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Tonglen: A Lesson in Giving and Taking

Tonglen, as Judy Lief explains in the coming July 2012 issue of the Shambhala Sun, is a meditation practice in which “we breathe out what we normally cling to and breathe in what we usually avoid” to connect with suffering and change our relationship with others. In the following piece, Emily Strasser visits with a Tibetan monk in India who’s putting tonglen into practice to help the children in his community.

Ten years ago, a young Tibetan monk, Jamyang, sat outside his room in Dharamsala reading about the tonglen practice. The day was sunny, and above him the clouds played in the mountain peaks. From the Tibetan words tong, “to give,” and len, “to take,” tonglen describes a meditation in which the practitioner visualizes breathing in the suffering of the world in the form of thick black smoke, and breathing out his own joy and comfort, as clear and luminous air. Continued »

By Sun Staff on

May 16, 2012 – 11:19 am

| Read More: Activism, Engaged Buddhism, India, Tibetan | Comments (0)

From the May 2012 Shambhala Sun magazine: Tsoknyi Rinpoche on emptiness

According to Vajrayana Buddhism, the fast track to awakening is to look directly at your own mind and discover its true nature. In this Shambhala Sun feature adapted from his new book Open Heart, Open Mind: A Guide to Inner Transformation, Tsoknyi Rinpoche explains how to experience one of the mind’s most profound but often misunderstood qualities: emptiness. As he writes:

The basic meaning of emptiness, in other words, is openness, or potential. At the basic level of our being, we are “empty” of definable characteristics. We aren’t defined by our past, our present, or our thoughts and feelings about the future. We have the potential to experience anything. And anything can refer to thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations.

Read more of “This Is My Mind, Luminous and Empty” here. You can find the full article, which includes meditation exercises on emptiness and clarity, in our current May 2012 Shambhala Sun magazine.

By Sun Staff on

May 14, 2012 – 3:53 pm

| Read More: Buddhist concepts, In the magazine, Meditation | Comments (0)

Dalai Lama to donate Templeton Prize money to charity

His Holiness the Dalai Lama has announced that he will donate his £1.1 million ($1.1 million) Templeton Prize to charities supporting children’s rights, meditation research, and science education. The Templeton Prize, which His Holiness received in a ceremony held at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London on Monday, is bestowed upon those deemed to have made an “exceptional contribution to affirming life’s spiritual dimension, whether through insight, discovery, or practical works.”

At the ceremony, he said he plans to give most of the prize money, £900,000, to the Indian branch of Save the Children, an international organization dedicated to ending child labor and exploitation, and providing health care, education and other services to impoverished children. Another £125,000 will go to the Mind & Life Institute, a nonprofit that aims to understand the human mind and the way contemplative practices like meditation can benefit it. The remainder of the money will go into a fund to educate Tibetan monks about science. Continued »

By Sun Staff on

May 14, 2012 – 2:15 pm

| Read More: Activism, Dalai Lama, Events, Other Religions, Science, Tibet, Video | Comments (0)

From The Under 35 Project: How not to tell a colleague to **** off

Together with our friend, author Lodro Rinzler, the Shambhala Sun has been sharing selections from Shambhala Publications’ Under 35 Project, which gathers original writings from younger Buddhist practitioners. May’s theme is “Work,” and in this piece, Sarah Maynard tries to be more patient with a disagreeable coworker.

“Sarah has hit on something that we all face in our work life — that difficult person we simply can’t wish away,” Lodro says. “They are there, day after day, presenting us with an opportunity to practice.”

Click through to read Sarah’s story, and to learn how you can be a part of the Under 35 Project. Continued »

By Sun Staff on

May 14, 2012 – 9:00 am

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From the May 2012 Shambhala Sun magazine: “Blindsided”

After being diagnosed with an eye disorder that could leave her sightless, comedic performer and playwright Elaine Smookler felt terror. But then a moment with a stranger helped her to embrace the change — and keep striving for laughs.

She writes: “Like it or not, I needed to make friends with my anxiety. I began to relax a bit with my oh-so-groundless situation and put the kibosh on the idea that there was anything precious about my disability. Having a sense of humor helped. I started to refer to myself as “El Blindo” and told people I was hard of seeing. To my relief, I noticed that when I was easy with the reality of my newfound difficulties, other people breathed easier around me as well.” Read the rest of her story here.

“Blindsided” appears in the special section “Embrace Change” in the May 2012 Shambhala Sun magazine. Click here to browse the issue online.

By Sun Staff on

May 11, 2012 – 10:30 pm

| Read More: Health & Healing, Humor, In the magazine | Comments (1)

Shambhala Publications acquires Snow Lion

From Top Left: Snow Lion President Jeff Cox, Shambhala Publications President Nikko Odiseos From Bottom Left: Snow Lion Co-founder Sidney Piburn, Shambhala Editor and owner Ivan Bercholz, Shambhala Executive Vice-President and owner Sara Bercholz

Shambhala Publications has announced that, as of May 10th, dedicated Tibetan Buddhist publisher Snow Lion Publications is “a part of the Shambhala Publications family.” This will add some 300 titles, including many by the Dalai Lama, to the Shambhala catalog. The acquisition was announced via posts at the websites of both Shambhala and Snow Lion.

According to Shambhala, the move will allow the Boston-based publisher to “offer the widest selection of Tibetan Buddhist books from a single publisher,” and was “in some ways more like a marriage than a business deal, since [Snow Lion had] been our esteemed colleagues in Buddhist publishing for well over twenty years.” Continued »

By Sun Staff on

May 11, 2012 – 2:13 pm

| Read More: Books, In the news | Comments (0)

Pema Chödrön on “lightening up”

Time now for a little meditation inspiration, by way of Heart Advice, Weekly Quotes from Pema Chödrön:

“Discipline is important. When we sit down to meditate, we are encouraged to stick with the technique and be faithful to the instruction, but within that container of discipline, why do we have to be so harsh? Do we meditate because we ‘should’?

“How we regard what arises in meditation is training for how we regard whatever arises in the rest of our lives. So the challenge is how to develop compassion right along with clear seeing, how to train in lightening up and cheering up rather than becoming more guilt-ridden and miserable.”

Ready to get started? Then visit our special Spotlight page of Pema Chödrön’s best teachings from the Shambhala Sun, as well as our How to Meditate Spotlight, for plenty of helpful, plain-language guidance.

By Sun Staff on

May 11, 2012 – 7:53 am

| Read More: In the magazine, Meditation, Teachings, Your Practice | Comments (1)

“The Buddha was an ‘action’ kind of guy” — Michael Stone on mindfulness (Video)

What does it mean to be in the moment? What does it mean to be mindful?

In this brand-new video, yogi and Buddhist teacher Michael Stone, author of “What’s the Music All About?”, found in our current issue, breaks down the oft-used term and shows how it relates to being mindful about what’s really going on.

Find lots more from Michael Stone on SunSpace here.

By Sun Staff on

May 10, 2012 – 4:11 pm

| Read More: In the magazine, Mindfulness, Teachings, Video, Your Practice | Comments (2)

Video: Tonight on PBS, “Summer Pasture” shows Tibetan nomads at a crossroads

Making its television premiere on Independent Lens on PBS tonight, Summer Pasture is a documentary about the rapid changes happening in the Dzachukha grasslands in eastern Tibet. Locally, the area is known as “the five-most” — it’s the highest, largest, coldest, poorest and most remote area in Sichuan province.

The film focuses on Locho and Yama, a young couple living a traditional nomadic lifestyle herding yaks and horses. But as Dzachukha becomes increasingly modernized, many people in their community have been moving to cities and towns to find more stable work.

“It’s become a different place, a desperate place,” Locho says in the film. “It’s changing so much it’s hard to recognize.” According to Locho, Yama, and their community, the herders have entered duegnan — “dark times.” [More, with video trailer, after the jump.] Continued »

By Sun Staff on

May 10, 2012 – 3:06 pm

| Read More: Pop Culture, Tibet, Video | Comments (0)

Photos: Andy Karr’s contemplative view of Brazil

Andy Karr, co-author of The Practice of Contemplative Photography: Seeing the World with Fresh Eyes, has just returned from teaching a photography workshop in São Paulo, Brazil this past weekend. He shared with us some photos of the event taken by his host, Dharma/Arte magazine publisher Carlos Inada, as well as the photos below, which Karr snapped in São Paulo.

“The practice of contemplative photography is a method for revealing the hidden richness and beauty of the phenomenal world; revealing the extraordinary within the ordinary,” Karr said about his trip. Continued »

By Sun Staff on

May 10, 2012 – 10:58 am

| Read More: Art, Books, Events, In the magazine | Comments (0)

Film Review: “The Lady,” Luc Besson’s Aung San Suu Kyi biopic

The Lady, which was released for awards consideration late last year, is now playing in limited release throughout the U.S. and Canada. At the time Danny Fisher saw the film at an advance screening, Burma was in the news as Hillary Clinton became the first U.S. Secretary of State to visit Burma in more than fifty years. Since then, the country, ruled by a military dictatorship for five decades, has shown even more signs of democratizing. Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy won 43 out of 44 seats they contest in last month’s parliamentary elections, and she took her seat in parliament last week, after ending the NLD’s boycott of swearing an oath to the country’s military-drafted constitution.

Watch a trailer for The Lady above. Here now is Fisher’s advance-screening review.

History seems to be in the making in Burma as Luc Besson’s The Lady, about National League for Democracy leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, Continued »

By Danny Fisher on

May 9, 2012 – 12:57 pm

| Read More: Activism, Burma, Movies, Politics, Pop Culture | Comments (0)

Inside the next Shambhala Sun — The All-Teachings Issue

The July 2012 Shambhala Sun magazine celebrates the qualities of awakened mind and the Buddhist meditations the cultivate them. Our Annual All-Teachings Issue, it features seven teachings — paired with meditations you can easily try —including Sylvia Boorstein on how to be insightful; Thich Nhat Hanh on being more grounded; Dzogchen Ponlop on the development of wisdom; and more.

Also inside the July Shambhala Sun: A Q&A with mindfulness advocate Congressman Tim Ryan; Natalie Goldberg on “Waking Up to Happiness”; another previously unpublished teaching from Chogyam Trungpa; book reviews, and more.

The July issue will be arriving on newsstands in the first week of June. In the meantime, to stay up-to-date with all that’s new under the Shambhala Sun, visit us on the web. (And if you’re not yet a subscriber, click here.) Thank you!

By Sun Staff on

May 9, 2012 – 9:00 am

| Read More: In the magazine | Comments (0)

Read Beastie Boy Adam Yauch’s 1995 interview with the Dalai Lama

Photo: Sue Kwon

As our Facebook friends saw, a new interview is available in which Adam Yauch — the Beastie Boy, Buddhist and Tibet activist who died on Friday — sat down with the Dalai Lama in 1995 to talk about interdependence, the political situation in Tibet, and the importance of practicing compassion.

Yauch originally conducted the interview for Rolling Stone, which ended up only printing a short excerpt. The full interview was published in a 1996 issue of Grand Royal, the eclectic pop culture magazine the Beastie Boys put out from 1993 to 1997. You can read the interview here.

Also, see the Shambhala Sun’s 1995 interview with Yauch, in which he talks about hip hop, helping people, and his relationship to Buddhism’s Bodhisattva Vow.

By Sun Staff on

May 8, 2012 – 7:25 pm

| Read More: Buddhist concepts, Dalai Lama, Pop Culture, Tibet | Comments (0)

Right Here With You: Andrea Miller on Elizabeth Gilbert’s “Committed”

This is the second of a series of Shambhala SunSpace posts in which Andrea Miller — deputy editor of the Shambhala Sun, and editor of the book Right Here With You: Bringing Mindful Awareness into Our Relationships — takes a look at noteworthy books on mindful loving. In this post, she focuses on Committed by Elizabeth Gilbert.

Committed
A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage
By Elizabeth Gilbert
Viking 2010; 285 pp., $26.95 (cloth)

My parents each had three significant partners over the course of their lives. This means I wasn’t a child of divorce, but rather of divorces. And as a result, I developed a cynical, hard shell around the topic of marriage—a shell that clearly covered up fear. Many of us are in this same boat. We look around us—at our own relationships and the relationships of our friends and family—and we see unhappy marriages and a trail of divorces. We can’t help but get scared. Continued »

By Andrea Miller on

May 7, 2012 – 10:57 am

| Read More: Books, Relationships | Comments (1)

Beastie Boy and Tibet advocate Adam Yauch dead at age 47 (Updated)

The news has broken that Adam Yauch — aka MCA — of the Beastie Boys has died.

In addition to being a much-loved rapper, musician, and cultural commentator, Yauch was a supporter of and friend to Buddhism and a champion for Tibetan rights.

Stories of Yauch’s previously announced cancer and its treatment were taken as good news by many fans, but Yauch stressed in interviews that he was not necessarily cancer-free. Indeed, it was cancer that took Yauch’s life.

The Beastie Boys’ official statement, posted late today, begins:

It is with great sadness that we confirm that musician, rapper, activist and director Adam “MCA” Yauch, founding member of Beastie Boys and also of the Milarepa Foundation that produced the Tibetan Freedom Concert benefits, and film production and distribution company Oscilloscope Laboratories, passed away in his native New York City this morning after a near-three-year battle with cancer. He was 47 years old.

(Read the full statement, which provides a lengthy bio and lists Yauch’s many impressive accomplishments, here.)

In his interview from our January 1995 magazine (with Yauch on the cover, as seen here), the articulate and passionate Yauch talked hip-hop, hardcore, helping people, and his relationship to Buddhism’s Bodhisattva Vow — which spawned a classic song on the Beasties’ Ill Communication LP, the latest Beasties release at the time. It’s a glimpse of Yauch at a peak of activity, focused and thoughtful as ever. Read the interview here.

Our condolences to Yauch’s friends and family, and all our fellow fans.

By Rod Meade Sperry - From The Worst Horses Mouth on

May 4, 2012 – 2:16 pm

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Tonglen: A Lesson in Giving and Taking

From the May 2012 Shambhala Sun magazine: Tsoknyi Rinpoche on emptiness

Dalai Lama to donate Templeton Prize money to charity

From The Under 35 Project: How not to tell a colleague to **** off

From the May 2012 Shambhala Sun magazine: “Blindsided”

Shambhala Publications acquires Snow Lion

Pema Chödrön on “lightening up”

“The Buddha was an ‘action’ kind of guy” — Michael Stone on mindfulness (Video)

Video: Tonight on PBS, “Summer Pasture” shows Tibetan nomads at a crossroads

Photos: Andy Karr’s contemplative view of Brazil

Film Review: “The Lady,” Luc Besson’s Aung San Suu Kyi biopic

Inside the next Shambhala Sun — The All-Teachings Issue

Read Beastie Boy Adam Yauch’s 1995 interview with the Dalai Lama

Right Here With You: Andrea Miller on Elizabeth Gilbert’s “Committed”

Beastie Boy and Tibet advocate Adam Yauch dead at age 47 (Updated)

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