By Svein Myreng I was born with an organic heart disease that has limited my physical activity and more than once has brought me to the brink of death. Mental aspects of this handicap have, on the whole, been hardest to handle. The gap between my wish to be active and the limits set…
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Letter from the Editor
Dear Thay, dear Sangha, While this issue was coming together, I spent an evening reading our teacher’s poetry on his experiences in war. Afterward, I dreamt that people in my community were drafted into military service and a war was going to break out within a few days. I was…
Pain, Love, and Happiness
By Khanh Le Van The University of California at Santa Barbara campus was huge. "Wait till you see the gym," said my Dharma brother Arnie. Indeed, for the next five days we 1,300 retreatants would sit together in that gym for meditation and Dharma talks. A team beaded by Wendy Johnson was busy arranging the…
Writing Your Autobiography:
A Path to Healing By Janice Rubin I am in my twelfth year of teaching adults to write their autobiographies—a new career begun after I had retired from a career in journalism—and in my fifth year of practice with my Sangha. Without knowing anything about Buddhism or the existence of…
The Long Walk from War to Peace
By Larry Calloway Thich Nhat Hanh’s return to Vietnam in May for several retreats followed by a United Nations conference was a triumph for his “engaged Buddhism.” Not only was his global influence evident at the conference, but he and four hundred retreat participants (most of us Westerners) were warmly…
Be Here Now
By Nicole Dunn Be Here Now Sangha; photo by Nicole Dunn When I started our local Sangha, Be Here Now, in the fall of 2002, I really had no idea of what the heck I was doing. I was twenty-three years old and new to the practice, with only a…
On Dharma Discussions
Dharma discussions are a fundamental part of Sangha gatherings, retreats, and Plum Village life. At their best they embody qualities of group meditation, enabling us to enter a place of quiet in which we can stop and listen deeply to ourselves and each other. They are opportunities for us to deepen our understanding of the…
The Collective Bodhisattva
Sisterhood and Brotherhood in the Twenty-First Century By Sister Annabel, True Virtue If you were to ask me what could save this planet Earth I would say not eating meat, not using fossil fuels—but only if based on sisterhood and brotherhood. Sisterhood and brotherhood come first. Whatever we do we…
Writing in Community
During 1993, I have had one of the most gratifying years of my life working with the Community of Mindful Living giving writing workshops to war veterans. We called each day we gathered a Day of Mindfulness. We introduced ourselves by telling about our lives as veterans and as writers. After this, I…
Here Is the Pure Land. The Pure Land Is Here.
One day, Queen Vaidehi asked the Buddha, "Is the place with no suffering very far away?" The Buddha replied, "No, it is not far away." And then the Buddha taught the queen how to touch the land of Great Happiness in her own heart and in her own mind. We talk about "the Pure Land." In…