Acharya Eric Spiegel, one of IDP's lineage mentors will be offering the refuge and bodhisattva vows at the New York Shambala Center, March 29th through 31st as a weekend retreat.
The wife of my teacher Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, Khandro Tseyang (also known as the Sakyong Wangmo), just gave birth to their second daughter, Jetsun Yudra. Here is the first public photo of the couple with their new daughter. So this is...
Gender is a dimension of ego, Lopon Rita Gross says, and the one we cling to most persistently. It's also one that we're least like to examine. It's not included in traditional Buddhist meditations designed to deconstruct identities and lead to...
I recently read on an Italian blog a quote playfully attributed to God: "'Everybody's depressed because "this pope is also against the gays." Remember, people, he's the head of the church, not the Indian from the Village People."' 1
I believe it was Dr. Seuss who said:
All Alone!
Whether you like it or not,
Alone will be something
you’ll be quite a lot.
-from Oh, the Places You’ll Go!
I was lost. Somehow I had ended up on the other side of lower Manhattan, staring across the water at New Jersey. Which I immediately knew wasn't right.
The famed “three hallmarks” of the Buddhist teachings consist of the Buddha’s, and Buddhist traditions’, descriptions of the realities of suffering, impermanence, and selflessness. It can be helpful to remember that all three of these terms are...
Metta is a wonderful practice and a wonderful mind-state. The act of blessing or making an aspiration for someone is powerful. But I'd like to make a point that I haven't yet written about: metta is not a practice about making things nice.
The website for Druk Galwa Khilwa Abbey gives histories of about a dozen great yoginis of tantric Buddhism. The sad thing about the stories is that all of them are objects for male action. They're kidnapped, beaten, pursued by men -- fathers,...
Ahoy! Welcome to the first Contemplation Station on our journey: Detroit! Every week, we’ll visit a new place in the world, because, hey, a station has to be somewhere.
Right now, Detroit is going through tough times. I’ve never been here myself,...
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Since the decline of Occupy Wall Street as a major social and media phenomenon, the notion of wealth inequality has sort of dropped off my personal political and moral radar...
It's clear, from the point of view of a dharma practitioner, that technology has been of great benefit to those who live a distance from practice centers. I've taken dozens of IDP's study-at-home classes and listened to hours of talks by teachers I...
In the Buddhist tradition I've studied in since 2006, there's a lineage chant listing the line of enlightened beings who handed down teachings. I've said that list -- which includes the name Yeshe Tsogyel -- hundreds of times, but I didn't know much...
Buddhism, at its base, is genderless. The Buddha taught to both men and women, and he taught them the same techniques to achieve liberation from suffering. But since that time Buddhists have built a lot of male-dominated structures on that space.
(Photo: Mari Griffin)
I did not recognize you as fear
Deep vibrating abyssI did not recognize you as fearI did not recognize you as fearBecause your power has the births of many stars in its belly
A friend of mine is a teacher. As an exercise, he asked the people seated before him in class to write down some words that described them. When the papers were handed back, not one of them contained the word “student.”
Where am I not walking the walk?
Dr. Jeffrey Rubin posed this question in the first class of Spiritual Awakening NOT Spiritual Bypassing on Monday night, and inspired me to ask myself.
Sometimes I focus on my successes; when my intention to...
Right or Wise Speech is one of the factors on the Buddha's Eightfold Path, and it includes a warning against harsh speech*. A new study shows the effect of harsh speech in reader comments.
March is Women's History Month. Friday, March 8, is International Women's Day. How many women in Buddhist history can you name -- not contemporary practitioners, but historical figures?
1. Meditation demonstrates that all things are interdependent and constantly changing. Initially, the realization that we’re all in a life situation that is fundamentally groundless may be quite daunting and even depressing. But it’s not...
I was standing on an ordinary street corner in DC when the change started. Lunch in hand, waiting for the cross-walk to change so I could go back to the office and eat, I was remembering something I said at a meeting, which now seemed...
There's a Zen meal chant that says, "72 laborers brought us this food; we should know how it comes to us." If the meal involves a can of Coke, that's a serious understatement.
