Everything changes. Continually. Always. Nothing is ever the same. This is the foundational teaching of Buddhism. We all know this. Yet our perceptions of how we change are often at odds with this teaching. People tend toward behaviors that attempt to hold on to conceptions of they think they are and what they determine is …
Engaging with Hate and Discrimination: A Queer Buddhist Reflection on Equity, Diversity and Inclusion
“When individuals in our society speak or act out of hatred against a whole group of people based solely on superficial appearance, it is a reflection of the mental state of our whole society. We don’t escape because we are not the ones hating. The challenges of race, sexuality, and gender are the very things …
Recognizing and Transforming Shame: A Zen Approach
One of my identities is as a figure skater. For twenty years now, I have been practicing, learning new skills and tricks on the ice. For me, the ice is a source of grace, intimacy, and comradery. I see it as a practice of mindfulness, of Buddha nature, of beingness. On the best days, like …
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The Museum as Art: Tadeo Ando and Ryue Nishizawa
" When a fish swims, no matter how far it swims, it doesn't reach the end of the wayer. When a bird flies, no matter how high it fileis, it cannot reach the end of the sky. When a bird's need or the fish's need is great, the range is large. When the need is …
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Back to Comparisons
The question of zen is what now? Not what's next as in I'm bored now what do I do, but what occurs next in our perceptions of life around us. What now is the recognition that in any moment, however one subdivides that into seconds or milliseconds, until we die there is something next. It …
What Happens in Halong Bay, Stays in Halong Bay
Impermanence update. IPhone on the bottom of Halong Bay. Causes and conditions update. Kayak with a small leak causes wet conditions in my shorts; wet shorts cause me to take out my iPhone and camera from wet pockets and places it under my life jacket. Wet conditions also temporarily (as though everything could not be …
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Where Have All the Buddha Heads Gone (in Angkor Wat?)
Impermanence, that was the word that kept coming to me yesterday and today roaming the temples of Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom and a host of smaller temples (already impermanent to my memory.) Angkor Thom, meaning Great City, had a population of over one million in the 1200s, making it the largest city in the world …
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You Can’t Take the Buddha Out of the Bhutanese
Buddha is big here, obviously, super big. So big that the world's largest Buddha statue is being constructed on a hillside over looking Thimphu. But that is not what I mean about being big. I mean big as imbued in people's lives at all levels. Officially Buddhist temples and the religious hierarchy are part of …
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Bhutan: Climbing the Tiger’s Nest
It is 4 am and we are already in our car headed back to Paro from Punakha where we famously met the King and Queen the day before. 4 am because the road is closed between 8 and 10 am or later for construction and an early departure will guarantee we will easily make it …
Buddha in Bangkok
The mailbox sums up life nicely--Bangkok or other places. That's kind of the nature of perception. We are here and not somewhere else. Memories, traumas and desires might try to take us away from here and the present, yet all we really have is this moment to experience. Buddha is big here in Bangkok. The …