Sangha Building and Growing Pains By Katie Hammond Holtz It is natural that we will experience growing pains as we go through the stages of life — and the same is true for Sanghas. If we expect our Sangha to fit our ego-definition of “perfect” all the time, we will…
Search results for “is nothing something”
1435 Results
Dharma Teachers’ Retreat
By Jack Lawlor Shortly after dawn on January 25,1998, seven of Thay's Dharma children serving as lay Dharmacharya in North America concluded their first Dharma teachers' weekend retreat by enjoying outdoor walking meditation among the silent grove of coastal redwoods known as Muir Woods. We don't understand why it took so long for us…
Remembering That You Have a Body
A Retreat for Software Developers and Designers Retreat for software developers and designers, 2015. Photo courtesy of Kenley Neufeld “I realized that I want to cultivate more joy, less fear, less self-loathing and comparing. And the way I use technology now is not filled with joy. It’s filled with duty,…
Finding Ways to Help
In 1975, Thich Nhat Hanh and I moved with several fliends to a house near Fontvannes, France. The war in Vietnam had ended and we were cut off from our country with no way to help. We named our community Les Patates Douces, Sweet Potatoes. In Vietnam, when peasants have no rice, they eat dried sweet potatoes.…
The Joy of Practice Cannot Be Contained
By Leslie Rawls and Carl Dunlap, Jr. photo by Nyanayasha Shakya To our respected and beloved teacher, Thay Nhat Hanh, and to the stream of ancestral teachers who have preserved and transmitted the teachings, we offer an ocean of gratitude. From Carl December 5, 1988 was the coldest, darkest day…
Dharma Talk: The Four Noble Truths
The first Dharma talk of the Buddha after his enlightenment was about the Four Noble Truths. They express the cream of his teachings and method of practice. The Buddha continued teaching the Four Noble Truths right up until his “great passing away” (mahaparinirvana). It is important for us to study…
Writing out the War
By Therese Fitzgerald The UC Berkeley campus hosted an event for war veterans entirely different from the days of dualistic rallies. Thirty men and women, mostly Vietnam veterans, gathered in a spacious, woodsy room of the Faculty Club on a Saturday in June to spend a day with Maxine Hong Kingston nourishing their writing process.…
Friends on the Path of Socially Engaged Buddhism
By Jack Lawlor Dean Kaufer; Soto Zen priest and teacher Taigen Dan Leighton; and Dharma teacher Jack Lawlor of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship’s Chicago Chapter at the 2012 NATO Conference protest march in Chicago Many of us attracted to the teachings of the Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh have an interest…
Toward a Compassionate Economics
An Interview with Riane Eisler By John Malkin Riane Eisler Compassion is a deeply valued aspect of Buddhist practice. Caring for others is a natural expression of interbeing. How would our lives be different if compassion were a foundation of politics and economics? Riane Eisler explores the possibilities of a…
Conscious Sexuality as a Spiritual Path
Jane Ellen Combelic and Colin Ralph; photo courtesy of J.E. Combelic I’m standing in the old phone box at Lower Hamlet, the one that used to be by the bookstore under the tall oak trees. I am talking to my mother in Colorado, who has mild dementia. “Mom, I’ve met…