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…
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Practicing Reverence for Life
By David Gates Snail at Cabo da Roca; photo by David Gates Reverence for life is a simple three-word phrase reverberating with meaning and truth, perhaps more than any other three words possibly could. At least that is how it struck me in 2010 when I discovered the Five Mindfulness…
Practicing Acceptance
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…
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…
The Twelve Steps Meet the Eightfold Path
By Jim Tillman In October of 2014, Magnolia Grove Meditation Practice Center hosted the first mindfulness retreat for people in twelve-step programs and their extended community. The retreat was called “True Nourishment and Healing” in reference to the Fifth Mindfulness Training, establishing common ground with people in twelve-step programs who…
Always at the Beginning
My First Retreat Experience By Haven Tobias A friend and I set out from Oklahoma, bound for the Rocky Mountains, and my first mindfulness retreat. Two years before I knew nothing of Buddhism or Thich Nhat Hanh. Now, I still feel uninformed, but trust my friend, Marla, and my well-intentioned…
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 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…
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…
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…