The Shambhala Sun has been proud to be a sponsor of several showings of filmmaker John Bush’s acclaimed, gorgeous Journey Into Buddhism trilogy, which includes the films Dharma River (which takes us to Laos, Thailand, and Burma), Vajra Sky Over Tibet, and Prajna Earth (Bali, Cambodia, and Java).
And now our friends in the L.A. and SoCal areas can get a taste of the Journey: KCET Los Angeles will be playing Dharma River this Sunday evening. The film is scheduled to air at 11pm, EST.
Whether you’re in/around LA or not, you can click through here to watch the trailers for both Vajra Sky Over Tibet and Prajna Earth, as well as an excerpt from Dharma River. Continued »
There is a disposition in the West to direct our spiritual efforts towards solitary practice—eg. a daily meditation on the cushion—placing less emphasis on the role that interactive, human connections play in spiritual growth. While mindfulness developed in isolation can result in great breakthroughs, it certainly makes for a withdrawn and difficult journey. For we are inherently social creatures—the size, structure and impressive functional capabilities of the human brain were developed specifically to allow for interaction, support and learning from others. To guide one’s spiritual endeavors away from awakening amidst human contact is to limit its possibilities growth and joy.
Over decades of spiritual practice it becomes clear that some of the most profound experiences occur within the arena of engaged interaction: It is in hearing fears and yearnings—too long considered shameful, swallowed, and unspoken—being expressed that allows us to climb out of our sense of isolation and uniqueness. The expression of sadness, loss, rejection, frustration, confusion, anger, and so on permits us to grasp and relax into the fundamental universal quality of our experience; our suffering is more uniform than we often suspect. Continued »
Are you struggling with your meditation practice? You’ll find your meditation reality check inside the Summer Buddhadharma magazine, on newsstands now. It features a forum discussion on the obstacles to meditation — including laziness, forgetting the instructions, wildness, drowsiness, carelessness, and “an inability to coordinate the whole thing” — and how we can work with them. You can read the introduction to the forum here, and you’ll find the whole discussion inside the magazine.
There’s lots more inside, too: Zen practitioner Gregory Shepherd looks back at his time in a monastery and the nagging question of whether he ever experienced enlightenment, Anyen Rinpoche discusses developing certainty in the path, and Zen priest Catherine Toldi addresses the painful conflicts that can arise in sanghas and how to handle them. Continued »
Every week we choose a photo submitted to Andy Karr’s contemplative photography site seeingfresh.com that really exemplifies the practice. This week’s cheerful photo, by Peter Hedrich, shows the power of a thread of color. It’s also a fine example of fresh seeing. Continued »
Buddhist meditation teacher and psychologist Tara Brach has become popular in her hometown of Washington, D.C., especially among high-powered urban professionals. As a new profile from The Washington Post told us this weekend, she’s a “Type-A go-getter” whose weekly meditation classes and dharma talks draw people from many religions and walks of life. Click here to read the full WP story.
To get a taste of Brach’s teachings, click here to read “Bringing RAIN to Difficulty,” a guided reflection from her new book True Refuge. Andrea Miller also profiled Brach, along with fellow Buddhist psychotherapists Barry Magid and John Welwood, in “When Ego Meets Non-Ego,” from the Shambhala Sun archives. Click here to read that article.
See also:
Finding True Refuge, a video series created by Brach that takes you inside people’s intimate journey into meditation.
Via Red Bull China comes a new video that uses Buddhism’s cultural cachet to move those skinny little cans of liquid speed — while also giving us a glimpse of the monastic mindful life. The question is: while this is quite obviously a promotional video, is that all it is, or does it present some skillful points about dharma? Watch it here.
(And by the way, if you’re interested in the intersection of sport and dharma, don’t miss the July 2013 “Body issue” of the Shambhala Sun, coming soon.)
Based on his acclaimed semi-biographical/semi-fantasy manga series, here comes Osamu Tezuka’s “Buddha 2,” an anime film scheduled for a February 2014 release. Watch the high-energy trailer, which has English subtitles, here.
The July Shambhala Sun is mailing to subscribers now. That issue is all about your body — from pleasure and pain, to performance and path: Norman Fischer contemplates the deeper reality of the body, Karen Connelly feels the heat in “Flesh Sex Desire,” Thich Nhat Hanh offers three exercises from well-being, and four athletes talk sports and mindfulness.
Plus: Andrea Miller speaks with Jane Goodall, Sumi Loundon Kim tells why (and how) how she quit Facebook, Ruth Ozeki‘s new novel is reviewed, and more.
Look for all that, and more, inside our July magazine. In the meantime, browse the May Shambhala Sunhere. If you’re not a subscriber, click here to subscribe and save.
The July Shambhala Sun is coming soon, but in the meantime, our May magazine is still available and loaded with great reads. So we’ve shared longer excerpts of two of its features: Andrea Miller’s interview with Jeff Bridges and Bernie Glassman, and Pico Iyer’s meditation on Leonard Cohen. Click here to read “The Dude and the Zen Master,” and here for “Leonard Cohen burns, and we burn with him.”
You’ll find the full articles, along with stellar photographs by Peter Cunningham, and Charla Jones, inside the May magazine.
You can also read full May articles, online, from Bernie Glassman, the Reciprocity Foundation’s Taz Tagore, and His Holiness the Karmapa.
To see them all, click here. If you’re not a subscriber, click here to subscribe and save, and here to order a copy of this issue.
Meredith Arena on what it feels like to be embodied and alone.
As I understand it, being alone is of great importance in Buddhism. When I sit quietly, following my breath as it travels through my body, holding myself upright and dignified in whatever way I am able on that given day, I am alone with myself. I am alone inside my body. When I began writing this, I had intended to write about being 35 and single and whether or not that made me “free,” but the thing about Buddhist practice is that it has helped me shift focus from the little me alone to the big me alone. In these few years of practicing meditation, the lexicon “who I am” and “what I do” has begun to wither, allowing me to be more present with the who and what of each passing moment. When I was new to Buddhism, I heard the words embodied and disembodied a lot. On my first weekend retreat I came to understand these terms a bit more. Continued »
One person who understands that is Jesse Jacobs, the owner of Samovar, a San Francisco tea lounge previously profiled in our magazine. Samovar is dedicated to educating people about tea and tea culture. In this video, Jacobs and Zen Habits‘ Leo Babauta introduce the Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Tea, a series of exclusive educational web videos. Continued »
Every week we choose a photo submitted to Andy Karr’s contemplative photography site seeingfresh.com that really exemplifies the practice. This week’s photo, by Petra Schlitt, is a tribute to the perception of visual space (sometimes called negative space). It’s a fine example of fresh seeing.
For more about contemplative photography, and lots of other great photos, visit seeingfresh.com. And don’t miss this video or this article on contemplative photography. You can see all our Seeing Fresh posts on Shambhala SunSpace here.
It’s hard to know which was more surprising: that I would run for political office at all—and then win—or that I would become a Buddhist. Politics happened first… or maybe not.
A recent return visit to the New Hampshire State House served to remind me that I’ve put dharma teachings to work in my interactions with individuals whom I find difficult. Putting your practice to work in a political setting should be no different from doing it at any office, but a legislature of 400 members wins hands down as a place to find plenty of challenging personalities.
Where did it all start for me? Back in the early aughties I picked up various dharma books from my husband’s collection. I found them interesting but couldn’t make a personal connection. By early 2007, I’d begun meditating, and this coincided with the start of my second term as a member of the NH House of Representatives. The cushion became my main refuge. Continued »
The lotus is a favorite Buddhist symbol. After all, it grows in the mud of materialism or suffering, but blooms pristinely above the water’s surface, symbolizing the achievement of purity or enlightenment. There are other plants that have similarly water-resistant and dirt-repelling surfaces but scientists refer to the phenomenon as the “lotus effect.” In 1964, the lotus effect was studied by scientists for the first time and since then it’s been adapted for industrial use.
Now researchers at the University of Adelaide in Australia are uncovering additional secrets of the sacred lotus. Continued »
If you’re even a semi-regular here, you likely know the name of our colleague and friend Andy Karr. Each week on SunSpace, Andy presents an image exemplary of the “contemplative photography” he teaches and champions in his second book, The Practice of Contemplative Photography and on the book’s website, Seeing Fresh.
But Andy’s first book — while no doubt artful — wasn’t about art. Titled Contemplating Reality: A Practitioner’s Guide to the View in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, the book not only presents the fundamental Buddhist views, but also contemplations that can help transform confused seeing into clear seeing. Contemplating Reality has just been released in an electronic edition, and so we thought we’d share a taste of Andy’s teachings with you. In “Reality Isn’t What You Think,” first published in the Shambhala Sun, Andy explains how contemplative practice can help repair our common, fundamental misunderstanding of reality. Click here to read it now, and enjoy.
Are you struggling with your meditation practice? You’ll find your meditation reality check 
Buddhist meditation teacher and psychologist Tara Brach has become popular in her hometown of Washington, D.C., especially among high-powered urban professionals. As a new profile from The Washington Post told us this weekend, she’s a “Type-A go-getter” whose 
The July Shambhala Sun is mailing to subscribers now. That issue is all about your body — from pleasure and pain, to performance and path: Norman Fischer contemplates the deeper reality of the body, Karen Connelly feels the heat in “Flesh Sex Desire,” Thich Nhat Hanh offers three exercises from well-being, and four athletes talk sports and mindfulness.
Meredith Arena on what it feels like to be embodied and alone.
The lotus is a favorite Buddhist symbol. After all, it grows in the mud of materialism or suffering, but blooms pristinely above the water’s surface, symbolizing the achievement of purity or enlightenment. There are other plants that have similarly water-resistant and dirt-repelling surfaces but scientists refer to the phenomenon as the “lotus effect.” In 1964, the lotus effect was studied by scientists for the first time and since then it’s been adapted for industrial use.
If you’re even a semi-regular here, you likely know the name of our colleague and friend Andy Karr.