Meatless in Seattle ; Vegetarian and vegan movements are taken to heart here
Karen Gaudette
Karen Gaudette. Seattle Times staff reporter
1269 words
25 June 2008
The Seattle Times
Fourth
E1
English
© 2008 Seattle Times. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights reserved.
Seattle is famed for its natural beauty, technological savvy and sometimes paralyzing addiction to consensus. It's also increasingly known as a burgeoning paradise for those who steer clear of meat (vegetarians) and those who avoid meat, eggs, milk and other animal products (vegans).
Had Oprah spent the 21 days of her recent vegan cleanse diet around these parts, she'd have found weeks of options at her fingertips.
There's a vegan doughnut shop (Mighty-O), vegan bakery (Flying Apron), vegan grocery (Sidecar for Pigs Peace), vegan-friendly bar and ice-cream parlor (Georgetown Liquor, Molly Moon's), a vegan deli (Hillside Quickie) and nearly a dozen vegan restaurants. And that's just in Seattle proper.
Restaurants that cater to vegetarians and vegans keep sprouting around Puget Sound, particularly in Seattle, the Eastside and Olympia. Many others offer vegetarian or vegan options. Most of those that don't are willing to omit or add a few ingredients, or at the very least, have a working knowledge of common no-nos. VegFest, an annual festival of vegetarian cuisine and lifestyle organized by the advocacy group Vegetarians of Washington, drew 15,000 this year.
"It's definitely one of the top five vegetarian cities, and maybe even higher," said Joseph Connelly, a big Mighty-O fan and publisher of San Francisco-based VegNews, a magazine devoted to all things vegetarian and vegan.
How is it that Seattle became such a ground zero for folks who eat to the beat of a different drummer?
The region's liberal-leaning politics play a major role, says Michael Hughes, owner of vegetarian eatery Carmelita in Seattle's Greenwood neighborhood. He and his wife, Kathryn Neumann, moved here from Chicago in the early 1990s in part for the political climate.
"It almost seems like Seattle and its environment are a magnet for people who are thinking more environmentally conscious and health conscious," Hughes said. "Seattle's a progressive town, and people can feel comfortable and safe and make a lot more choices and find a lot more choices to make here."
That open-mindedness prompted Jennifer Katzinger and her father, Bill Dowd, to open Flying Apron vegan bakery six years ago. Seattle and the West Coast in general are more open to alternatives of all sorts, and that includes eating habits and cuisines, she said.
Stewart Rose points to the region's immigration patterns and religions. The vice president of Vegetarians of Washington and longtime vegan notes that newcomers from Buddhist and Hindu nations brought their traditional meat-free or low-meat diets, including engineers who came in droves from Asia to work for Microsoft, Amazon.com and other tech hubs. The Northwest also is home to a large population of Seventh Day Adventists, many of whom are vegetarian. These groups opened stores and restaurants to cater to their tastes and needs, Rose said.
"You had the immigration of different ethnic groups, you have homegrown groups that took on everything from yoga to health food," said Rose. "And then you have something else that has been growing in interest and that is the animal-rights movement, which has a very strong presence in the Northwest."
That's what drew Maria Johnson to vegetarianism and, for the past 12 years, veganism. The webmaster for seattlevegan.com says it's amazing how few people think about what they're eating, how it was raised and where it was raised.
Some local vegans are against killing animals at all; others oppose the way conventional livestock is raised. Both groups keep finding more and more places to sit down together over dinner, Johnson said.
"When I started doing the site, there weren't many options. Now it seems like there's a new option almost all the time," she said. "I think at one time it was kind of believed [veganism] was extremist. Now people are choosing it for different reasons."
Health is a big reason, said Dani Little, a registered dietitian at University of Washington Medical Center. Vegetarians and vegans who follow a proper diet have a lower-than-average risk for obesity, cardiovascular disease, high cholesterol, hypertension, Type 2 diabetes, cancer and diverticular disease. And when they do contract such ailments, she said, they have a lower risk of dying from them. She's noticed a steep increase in plant-based diets over the past two decades, across all ages and ethnic groups. Embracing healthy options is easier here than elsewhere, she says.
"What I notice when I leave Seattle and head east is that the food quality is not as appealing. I feel like we're very fortunate for the produce that comes through here. The quality is nowhere near parallel," Little said.
Nat Stratton-Clarke of Seattle's Cafe Flora agrees that access to fresh ingredients and artisanal breads, cheeses, tofu and other products enabled the movements to easily catch hold. The vegetarian restaurant has held court in Madison Valley for 17 years and was among the first to receive fresh produce deliveries from Carnation's Full Circle Farm.
With so much infrastructure in place, Seattle's communities were ripe for growth as interest in veganism and vegetarianism blossomed across the country.
Alternative diets have gone mainstream as food allergies and intolerances, high blood pressure, obesity and diabetes grow more prevalent. The National Restaurant Association reports that 8 of every 10 restaurants now offer vegetarian options. Books that promote veganism as a path to wellness, including "Quantum Wellness" and "Skinny Bitch," rank high on best-seller lists. Celebrities from Clint Eastwood to Natalie Portman advocate the benefits of a vegetarian diet. The American Dietetic Association has created a vegetarian food pyramid and offers vegetarianism and veganism as heart-healthy options.
And increasingly, folks interested in the globe's changing environment are seizing on their eating habits as yet another way to effect change. A 2006 United Nations report on global warming named cattle rearing as a top source of air, land and water pollution.
Connelly of VegNews pegs the recent boom in local options to the Northwest's prominence as an epicenter for green, or environmentally conscious, living. Many folks going green tend to eat less or no meat, due to the vast amounts of land and energy it takes to feed and raise livestock, he said.
"People are definitely becoming more educated. They are getting an understanding of these issues. And as the people become more aware, businesses respond to that," he said.
Longtime vegetarians and vegans, like Maria Johnson, say it's nice not having to explain themselves as often anymore when they order, and to have more places where friends and family can gather and all find something to eat.
"I remember there was a time when you'd ask, `Can you tell me what's in this salad?' or something pretty basic, and it's amazing how people didn't know. And it's like, `But aren't you making it?' " she said.
"Now, a lot of restaurants actually want to let people know that they have something that's vegan. I've had more people contacting me. Before they just didn't think about it. Now there's competition."
Monday, June 30, 2008
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Oasis of calm at Lumbini
Stupa at the sacred pool
948 words
28 May 2008
Hindustan Times
English
(c) 2008 HT Media Limited. All rights reserved.
piya bose Hindustan Times
NEW DELHI, India, May 28 -- Nestled in the foothills of the Himalayas in Nepalis a stretch of lush gardens, in the tiny town of Lumbini, the birthplace of Gautam Buddha. Till 1896, the town that is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site was neglected and lost for centuries.
The only references to it were found in ancient texts that called it heaven on earth, and described a beautiful garden studded with stupas and monasteries, with views of snow capped peaks in the distance. The general area was known, but it was German archaeologist Dr Alois Anton Fuhrer who identified the exact location of Lumbini after he chanced upon a stone pillar erected by Emperor Ashoka.
An ancient script inscribed on the pillar confirmed beyond doubt that
this was indeed the place where Buddha was born. Further excavations revealed the remains of a brick temple and a sandstone nativity sculpture that confirmed Fuhrer's claim. Before long, Lumbini began attracting tourists from around the world.
Located a short distance from the India-Nepal border at Sonauli, Lumbini is easily accessible from India by road, train or air from India. The rickety bus that took me to Lumbini, was a time machine that transported me back to an age when the entire town was a beautiful garden, shaded by Sal trees. This tranquil environ was owned by the Shakya and the Kolia clans, and it was here that Maya Devi, wife of King Suddhodhana, gave birth to Prince Siddhartha, (later known as Buddha) under the shade of a Sal tree.
With efforts by local and international communities, the Lumbini gardens and its excavated ruins have been preserved well enough to showcase their archaeological and historical value.
Sacred bathing pool
I hired a cycle rickshaw through the gardens, the monasteries and the excavation sites. It was a pleasant journey and along the way I caught sight of Nilgai and deer. The gardens are also home to rare birds like the Black Ibis, Asian Magpie Robin and the Blue Tailed Bee Eater.
My first stop was at the temple of Maya Devi, the most important place in the gardens. It is believed to have been built over the foundations of more than one Ashokan stupa. A bas relief depicts Maya Devi with her right hand holding on to a Sal tree with a newborn child standing upright on a lotus petal, an oval halo around his head. Currently, due to ongoing excavations, this nativity scene has been moved to a separate shrine.
On the south of the temple is Puskarni, the sacred bathing pool where Maya Devi is believed to have taken a bath before giving birth to the prince. It is also where the newborn had his first bath. Architecturally, the pool has amazing brick masonry with projecting terraces.
The most important place in Lumbini is the sanctum sanctorum, a stone slab foundation containing a set of foot imprints that pinpoints the Buddha's exact place of birth, and draws thousands of pilgrims from around the world.
A leisurely walk through the gardens took me to the bazaar area which sell colourful thangkas (Buddhist paintings), prayer wheels, singing bowls and funky junk jewellery. Pause for chai and a snack before proceeding further.
I visited the beautiful monasteries built by Buddhist nations like Korea, Japan and Burma. Each monastery reflected a unique architectural style through intricate carvings and statues of the Buddha. The stark white Thai monastery commands particular attention, with its pristine interiors and attention to detail.
The Chinese monastery has a large statue of Buddha and is built like a forbidden city. The Myanmar pagoda is built in the style of the Shwedagon temple in Yangon (Rangoon).
Living quarters
For those interested in archaeology, the museums within the gardens are a must visit. The Lumbini Museum located in the Cultural Zone was funded by the Indian government and contains Mauryan and Kushana coins, religious manuscripts, terracotta fragments, and stone and metal sculptures. It also possesses an extensive collection of stamps from various countries depicting Lumbini and the Buddha.
Opposite the museum, the Lumbini International Research Institute provides research facilities for the study of Buddhism and religion. It contains some 12,000 books on religion, philosophy, art and architecture.
To study the ruins further, a visit to Kapilavastu, 27 km away, is recommended. The museum there has a rich collection of pottery, coins and other artefacts.
Scattered across the gardens are excavation sites, mostly kiln brick-and-mortar foundations of groups of stupas and viharas built in the Mauryan, Kushana and Gupta period (between the third and second centuries BC), which probably indicates that devotees of the time wanted to lived close to the Buddha's birth place.
For those who come here for religious reasons, the ideal time to visit is April or May, when Buddha Jayanti, or the birth anniversary of the Buddha, is celebrated. This is also the time, on full moon nights, when Hindus flock to worship Maya Devi as Rupa Devi, the Goddess of Lumbini.
The area outside the garden has several small villages, where the local life of the Terai region can be sampled at close quarters. There are several archaeological sites in this area, as well as a few lakes that are a bird watcher's paradise. Visit the Crane Sanctuary, home to sarus cranes, the tallest flying birds in the world.
As my bus trundled back to the Nepal border, I was overcome with a profound calm that can only come from a visit to the birthplace of the Buddha.
948 words
28 May 2008
Hindustan Times
English
(c) 2008 HT Media Limited. All rights reserved.
piya bose Hindustan Times
NEW DELHI, India, May 28 -- Nestled in the foothills of the Himalayas in Nepalis a stretch of lush gardens, in the tiny town of Lumbini, the birthplace of Gautam Buddha. Till 1896, the town that is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site was neglected and lost for centuries.
The only references to it were found in ancient texts that called it heaven on earth, and described a beautiful garden studded with stupas and monasteries, with views of snow capped peaks in the distance. The general area was known, but it was German archaeologist Dr Alois Anton Fuhrer who identified the exact location of Lumbini after he chanced upon a stone pillar erected by Emperor Ashoka.
An ancient script inscribed on the pillar confirmed beyond doubt that
this was indeed the place where Buddha was born. Further excavations revealed the remains of a brick temple and a sandstone nativity sculpture that confirmed Fuhrer's claim. Before long, Lumbini began attracting tourists from around the world.
Located a short distance from the India-Nepal border at Sonauli, Lumbini is easily accessible from India by road, train or air from India. The rickety bus that took me to Lumbini, was a time machine that transported me back to an age when the entire town was a beautiful garden, shaded by Sal trees. This tranquil environ was owned by the Shakya and the Kolia clans, and it was here that Maya Devi, wife of King Suddhodhana, gave birth to Prince Siddhartha, (later known as Buddha) under the shade of a Sal tree.
With efforts by local and international communities, the Lumbini gardens and its excavated ruins have been preserved well enough to showcase their archaeological and historical value.
Sacred bathing pool
I hired a cycle rickshaw through the gardens, the monasteries and the excavation sites. It was a pleasant journey and along the way I caught sight of Nilgai and deer. The gardens are also home to rare birds like the Black Ibis, Asian Magpie Robin and the Blue Tailed Bee Eater.
My first stop was at the temple of Maya Devi, the most important place in the gardens. It is believed to have been built over the foundations of more than one Ashokan stupa. A bas relief depicts Maya Devi with her right hand holding on to a Sal tree with a newborn child standing upright on a lotus petal, an oval halo around his head. Currently, due to ongoing excavations, this nativity scene has been moved to a separate shrine.
On the south of the temple is Puskarni, the sacred bathing pool where Maya Devi is believed to have taken a bath before giving birth to the prince. It is also where the newborn had his first bath. Architecturally, the pool has amazing brick masonry with projecting terraces.
The most important place in Lumbini is the sanctum sanctorum, a stone slab foundation containing a set of foot imprints that pinpoints the Buddha's exact place of birth, and draws thousands of pilgrims from around the world.
A leisurely walk through the gardens took me to the bazaar area which sell colourful thangkas (Buddhist paintings), prayer wheels, singing bowls and funky junk jewellery. Pause for chai and a snack before proceeding further.
I visited the beautiful monasteries built by Buddhist nations like Korea, Japan and Burma. Each monastery reflected a unique architectural style through intricate carvings and statues of the Buddha. The stark white Thai monastery commands particular attention, with its pristine interiors and attention to detail.
The Chinese monastery has a large statue of Buddha and is built like a forbidden city. The Myanmar pagoda is built in the style of the Shwedagon temple in Yangon (Rangoon).
Living quarters
For those interested in archaeology, the museums within the gardens are a must visit. The Lumbini Museum located in the Cultural Zone was funded by the Indian government and contains Mauryan and Kushana coins, religious manuscripts, terracotta fragments, and stone and metal sculptures. It also possesses an extensive collection of stamps from various countries depicting Lumbini and the Buddha.
Opposite the museum, the Lumbini International Research Institute provides research facilities for the study of Buddhism and religion. It contains some 12,000 books on religion, philosophy, art and architecture.
To study the ruins further, a visit to Kapilavastu, 27 km away, is recommended. The museum there has a rich collection of pottery, coins and other artefacts.
Scattered across the gardens are excavation sites, mostly kiln brick-and-mortar foundations of groups of stupas and viharas built in the Mauryan, Kushana and Gupta period (between the third and second centuries BC), which probably indicates that devotees of the time wanted to lived close to the Buddha's birth place.
For those who come here for religious reasons, the ideal time to visit is April or May, when Buddha Jayanti, or the birth anniversary of the Buddha, is celebrated. This is also the time, on full moon nights, when Hindus flock to worship Maya Devi as Rupa Devi, the Goddess of Lumbini.
The area outside the garden has several small villages, where the local life of the Terai region can be sampled at close quarters. There are several archaeological sites in this area, as well as a few lakes that are a bird watcher's paradise. Visit the Crane Sanctuary, home to sarus cranes, the tallest flying birds in the world.
As my bus trundled back to the Nepal border, I was overcome with a profound calm that can only come from a visit to the birthplace of the Buddha.
What is lotus theraphy?
So, What Is 'Lotus Therapy,' Anyway?
1398 words
29 May 2008
NPR: The Bryant Park Project
English
Copyright 2008 National Public Radio, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
(Soundbite of people meditating)
MIKE PESCA, host:
Mindfulness meditation, closing your eyes, clearing your head of all thoughts, and only noticing how you feel as you breathe in and out. It's become a popular psychology tool. Talk therapists of all varieties are encouraging patients to try meditation to help them manage flash floods of emotions during a therapeutic process. The National Institutes of Health is financing about 50 studies to learn whether meditation techniques do, in fact, help things like stress, addiction, depression, hot flashes, and the propensity to buy Bowflex systems off the TV at night. I made that last one up.
So we learned all this stuff this week from a New York Times story we ripped from the headlines. It's a little easier than doing the work ourselves. We - I guess we outsourced it to New York Times reporter Ben Carey, who joins us now to talk about his story, "Lotus Therapy." Hey, Ben.
Mr. BEN CAREY (Reporter, New York Times): Hello.
PESCA: So, you know, was I practicing therapy there without a license there when I was describing how mindfulness meditation works? Just clearing your head and only noticing your breath? Is that about it?
Mr. CAREY: It's pretty bare-bones stuff, and I think that, of course, has been around a lot longer than therapy and pretty accessible to anyone. So I think it could be allowed to describe it in that way. It's pretty close.
PESCA: And how does it work as a therapeutic tool?
Mr. CAREY: Well, I mean, it's used in a whole different bunch of ways, like, for example, one of the most promising ways is to prevent relapse in depression for serious depression. And so what they try to do there is get the person to essentially practice, you know, the pretty basic meditative technique, and once they feel they've sort of mastered the basics then they encourage them to, in effect, sort of let themselves feel, you know, sort of troubling emotions or sort of look at a sort of a soured relationship. And the idea is when you're in this meditative state you kind of just observe this effect on you kind of without fighting it, without trying to, you know, rationalize it or change it or whatever, and you kind of let the feeling pass.
PESCA: Well, that's the idea. So what's the evidence that it works?
Mr. CAREY: Well, there's not a lot of evidence yet. There are a couple studies that have come out of a group that's centered in Toronto that show that, you know, if you incorporate this into some therapy for relapse prevention with people with depression, if they've had three or more, it does seem to cut the risk that they'll relapse again. However, for people who have only had one or two relapses, it's not clear that it's helping them. It might even be making them a little worse than what's happening there. But anyway - so that's still - but it's still early. You know, they're looking at this, and like you say, you know, the NIH is interested in this for a whole bunch of different things.
PESCA: Why would it be harmful? Why would it make it worse? Just that it's not - the underlying problem's not being treated in another way?
Mr. CAREY: Well, no. I mean, that's possible, because you're sitting there, you know, meditating and you're not getting any other kind of therapy, but you know, I mean, it's not always a good idea for people who, you know, have mental issues to have them sort of sit with their mental issues.
RACHEL MARTIN, host:
Sit with their thoughts.
PESCA: Yeah. Simmer.
Mr. CAREY: Yeah. So you simmer, or they call it rumination, you know, whatever. I mean, so, this might work for some people. You and I might be able to sit there sort of guru-like and watch, you know, our troubles pass before our eyes, but someone else, essentially, if they're in the middle of an acute problem, might just make it worse and they get nothing out of it.
PESCA: To try to understand what mindful meditation was I went to Wikipedia. First, I tried Googling it and other ways, but I guess my non Zen-like brain couldn't understand tons of these descriptions on these Zen sites and these meditation sites. It kind of seemed like gobbledygook to me. So I went to Wikipedia, not Buddhapedia (ph), and there's a description there, but tell me how well this nails it.
Mr. CAREY: OK.
PESCA: Quote, "One is free to release a thought, let it go. When one realizes that the thought may not be concrete reality or absolute truth, thus one is free to observe life without getting caught in the commentary." Is that about right?
Mr. CAREY: You know, you could...
PESCA: And that's the non-gobbledygook version.
Mr. CAREY: You know, you're just being so western about this, basically.
PESCA: Yeah, I know.
Mr. CAREY: It's pretty close. I mean, so...
MARTIN: Non-attachment. It's about non-attachment.
Mr. CAREY: I'm looking at this from the - it's pretty close. I mean, you really - that's it. They want you to sort of be in the moment. Now, just excuse that phrase and, you know, that's a phrase like "inner child," where people just sort of snort when they hear it.
PESCA: I snorted. I just snorted. I don't know if you could hear that. Sorry.
Mr. CAREY: Well, you did, anyways. So the idea is to, you know, relax, you know, sort of really concentrate on your sensations, your breathing, be in the moment, just sort of - and if you try this and you practice this, you do kind of get into a different kind of state, which I did, by the way, when I was doing this story.
PESCA: That's good reporting. And was that the first time you tried it?
Mr. CAREY: Oh, yeah. No. This is not - I have no cultural connection with this kind of stuff, but it was the first time I tried it. So you get into this, and then you're supposed to sort of just watch without judgment sort of what happens as you're sitting there, and so that's just it, really. There's not a lot more to say about it.
MARTIN: But the danger's that when you start thinking about nothing, and especially if you're a reporter, and then you're analyzing your non-thinking-ness.
PESCA: And the danger is you're paying a therapist how much money to do that?
Mr. CAREY: Well, you know, keep in mind a couple things. Number one, yes, thinking about not thinking, as a reporter, you're definitely wasting deadline time on something like this, but you know, usually it's incorporated into other therapy. Well, like, you know, therapies like cognitive therapies, for example, which is a very common sort of answer for depression, where they try to reshape people's assumptions and thoughts...
MARTIN: It can augment therapies. It's not a therapy in and of itself.
Mr. CAREY: No. It's usually part of - that's part of a therapy. Yeah. And so they would teach it to you as a technique, and in some cases, in some people who work with very troubled people, you know, I mean, they're just kicked around by, you know, their anxieties and their memories so much that - I mean, they can't sit still practically. And so, you need to figure out a way of getting them just to tolerate, you know, sort of what their internal psychology is turning.
PESCA: Yes.
Mr. CAREY: And so that just makes it a supplement to usually a broader approach to, you know, solving a problem.
PESCA: Got it. Ben Carey of the New York Times, thank you and thanks for that article.
Mr. CAREY: Sure.
MARTIN: Stay with us. Coming up, San Francisco dump, the artist in residence. Curious? Stay with us. We'll talk about it. This is the BPP from NPR News.
1398 words
29 May 2008
NPR: The Bryant Park Project
English
Copyright 2008 National Public Radio, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
(Soundbite of people meditating)
MIKE PESCA, host:
Mindfulness meditation, closing your eyes, clearing your head of all thoughts, and only noticing how you feel as you breathe in and out. It's become a popular psychology tool. Talk therapists of all varieties are encouraging patients to try meditation to help them manage flash floods of emotions during a therapeutic process. The National Institutes of Health is financing about 50 studies to learn whether meditation techniques do, in fact, help things like stress, addiction, depression, hot flashes, and the propensity to buy Bowflex systems off the TV at night. I made that last one up.
So we learned all this stuff this week from a New York Times story we ripped from the headlines. It's a little easier than doing the work ourselves. We - I guess we outsourced it to New York Times reporter Ben Carey, who joins us now to talk about his story, "Lotus Therapy." Hey, Ben.
Mr. BEN CAREY (Reporter, New York Times): Hello.
PESCA: So, you know, was I practicing therapy there without a license there when I was describing how mindfulness meditation works? Just clearing your head and only noticing your breath? Is that about it?
Mr. CAREY: It's pretty bare-bones stuff, and I think that, of course, has been around a lot longer than therapy and pretty accessible to anyone. So I think it could be allowed to describe it in that way. It's pretty close.
PESCA: And how does it work as a therapeutic tool?
Mr. CAREY: Well, I mean, it's used in a whole different bunch of ways, like, for example, one of the most promising ways is to prevent relapse in depression for serious depression. And so what they try to do there is get the person to essentially practice, you know, the pretty basic meditative technique, and once they feel they've sort of mastered the basics then they encourage them to, in effect, sort of let themselves feel, you know, sort of troubling emotions or sort of look at a sort of a soured relationship. And the idea is when you're in this meditative state you kind of just observe this effect on you kind of without fighting it, without trying to, you know, rationalize it or change it or whatever, and you kind of let the feeling pass.
PESCA: Well, that's the idea. So what's the evidence that it works?
Mr. CAREY: Well, there's not a lot of evidence yet. There are a couple studies that have come out of a group that's centered in Toronto that show that, you know, if you incorporate this into some therapy for relapse prevention with people with depression, if they've had three or more, it does seem to cut the risk that they'll relapse again. However, for people who have only had one or two relapses, it's not clear that it's helping them. It might even be making them a little worse than what's happening there. But anyway - so that's still - but it's still early. You know, they're looking at this, and like you say, you know, the NIH is interested in this for a whole bunch of different things.
PESCA: Why would it be harmful? Why would it make it worse? Just that it's not - the underlying problem's not being treated in another way?
Mr. CAREY: Well, no. I mean, that's possible, because you're sitting there, you know, meditating and you're not getting any other kind of therapy, but you know, I mean, it's not always a good idea for people who, you know, have mental issues to have them sort of sit with their mental issues.
RACHEL MARTIN, host:
Sit with their thoughts.
PESCA: Yeah. Simmer.
Mr. CAREY: Yeah. So you simmer, or they call it rumination, you know, whatever. I mean, so, this might work for some people. You and I might be able to sit there sort of guru-like and watch, you know, our troubles pass before our eyes, but someone else, essentially, if they're in the middle of an acute problem, might just make it worse and they get nothing out of it.
PESCA: To try to understand what mindful meditation was I went to Wikipedia. First, I tried Googling it and other ways, but I guess my non Zen-like brain couldn't understand tons of these descriptions on these Zen sites and these meditation sites. It kind of seemed like gobbledygook to me. So I went to Wikipedia, not Buddhapedia (ph), and there's a description there, but tell me how well this nails it.
Mr. CAREY: OK.
PESCA: Quote, "One is free to release a thought, let it go. When one realizes that the thought may not be concrete reality or absolute truth, thus one is free to observe life without getting caught in the commentary." Is that about right?
Mr. CAREY: You know, you could...
PESCA: And that's the non-gobbledygook version.
Mr. CAREY: You know, you're just being so western about this, basically.
PESCA: Yeah, I know.
Mr. CAREY: It's pretty close. I mean, so...
MARTIN: Non-attachment. It's about non-attachment.
Mr. CAREY: I'm looking at this from the - it's pretty close. I mean, you really - that's it. They want you to sort of be in the moment. Now, just excuse that phrase and, you know, that's a phrase like "inner child," where people just sort of snort when they hear it.
PESCA: I snorted. I just snorted. I don't know if you could hear that. Sorry.
Mr. CAREY: Well, you did, anyways. So the idea is to, you know, relax, you know, sort of really concentrate on your sensations, your breathing, be in the moment, just sort of - and if you try this and you practice this, you do kind of get into a different kind of state, which I did, by the way, when I was doing this story.
PESCA: That's good reporting. And was that the first time you tried it?
Mr. CAREY: Oh, yeah. No. This is not - I have no cultural connection with this kind of stuff, but it was the first time I tried it. So you get into this, and then you're supposed to sort of just watch without judgment sort of what happens as you're sitting there, and so that's just it, really. There's not a lot more to say about it.
MARTIN: But the danger's that when you start thinking about nothing, and especially if you're a reporter, and then you're analyzing your non-thinking-ness.
PESCA: And the danger is you're paying a therapist how much money to do that?
Mr. CAREY: Well, you know, keep in mind a couple things. Number one, yes, thinking about not thinking, as a reporter, you're definitely wasting deadline time on something like this, but you know, usually it's incorporated into other therapy. Well, like, you know, therapies like cognitive therapies, for example, which is a very common sort of answer for depression, where they try to reshape people's assumptions and thoughts...
MARTIN: It can augment therapies. It's not a therapy in and of itself.
Mr. CAREY: No. It's usually part of - that's part of a therapy. Yeah. And so they would teach it to you as a technique, and in some cases, in some people who work with very troubled people, you know, I mean, they're just kicked around by, you know, their anxieties and their memories so much that - I mean, they can't sit still practically. And so, you need to figure out a way of getting them just to tolerate, you know, sort of what their internal psychology is turning.
PESCA: Yes.
Mr. CAREY: And so that just makes it a supplement to usually a broader approach to, you know, solving a problem.
PESCA: Got it. Ben Carey of the New York Times, thank you and thanks for that article.
Mr. CAREY: Sure.
MARTIN: Stay with us. Coming up, San Francisco dump, the artist in residence. Curious? Stay with us. We'll talk about it. This is the BPP from NPR News.
Hindu karma not the same as buddhist karma?
Guardian Saturday Comment Pages
Questions, questions: What is karma and how does it work?
361 words
31 May 2008
The Guardian
42
English
© Copyright 2008. The Guardian. All rights reserved.
The actor Sharon Stone is not the first public figure to have invoked the concept of karma. Radiohead, Boy George and John Lennon have all trodden the same path, yet her ill-advised usage of the word has had a far greater impact.
Stone's suggestion that the devastating Chinese earthquake was brought about by Beijing's nastiness to her "very good friend" the Dalai Lama infuriated a top fashion and cosmetics firm - Dior reacted by dropping her from its Chinese advertising - and an economic superpower in one fell swoop.
Karma is a complex idea that is important to Buddhists, Hindus and Sikhs. The word means simply "action", but its meaning is connected with the causes and effects of the choices we make. Our minds are like a blank piece of paper and every action we perform makes a stamp on that piece of paper. The marks become impressions and these grow and develop into experiences. Tibetan Buddhists believe that actions lead to effects and that all our experiences are the effects of previous actions.
Kama Tobgyal, from the Tibetan Buddhist centre Kagyu Samye Dzong London, says: "If you watch a violent movie before you go to bed, you may have nightmares. If you have a warm, intimate conversation with your partner before you sleep you may have a pleasant dream. But these experiences may happen in another life. The idea is to avoid negative actions. From the Buddhist point of view, everything is karma."
Stone is not the first person to fall foul of a skewed interpretation of karma. The former footballer Glenn Hoddle lost his job as England manager for saying that disabled people were being punished for sins in a previous life. "The karma is working from another lifetime. It is not only people with disabilities. What you sow, you have to reap."
Stone and Hoddle may have thinking of Hindu karma, which is different to the Buddhist one. In the Hindu tradition, broadly speaking, beneficial effects are the result of beneficial actions and negative effects are the fruit of negative actions. Riazat Butt
Questions, questions: What is karma and how does it work?
361 words
31 May 2008
The Guardian
42
English
© Copyright 2008. The Guardian. All rights reserved.
The actor Sharon Stone is not the first public figure to have invoked the concept of karma. Radiohead, Boy George and John Lennon have all trodden the same path, yet her ill-advised usage of the word has had a far greater impact.
Stone's suggestion that the devastating Chinese earthquake was brought about by Beijing's nastiness to her "very good friend" the Dalai Lama infuriated a top fashion and cosmetics firm - Dior reacted by dropping her from its Chinese advertising - and an economic superpower in one fell swoop.
Karma is a complex idea that is important to Buddhists, Hindus and Sikhs. The word means simply "action", but its meaning is connected with the causes and effects of the choices we make. Our minds are like a blank piece of paper and every action we perform makes a stamp on that piece of paper. The marks become impressions and these grow and develop into experiences. Tibetan Buddhists believe that actions lead to effects and that all our experiences are the effects of previous actions.
Kama Tobgyal, from the Tibetan Buddhist centre Kagyu Samye Dzong London, says: "If you watch a violent movie before you go to bed, you may have nightmares. If you have a warm, intimate conversation with your partner before you sleep you may have a pleasant dream. But these experiences may happen in another life. The idea is to avoid negative actions. From the Buddhist point of view, everything is karma."
Stone is not the first person to fall foul of a skewed interpretation of karma. The former footballer Glenn Hoddle lost his job as England manager for saying that disabled people were being punished for sins in a previous life. "The karma is working from another lifetime. It is not only people with disabilities. What you sow, you have to reap."
Stone and Hoddle may have thinking of Hindu karma, which is different to the Buddhist one. In the Hindu tradition, broadly speaking, beneficial effects are the result of beneficial actions and negative effects are the fruit of negative actions. Riazat Butt
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
A hippie to a buddhist monk
An American monk in Charleston Buddhist went from hippie life to spiritual awakening
Bill Lynch
1045 words
4 April 2008
Charleston Gazette
P1D
English
(Copyright 2008)
lynch@wvgazette.com
Over the telephone, Buddhist monk Bhante Yogavacara Rahula sounds a little like a stranger in a strange land. There's a faint accent that suggests he learned English later in life and, of course, there's his name.
Bhante means "venerable sir," and is the polite way to address a Theravedan Buddhist monk. Rahula is a common name in India and Nepal and refers to the historical Buddha's only son. He is not, however, a stranger in a strange land.
Bhante Rahula was born Scott Joseph Duprez in 1948. He grew up in California, attending a Methodist church with his parents. His first Buddha statue decorated the top of an old television set. He used to hang a hat on it.
He went to junior college, smoked marijuana, then joined the military. After his tour in Vietnam, he wore his hair long, grew a beard, chased girls and did just about any drug he could get his hands on.
"Sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll," said the monk, who visits Charleston today through Sunday to give several public presentations.
Bhante Rahula's story of how he went from typical hippie to clear-headed Buddhist monk is chronicled in his book, "One Night's Shelter: Autobiography of an American Monk." Two versions of the book exist. There's the "green" version, which catalogs his extensive drug use and sexual escapades. It details his time as a drug dealer, mentions his time in the Army stockade for being AWOL, as well as his arrest and detainment in an Afghan prison after trying to smuggle drugs into India.
"That's the toned-down version," said the 59 year-old monk, laughing. "The other version is much juicier. More sex, more drugs, more rock 'n' roll."
Bhante Rahula doesn't celebrate who he was in the 1960s, but he's not afraid of it. He's at peace with it. If not for the constant craving for chemically induced experiences, he might not have found his way to the dharma, the teachings of the Buddha. Wishing now to have been different then is pointless.
"It's all just grist for the mill," he said. "Taking all of those drugs. I didn't know any alternative."
He acknowledges that he got off pretty easy. He made it out alive.
Becoming a Buddhist, then a monk started with his craving. He was always on the lookout for the next high, the next profound experience. While he was traveling in the mountains of Asia, he heard about a meditation course in Katmandu. He went looking for another experience, but stayed for the enlightenment.
"That was the turnaround for me," he said. "I had this very deep insight, and I just wanted to pursue meditation and the dharma."
It didn't happen overnight, but in 1975, he was ordained as a monk in Sri Lanka. He lived in caves and huts, avoiding wild animals and poisonous snakes. He meditated to train his mind to shed fears and to focus his attention.
In 1985, Bhante Rahula heard about another monk's plans to build a Therevadan Buddhist monastery in the hills of West Virginia. He saw it as an opportunity to come back to the United States and bring some of what he'd learned.
He wrote to the monk, an internationally known meditation teacher named Bhante Gunaratana, who told him he should come. Rahula began to help build the monastery in 1987 on a plot of land in the Hampshire County backwoods.
Life at the Bhavana Society Forest Monastery near Wardensville is not entirely different from the simple life he lived in Sri Lanka. He continues to live in a small hut - called a 'kuti' - without electricity or running water (the main hall does have both).
He meditates, studies the Buddhist Sutras and books related to Buddhist thought and helps lead meditation retreats to people who come from around the world to Bhavana.
"We study and read some of the contemporary readings," Bhante Rahula said. "How science is relating to dharma teachings and Buddhism. We could read other things, I suppose, but I do not. We don't want to fill our minds with anything not on the dharma."
Occasionally, he does read a little about hiking in the Himalayas. He's been to Mount Everest several times with friends and gotten as far as the Everest base camp. "I do it mainly for the exercise, but also to push the envelope of discomfort."
He hikes some in the United States and usually takes a camping trip to Dolly Sods about once a year.
Bhante Rahula isn't the only American-born Buddhist monk. He wasn't even the first. Although he stops short of calling the vocation rare in this country, he agrees there aren't many.
"There are perhaps several hundred," he said. "Some stay with it, as I have. Others dabble with it for a few years."
Living in the United States again, Bhante Rahula is better able to keep in contact with his family and a few old friends. He visits his mother in California, where he also sees his brother and sister. His sister is a fundamentalist Christian, he says, and visits with her used to be tense.
"She's mellowed out, and I think she accepts what I am and what I do."
Living at the monastery affords him more opportunities to travel. Groups from different parts of the country and around the world sometimes invite him to visit with them and lead retreats.
The Meditation Circle of Charleston has been host for Bhante Rahula's visits in Charleston a few times, including a visit this weekend at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship Building. The visit will include talks about meditation, Buddhism and a slideshow of his spiritual trekking in the Himalayans.
He believes meditation is helpful for anyone, regardless of their particular spiritual path. Meditation helps people draw on resources they aren't even aware they have.
"It's a way to develop the mind," he said. "It can help you develop acceptance, patience, loving kindness toward others and deal with life on a more even keel."
Bill Lynch
1045 words
4 April 2008
Charleston Gazette
P1D
English
(Copyright 2008)
lynch@wvgazette.com
Over the telephone, Buddhist monk Bhante Yogavacara Rahula sounds a little like a stranger in a strange land. There's a faint accent that suggests he learned English later in life and, of course, there's his name.
Bhante means "venerable sir," and is the polite way to address a Theravedan Buddhist monk. Rahula is a common name in India and Nepal and refers to the historical Buddha's only son. He is not, however, a stranger in a strange land.
Bhante Rahula was born Scott Joseph Duprez in 1948. He grew up in California, attending a Methodist church with his parents. His first Buddha statue decorated the top of an old television set. He used to hang a hat on it.
He went to junior college, smoked marijuana, then joined the military. After his tour in Vietnam, he wore his hair long, grew a beard, chased girls and did just about any drug he could get his hands on.
"Sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll," said the monk, who visits Charleston today through Sunday to give several public presentations.
Bhante Rahula's story of how he went from typical hippie to clear-headed Buddhist monk is chronicled in his book, "One Night's Shelter: Autobiography of an American Monk." Two versions of the book exist. There's the "green" version, which catalogs his extensive drug use and sexual escapades. It details his time as a drug dealer, mentions his time in the Army stockade for being AWOL, as well as his arrest and detainment in an Afghan prison after trying to smuggle drugs into India.
"That's the toned-down version," said the 59 year-old monk, laughing. "The other version is much juicier. More sex, more drugs, more rock 'n' roll."
Bhante Rahula doesn't celebrate who he was in the 1960s, but he's not afraid of it. He's at peace with it. If not for the constant craving for chemically induced experiences, he might not have found his way to the dharma, the teachings of the Buddha. Wishing now to have been different then is pointless.
"It's all just grist for the mill," he said. "Taking all of those drugs. I didn't know any alternative."
He acknowledges that he got off pretty easy. He made it out alive.
Becoming a Buddhist, then a monk started with his craving. He was always on the lookout for the next high, the next profound experience. While he was traveling in the mountains of Asia, he heard about a meditation course in Katmandu. He went looking for another experience, but stayed for the enlightenment.
"That was the turnaround for me," he said. "I had this very deep insight, and I just wanted to pursue meditation and the dharma."
It didn't happen overnight, but in 1975, he was ordained as a monk in Sri Lanka. He lived in caves and huts, avoiding wild animals and poisonous snakes. He meditated to train his mind to shed fears and to focus his attention.
In 1985, Bhante Rahula heard about another monk's plans to build a Therevadan Buddhist monastery in the hills of West Virginia. He saw it as an opportunity to come back to the United States and bring some of what he'd learned.
He wrote to the monk, an internationally known meditation teacher named Bhante Gunaratana, who told him he should come. Rahula began to help build the monastery in 1987 on a plot of land in the Hampshire County backwoods.
Life at the Bhavana Society Forest Monastery near Wardensville is not entirely different from the simple life he lived in Sri Lanka. He continues to live in a small hut - called a 'kuti' - without electricity or running water (the main hall does have both).
He meditates, studies the Buddhist Sutras and books related to Buddhist thought and helps lead meditation retreats to people who come from around the world to Bhavana.
"We study and read some of the contemporary readings," Bhante Rahula said. "How science is relating to dharma teachings and Buddhism. We could read other things, I suppose, but I do not. We don't want to fill our minds with anything not on the dharma."
Occasionally, he does read a little about hiking in the Himalayas. He's been to Mount Everest several times with friends and gotten as far as the Everest base camp. "I do it mainly for the exercise, but also to push the envelope of discomfort."
He hikes some in the United States and usually takes a camping trip to Dolly Sods about once a year.
Bhante Rahula isn't the only American-born Buddhist monk. He wasn't even the first. Although he stops short of calling the vocation rare in this country, he agrees there aren't many.
"There are perhaps several hundred," he said. "Some stay with it, as I have. Others dabble with it for a few years."
Living in the United States again, Bhante Rahula is better able to keep in contact with his family and a few old friends. He visits his mother in California, where he also sees his brother and sister. His sister is a fundamentalist Christian, he says, and visits with her used to be tense.
"She's mellowed out, and I think she accepts what I am and what I do."
Living at the monastery affords him more opportunities to travel. Groups from different parts of the country and around the world sometimes invite him to visit with them and lead retreats.
The Meditation Circle of Charleston has been host for Bhante Rahula's visits in Charleston a few times, including a visit this weekend at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship Building. The visit will include talks about meditation, Buddhism and a slideshow of his spiritual trekking in the Himalayans.
He believes meditation is helpful for anyone, regardless of their particular spiritual path. Meditation helps people draw on resources they aren't even aware they have.
"It's a way to develop the mind," he said. "It can help you develop acceptance, patience, loving kindness toward others and deal with life on a more even keel."
Deepak on spiritual healing
Religion
Deepak Chopra provides different take on Jesus ; Best-selling author looks at Jesus as a spiritual guide whose teachings embraces all humanity
Tania Fuentez / The Associated Press
803 words
5 April 2008
The Grand Rapids Press
All Editions
C6
English
© 2008 Grand Rapids Press. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights reserved.
NEW YORK -- Before he became known for promoting holistic health and spirituality, Deepak Chopra adhered to traditional Western medicine as an endocrinologist in Boston. He eventually questioned this approach, returning to the centuries-old Indian system of Ayurveda to find a balance between faith and science.
"I wanted to extend my idea of healing," Chopra said in a recent interview. "If you don't understand spiritual experience, you'll never understand healing."
Now, at 61, the physician and best-selling author hopes to extend conventional thought again -- even more controversially -- in "The Third Jesus: The Christ We Cannot Ignore" (Harmony Books). Chopra challenges Christian doctrine while presenting an alternative: Jesus as a state of mind, rather than the historical rabbi of Nazareth or son of God.
The third perspective -- which Chopra calls "a cosmic Christ" -- looks at Jesus as a spiritual guide whose teaching embraces all humanity, not just the church built in his name. Chopra argues that Christ speaks to the individual who wants to find God as a personal experience.
"I said to myself, 'Why not write a book that takes Jesus' teachings -- and it doesn't matter if you're Christian or not -- and learn from this and improve your life,"' he said at the Chopra Center and Spa in midtown Manhattan.
Fascinated with Jesus' life
Considered a pioneer of mind-body alternative medicine, Chopra is president of the Alliance for a New Humanity and he has been listed among Time magazine's top 100 heroes and icons of the 20th century. His books have been translated into dozens of languages, with topics that range from aging and sexuality to golf and Buddha's path to enlightenment. In 1995, he co-founded the Chopra Center for Wellbeing with Dr. David Simon, which officially opened the following year.
Fascination with Jesus' life began during his lessons while attending a Roman Catholic school in India, Chopra said. Though his parents were from Hindu and Sikh families, "if you were relatively affluent, education was always in the Christian school because of the missionaries."
He moved to the United States in 1970 after graduating from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences. Chopra did his internship in New Jersey, and residency and fellowship at various institutions including Boston, Tufts and Harvard universities. He also was chief of staff at Boston Regional Medical Center for two years.
His interest in Hinduism and medicine evolved while observing a mind-body connection in his research, and an encounter in 1985 with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi at a conference in Washington, D.C.
"I first leaned toward Ayurveda medicine and then actually went on to study other wisdom traditions of the world ... this happened during my training in neuro endocrinology where I saw what happened in consciousness in biology," Chopra explained.
"I was just extending my understanding of healing from physical to mental to social to environmental," he said. "That's what the 'Alliance' is all about ... healing the body politic, healing the world."
Chopra devotes substantial time to his own spiritual development. He meditates and exercises daily, though he occasionally enjoys a triple hazelnut latte.
25 years in the making
During the interview, Chopra switches his Blackberry, covered in an orange case, to vibrate as he speaks on faith, politics and a list of projects like a new comic book launched with his son and Sir Richard Branson. The in-demand speaker is at ease quoting Scripture or talking quantum physics. He has studied the Bible closely, reading it hundreds of times.
Though "The Third Jesus" was on his mind for 25 years, it took him six months to complete once he began writing. The next book will be a fictional account of Jesus' missing years.
"Where else do you read a story of the Son of God being executed by their own?" he said. "It is dramatic. It's three years of his teaching and it has shaped the world for 2000 years."
In a review, Harvey Cox, Hollis professor of divinity at Harvard, said "The Third Christ" is "bound to provoke both admiration and condemnation." Chopra references the New Testament and Gnostic Gospels to deconstruct church doctrine and conservative Christianity on issues such as war, abortion and homophobia.
"I see blogs every day that are negative and very nasty because this is not a literalist interpretation of Jesus," Chopra said. "My book is about Jesus as a state of consciousness. If I can aspire -- maybe not achieve -- but aspire to be in that state of mind and if a lot of people were aspiring to be in that state of mind this would be a better world."
Deepak Chopra provides different take on Jesus ; Best-selling author looks at Jesus as a spiritual guide whose teachings embraces all humanity
Tania Fuentez / The Associated Press
803 words
5 April 2008
The Grand Rapids Press
All Editions
C6
English
© 2008 Grand Rapids Press. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights reserved.
NEW YORK -- Before he became known for promoting holistic health and spirituality, Deepak Chopra adhered to traditional Western medicine as an endocrinologist in Boston. He eventually questioned this approach, returning to the centuries-old Indian system of Ayurveda to find a balance between faith and science.
"I wanted to extend my idea of healing," Chopra said in a recent interview. "If you don't understand spiritual experience, you'll never understand healing."
Now, at 61, the physician and best-selling author hopes to extend conventional thought again -- even more controversially -- in "The Third Jesus: The Christ We Cannot Ignore" (Harmony Books). Chopra challenges Christian doctrine while presenting an alternative: Jesus as a state of mind, rather than the historical rabbi of Nazareth or son of God.
The third perspective -- which Chopra calls "a cosmic Christ" -- looks at Jesus as a spiritual guide whose teaching embraces all humanity, not just the church built in his name. Chopra argues that Christ speaks to the individual who wants to find God as a personal experience.
"I said to myself, 'Why not write a book that takes Jesus' teachings -- and it doesn't matter if you're Christian or not -- and learn from this and improve your life,"' he said at the Chopra Center and Spa in midtown Manhattan.
Fascinated with Jesus' life
Considered a pioneer of mind-body alternative medicine, Chopra is president of the Alliance for a New Humanity and he has been listed among Time magazine's top 100 heroes and icons of the 20th century. His books have been translated into dozens of languages, with topics that range from aging and sexuality to golf and Buddha's path to enlightenment. In 1995, he co-founded the Chopra Center for Wellbeing with Dr. David Simon, which officially opened the following year.
Fascination with Jesus' life began during his lessons while attending a Roman Catholic school in India, Chopra said. Though his parents were from Hindu and Sikh families, "if you were relatively affluent, education was always in the Christian school because of the missionaries."
He moved to the United States in 1970 after graduating from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences. Chopra did his internship in New Jersey, and residency and fellowship at various institutions including Boston, Tufts and Harvard universities. He also was chief of staff at Boston Regional Medical Center for two years.
His interest in Hinduism and medicine evolved while observing a mind-body connection in his research, and an encounter in 1985 with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi at a conference in Washington, D.C.
"I first leaned toward Ayurveda medicine and then actually went on to study other wisdom traditions of the world ... this happened during my training in neuro endocrinology where I saw what happened in consciousness in biology," Chopra explained.
"I was just extending my understanding of healing from physical to mental to social to environmental," he said. "That's what the 'Alliance' is all about ... healing the body politic, healing the world."
Chopra devotes substantial time to his own spiritual development. He meditates and exercises daily, though he occasionally enjoys a triple hazelnut latte.
25 years in the making
During the interview, Chopra switches his Blackberry, covered in an orange case, to vibrate as he speaks on faith, politics and a list of projects like a new comic book launched with his son and Sir Richard Branson. The in-demand speaker is at ease quoting Scripture or talking quantum physics. He has studied the Bible closely, reading it hundreds of times.
Though "The Third Jesus" was on his mind for 25 years, it took him six months to complete once he began writing. The next book will be a fictional account of Jesus' missing years.
"Where else do you read a story of the Son of God being executed by their own?" he said. "It is dramatic. It's three years of his teaching and it has shaped the world for 2000 years."
In a review, Harvey Cox, Hollis professor of divinity at Harvard, said "The Third Christ" is "bound to provoke both admiration and condemnation." Chopra references the New Testament and Gnostic Gospels to deconstruct church doctrine and conservative Christianity on issues such as war, abortion and homophobia.
"I see blogs every day that are negative and very nasty because this is not a literalist interpretation of Jesus," Chopra said. "My book is about Jesus as a state of consciousness. If I can aspire -- maybe not achieve -- but aspire to be in that state of mind and if a lot of people were aspiring to be in that state of mind this would be a better world."
The next Dalai Lama?
Opinion
Tibetan Buddhism's next leader? After the Dalai Lama
By Barbara Crossette
The New York Times Media Group
776 words
8 April 2008
International Herald Tribune
1
6
English
© 2008 The New York Times Company. All Rights Reserved.
The recent outburst of Tibetan rage against the Chinese government not only demonstrated once again the fear and anger among Himalayan Buddhists living under the cultural insensitivity of Beijing, it also illuminated the crucial role of the Dalai Lama, navigating skillfully between restive Tibetan exiles and an Indian government under Chinese pressures to stifle their protests. What will happen when he is gone?
The West is about to get its first glimpse of that possible future.
In mid-May, a serious young man of 22 who is revered as the 17th Karmapa - now the second-most-important figure in Tibetan Buddhism - will make his first visit to the United States. The trip comes eight years after his dramatic flight to India from a monastery near Lhasa at the end of 1999, when he was just 14 years old. This is the first time that a skittish India has allowed him permission to travel abroad. His flight from Tibet was a considerable embarrassment to China.
The Karmapa Lama, spiritual head of the Kagyu order of Tibetan Buddhism, is now the only major Tibetan lama recognized as a reincarnation of his lineage by both the Dalai Lama and the Chinese government since it overran Tibet in the 1950s. The Panchen Lama, the third of a triumvirate and previously the second-highest ranking among the three lamas, vanished into Chinese custody as a boy in 1995 and has been replaced by Beijing's own political appointee.
In a thriller that is already a legend among Buddhists, the Karmapa and two fellow monks drove in secret from Tsurphu Monastery, north of Lhasa, to the remote and rugged border of Mustang, a former Buddhist kingdom now part of Nepal. From there he and his companions made a dash by horseback to the nearest Nepali airport, from which they were able to fly unnoticed via Katmandu to Delhi. The Karmapa, born Ogyen Trinley Dorji, arrived unannounced in Dharamsala, the Dalai Lama's base, in January 2000, and has remained under the watchful eye of the Tibetan leader since.
Because of fears in the United States that India, bowing to Chinese pressure, will prevent this trip abroad at the last moment, the Karmapa's visit is expected to be low-keyed and not political. His comment on a pre-trip video that ''The United States is one of the world's most powerful countries'' has been excised from an online transcription of his remarks, which dwell instead on his hope of meeting ''many American friends.'' The trip was planned before the protests in Tibet.
This is a significant milestone for Tibetan Buddhists and a momentous one for Western practitioners. The young lama's predecessor, the 16th Karmapa, visited the United States on numerous occasions and had established in the 1980s a part-time American seat in Woodstock, New York, at the Karma Triyana Dharmachakra center. After the young Karmapa's flight from Tibet, the Woodstock monastery immediately geared up to welcome him, even designing furniture to match his sturdy frame. Then they waited, and waited and waited. He will now finally get to see their work. The Karmapa's American followers would like to have him establish his base in the United States, making him the first Asian religious leader of that magnitude to live in the West.
The Karmapa could serve as a possible unofficial, transitional successor to the Dalai Lama, who is now in his 70s. Because the Karmapa leads a different order of Tibetan Buddhism - the Dalai Lama is a Gelugpa monk - the young Karmapa cannot inherit his title. A future reincarnate to that position has yet to be born after the Dalai Lama's death.
The young Karmapa, who is described by those who have met him as a serious, even stern, young man, is also recognized as a compelling religious teacher and budding literary scholar, even without the Dalai Lama's magnetic charm and sense of humor. The Karmapa could well be the stopgap spiritual leader Tibetan exiles will someday need to hold together their fragmented diaspora, while at the same time assuming a larger role as a religious teacher for Buddhists of all nationalities and schools.
For the moment, these two Tibetan leaders are a complementary pair, the wise older man and the vigorous young lama who now has the chance to show the wider world if he can muster a universal appeal.
Barbara Crossette, a former New York Times correspondent in Asia, is the author of ''So Close to Heaven: The Vanishing Buddhist Kingdoms of the Himalayas.''
Tibetan Buddhism's next leader? After the Dalai Lama
By Barbara Crossette
The New York Times Media Group
776 words
8 April 2008
International Herald Tribune
1
6
English
© 2008 The New York Times Company. All Rights Reserved.
The recent outburst of Tibetan rage against the Chinese government not only demonstrated once again the fear and anger among Himalayan Buddhists living under the cultural insensitivity of Beijing, it also illuminated the crucial role of the Dalai Lama, navigating skillfully between restive Tibetan exiles and an Indian government under Chinese pressures to stifle their protests. What will happen when he is gone?
The West is about to get its first glimpse of that possible future.
In mid-May, a serious young man of 22 who is revered as the 17th Karmapa - now the second-most-important figure in Tibetan Buddhism - will make his first visit to the United States. The trip comes eight years after his dramatic flight to India from a monastery near Lhasa at the end of 1999, when he was just 14 years old. This is the first time that a skittish India has allowed him permission to travel abroad. His flight from Tibet was a considerable embarrassment to China.
The Karmapa Lama, spiritual head of the Kagyu order of Tibetan Buddhism, is now the only major Tibetan lama recognized as a reincarnation of his lineage by both the Dalai Lama and the Chinese government since it overran Tibet in the 1950s. The Panchen Lama, the third of a triumvirate and previously the second-highest ranking among the three lamas, vanished into Chinese custody as a boy in 1995 and has been replaced by Beijing's own political appointee.
In a thriller that is already a legend among Buddhists, the Karmapa and two fellow monks drove in secret from Tsurphu Monastery, north of Lhasa, to the remote and rugged border of Mustang, a former Buddhist kingdom now part of Nepal. From there he and his companions made a dash by horseback to the nearest Nepali airport, from which they were able to fly unnoticed via Katmandu to Delhi. The Karmapa, born Ogyen Trinley Dorji, arrived unannounced in Dharamsala, the Dalai Lama's base, in January 2000, and has remained under the watchful eye of the Tibetan leader since.
Because of fears in the United States that India, bowing to Chinese pressure, will prevent this trip abroad at the last moment, the Karmapa's visit is expected to be low-keyed and not political. His comment on a pre-trip video that ''The United States is one of the world's most powerful countries'' has been excised from an online transcription of his remarks, which dwell instead on his hope of meeting ''many American friends.'' The trip was planned before the protests in Tibet.
This is a significant milestone for Tibetan Buddhists and a momentous one for Western practitioners. The young lama's predecessor, the 16th Karmapa, visited the United States on numerous occasions and had established in the 1980s a part-time American seat in Woodstock, New York, at the Karma Triyana Dharmachakra center. After the young Karmapa's flight from Tibet, the Woodstock monastery immediately geared up to welcome him, even designing furniture to match his sturdy frame. Then they waited, and waited and waited. He will now finally get to see their work. The Karmapa's American followers would like to have him establish his base in the United States, making him the first Asian religious leader of that magnitude to live in the West.
The Karmapa could serve as a possible unofficial, transitional successor to the Dalai Lama, who is now in his 70s. Because the Karmapa leads a different order of Tibetan Buddhism - the Dalai Lama is a Gelugpa monk - the young Karmapa cannot inherit his title. A future reincarnate to that position has yet to be born after the Dalai Lama's death.
The young Karmapa, who is described by those who have met him as a serious, even stern, young man, is also recognized as a compelling religious teacher and budding literary scholar, even without the Dalai Lama's magnetic charm and sense of humor. The Karmapa could well be the stopgap spiritual leader Tibetan exiles will someday need to hold together their fragmented diaspora, while at the same time assuming a larger role as a religious teacher for Buddhists of all nationalities and schools.
For the moment, these two Tibetan leaders are a complementary pair, the wise older man and the vigorous young lama who now has the chance to show the wider world if he can muster a universal appeal.
Barbara Crossette, a former New York Times correspondent in Asia, is the author of ''So Close to Heaven: The Vanishing Buddhist Kingdoms of the Himalayas.''
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Outstanding women buddhist awards
OUTLOOK
Outstanding Women in Buddhism awards; Twenty women from around the world will be recognised on Thursday for their achievements
1446 words
4 March 2008
Bangkok Post
O3
English
(c) 2008
Celebrity forensic expert Khunying Dr Porntip Rojanasunan, human rights activist Tuenjai Deetes and writer Orasom Sutisakorn are among eight Thai women to be honoured with Outstanding Women in Buddhism Awards.
The other Thai awardees are Bhikkhuni Silananda, Sikkhamat Phussadi, Maechee Pimjai Maneerat, Maechee Waree Chuethasanaprasit and nurse Angoon Wongcharoen.
They are among 20 awardees from various countries who will be honoured at the award presentation ceremony on Thursday.
Among them are: Bhikkhuni Mudita and Sylvia Wetzel from Germany; Nobuko Ono from Japan; Bhikkhuni Dr Myung Sung Sunim from Korea; Bhikkhuni Sik Jian Yin, Bhikkhuni Sik Wei Chun and Dr Li Hua Yang from Taiwan; Bhiksuni Pema Chodron, Jacqueline Kramer, Reverend Beth Kanji Goldring and Reverend Patricia Dai-En Bennage from the US; and Ajahn Anandabodhi from the UK.
Organised by the Outstanding Women in Buddhism Award Committee, the ceremony will take place at the Association for the Promotion of the Status of Women in Don Muang, from 8am to 4pm.
Here is the full list of awardees:
- Ajahn Anandabodhi, from the UK
Born in Wales, in 1968, she worked in environmental conservation before taking a Siladhara ordination in 1995 at Amaravati Buddhist Monastery in Hemel Hempstead. Ajahn Anandabodhi is establishing a women's monastic centre in California.
- Angoon Wongcharoen, from Thailand
Inspired by the Bhodhisattva ethics as a Thai-Chinese, nurse Angoon Wongcharoen of the Thai Red Cross has dedicated herself for 16 years in disaster management and in assisting victims of natural disasters, including the Thai Red Cross response to the tsunami disaster of 2004. Her compassion has touched many hearts.
- Bhikkhuni Mudita, from Germany
Bhikkhuni Mudita worked as a school teacher for blind and deaf children and as a counsellor for troubled boys and sexually abused girls before being ordained. She has co-founded an interfaith community of social engagement. Focusing on spiritual healing, she has led three meditation retreats at the memorial of the World War Two Women's Concentration Camp Ravenbruck in Germany. She founded the Anenja Vihara Monastery for women in 2006.
- Bhikkhuni Silananda, from Thailand
Born in Bangkok, in 1972, she had many years of spiritual practice with various meditation teachers. Despite the strong resistance of the Thai clergy to female ordination, she decided to ordain as Bhikkhuni in 2006. She is currently studying for a master's degree at the International Buddhist College in Songkla.
- Venerable Dr Myung Sung, from Korea
Dedicated to the education of women, Ven Dr Myung Sung is Dean of Unmun Sangha College and Unmun Sangha Graduate School Cheongdo, South Korea. As an inspiration to Korean nuns and lay women Buddhists, she is currently president of the National Bhikkhuni Association of Korean Buddhism Jogye Order. She also contributed to the succession of the Bhikkhuni lineage by serving as a preceptor at ordination ceremonies in Korea.
- Bhikkhuni Pema Chodron, from the US
Born Deirdre Blomfield-Brown in New York, in 1936, she became a novice nun in Tibetan Buddhism in 1974. She received the full Bhikkhuni ordination in the Chinese lineage of Buddhism in 1981 in Hong Kong.
She was director of Karma Dzong in Boulder, Colorado, before serving as director of Gampo Abbey. Currently teaching in the US and Canada, her books include The Wisdom of No Escape; Start Where You Are; When Things Fall Apart; The Places That Scare You; No Time to Lose; and Practicing Peace in Times of War.
- Bhikkhuni Sik Jian Yin, from Taiwan
Born in 1960, she holds the post of abbess at the Zhi Cheng Monastery in Ping Tung. She offers dharma outreach, various social services while supporting cultural activities and the arts. Her dharma teachings and services have won her many awards in Taiwan.
- Bhiksuni Sik Wei Chun, from Taiwan
She founded the Daksinavana Bhiksuni Sangha Ashram (Yuchih), the Dakinava Temple (Kuoshing), the Dakinava Buddhist Cultural Society (Canada) and the the Daksinavana Institute of Buddhist Studies (1993) to provide places for nuns and upasikas to learn, practice and to be ordained. She is also active in social welfare, education and disaster relief.
- Dr Khunying Porntip Rojanasunan, from Thailand
Dr Khunying Porntip Rojanasunan is the acting director of the Ministry of Justice's Department of Forensic Science. She is highly respected for her courage in pursuing truth and justice in the face of a corrupt police system. She was also among the key figures in Thailand's relief efforts during the 2004 tsunami disaster.
- Dr Li Hua Yang, from Taiwan
As a dharma teacher, psychiatrist and acupuncturist Dr Li Hua Yang's dedication to community service has earned her the title Humanistic Bodhisattva. In addition to focusing on children, youth and people deeply locked in suffering such as prisoners, she is also active in palliative care.
- Jacqueline Kramer, from the US
Jacqueline Kramer has been studying and practicing Theravada Buddhism for 30 years. She is the author of Buddha Mum: The Path of Mindful Mothering and 10 Spiritual Practices for Busy Parents.
She has also developed online lay Buddhist practice classes on subjects ranging from relationships, illnesses, death and dying. The Hearth Foundation was created to house these classes and to create a spiritual community for mothers interested in developing a Buddhist family lifestyle in the West.
- Maechee Pimjai Maneerat, from Thailand
She is director of a residential educational project that assists poor ethnic children in Kanchanaburi province. Many of them are stateless. Despite obstacles and a lack of resources, she is determined to give the children dharma and proper education.
- Maechee Waree Chuethasanaprasit, from Thailand
As a leader of the nuns' movement in Thailand, Maechee Waree Chuethasanaprasit has empowered countless women to become dharma teachers, social workers, and to stand on their own financially through self-initiated projects. She has established a national network of laywomen, and began empowering ordained women leaders one-by-one. Her personal dharma teachings have met the needs of women, at-risk youths, young people in prison, people living with HIV/Aids and drug addicts.
- Nobuko Ono, from Japan
As head of the Amagase Community Centre, she has been active in deep-listening counselling and other community services. She is a living example of a life of service a lay person can live through deep-listening counselling.
- Orasom Sutisakorn, from Thailand
Orason Sutisakorn has written more than 30 books on social issues related to children, women and family violence. Her writing bears witness to suffering, gives a voice to those silenced, and offers a reflection in hope for a better tomorrow. Her books include Rust Flowers: The True Lives of Women in the Dark Corners of Thai Society, Child Criminal? and Youth of the X Generation.
- Reverend Beth Kanji Goldring, from the US
She founded the Brahmavihara/Cambodia Aids Project in 2000 to meet the spiritual and emotional needs of destitute Aids patients in Cambodia. Since then the project has grown to include not only spiritual and emotional support, but also social services and some material needs. The staff of nine, including her, work with some 200 patients in their homes, in hospices and in hospitals. Its web site is http://www.brahmavihara . cambodiaaidsproject.org/.
- Reverend Patricia Dai-En Bennage, from the US
Trained in Zen Buddhism, she is Abbess of Mt Equity Zendo, Jihoji in Pennsdale, Pennsylvania. Apart from teaching meditation to women in prisons and colleges, Rev Patricia also translated female meditation master Roshi Aoyama's book Zen Seeds into English.
- Senator Tuenjai Kunchon na Ayutthaya Deetes, from Thailand
A former teacher of hill-tribe children, Tuenjai is a strong advocate of environmental conservation, human rights and the community's right to manage its own natural resources. As a senator, she has had a hand in many laws benefiting women and the needy. She draws inner strength in the face of obstacles from meditation.
- Sikkhamat Phussadi, from Thailand
Highly respected as a meditation master, she is the first 10 precept nun of the Santi Asoke community. At the age of 83, she still teaches dharma and gives counselling three days a week. She has written three books, The Principles of Practicing Oneself for Purity, The Path for Life, and Blessings and Errors That Can Be Seen in This Life.
- Sylvia Wetzel, from Germany
Sylvia Wetzel is at the forefront of Buddhism in Europe and offers reflections on gender issues and cultural conditioning. She is also one of the key figures in setting up the Women Dharma Teacher's Peer Group, the network of Buddhist centres in Berlin and Brandenburg and the Buddhist Academy in Berlin. She has also contributed to the introduction of Buddhism to the curriculums of schools in Berlin.
Outstanding Women in Buddhism awards; Twenty women from around the world will be recognised on Thursday for their achievements
1446 words
4 March 2008
Bangkok Post
O3
English
(c) 2008
Celebrity forensic expert Khunying Dr Porntip Rojanasunan, human rights activist Tuenjai Deetes and writer Orasom Sutisakorn are among eight Thai women to be honoured with Outstanding Women in Buddhism Awards.
The other Thai awardees are Bhikkhuni Silananda, Sikkhamat Phussadi, Maechee Pimjai Maneerat, Maechee Waree Chuethasanaprasit and nurse Angoon Wongcharoen.
They are among 20 awardees from various countries who will be honoured at the award presentation ceremony on Thursday.
Among them are: Bhikkhuni Mudita and Sylvia Wetzel from Germany; Nobuko Ono from Japan; Bhikkhuni Dr Myung Sung Sunim from Korea; Bhikkhuni Sik Jian Yin, Bhikkhuni Sik Wei Chun and Dr Li Hua Yang from Taiwan; Bhiksuni Pema Chodron, Jacqueline Kramer, Reverend Beth Kanji Goldring and Reverend Patricia Dai-En Bennage from the US; and Ajahn Anandabodhi from the UK.
Organised by the Outstanding Women in Buddhism Award Committee, the ceremony will take place at the Association for the Promotion of the Status of Women in Don Muang, from 8am to 4pm.
Here is the full list of awardees:
- Ajahn Anandabodhi, from the UK
Born in Wales, in 1968, she worked in environmental conservation before taking a Siladhara ordination in 1995 at Amaravati Buddhist Monastery in Hemel Hempstead. Ajahn Anandabodhi is establishing a women's monastic centre in California.
- Angoon Wongcharoen, from Thailand
Inspired by the Bhodhisattva ethics as a Thai-Chinese, nurse Angoon Wongcharoen of the Thai Red Cross has dedicated herself for 16 years in disaster management and in assisting victims of natural disasters, including the Thai Red Cross response to the tsunami disaster of 2004. Her compassion has touched many hearts.
- Bhikkhuni Mudita, from Germany
Bhikkhuni Mudita worked as a school teacher for blind and deaf children and as a counsellor for troubled boys and sexually abused girls before being ordained. She has co-founded an interfaith community of social engagement. Focusing on spiritual healing, she has led three meditation retreats at the memorial of the World War Two Women's Concentration Camp Ravenbruck in Germany. She founded the Anenja Vihara Monastery for women in 2006.
- Bhikkhuni Silananda, from Thailand
Born in Bangkok, in 1972, she had many years of spiritual practice with various meditation teachers. Despite the strong resistance of the Thai clergy to female ordination, she decided to ordain as Bhikkhuni in 2006. She is currently studying for a master's degree at the International Buddhist College in Songkla.
- Venerable Dr Myung Sung, from Korea
Dedicated to the education of women, Ven Dr Myung Sung is Dean of Unmun Sangha College and Unmun Sangha Graduate School Cheongdo, South Korea. As an inspiration to Korean nuns and lay women Buddhists, she is currently president of the National Bhikkhuni Association of Korean Buddhism Jogye Order. She also contributed to the succession of the Bhikkhuni lineage by serving as a preceptor at ordination ceremonies in Korea.
- Bhikkhuni Pema Chodron, from the US
Born Deirdre Blomfield-Brown in New York, in 1936, she became a novice nun in Tibetan Buddhism in 1974. She received the full Bhikkhuni ordination in the Chinese lineage of Buddhism in 1981 in Hong Kong.
She was director of Karma Dzong in Boulder, Colorado, before serving as director of Gampo Abbey. Currently teaching in the US and Canada, her books include The Wisdom of No Escape; Start Where You Are; When Things Fall Apart; The Places That Scare You; No Time to Lose; and Practicing Peace in Times of War.
- Bhikkhuni Sik Jian Yin, from Taiwan
Born in 1960, she holds the post of abbess at the Zhi Cheng Monastery in Ping Tung. She offers dharma outreach, various social services while supporting cultural activities and the arts. Her dharma teachings and services have won her many awards in Taiwan.
- Bhiksuni Sik Wei Chun, from Taiwan
She founded the Daksinavana Bhiksuni Sangha Ashram (Yuchih), the Dakinava Temple (Kuoshing), the Dakinava Buddhist Cultural Society (Canada) and the the Daksinavana Institute of Buddhist Studies (1993) to provide places for nuns and upasikas to learn, practice and to be ordained. She is also active in social welfare, education and disaster relief.
- Dr Khunying Porntip Rojanasunan, from Thailand
Dr Khunying Porntip Rojanasunan is the acting director of the Ministry of Justice's Department of Forensic Science. She is highly respected for her courage in pursuing truth and justice in the face of a corrupt police system. She was also among the key figures in Thailand's relief efforts during the 2004 tsunami disaster.
- Dr Li Hua Yang, from Taiwan
As a dharma teacher, psychiatrist and acupuncturist Dr Li Hua Yang's dedication to community service has earned her the title Humanistic Bodhisattva. In addition to focusing on children, youth and people deeply locked in suffering such as prisoners, she is also active in palliative care.
- Jacqueline Kramer, from the US
Jacqueline Kramer has been studying and practicing Theravada Buddhism for 30 years. She is the author of Buddha Mum: The Path of Mindful Mothering and 10 Spiritual Practices for Busy Parents.
She has also developed online lay Buddhist practice classes on subjects ranging from relationships, illnesses, death and dying. The Hearth Foundation was created to house these classes and to create a spiritual community for mothers interested in developing a Buddhist family lifestyle in the West.
- Maechee Pimjai Maneerat, from Thailand
She is director of a residential educational project that assists poor ethnic children in Kanchanaburi province. Many of them are stateless. Despite obstacles and a lack of resources, she is determined to give the children dharma and proper education.
- Maechee Waree Chuethasanaprasit, from Thailand
As a leader of the nuns' movement in Thailand, Maechee Waree Chuethasanaprasit has empowered countless women to become dharma teachers, social workers, and to stand on their own financially through self-initiated projects. She has established a national network of laywomen, and began empowering ordained women leaders one-by-one. Her personal dharma teachings have met the needs of women, at-risk youths, young people in prison, people living with HIV/Aids and drug addicts.
- Nobuko Ono, from Japan
As head of the Amagase Community Centre, she has been active in deep-listening counselling and other community services. She is a living example of a life of service a lay person can live through deep-listening counselling.
- Orasom Sutisakorn, from Thailand
Orason Sutisakorn has written more than 30 books on social issues related to children, women and family violence. Her writing bears witness to suffering, gives a voice to those silenced, and offers a reflection in hope for a better tomorrow. Her books include Rust Flowers: The True Lives of Women in the Dark Corners of Thai Society, Child Criminal? and Youth of the X Generation.
- Reverend Beth Kanji Goldring, from the US
She founded the Brahmavihara/Cambodia Aids Project in 2000 to meet the spiritual and emotional needs of destitute Aids patients in Cambodia. Since then the project has grown to include not only spiritual and emotional support, but also social services and some material needs. The staff of nine, including her, work with some 200 patients in their homes, in hospices and in hospitals. Its web site is http://www.brahmavihara . cambodiaaidsproject.org/.
- Reverend Patricia Dai-En Bennage, from the US
Trained in Zen Buddhism, she is Abbess of Mt Equity Zendo, Jihoji in Pennsdale, Pennsylvania. Apart from teaching meditation to women in prisons and colleges, Rev Patricia also translated female meditation master Roshi Aoyama's book Zen Seeds into English.
- Senator Tuenjai Kunchon na Ayutthaya Deetes, from Thailand
A former teacher of hill-tribe children, Tuenjai is a strong advocate of environmental conservation, human rights and the community's right to manage its own natural resources. As a senator, she has had a hand in many laws benefiting women and the needy. She draws inner strength in the face of obstacles from meditation.
- Sikkhamat Phussadi, from Thailand
Highly respected as a meditation master, she is the first 10 precept nun of the Santi Asoke community. At the age of 83, she still teaches dharma and gives counselling three days a week. She has written three books, The Principles of Practicing Oneself for Purity, The Path for Life, and Blessings and Errors That Can Be Seen in This Life.
- Sylvia Wetzel, from Germany
Sylvia Wetzel is at the forefront of Buddhism in Europe and offers reflections on gender issues and cultural conditioning. She is also one of the key figures in setting up the Women Dharma Teacher's Peer Group, the network of Buddhist centres in Berlin and Brandenburg and the Buddhist Academy in Berlin. She has also contributed to the introduction of Buddhism to the curriculums of schools in Berlin.
Tribute to Dalai Lama by a music band a big hit in Youtube
Dalai Lama tribute big hit on You Tube
284 words
3 March 2008
Morpeth Herald
English
© 2008 Johnston Publishing Limited
A NORTHUMBRIAN rock band's tribute song has become a huge hit on the video sharing site 'You Tube'.
The film for the song 'Dalai Lama' by The Age ? a tribute to the man who has lived in exile following his flight from Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1949 ? was filmed in India at Dharamsala where he now resides.
It has attracted huge interest across the world from Buddhists and non-Buddhists alike and it is about to chalk up its 50,000th viewing.
The Age's film-maker and song-writer Carl Cape, from Hadston, said the Dalai Lama had thanked him for his "most thoughtful gesture" and for a copy of his album featuring spoken word extracts by the former Tibetan government minister TC Tethong.
He added: "We're not a Buddhist band but the teachings of the Dalai Lama make a lot of sense to The Age and we think a safer, more peaceful world can be achieved right now.
"We also wanted to highlight the destructive stance of some multi-national corporations on green issues like pollution, waste and the incessant use of scarce resources."
The song 'Dalai Lama' was released in 2007 on Chevstar Records as part of a remix of the band's first rock album A Peak Experience which features cult writer Colin Wilson (The Outsider).
Part of the video was footage of Tibetan opera at the Tibetan Institute of the Performing Arts and The Age were grateful to the Tibetan government-in-exile for the use of stock video footage of the Dalai Lama.
For more information about The Age and other Northumberland bands, visit www.chevstar.com .
284 words
3 March 2008
Morpeth Herald
English
© 2008 Johnston Publishing Limited
A NORTHUMBRIAN rock band's tribute song has become a huge hit on the video sharing site 'You Tube'.
The film for the song 'Dalai Lama' by The Age ? a tribute to the man who has lived in exile following his flight from Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1949 ? was filmed in India at Dharamsala where he now resides.
It has attracted huge interest across the world from Buddhists and non-Buddhists alike and it is about to chalk up its 50,000th viewing.
The Age's film-maker and song-writer Carl Cape, from Hadston, said the Dalai Lama had thanked him for his "most thoughtful gesture" and for a copy of his album featuring spoken word extracts by the former Tibetan government minister TC Tethong.
He added: "We're not a Buddhist band but the teachings of the Dalai Lama make a lot of sense to The Age and we think a safer, more peaceful world can be achieved right now.
"We also wanted to highlight the destructive stance of some multi-national corporations on green issues like pollution, waste and the incessant use of scarce resources."
The song 'Dalai Lama' was released in 2007 on Chevstar Records as part of a remix of the band's first rock album A Peak Experience which features cult writer Colin Wilson (The Outsider).
Part of the video was footage of Tibetan opera at the Tibetan Institute of the Performing Arts and The Age were grateful to the Tibetan government-in-exile for the use of stock video footage of the Dalai Lama.
For more information about The Age and other Northumberland bands, visit www.chevstar.com .
Monday, February 11, 2008
Trauma and mindfulness
Trauma and mindfulness
Freelance Writer
766 words
10 February 2008
Winnipeg Free Press
b7
English
All material copyright Winnipeg Free Press, a division of FP Canadian Newspapers Limited Partnership. All rights reserved.
Gerry Kopelow "In this fathom-long body, subject though it is to death and decay, I will show you the beginning and end of the universe." With these words the Buddha introduced "The Four Foundations of Mindfulness," a contemplative method for the investigation of reality that has flourished for some 3,000 years. Seekers rely on the Buddha's techniques to probe the spiritual world in the same way that physicists use electron microscopes to investigate the physical world.
Mindfulness is "non-judgmental awareness of the present moment." Trauma is "a serious injury or wound to the body and/or mind." To most people, the conjoining of these two conditions would be extremely unpleasant, something to avoid or repress.
Some months back I was hit by a car near Steinbach and suffered extreme damage to both lower legs. I was not at all clear if my legs could be saved, but several sessions of skilful surgery put me back together, and 14 weeks after the accident I walked out of the hospital on crutches, two months ahead of schedule, according to my doctors.
I attribute my rapid comeback to the compassionate care of an army of health-care professionals and to the involvement of family and friends, but also to a mental attitude that promoted healing. This attitude was sustained by maintaining "mindfulness," as best I could, from the moment I was struck down, right through all the surgeries and subsequent medical procedures.
If mindfulness is attention to the present moment, then logically there are only two alternate modes of experience: One is reflection on the past, and the other is speculation about the future.
Typically, reflection on the past is fraught with regret, especially if this reflection is triggered by physical injury. Thoughts of "if only" and "why me?" and the constant replay of the traumatic events are natural. Similarly, speculation about the future is often unpleasant: We fear a multitude of possible negative outcomes.
I am a teacher of Buddhist meditation and have been learning how to be "mindful" for 35 years. This work allows me a measure of control of my mental processes, and so I decided to "mindfully" compare the three experiential modes with a view to determining which felt better.
Clearly, lying in a hospital bed in pain and unable to move was, to say the least, unpleasant. But, due to the modern approach to pain management, I had access to narcotics that moderated the physical discomfort. I also had the company of a caring family and supportive friends, and I was the focus of intense medical attention as well. All this existed in the present.
If I allowed my mind to slip into reflection on the past, I relived the accident and the events that led up to it over and over. I experienced continuous grief -- metaphorically speaking -- the non-stop wringing of hands and the gnashing of teeth. These thoughts and feelings triggered a river of scary speculations: anxiety about future physical suffering, the possibility of infection and the loss of my legs, worry about work and money and my family's security, etc.
I quickly abandoned the experiment because the present moment, however difficult it might be, was less unpleasant than the multitude of griefs and anxieties my own mind was capable of generating.
How does all this facilitate healing? The answer lies in the nature of mind. We humans are born helpless. Our great evolutionary advantage is not strength or speed, but adaptability. We are creative entities. This creativity requires a sophisticated brain. Because a complex brain is a big consumer of energy, the fabrication of past and future alternate universes -- populated with life-like people, landscapes, buildings, even weather -- is a resource-intensive endeavour. Rather than engaging in fruitless imaginings, it is better to hold the mind in the present and free up its creative power for more productive activities. In the case of the trauma victim, the most obvious use for this energy is healing.
The body is the repository of four billion years of accumulated biological wisdom, all of which is dedicated to maintaining life as long as possible. Unburdened by the energy drain associated with worry, the body spontaneously sets to work repairing itself. So mindfulness is not just the least unpleasant way to experience trauma, but also the most efficient. And because healing is beautiful to witness, mindfulness practice increases joy at the same time as it diminishes anxiety.
Our fragility is sobering to contemplate, but the intelligence of the body is exhilarating to experience directly.
Freelance Writer
766 words
10 February 2008
Winnipeg Free Press
b7
English
All material copyright Winnipeg Free Press, a division of FP Canadian Newspapers Limited Partnership. All rights reserved.
Gerry Kopelow "In this fathom-long body, subject though it is to death and decay, I will show you the beginning and end of the universe." With these words the Buddha introduced "The Four Foundations of Mindfulness," a contemplative method for the investigation of reality that has flourished for some 3,000 years. Seekers rely on the Buddha's techniques to probe the spiritual world in the same way that physicists use electron microscopes to investigate the physical world.
Mindfulness is "non-judgmental awareness of the present moment." Trauma is "a serious injury or wound to the body and/or mind." To most people, the conjoining of these two conditions would be extremely unpleasant, something to avoid or repress.
Some months back I was hit by a car near Steinbach and suffered extreme damage to both lower legs. I was not at all clear if my legs could be saved, but several sessions of skilful surgery put me back together, and 14 weeks after the accident I walked out of the hospital on crutches, two months ahead of schedule, according to my doctors.
I attribute my rapid comeback to the compassionate care of an army of health-care professionals and to the involvement of family and friends, but also to a mental attitude that promoted healing. This attitude was sustained by maintaining "mindfulness," as best I could, from the moment I was struck down, right through all the surgeries and subsequent medical procedures.
If mindfulness is attention to the present moment, then logically there are only two alternate modes of experience: One is reflection on the past, and the other is speculation about the future.
Typically, reflection on the past is fraught with regret, especially if this reflection is triggered by physical injury. Thoughts of "if only" and "why me?" and the constant replay of the traumatic events are natural. Similarly, speculation about the future is often unpleasant: We fear a multitude of possible negative outcomes.
I am a teacher of Buddhist meditation and have been learning how to be "mindful" for 35 years. This work allows me a measure of control of my mental processes, and so I decided to "mindfully" compare the three experiential modes with a view to determining which felt better.
Clearly, lying in a hospital bed in pain and unable to move was, to say the least, unpleasant. But, due to the modern approach to pain management, I had access to narcotics that moderated the physical discomfort. I also had the company of a caring family and supportive friends, and I was the focus of intense medical attention as well. All this existed in the present.
If I allowed my mind to slip into reflection on the past, I relived the accident and the events that led up to it over and over. I experienced continuous grief -- metaphorically speaking -- the non-stop wringing of hands and the gnashing of teeth. These thoughts and feelings triggered a river of scary speculations: anxiety about future physical suffering, the possibility of infection and the loss of my legs, worry about work and money and my family's security, etc.
I quickly abandoned the experiment because the present moment, however difficult it might be, was less unpleasant than the multitude of griefs and anxieties my own mind was capable of generating.
How does all this facilitate healing? The answer lies in the nature of mind. We humans are born helpless. Our great evolutionary advantage is not strength or speed, but adaptability. We are creative entities. This creativity requires a sophisticated brain. Because a complex brain is a big consumer of energy, the fabrication of past and future alternate universes -- populated with life-like people, landscapes, buildings, even weather -- is a resource-intensive endeavour. Rather than engaging in fruitless imaginings, it is better to hold the mind in the present and free up its creative power for more productive activities. In the case of the trauma victim, the most obvious use for this energy is healing.
The body is the repository of four billion years of accumulated biological wisdom, all of which is dedicated to maintaining life as long as possible. Unburdened by the energy drain associated with worry, the body spontaneously sets to work repairing itself. So mindfulness is not just the least unpleasant way to experience trauma, but also the most efficient. And because healing is beautiful to witness, mindfulness practice increases joy at the same time as it diminishes anxiety.
Our fragility is sobering to contemplate, but the intelligence of the body is exhilarating to experience directly.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Monks' wish came true: mosquito-proof robes
BANGKOK - A THAI fabric designer has unveiled a new line of saffron-coloured robes infused with bug repellent to keep mosquitoes from biting Buddhist monks, a company announced on Wednesday.
The robes, which have been soaked with a herbal bug repellent, will eventually be sold for export to other Buddhist countries around Asia, said Wisan Wanasaksrisakul, managing director of Thai Covenant Co Ltd, which manufactures the garments.
'We have experimented with four kinds of mosquitoes, and when monks wear our robes, the mosquitoes can't detect that their food (human blood) is near,' he said.
The robes cost about 10 per cent more than normal ones, he said, adding that his company hopes to sell them to countries like Myanmar, Sri Lanka and India.
The market for robes for Buddhist monks in Thailand is worth about two billion baht (S$85 million) a year.
Thailand has between 350,000 to 400,000 Buddhist monks at any given time.
Most Thai men are expected to enter the monkhood at least once in their lives. -- AFP
The robes, which have been soaked with a herbal bug repellent, will eventually be sold for export to other Buddhist countries around Asia, said Wisan Wanasaksrisakul, managing director of Thai Covenant Co Ltd, which manufactures the garments.
'We have experimented with four kinds of mosquitoes, and when monks wear our robes, the mosquitoes can't detect that their food (human blood) is near,' he said.
The robes cost about 10 per cent more than normal ones, he said, adding that his company hopes to sell them to countries like Myanmar, Sri Lanka and India.
The market for robes for Buddhist monks in Thailand is worth about two billion baht (S$85 million) a year.
Thailand has between 350,000 to 400,000 Buddhist monks at any given time.
Most Thai men are expected to enter the monkhood at least once in their lives. -- AFP
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Dharma and sub-prime crisis
Crisis of faith looms as Dharma goes on a red-tag sale
R Vaidyanathan
1221 words
29 January 2008
DNA - Daily News & Analysis
English
Copyright 2008. Diligent Media Corporation Ltd.
There's something unholy about the bid to get people to invest on religious lines
After investments in stock market based on Islamic values, investors would now be able to park money in stocks of companies that operate in accordance with the principles of religions like Hinduism and Buddhism, said a recent news item. "Dow Jones Indexes, a leading global index provider, and Dharma Investments, a leading private investment firm, pioneering the development of faith-based investment, have announced the launch of the Dow Jones Dharma Indexes," it said.
The new indexes measure the performance of companies selected according to the value systems and principles of Dharmic religions, especially Hinduism and Buddhism. The Dow Jones Dharma Index series includes the Dow Jones Dharma Global Index, as well as four country indexes for the US, the UK, Japan and India. The indexes are designed to underlie financial products such as exchange-traded funds and other investible products that enable investors to participate in the performance of companies which are compliant with Dharmic religious traditions.
"The Dow Jones Dharma Indexes are the first faith-based indexes created to measure Dharma compliant equities. As faith-based and socially responsible investing continues to grow worldwide, our goal is to provide the investment community with the most comprehensive benchmarks that comply with these principles," said Michael A Petronella, president of Dow Jones Indexes. "The launch of the new Dow Jones Dharma Indexes marks a major step in our effort to further expand our range of faith-based indexes."
"We are honoured to be serving a demand for faith-based investing," said Nitesh Gor, CEO of Dharma Investments. "India and Asia have made remarkable advances economically over the last few years and in parallel we believe that bringing our religious values onto the global stage offers sustainable solutions to the problems facing the world today. The principle of Dharma contains precepts relevant to good conduct, but also the implicit requirement of mindfulness about the sources of wealth - and therefore responsible investing," he added.
The index universe for the Dow Jones Dharma Indexes is defined as the top 5,000 components of the Dow Jones Wilshire Global Total Market Index as measured by float adjusted market capitalisation, and all components in the Dow Jones Wilshire India Index. To be included in the Dow Jones Dharma Indexes, stocks must pass a set of industry, environmental, corporate governance and qualitative screens for Dharmic compliance. Industry screens include unacceptable sectors and business practices.
Environmental screens take account of a company's impact or policies with respect to emissions, climate change and carbon footprint analysis, oil and chemical spills and waste management and recycling. Corporate governance screens comprise the handling of labour relations/ disputes/ discrimination allegations, human rights violations, working conditions/wages. Excluded from the index are companies from sectors that are deemed unacceptable due to the nature of their business activities and operations. Excluded are also companies that have exposure to unacceptable business practices. Some examples of unacceptable sectors are aerospace and defence, brewers, casinos and gaming, pharmaceuticals, tobacco. Some examples for unacceptable business practices are alcohol, adult entertainment, animal testing and genetic modification of agricultural products.
To ensure the quality of the indexes and the integrity of the underlying index methodology, three boards were established to define, build and implement the screening criteria: the Dow Jones Dharma Academic Advisory Committee, the Dow Jones Dharma Supervisory Board and the Dow Jones Dharma Religious Council.
The whole idea looks like a propaganda efforts for the first world in the new world order and it tells what should be appropriate for emerging markets like India. Why Dow Jones never thought of a "Christian" or Jewish index is a puzzle that does not require deep thinking. In the world of Dow, what is good for Christians is automatically good for the world. And of course, Christian sects are not "faith-based "but "rationality-based." Actually Dow should construct a Catholic index and then a Mormon index and a Pentecostal index and then a Baptist index and then a Seventh Day Adventist index and then an Assemble of God index and then a Methodist index and then think of Hindu Dharma.
For Wall Street - which represents the anti-thesis of Dharma - to be talking about a Dharma index is a bit surprising. But, the idea is to tell Hindus how to behave in the financial markets as per the white man's decision. It is in a sense semitising Hinduism.
The fact that non-Dharmic bodies such as Dow Jones in the US and a private profit-oriented company in the UK, both unconnected with lived experience in Dharma, are expected to control the technical aspects such as selection of categories for Index construction, assignment of weights to different categories and constructing the index for industries and enterprises on a proprietory basis is also a cause for great concern
Hinduism has several sampradayas and it talks about Yuga Dharma. It also talks about different stages of a man's existence namely Brahamacharya, Grihastha, Vanaprastha and Sanyas and dharmic behavior is related to the stage of life. The index is a subtle mechanism to deny Hindus and India their rightful place in the emerging economic order. It is atrocious that the entire pharmaceutical industry is excluded as adharma. In that case, the index should exclude Hollywood, with its level of obscenity and for that matter all consumer industries, since Hindu Dharma is not for consumerism as practised in the West.
It is simply an appropriation of the Hindu concepts to put down the growth momentum of India. Already, we find that the white world has appropriated yoga - to the extent I am told I should give $5 if I inhale in California since it has been copyrighted and branded. For exhaling, of course, the fees would go to another agency. The entire Hindu soft power is getting appropriated by the white world - helped by some brown sepoys from India who know not what is happening. Whether it is yoga or meditation or vaastu or ayuerveda or vegetarianism or even reincarnation -everything is appropriated, given a price tag, branded and sold back to gullible Indians. If a white man says that smoking is bad, then it is scientific and if it is told by my grandfather, it's superstitious or irrational.
This colonial mindset is reinforced by this index, which has the audacity to suggest that aero-space and defence are excluded since they are not dharmic activities. If India is hit by a missile, will these Dow Jones peddlers of half truth come and help us? Have they heard about the Bhagavad Gita and Krishna's advice to Arjuna? Why can't they advice Pentagon that Defence is against the Bible?
It looks to me a tool to subordinate Hindu interests to that of preconceived notions of development and growth. It will a dangerous tool in the long term since Wall Street vultures are going to decide about what is dharmic for Hindus. It is a façade to impose WTO and other such agenda on the gullible Indians. Hence India and Hindus should categorically and unambigously and unequivocally reject such efforts to misuse Hinduism by Wall Street business interests.
R Vaidyanathan
1221 words
29 January 2008
DNA - Daily News & Analysis
English
Copyright 2008. Diligent Media Corporation Ltd.
There's something unholy about the bid to get people to invest on religious lines
After investments in stock market based on Islamic values, investors would now be able to park money in stocks of companies that operate in accordance with the principles of religions like Hinduism and Buddhism, said a recent news item. "Dow Jones Indexes, a leading global index provider, and Dharma Investments, a leading private investment firm, pioneering the development of faith-based investment, have announced the launch of the Dow Jones Dharma Indexes," it said.
The new indexes measure the performance of companies selected according to the value systems and principles of Dharmic religions, especially Hinduism and Buddhism. The Dow Jones Dharma Index series includes the Dow Jones Dharma Global Index, as well as four country indexes for the US, the UK, Japan and India. The indexes are designed to underlie financial products such as exchange-traded funds and other investible products that enable investors to participate in the performance of companies which are compliant with Dharmic religious traditions.
"The Dow Jones Dharma Indexes are the first faith-based indexes created to measure Dharma compliant equities. As faith-based and socially responsible investing continues to grow worldwide, our goal is to provide the investment community with the most comprehensive benchmarks that comply with these principles," said Michael A Petronella, president of Dow Jones Indexes. "The launch of the new Dow Jones Dharma Indexes marks a major step in our effort to further expand our range of faith-based indexes."
"We are honoured to be serving a demand for faith-based investing," said Nitesh Gor, CEO of Dharma Investments. "India and Asia have made remarkable advances economically over the last few years and in parallel we believe that bringing our religious values onto the global stage offers sustainable solutions to the problems facing the world today. The principle of Dharma contains precepts relevant to good conduct, but also the implicit requirement of mindfulness about the sources of wealth - and therefore responsible investing," he added.
The index universe for the Dow Jones Dharma Indexes is defined as the top 5,000 components of the Dow Jones Wilshire Global Total Market Index as measured by float adjusted market capitalisation, and all components in the Dow Jones Wilshire India Index. To be included in the Dow Jones Dharma Indexes, stocks must pass a set of industry, environmental, corporate governance and qualitative screens for Dharmic compliance. Industry screens include unacceptable sectors and business practices.
Environmental screens take account of a company's impact or policies with respect to emissions, climate change and carbon footprint analysis, oil and chemical spills and waste management and recycling. Corporate governance screens comprise the handling of labour relations/ disputes/ discrimination allegations, human rights violations, working conditions/wages. Excluded from the index are companies from sectors that are deemed unacceptable due to the nature of their business activities and operations. Excluded are also companies that have exposure to unacceptable business practices. Some examples of unacceptable sectors are aerospace and defence, brewers, casinos and gaming, pharmaceuticals, tobacco. Some examples for unacceptable business practices are alcohol, adult entertainment, animal testing and genetic modification of agricultural products.
To ensure the quality of the indexes and the integrity of the underlying index methodology, three boards were established to define, build and implement the screening criteria: the Dow Jones Dharma Academic Advisory Committee, the Dow Jones Dharma Supervisory Board and the Dow Jones Dharma Religious Council.
The whole idea looks like a propaganda efforts for the first world in the new world order and it tells what should be appropriate for emerging markets like India. Why Dow Jones never thought of a "Christian" or Jewish index is a puzzle that does not require deep thinking. In the world of Dow, what is good for Christians is automatically good for the world. And of course, Christian sects are not "faith-based "but "rationality-based." Actually Dow should construct a Catholic index and then a Mormon index and a Pentecostal index and then a Baptist index and then a Seventh Day Adventist index and then an Assemble of God index and then a Methodist index and then think of Hindu Dharma.
For Wall Street - which represents the anti-thesis of Dharma - to be talking about a Dharma index is a bit surprising. But, the idea is to tell Hindus how to behave in the financial markets as per the white man's decision. It is in a sense semitising Hinduism.
The fact that non-Dharmic bodies such as Dow Jones in the US and a private profit-oriented company in the UK, both unconnected with lived experience in Dharma, are expected to control the technical aspects such as selection of categories for Index construction, assignment of weights to different categories and constructing the index for industries and enterprises on a proprietory basis is also a cause for great concern
Hinduism has several sampradayas and it talks about Yuga Dharma. It also talks about different stages of a man's existence namely Brahamacharya, Grihastha, Vanaprastha and Sanyas and dharmic behavior is related to the stage of life. The index is a subtle mechanism to deny Hindus and India their rightful place in the emerging economic order. It is atrocious that the entire pharmaceutical industry is excluded as adharma. In that case, the index should exclude Hollywood, with its level of obscenity and for that matter all consumer industries, since Hindu Dharma is not for consumerism as practised in the West.
It is simply an appropriation of the Hindu concepts to put down the growth momentum of India. Already, we find that the white world has appropriated yoga - to the extent I am told I should give $5 if I inhale in California since it has been copyrighted and branded. For exhaling, of course, the fees would go to another agency. The entire Hindu soft power is getting appropriated by the white world - helped by some brown sepoys from India who know not what is happening. Whether it is yoga or meditation or vaastu or ayuerveda or vegetarianism or even reincarnation -everything is appropriated, given a price tag, branded and sold back to gullible Indians. If a white man says that smoking is bad, then it is scientific and if it is told by my grandfather, it's superstitious or irrational.
This colonial mindset is reinforced by this index, which has the audacity to suggest that aero-space and defence are excluded since they are not dharmic activities. If India is hit by a missile, will these Dow Jones peddlers of half truth come and help us? Have they heard about the Bhagavad Gita and Krishna's advice to Arjuna? Why can't they advice Pentagon that Defence is against the Bible?
It looks to me a tool to subordinate Hindu interests to that of preconceived notions of development and growth. It will a dangerous tool in the long term since Wall Street vultures are going to decide about what is dharmic for Hindus. It is a façade to impose WTO and other such agenda on the gullible Indians. Hence India and Hindus should categorically and unambigously and unequivocally reject such efforts to misuse Hinduism by Wall Street business interests.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Phra Kru Ba Neua Chai - a monk who packs a punch
Lifestyle - Hot
The monk who packs a punch
Wong Kim Hoh, IN CHIANG RAI
1541 words
27 January 2008
Straits Times
English
(c) 2008 Singapore Press Holdings Limited
In the seventh instalment of New Asian Heroes, an eight-part series on Asians who lead inspiring lives, meet Phra Kru Ba Neua Chai, a monk who rescues abandoned orphans and teaches them muay thai
HE CUTS an arresting figure: handsome despite his shaved head and eyebrows, sturdily built, heavily tattooed body cloaked in the heavy burgundy folds of a monk's robe.
A string of giant black prayer beads hang from his neck to his knees, while an ancient ankus (a hook used to handle elephants) and a Chinese horsewhip peep from a satchel he slings around his shoulders.
Before he became a monk, Phra Kru Ba Neua Chai, 45, was a lethal muay thai fighter who lost only three fights in a 15-year professional boxing career. He also studied law at Ramkhamkheng University in Bangkok, and was married to a petty trader who bore him two children.
But in 1980, he gave everything up, got ordained as a monk and founded the Monastery of The Golden Horse, nestled in the mist-shrouded hills north of Chiang Rai near the Thai-Myanmar border.
For the last 17 years, the charismatic man has devoted his life to spreading the Dharma. He's turned what was once dry, uninhabited forest land into a conservation with paddocks and pens for scores of Thai horses and magnificent fighting cocks.
It has also become a home for many young boys from various hill tribes who have been orphaned, abandoned or made homeless by ruthless drug guerillas who traffic heroin, opium and methamphetamines in the area, known to the outside world as The Golden Triangle.
In the monastery, these boys are ordained as novice monks and learn how to read and write. The abbott also teaches them Buddhist scriptures, horse-riding and muay thai.
In person, Phra Kru Ba Neua Chai exudes a beatific calm. Visitors and little monks nod respectfully as he walks the grounds of the temple; even mongrels trot obediently next to him, patiently sitting each time he stops walking.
On a big boulder where he once meditated for 15 days, he sits in the lotus position, fielding questions about his life through an interpreter.
His farmer parents had five children, none of whom survived, before he was born. Named Samer Jaipinta, he was a difficult baby in his first three months.
'Apparently, I wouldn't stop crying. My parents consulted an astrologer who said I was not a normal baby and that I needed an elephant and a horse to be my guardians,' he says.
They were too poor to buy the animals so his father drew them on the wall above the front door of their home. The baby - who was also given an ankus and a horsewhip he still carries today - stopped crying.
His folks later ran a business slaughtering chickens for the village, something that distressed the young boy.
'I would release them until my father sat me down and told me that he needed to do it. If not, the villagers would go hungry,' he says.
He was given a respite from the slaughtering when his father started breeding fighting cocks and he was tasked with entering them in fights.
'They always won, so I could make money, and not have to slaughter.'
He smiles when asked if cock fighting is a cruel sport. 'They're born warriors. They were born to fight and will fight regardless.
'Like these creatures, we all have to fight - for freedom, independence, to be who we want to be. They are the best boxing masters one could have. They have no tools, you learn a lot just by observing how they move.'
He took up muay thai when he was 13 and became very good at it. From age 14 till 29, he was known as Samerjai and took part in hundreds of muay thai matches at temple fairs and stadiums.
During this time, he also studied law at Ramkhamkheng University in Bangkok, got married and fathered two children who still come to see him occasionally.
His son, 21, is a soldier and national boxer. His daughter, 19, also a muay thai exponent, is an undergraduate at an agricultural university in Chiang Rai.
Although there were no major upheavals in his life, he was dogged by questions on human suffering.
'Maybe it's predestined that I study law so that I can compare the laws of man and the laws of karma,' he says.
A visit to the university's forensic department made him reflect on his life.
'If I had 40 years left, I'd spend 20 years sleeping and another 10 working, eating and socialising. If I'm lucky, I'd live out the rest of my life right. If not, my life would have been a total waste.'
At 29, he told his wife of eight years that he wanted to get ordained. He left for Chiang Rai, where he sat on a rock in the forest and meditated for 15 days. Bees came and covered his body.
'It's as though they were my teachers. Each time I couldn't focus, they would sting me.'
To show he had been reborn to devote his life to the Buddha, several monks spent four days and nights tattooing his body with scripture signifying that he'll never give up his vows.
He told his wife that he has found peace and detachment from earthly desires, and that both of them should start life anew.
Soon, news about him spread, and people came to listen to his teachings and seek solutions to their problems.
People who benefited from his advice came back with offerings. One gave him a horse, which he used to travel to neighbouring villages to build more temples and to visit the sick.
There are now more than 100 horses in the temple. He teaches his novice monks how to care for the animals and, in the process, imparts values such as responsibility and loyalty.
Yet other devotees offered money to build big temples.
'Monks have no need for money, we also cannot have debt,' he says.
He offered them alternatives: 'Why not support orphans and help them stand on their feet? Why not give to build schools so that they can have an education? Why not use it for salaries for teachers to teach these children?'
His work earned him the backing of the Thai army. It also won the approval of a revered chief monk in Bangkok who encouraged him to help the hill tribes. The war between various drug lords has left in its wake a host of problems such as drug addiction, kidnapping and prostitution.
On his horse, Kru Ba would - among other things - tell villagers to plant vegetables instead of drug crops and haul addicts back to his monastery to help them recover.
He has become an enemy of drug barons who have tried to kill him. He has defended himself against attackers with his muay thai skills and survived a serious poisoning attempt through meditation.
He believes he has been spared death because his work is not done yet. He shows me two bullet holes in the hut where he sleeps.
'They put the nozzles of their guns through the holes, but when they tried to pull the triggers, the guns jammed.'
Nowadays, he has the protection of the Thai army. 'They get very jittery when I meditate because I sometimes do it for six hours at a stretch,' he says with a laugh.
He's happiest when meditating. 'That's when I'm detached from everything and give energy back to nature. Nothing belongs to us, not even our bodies.'
He's been known to wake up his 20 or so charges - aged between four and 17 - before the crack of dawn, teaching them how to find peace and stillness within their psyches.
Asked whether he expects his charges to be fully ordained monks, the abbott says: 'It's their own karma. This temple is their university of life. I try to teach them to understand life, because if they do not understand it, they will experience suffering.'
Although he left the ring many years ago, Kru Ba still practises Thai boxing every day.
'Boxing for me is meditating. It helps me find peace and stillness. It's food for my mind, and when my mind is full, I feel free.
'If you feed your mind food, you get peace. But if you only feed your body food, you'll just get fat,' he says, letting out a loud chortle.
Many of the people who come to see him want to seek peace and happiness.
He smiles and says gently: 'Everybody wants to look for peace and happiness. Maybe they should first try to achieve some understanding.
'It's impossible for the whole world to understand one person. Why don't we try to understand the whole world instead, starting with ourselves?'
The monk who packs a punch
Wong Kim Hoh, IN CHIANG RAI
1541 words
27 January 2008
Straits Times
English
(c) 2008 Singapore Press Holdings Limited
In the seventh instalment of New Asian Heroes, an eight-part series on Asians who lead inspiring lives, meet Phra Kru Ba Neua Chai, a monk who rescues abandoned orphans and teaches them muay thai
HE CUTS an arresting figure: handsome despite his shaved head and eyebrows, sturdily built, heavily tattooed body cloaked in the heavy burgundy folds of a monk's robe.
A string of giant black prayer beads hang from his neck to his knees, while an ancient ankus (a hook used to handle elephants) and a Chinese horsewhip peep from a satchel he slings around his shoulders.
Before he became a monk, Phra Kru Ba Neua Chai, 45, was a lethal muay thai fighter who lost only three fights in a 15-year professional boxing career. He also studied law at Ramkhamkheng University in Bangkok, and was married to a petty trader who bore him two children.
But in 1980, he gave everything up, got ordained as a monk and founded the Monastery of The Golden Horse, nestled in the mist-shrouded hills north of Chiang Rai near the Thai-Myanmar border.
For the last 17 years, the charismatic man has devoted his life to spreading the Dharma. He's turned what was once dry, uninhabited forest land into a conservation with paddocks and pens for scores of Thai horses and magnificent fighting cocks.
It has also become a home for many young boys from various hill tribes who have been orphaned, abandoned or made homeless by ruthless drug guerillas who traffic heroin, opium and methamphetamines in the area, known to the outside world as The Golden Triangle.
In the monastery, these boys are ordained as novice monks and learn how to read and write. The abbott also teaches them Buddhist scriptures, horse-riding and muay thai.
In person, Phra Kru Ba Neua Chai exudes a beatific calm. Visitors and little monks nod respectfully as he walks the grounds of the temple; even mongrels trot obediently next to him, patiently sitting each time he stops walking.
On a big boulder where he once meditated for 15 days, he sits in the lotus position, fielding questions about his life through an interpreter.
His farmer parents had five children, none of whom survived, before he was born. Named Samer Jaipinta, he was a difficult baby in his first three months.
'Apparently, I wouldn't stop crying. My parents consulted an astrologer who said I was not a normal baby and that I needed an elephant and a horse to be my guardians,' he says.
They were too poor to buy the animals so his father drew them on the wall above the front door of their home. The baby - who was also given an ankus and a horsewhip he still carries today - stopped crying.
His folks later ran a business slaughtering chickens for the village, something that distressed the young boy.
'I would release them until my father sat me down and told me that he needed to do it. If not, the villagers would go hungry,' he says.
He was given a respite from the slaughtering when his father started breeding fighting cocks and he was tasked with entering them in fights.
'They always won, so I could make money, and not have to slaughter.'
He smiles when asked if cock fighting is a cruel sport. 'They're born warriors. They were born to fight and will fight regardless.
'Like these creatures, we all have to fight - for freedom, independence, to be who we want to be. They are the best boxing masters one could have. They have no tools, you learn a lot just by observing how they move.'
He took up muay thai when he was 13 and became very good at it. From age 14 till 29, he was known as Samerjai and took part in hundreds of muay thai matches at temple fairs and stadiums.
During this time, he also studied law at Ramkhamkheng University in Bangkok, got married and fathered two children who still come to see him occasionally.
His son, 21, is a soldier and national boxer. His daughter, 19, also a muay thai exponent, is an undergraduate at an agricultural university in Chiang Rai.
Although there were no major upheavals in his life, he was dogged by questions on human suffering.
'Maybe it's predestined that I study law so that I can compare the laws of man and the laws of karma,' he says.
A visit to the university's forensic department made him reflect on his life.
'If I had 40 years left, I'd spend 20 years sleeping and another 10 working, eating and socialising. If I'm lucky, I'd live out the rest of my life right. If not, my life would have been a total waste.'
At 29, he told his wife of eight years that he wanted to get ordained. He left for Chiang Rai, where he sat on a rock in the forest and meditated for 15 days. Bees came and covered his body.
'It's as though they were my teachers. Each time I couldn't focus, they would sting me.'
To show he had been reborn to devote his life to the Buddha, several monks spent four days and nights tattooing his body with scripture signifying that he'll never give up his vows.
He told his wife that he has found peace and detachment from earthly desires, and that both of them should start life anew.
Soon, news about him spread, and people came to listen to his teachings and seek solutions to their problems.
People who benefited from his advice came back with offerings. One gave him a horse, which he used to travel to neighbouring villages to build more temples and to visit the sick.
There are now more than 100 horses in the temple. He teaches his novice monks how to care for the animals and, in the process, imparts values such as responsibility and loyalty.
Yet other devotees offered money to build big temples.
'Monks have no need for money, we also cannot have debt,' he says.
He offered them alternatives: 'Why not support orphans and help them stand on their feet? Why not give to build schools so that they can have an education? Why not use it for salaries for teachers to teach these children?'
His work earned him the backing of the Thai army. It also won the approval of a revered chief monk in Bangkok who encouraged him to help the hill tribes. The war between various drug lords has left in its wake a host of problems such as drug addiction, kidnapping and prostitution.
On his horse, Kru Ba would - among other things - tell villagers to plant vegetables instead of drug crops and haul addicts back to his monastery to help them recover.
He has become an enemy of drug barons who have tried to kill him. He has defended himself against attackers with his muay thai skills and survived a serious poisoning attempt through meditation.
He believes he has been spared death because his work is not done yet. He shows me two bullet holes in the hut where he sleeps.
'They put the nozzles of their guns through the holes, but when they tried to pull the triggers, the guns jammed.'
Nowadays, he has the protection of the Thai army. 'They get very jittery when I meditate because I sometimes do it for six hours at a stretch,' he says with a laugh.
He's happiest when meditating. 'That's when I'm detached from everything and give energy back to nature. Nothing belongs to us, not even our bodies.'
He's been known to wake up his 20 or so charges - aged between four and 17 - before the crack of dawn, teaching them how to find peace and stillness within their psyches.
Asked whether he expects his charges to be fully ordained monks, the abbott says: 'It's their own karma. This temple is their university of life. I try to teach them to understand life, because if they do not understand it, they will experience suffering.'
Although he left the ring many years ago, Kru Ba still practises Thai boxing every day.
'Boxing for me is meditating. It helps me find peace and stillness. It's food for my mind, and when my mind is full, I feel free.
'If you feed your mind food, you get peace. But if you only feed your body food, you'll just get fat,' he says, letting out a loud chortle.
Many of the people who come to see him want to seek peace and happiness.
He smiles and says gently: 'Everybody wants to look for peace and happiness. Maybe they should first try to achieve some understanding.
'It's impossible for the whole world to understand one person. Why don't we try to understand the whole world instead, starting with ourselves?'
A Masterpiece - Angkor Wat
Leisure & Arts
Masterpiece: The Glory That Is Angkor Wat - Cambodia's most famous temple is a symbol of enduring power
By Leslie Hook
1221 words
26 January 2008
The Wall Street Journal
W14
English
(Copyright (c) 2008, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)
[Anatomy of a classic]
Siem Reap, Cambodia -- This country's most famous temple may be 900 years old, but the message it sets out to convey is timeless: Angkor Wat is all about glory. The temple is one of hundreds built by Khmer kings to commemorate themselves and their empire, as well as to worship their gods. But Angkor Wat stands out from the rest -- in artistry, in scale and in popular imagery.
One of the largest religious structures in the world, and the only religious monument to appear on a national flag, Angkor Wat has become synonymous with Cambodia at its most powerful -- when it was the seat of the Khmer Empire, stretching from the South China Sea to the Bay of Bengal. The monumental scale of the temple has the same effect on visitors today as when it was first built. Angkor Wat has but a single approach: a wide stone causeway more than a third of a mile long. The entry walkway crosses a moat 600 feet wide (my guide assures me it used to be filled with crocodiles) and ends at a wall and gates leading into the center of the compound. The central compound covers about 400 acres and once supported a town of about 100,000 people.
With one tower more than 130 feet high surrounded by four shorter towers, the center of the temple imitates the five peaks of Mount Mehru, the mythical mountain at the center of the Hindu universe. The temple walls (three concentric rectangles that demarcate the progressively higher levels of the temple), garden grounds and moat represent the soil and seas of the earth.
Reaching Mount Mehru is no easy chore: The temple's stone steps are dizzyingly steep -- more like a ladder than a staircase -- as a reminder of the effort it takes for humans to get closer to heaven. And, as if to drive home the point, the inner sanctuaries of the central tower were accessible only to the king and a select handful of priests.
When Angkor Wat was built, Cambodia was primarily Hindu and Khmer culture drew much of its inspiration from India. Most of the inscriptions at Angkor are in Sanskrit, and the nymph-like apsaras, or celestial dancers, that grace the walls derive from Hindu mythology. Later, however, the Khmer kings became interested in Buddhism, and Angkor Wat was converted into a Buddhist monastery between the 12th and 15th centuries. The central statue of the innermost sanctuary was removed and a Buddhist image erected in its place. For several centuries, the Khmer Empire practiced a syncretic faith that combined Buddhism and Hinduism.
In many ways Angkor Wat is so much larger than life that the details of the temple get overlooked amid the legends that surround it. It's easy to forget that it contains nearly 2,000 feet of the finest Khmer bas reliefs in the world. Its nearly 2,000 celestial apsaras represent the apogee of Cambodia's apsara-carving tradition and provide a detailed account of court dress and female fashions during the period of its creation. Traditional Cambodian dance to this day imitates the apsaras' poses and costumes.
One of the most intricate reliefs in the temple's first gallery depicts the Churning of the Sea of Milk, a key event in Hindu cosmology in which the world was created by an epic tug-of-war between gods and demons. Each side pulled on a giant five-headed snake wrapped around Mount Mehru, and the subsequent twisting of the mountain and churning of the seas gave birth to the apsaras that grace the walls of Angkor Wat, as well as an elixir of immortality over which the gods and demons later dueled. In this story, Mount Mehru is not only the center of the universe, but also the birthplace of the known world.
The Khmer Empire included modern-day Burma, Thailand and Vietnam, and it laid the foundations for Cambodian culture and art for centuries to come. In a sign of the temple's importance, the king's palace was most likely on its grounds, although nothing of it remains today. About one million men, women and children populated the Angkor area, according to an estimate by French archaeologist Bernard-Philippe Groslier, making it the largest settlement in the preindustrial world.
All this manpower was necessary to build the temples, which were painstakingly erected from giant sandstone monoliths hewed out of a quarry more than 37 miles away. Rather than having foundations that sink into the ground, most Angkorean temples are built on huge mounds of earth that give them their pyramid shape, the soil excavated from a moat or from one of the lakes. Some historians theorize that the blitz of building during the Khmer Empire could have been accomplished only through a labor requirement mandated for all citizens, or perhaps even through slavery.
The grandeur that marked the empire was not to last, however. The royal city of Angkor was repeatedly sacked by the Thai army during the 14th century, and in 1431 the capital was relocated farther away from Thailand. Angkor Wat itself -- by then a Buddhist temple -- continued to function, and for centuries it was home to a flourishing monastery that attracted pilgrims from as far away as Japan, even while the former capital city nearby was gradually overtaken by the jungle. Although the Buddhists removed most of the temple's original Hindu art, Angkor Wat's habitation and continuous maintenance helped it remain relatively intact while many other Angkorean temples now lie in ruins.
But Angkor Wat did not entirely escape the turbulence of Cambodia's recent history. The Western part of Cambodia in which Angkor Wat is located was a Khmer Rouge stronghold through the 1990s. Restoration work on the temples took a forced, decades-long hiatus during the wars that wracked Cambodia through the later half of the 20th century. The area was unsafe for tourists until about 10 years ago, when the Khmer Rouge signed a peace treaty that formally ended Cambodia's civil war. There was relatively little physical damage to the temple as a result of the wars, but they did irreparable damage by destroying almost all of the remaining written records pertaining to the Angkorean period. Khmer archaeology scholar Christophe Pottier of the French Research School of the Far East estimates that 95% of the relevant documents have been destroyed in the past three decades, an irreplaceable loss.
In the years since peace has come to Cambodia the opportunities for looting have also increased, and many of the finest sculptures have been spirited out of the country and sold to buyers abroad. Tourism also poses its own set of dangers, with some temples suffering from overexposure to footsteps or curious hands. But despite this -- even as the physical structures of the temples inevitably decay -- Angkor will continue to symbolize something greater than itself. The memory of the Khmer Empire, and with it Cambodia's full potential, is unlikely to fade anytime soon.
Masterpiece: The Glory That Is Angkor Wat - Cambodia's most famous temple is a symbol of enduring power
By Leslie Hook
1221 words
26 January 2008
The Wall Street Journal
W14
English
(Copyright (c) 2008, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)
[Anatomy of a classic]
Siem Reap, Cambodia -- This country's most famous temple may be 900 years old, but the message it sets out to convey is timeless: Angkor Wat is all about glory. The temple is one of hundreds built by Khmer kings to commemorate themselves and their empire, as well as to worship their gods. But Angkor Wat stands out from the rest -- in artistry, in scale and in popular imagery.
One of the largest religious structures in the world, and the only religious monument to appear on a national flag, Angkor Wat has become synonymous with Cambodia at its most powerful -- when it was the seat of the Khmer Empire, stretching from the South China Sea to the Bay of Bengal. The monumental scale of the temple has the same effect on visitors today as when it was first built. Angkor Wat has but a single approach: a wide stone causeway more than a third of a mile long. The entry walkway crosses a moat 600 feet wide (my guide assures me it used to be filled with crocodiles) and ends at a wall and gates leading into the center of the compound. The central compound covers about 400 acres and once supported a town of about 100,000 people.
With one tower more than 130 feet high surrounded by four shorter towers, the center of the temple imitates the five peaks of Mount Mehru, the mythical mountain at the center of the Hindu universe. The temple walls (three concentric rectangles that demarcate the progressively higher levels of the temple), garden grounds and moat represent the soil and seas of the earth.
Reaching Mount Mehru is no easy chore: The temple's stone steps are dizzyingly steep -- more like a ladder than a staircase -- as a reminder of the effort it takes for humans to get closer to heaven. And, as if to drive home the point, the inner sanctuaries of the central tower were accessible only to the king and a select handful of priests.
When Angkor Wat was built, Cambodia was primarily Hindu and Khmer culture drew much of its inspiration from India. Most of the inscriptions at Angkor are in Sanskrit, and the nymph-like apsaras, or celestial dancers, that grace the walls derive from Hindu mythology. Later, however, the Khmer kings became interested in Buddhism, and Angkor Wat was converted into a Buddhist monastery between the 12th and 15th centuries. The central statue of the innermost sanctuary was removed and a Buddhist image erected in its place. For several centuries, the Khmer Empire practiced a syncretic faith that combined Buddhism and Hinduism.
In many ways Angkor Wat is so much larger than life that the details of the temple get overlooked amid the legends that surround it. It's easy to forget that it contains nearly 2,000 feet of the finest Khmer bas reliefs in the world. Its nearly 2,000 celestial apsaras represent the apogee of Cambodia's apsara-carving tradition and provide a detailed account of court dress and female fashions during the period of its creation. Traditional Cambodian dance to this day imitates the apsaras' poses and costumes.
One of the most intricate reliefs in the temple's first gallery depicts the Churning of the Sea of Milk, a key event in Hindu cosmology in which the world was created by an epic tug-of-war between gods and demons. Each side pulled on a giant five-headed snake wrapped around Mount Mehru, and the subsequent twisting of the mountain and churning of the seas gave birth to the apsaras that grace the walls of Angkor Wat, as well as an elixir of immortality over which the gods and demons later dueled. In this story, Mount Mehru is not only the center of the universe, but also the birthplace of the known world.
The Khmer Empire included modern-day Burma, Thailand and Vietnam, and it laid the foundations for Cambodian culture and art for centuries to come. In a sign of the temple's importance, the king's palace was most likely on its grounds, although nothing of it remains today. About one million men, women and children populated the Angkor area, according to an estimate by French archaeologist Bernard-Philippe Groslier, making it the largest settlement in the preindustrial world.
All this manpower was necessary to build the temples, which were painstakingly erected from giant sandstone monoliths hewed out of a quarry more than 37 miles away. Rather than having foundations that sink into the ground, most Angkorean temples are built on huge mounds of earth that give them their pyramid shape, the soil excavated from a moat or from one of the lakes. Some historians theorize that the blitz of building during the Khmer Empire could have been accomplished only through a labor requirement mandated for all citizens, or perhaps even through slavery.
The grandeur that marked the empire was not to last, however. The royal city of Angkor was repeatedly sacked by the Thai army during the 14th century, and in 1431 the capital was relocated farther away from Thailand. Angkor Wat itself -- by then a Buddhist temple -- continued to function, and for centuries it was home to a flourishing monastery that attracted pilgrims from as far away as Japan, even while the former capital city nearby was gradually overtaken by the jungle. Although the Buddhists removed most of the temple's original Hindu art, Angkor Wat's habitation and continuous maintenance helped it remain relatively intact while many other Angkorean temples now lie in ruins.
But Angkor Wat did not entirely escape the turbulence of Cambodia's recent history. The Western part of Cambodia in which Angkor Wat is located was a Khmer Rouge stronghold through the 1990s. Restoration work on the temples took a forced, decades-long hiatus during the wars that wracked Cambodia through the later half of the 20th century. The area was unsafe for tourists until about 10 years ago, when the Khmer Rouge signed a peace treaty that formally ended Cambodia's civil war. There was relatively little physical damage to the temple as a result of the wars, but they did irreparable damage by destroying almost all of the remaining written records pertaining to the Angkorean period. Khmer archaeology scholar Christophe Pottier of the French Research School of the Far East estimates that 95% of the relevant documents have been destroyed in the past three decades, an irreplaceable loss.
In the years since peace has come to Cambodia the opportunities for looting have also increased, and many of the finest sculptures have been spirited out of the country and sold to buyers abroad. Tourism also poses its own set of dangers, with some temples suffering from overexposure to footsteps or curious hands. But despite this -- even as the physical structures of the temples inevitably decay -- Angkor will continue to symbolize something greater than itself. The memory of the Khmer Empire, and with it Cambodia's full potential, is unlikely to fade anytime soon.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Ajahn Brahms in Bangkok on 28 January 2008
OUTLOOK
Ajahn Brahm: On bliss and cooling the heart; Ajahn Brahm, author of the book Opening the Door of Your Heart (translated into Thai under the title Chuan Muan Chuen), is returning to Bangkok to give two English-language talks. He will speak on two topics: Bliss Upon Bliss Upon Bliss, on January 28; and Cooling the Heart to Stop Global Warming, on January 30.
217 words
23 January 2008
Bangkok Post
O2
English
(c) 2008
Currently the abbot of the Bodhinyana Monastery in Australia, Ajahn Brahm is a disciple of Ajahn Chah. He was ordained in 1974, and spent nine years training in Thailand. His teachings have resonated with people from all walks of life.
The talk on January 28 will be held from 7 to 8pm, with a meditation session beforehand from 6 to 6:30pm. The venue is the auditorium of the World Fellowship of Buddhists HQ, at the rear of Benjasiri Park, between Sukhumvit Road Soi 22 and 24 (there's a map at http://www.wfb-hq.org/ ). Call Kirana on 02-661-1289, or Soranan on 08-9788-9062 (after 5pm) for more information. The talk on January 30 will be held from 5 to 7pm at the Issara Place (next to Charn Issara Tower II), on the corner of Ekamai and New Phetchaburi Road. Call 02-308-2020 for more details.
Ajahn Brahm: On bliss and cooling the heart; Ajahn Brahm, author of the book Opening the Door of Your Heart (translated into Thai under the title Chuan Muan Chuen), is returning to Bangkok to give two English-language talks. He will speak on two topics: Bliss Upon Bliss Upon Bliss, on January 28; and Cooling the Heart to Stop Global Warming, on January 30.
217 words
23 January 2008
Bangkok Post
O2
English
(c) 2008
Currently the abbot of the Bodhinyana Monastery in Australia, Ajahn Brahm is a disciple of Ajahn Chah. He was ordained in 1974, and spent nine years training in Thailand. His teachings have resonated with people from all walks of life.
The talk on January 28 will be held from 7 to 8pm, with a meditation session beforehand from 6 to 6:30pm. The venue is the auditorium of the World Fellowship of Buddhists HQ, at the rear of Benjasiri Park, between Sukhumvit Road Soi 22 and 24 (there's a map at http://www.wfb-hq.org/ ). Call Kirana on 02-661-1289, or Soranan on 08-9788-9062 (after 5pm) for more information. The talk on January 30 will be held from 5 to 7pm at the Issara Place (next to Charn Issara Tower II), on the corner of Ekamai and New Phetchaburi Road. Call 02-308-2020 for more details.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
China's first Buddhist temple
China's first Buddhist temple to have an Indian structure
335 words
12 January 2008
Asian News International
English
© Copyright 2008. HT Media Limited. All rights reserved.
Report from Asian News International brought to you by HT Syndication.
New Delhi, Jan. 12 -- Abbot Shi Yinle, head of China's first Buddhist temple, is expecting completion of an Indian hall in April inside the 1,900-year-old temple.
The exotic structure in the White Horse Temple in Luoyang, same style as the Great Sanchi Stupa in India, is being financed by the Indian Government as part of a religious and cultural exchange agreement endorsed by the Prime Ministers of the two countries in 2005.
Abbot Yinle is proud that his temple was chosen to house the Indian hall, almost 20 centuries after the introduction of Buddhism to China from India.
"Our temple stands as testimony to the time-honoured friendship between China and India," he said.
The Indian hall covers 3,450 sq m and contains facilities for Buddhist lectures, prayers, exhibitions and conferences. All of the stone used to build the hall has been shipped from India.
A senior Indian engineer has been supervising the interior decoration, which started last September, the China Daily reported.
Two other Indian master craftsmen will soon come to supervise the final exquisite wall carvings, said Hu Xuanyan, an official with Luoyang's religious affairs bureau.
A 3.6-m high Buddha statue from India weighing 22 tons was placed in the hall last September, the largest Buddha statue the Indian government has given to China, local officials said.
The White Horse Temple is named after an ancient tale about a white horse that carried Buddhist scripture between India and Luoyang, then China's capital city.
In exchange for the Indian hall, the Chinese government financed the building of a Xuanzang Memorial Hall in Nalanda in Bihar in 2006.
Xuanzang was a Buddhist monk, a translator and an envoy of peace and Buddhism between China and India some 1,300 years ago.
Published by HT Syndication with permission from Asian News International.
335 words
12 January 2008
Asian News International
English
© Copyright 2008. HT Media Limited. All rights reserved.
Report from Asian News International brought to you by HT Syndication.
New Delhi, Jan. 12 -- Abbot Shi Yinle, head of China's first Buddhist temple, is expecting completion of an Indian hall in April inside the 1,900-year-old temple.
The exotic structure in the White Horse Temple in Luoyang, same style as the Great Sanchi Stupa in India, is being financed by the Indian Government as part of a religious and cultural exchange agreement endorsed by the Prime Ministers of the two countries in 2005.
Abbot Yinle is proud that his temple was chosen to house the Indian hall, almost 20 centuries after the introduction of Buddhism to China from India.
"Our temple stands as testimony to the time-honoured friendship between China and India," he said.
The Indian hall covers 3,450 sq m and contains facilities for Buddhist lectures, prayers, exhibitions and conferences. All of the stone used to build the hall has been shipped from India.
A senior Indian engineer has been supervising the interior decoration, which started last September, the China Daily reported.
Two other Indian master craftsmen will soon come to supervise the final exquisite wall carvings, said Hu Xuanyan, an official with Luoyang's religious affairs bureau.
A 3.6-m high Buddha statue from India weighing 22 tons was placed in the hall last September, the largest Buddha statue the Indian government has given to China, local officials said.
The White Horse Temple is named after an ancient tale about a white horse that carried Buddhist scripture between India and Luoyang, then China's capital city.
In exchange for the Indian hall, the Chinese government financed the building of a Xuanzang Memorial Hall in Nalanda in Bihar in 2006.
Xuanzang was a Buddhist monk, a translator and an envoy of peace and Buddhism between China and India some 1,300 years ago.
Published by HT Syndication with permission from Asian News International.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
