esta triple práctica es la esencia del noble óctuple sendero del budismo. La virtud se asocia con el habla correcta, la acción correcta y los medios de vida correctos; la meditación se asocia con el esfuerzo correcto, la concentración correcta y la meditación co ..read more

The global pandemic that began in 2019 has upended almost every facet of our lives, from our health to our homes, from our sustenance to our livelihood. An initial wave of job losses in 2020 became a wave of job leaving in 2021. But whether we lost our job or quit our job or tried to stay the course, the way we approach our working life has fundamentally changed. Teaching 2,500 years ago, the Buddha had a lot to say about change. He called it annica, or impermanence, and listed it among the three fundamental marks of all existence. Everything that exists, he told us, is subject to change. As h ..read more

It’s our second date. We talk animatedly over Darjeeling and scones. I’m struggling to focus on his words, distracted by his ocean-blue eyes and wondering what our first kiss will feel like. Suddenly he leans across the table and kisses me slowly and very, very well. The traffic noise disappears. My body quivers with energy. All that exists is this moment, these lips, and focused, intense, erotic pleasure.  Fast-forward ten years.  We are making love. It’s…okay. We go through the routine—I touch him here, he strokes me there. I’m remembering the time we had hot sex on the ferry ..read more

From Variety comes news that a new film inspired by the lives of the sainted eleventh-century Tibetan Buddhist figures Jetsun Milarepa and Marpa Lotsawa will be coming soon (though no official date seems to have been announced yet). Titled Milarepa and written and directed by Italian filmmaker Louis Nero, the film is sure to inspire interest as well as debate through its unconventional casting. Shot largely in Sardinia, the film — which is not to be confused with the 2006 film of the same name by Neten Chokling — is set in a “no tech” sci-fi near future and does not feature Tibetans. Rather, M ..read more

The Buddhist concept of mudita — sympathetic joy, or taking delight in the success of others — is headed to College Men’s Basketball’s Final Four. The Alabama Crimson Tide men’s basketball team has taken to the concept, as Chuck Culpepper reports for The Washington Post. The Tide have been doing so well, they’re headed into the Final Four for their first time, and mudita, as emphasized by Buddhaghosa, the Indian Buddhist scholar and author of the important fifth-century text, Visuddhimagga (The Path of Purification) seems to be a real part of why.  The team learned of it while listening t ..read more

Este verano, mientras visitaba a mi amiga y hermana de dharma, la Rev. Dana Takagi, me encontré con las enseñanzas del Daikoku. Takagi, maestra Soto Zen y profesora emérita de sociología en la Universidad de California en Santa Cruz, acababa de regresar de un viaje a Japón. Yo buscaba su ayuda para escribir un nombre en caracteres chinos en el rakusu, que es la túnica azul que se recibe al tomar los votos laicos en una ceremonia de preceptos, de una estudiante; el nombre que recibiría era Kokuji, que significa “medicina negra curativa”. Mi amiga sonrió y dijo: “Quiero contarte algo de lo que m ..read more

Cliff Saron vive y respira ciencia contemplativa. Este hombre, alto y con barba corta, dirige el laboratorio que lleva su nombre en el Centro para la Mente y el Cerebro de la Universidad de California en Davis, donde sus intereses de investigación abarcan desde cómo la meditación podría reducir el impacto del estrés en la atención hasta las cualidades contemplativas de la música, que explora junto con su esposa, Barbara Bogatin, violonchelista de la Sinfónica de San Francisco.  La carrera de Saron se remonta a 1975, cuando no existía un campo real llamado “ciencia contemplativa”. Recién s ..read more