American Buddhist Net

08/07/2008

A Buddhist tattoo artist from Boulder expelled from China with three others after unfurling pro-Tibet banners from atop light poles near China's showpiece Olympic stadium said authorities questioned them for 10 hours, threatened them with jail and refused calls to the U.S. Embassy.

Rotating teams of interrogators at a makeshift police station on a gated technical college campus quizzed them about Chinese who aided activists on their mission, Phillip Bartell said in an interview today after arriving in San Francisco.

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By Robin Laurence

Zhang Huan: Altered States

At the Vancouver Art Gallery until October 5

Through much of Zhang Huan’s impressive career, his body has been his most eloquent and abused medium.

During his early years as a performance artist in Beijing, he subjected himself to extremes of endurance and self-abasement. He bled from self-inflicted wounds while hanging from the ceiling bound in chains; sat all day in a public toilet, his bare body covered with flies (attracted by the fish oil and honey he’d smeared on himself); wrapped himself in the rib cages of newly slaughtered pigs; and lay naked on a concrete floor for an hour while being showered with white-hot sparks from a metal screw cutter.

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She makes a good point. ABN
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by Robin Abrahams August 7, 2008 07:32 AM

According to Buddhism, desire is the root of suffering. I desire many things, which is a spiritual struggle for me at times. Thanks to the miracle of spam, however, I have come to realize that there are also many things I do not want. Here are some:

A job from home ... starting this month!
A time share in Costa Rica
A safe and secure Canadian pharmacy
Discount printer ink
A Rich Beautiful Lawn
To Meet Christian Singles
To satisfy her all night long

Thank you, spam, for helping to liberate me from the tyranny of desire.

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08/07/2008

A Buddhist tattoo artist from Boulder climbed a light pole outside China's main Olympic stadium and unfurled a "Tibet Will Be Free" banner Wednesday before Chinese police whisked him and three others away.

Phillip Bartell's whereabouts could not be confirmed Wednesday evening, but Chinese state-run media reported that he and the others were not arrested.

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Brides.com on how to maintain a zen outlook when planning your wedding

August 6, 2008

So what is Zen, and what does it have to do with being engaged? First, here's what Zen is not: a cult, a diet, or something that requires lots of chanting. Now, what it is: a way of thinking, being still and mindful of each second, breathing deeply, focusing. A Zen outlook can help calm you down when the seating plan or his mom is driving you nuts. Consider Zen your spiritual wedding planner. With Zen, you say to yourself: Right here, right now, everything is fine. Got it? Good. Hear that sound? It's you, breathing peacefully. Followers of Zen Buddhism believe that certain guidelines, or precepts, are the key to living a wise and contemplative life. We adapted the precepts (below) to help you be a more blissful bride.

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TULKU DAMCHO RINPOCHE will speak Tue. Aug. 12th at 7pm at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of San Dieguito, 1036 Solana Dr., Solana Beach.

Born in 1985, Tulku Damcho has already completed a three year retreat and has been recognized as the incarnation of Tsoknyi Rinpoche, a famous meditator and teacher in Tibet. He is sent on this first North American Tour by his teacher, Thrangu Rinpoche, recognized as one of the greatest scholars in the Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism.

The Solana Beach Dharma Study Group welcomes newcomers to meditation and any with interest in these traditions to join us for this special event. Suggested donation is $10. Directions may be found at http://uufsd.org - Questions? christieturner @ gmail.com

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

YUCCA VALLEY, CA — If you happened to be shopping at Food 4 Less Saturday morning, you would have seen the unfamiliar site of five barefoot Buddhist monks from Thailand parading down the street, and past the California Welcome Center to bless the house of a local family.

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August 05, 2008
By CHELSI MOY

VICTOR - In a recently published guide to cultural attractions in western Montana, there’s a small advertisement.

It touts “a simple rustic space to preserve and explore Zen aesthetics as living art.”

The Little Zen Museum in Victor is not actually a museum at all. Not yet, anyway.

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Shishin Roshi will be visiting Sweetwater Zen Center on Wednesday the 13th. He has agreed to talk with us Wednesday evening. Probably rather informal questions and answers so this would be a good opportunity to polish up your most challenging questions. He will talk at 7:30pm with zazen at 7pm. Please try to attend this is a wonderful opportunity to work with a really wonderful White Plum teacher.

August 4, 2008

Unfettered Mind is a social network that functions in tandem with a Web site of the same name. If the Web site is the place to go to gather knowledge through articles and podcasts, it’s the social network where that knowledge is expressed, shared and cultivated.

In the spirit of pragmatic Buddhism, members are encouraged to interact with each other in whatever way works. Videos, blog posts, and discussion threads are all possible means of communication. As the User Guide says, “there is no right way” to use this network.

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08/04/2008
By Greg Mellen

LONG BEACH - The 70 or so protesters from the Cambodian community who gathered in front of the Long Beach courthouse Monday and the 50 who crammed into Judge Joseph DiLoreto's courtroom will have to wait for the latest chapter to be played out in a dispute for control of the local Buddhist temple they attend.

John Ramirez, the head of the Church of the Revelation, appeared in DiLoreto's courtroom only briefly Monday on a contempt of court complaint. Because he had not been served with the complaint, Ramirez and his church were granted a continuation until Aug. 22.

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SANTA FE, New Mexico — The Upaya Buddhist Chaplaincy Training is a comprehensive two-year certificate program for a new kind of chaplaincy intended to serve individuals, communities, the environment and the world. The program, launched in 2008, is now accepting applications for 2009.

The Upaya Chaplaincy Program is open to those who wish to be ordained as Buddhist chaplain priests and lay chaplains, as well as those who wish to deepen their understanding of service from a Buddhist and systems thinking perspective. The training is intended to prepare students to have the skillful means to transform all forms of suffering, including suffering induced by structural violence.

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CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - August 4, 2008 -- Lama Surya Das, whose best-selling books and teachings have helped propel Buddhism's surge in popularity in the United States, will sign and read from his latest book, 'Words of Wisdom' (Koa Press, July 2008, $9.95) on Tuesday, August 5 at 7 p.m. at Porter Square Books, located at 25 White Street in Cambridge, MA.

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August 3, 2008

...Although I am a nervous sort, constantly stressed out and worried, and most certainly could benefit from regular bouts of meditation, none of it took. I find sitting and trying to empty my mind, breathing and relaxing to be tedious. I'd much rather be watching television.

None of it took, that is, until I regularly started mowing my lawn with my engine-less reel mower.

Using this simple and basic tool, I walk slowly back and forth, allowing the reel to cut off the blades of grass likes scissors. The reel spins hypnotically and makes a soothing rhythmic clicking/cutting sound. I feel my breath coming slowly and deeply. I am one with the nature of my backyard, and worries slip away. It reminds me of the moving meditation exercise we had in class, in which we all went out in the hallway and shuffled along slowly while trying not to think.

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August 3, 2008
By Geoff Gehman

The Dalai Lama left Bethlehem 19 days ago but a filament of his philosophy remains in a Banana Factory exhibit of Ryan Hulvat's photographs of light fixtures. Like the Tibetan religious leader, he finds enlightenment in the everyday -- even an unused bulb at a dead steel plant.

''You don't have to go to Katmandu to take a great photograph when it's right in your backyard,'' says Hulvat, a resident artist and teacher at the Banana Factory. ''Beauty in the whole world can be right in front of you.''

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Margaret Paul

"This force [that keeps us always wanting] is known in several Buddhist traditions as the Wanting Mind. The Wanting Mind is always craving an experience different from the one it currently has." - Brent Kessel, It's Not About the Money

There is nothing wrong with wanting - wanting more time, more money, a wonderful relationship, a family, a successful career, a new car, a bigger house, and so on. It is not actually the wanting that causes us problems. Problems occur when we ATTACH our happiness, worth, and inner peace to getting what we want.

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Vogue model, style icon and David Bailey's muse, Penelope Tree was the ultimate Sixties It girl. In a rare interview she tells Louise France about her charity work, the misery behind her privileged upbringing - and how the Dalai Lama saved her life

Sunday August 03, 2008

Penelope Tree has both a name and a face that are hard to forget. Yet for the best part of the past 35 years she has done her damnedest to stay out of the spotlight. During a brief, heady period at the end of the Sixties this American-born model encapsulated the style of the times. Eyes as lustrous as they were round, cheekbones on which you could balance a cup and saucer, a kooky, ethereal sense of style that both epitomised the mood and was all her own. When John Lennon was asked to describe her in three words he is said to have replied: 'Hot, hot, hot, smart, smart, smart!' For a while, when David Bailey was her boyfriend and there were front covers for Vogue in her modelling book, she was the It girl in a decade crowded with other so-called It girls with memorable monikers, from Twiggy to Cilla.

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Sunday August 03, 2008

NEW YORK.- An installation of 30 palm-leaf folios from Indian illuminated manuscripts will open at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on July 29, 2008. Featuring some of the earliest surviving Indian manuscripts, dating from the 10th to the 13th century, Early Buddhist Manuscript Painting: The Palm-leaf Tradition will center on one remarkable Mahayanist Buddhist text, the Ashtasahasrika Prajnaparamita Sutra ('Perfection of Wisdom'), illustrated through the Museum's rare holdings of eastern Indian and Nepalese illuminated palm-leaf manuscripts, book-covers, initiation cards, thankas, and sculptures.

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August 2, 2008
By SUE RYAN

Kevin Kim began his trek in May as a walk across America to talk about religious diversity and pluralism.

He isn’t filling lecture halls but meandering from person to person as he explores what faith means to people across the United States. He reached Cascade Locks this week and is headed east.

“I’m a Christian who has a deep interest in Buddhism,” he said.

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written by: Jeffrey Wolf

WESTMINSTER – Lighting incense, Birdie Inthapatha honored the memory of her grandmother through a Buddhist tradition.

...Chinda's dying wish had been to be reunited with her son Vilavanh, who is living in Laos. Chinda escaped that country nearly 30 years ago when it fell under communist control. It would be the last time she would see her son.

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August 1, 2008

...In addition to people from numerous tribes around the country, the participants in the group ranged from Caucasian Americans concerned about the planet to a group of Buddhist monks and nuns from Japan.

"It was a good feeling to see all the races," Escalante said. "There is so much turmoil and so much bad blood between races and when you see (everyone together), it's really a good feeling. We were all walking for the same reason."

Several of the Buddhist monks were drawn to the photograph Escalante was carrying and they asked if they could bless her great-grandmother.

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By Lauri Park

Brenna, my youngest daughter, is autistic. I have a Buddhist friend who believes Brenna is an old soul, who has lived so many lives she's become pure. Old souls come back to us as teachers. I have accepted this belief as well. Brenna teaches me every day.

My friend also believes there are so many like Brenna because the world needs many teachers. Maybe the lessons are about fouling our own nest or relearning how to live as a community. Maybe there will continue to be more old souls because we aren't listening.

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The Main Shrine at the Hsi Lai Temple. The Main Shrine serves as the heart of the temple's activities. It contains statues of the the Sakyamuni Buddha, Amitabha Buddha, and the Bhaisajyaguru Buddha. Thousands of niches containing Buddha images arorn the walls. Also seen in the photo is the large bell and drums, both of which are elements in many traditional Chinese Ch'an temples. The bells are played daily to ready monastics for daily practice. The temple does not use these instruments regularly because of their loud volume, which could be bothersome to the the residential areas at the foot of the temple. As such, the bell and drum are only used to mark special occasions.

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Specialist in neurofeedback to be speaker - Westlake Village, CA

Thursday, July 31, 2008
By Alicia Doyle

Living and dying in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition will be the topic this week when the Wellness Community presents the next in its ongoing series of evening talks open to those affected by cancer.

The event tonight in Westlake Village will feature a discussion by Dr. David Dubin, a medical doctor and a senior student of Shambhala Buddhism with a practice specializing in EEG neurofeedback.

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