Buddhism https://www.thesunmagazine.org/rss en-us The Good End of Pleasant Street When our landlords came by to introduce themselves, they stood beside a shelf of our books on how to avoid suffering: “Develop a mind that clings to nothing,” said the Buddhist Diamond Sutra; Be Here Now, read the spine of a Ram Dass book. Dan was a general contractor and wore a flat cap and a half grin. Or a sneer. I wasn’t sure which.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28987 Sun, 31 May 2026 15:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/606-the-good-end-of-pleasant-street 606-14-easley-preview.jpg 606 - Easley - Lanier Indecision “Whether you go up the ladder or down it,” / says the Tao, “your position is shaky.”

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28937 Sat, 28 Feb 2026 12:00:00 -0500 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/603-indecision Tassajara The abbot declared your beloved pit bull had Buddha nature, / so you carried her sixty muscled pounds to the mountain // monastery, where we sat sesshin and she ate wool socks, / a box of chocolates, and eight pages of Robert Aitken.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28893 Wed, 31 Dec 2025 12:00:00 -0500 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/601-tassajara On Walking To love walking is to love the body, and this has been a barrier for me. Walking requires us to be a physical presence moving in a physical space. Your body is on display, with all its jostling parts and creaky joints. I know it’s vanity—this self-consciousness, this awareness of other people’s eyes—but it was something I shouldered when I walked, something that made me seek the comfort of a climate-controlled car.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28882 Sun, 30 Nov 2025 12:00:00 -0500 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/600-on-walking 600-16-rouhana-preview.jpg 600-Rouhana-Sukrungruang Reason To Believe Cohen: Do you think part of that evil spirit is found in every human?

Sullivan: I don’t think we’re born with it, but we have receptors that can connect to it, and we decide how much attention we give it, how much we turn toward its allure.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28734 Mon, 31 Mar 2025 12:00:14 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/592-reason-to-believe 592-04-bonnet-preview.jpg 592-Bonnet-Cohen The Loneliest Monk Listens rick.chess@gmail.com The first step is to imagine. / No, before that: breathe. Breathe, and know / breath. That’s where it begins.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28737 Mon, 31 Mar 2025 12:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/592-the-loneliest-monk-listens 592-22-druart-preview.jpg 592-Druart-Chess He Arrived In A Hollowed-Out Studebaker Lark We also had eyes for his car. You had to give up / all possessions to live here, George fine with that — / he’d just spent two cross-country months in the thing, / its front bucket seat removed for sleeping purposes — / and now an actual Lark was our newest town-runner.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/27956 Mon, 31 Oct 2022 04:10:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/27956-he-arrived-in-a-hollowed-out-studebaker-lark Bhutan Bhutan is the final outpost of the rapidly disappearing Tantric Buddhist culture that once guarded the Roof of the World. Tibet, Ladakh, Mustang, and Sikkim have all fallen to conquest or cultural and economic colonialism, while Bhutan — never conquered, never colonized — remains the last jewel in Buddhism’s Himalayan crown.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/27606 Thu, 27 May 2021 04:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/27606-bhutan Defending The Roof Of The World The Chinese empire is fragile, because it is built upon oppression. . . . If the oppression is too great, it may all come apart. If the empire were to break up, I think democracy might be possible in the smaller entities that would remain. . . . This is where Tibetans must keep up the fight and prepare for the long haul. We can prevail if we are able to keep our culture intact.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/24636 Thu, 27 May 2021 04:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/24636-defending-the-roof-of-the-world Fear Of Rest In the stillness there are forces and voices and hands and nourishment that arise, that take our breath away, but we can never know this, know this, until we rest.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/21236 Fri, 01 May 2020 00:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/21236-fear-of-rest Two Weeks After A Silent Retreat How quickly I lose my love / of all things. I nearly flick an ant / off the cliff of an armchair.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/25674 Fri, 01 May 2020 00:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/25674-two-weeks-after-a-silent-retreat Monotheism At Thirty Thousand Feet Below me the world turned slowly through the night, unaware of the multilayered geopolitics my coffee-jangled brain was imposing upon it. I could find reasons to forgive Judaism and Islam their present-day sins. Christianity was another matter.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/24696 Fri, 01 May 2020 00:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/24696-monotheism-at-thirty-thousand-feet Sunbeams

The importance and unimportance of the self cannot be exaggerated.

R.H. Blyth

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/24280 Wed, 01 Aug 2018 00:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/24280-sunbeams Two Mirrors Facing Each Other One does not sit in order to become enlightened. One sits because, as the Buddha exclaimed at the moment of his awakening, one is enlightened as one is. The practice is simply a means of realizing this fact, which the ordinary, dualistic mind obscures.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/26672 Wed, 01 Aug 2018 00:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/26672-two-mirrors-facing-each-other Our Grand Delusion We are paradoxical. We are beings who are limited and who will always create a world of suffering, and we’re beings who have the capacity to understand that and, in some way, go beyond it.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/23499 Wed, 01 Aug 2018 00:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/23499-our-grand-delusion Hospital Runs On my very first hospital run I picked up this long-faced, country white guy who’d survived seven surgeries in the last five years. He looked to be late eighties, all but dead, but friendly in a half-deaf way.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/21903 Thu, 01 Mar 2018 00:00:00 -0500 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/21903-hospital-runs Transforming The Heart Of Suffering In fact, one’s whole attitude toward pain can change. Instead of fending it off and hiding from it, one could open one’s heart and allow oneself to feel that pain, feel it as something that will soften and purify us and make us far more loving and kind.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/27660 Tue, 01 Nov 2016 00:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/27660-transforming-the-heart-of-suffering Sunbeams

Man seeks to worship what is established beyond dispute, so that all men would agree at once to worship it. . . . This craving for community of worship is the chief misery of every man individually and of all humanity from the beginning of time.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/27001 Tue, 01 Mar 2016 00:00:00 -0500 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/27001-sunbeams Beyond Belief The first instruction was “Find a quiet place.” I went to Inwood Park and seated myself on a large rock, legs crossed, eyes closed. Immediately an airplane flew overhead. I stood up, walked a hundred yards deeper into the park, sat beside a tree, and again closed my eyes. This time I heard traffic from the Henry Hudson Parkway. Over and over I sat down, each time encountering a new distraction. Defeated, I walked home.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/22258 Mon, 01 Sep 2014 00:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/22258-beyond-belief Not On Any Map leathtonino@gmail.com One of my essays starts: “My cabin is located next to a stream that runs through a meadow, but it is not on any map.” It’s not on a map because the places I’ve lived and loved are labeled with my own names: Where Rio chases her stick. Rio’s favorite pool. Where Rio ran into the bear. It’s a private mapping, a personal geography projected onto the land. It requires a long time living in one place and studying its plants and animals. If you follow them and their lives, you gain a deeper sense of home.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/24337 Fri, 01 Aug 2014 00:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/24337-not-on-any-map <em>excerpted from</em><br />The Practice Of The Wild The pathless world of wild nature is a surpassing school and those who have lived through her can be tough and funny teachers.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/25655 Fri, 01 Aug 2014 00:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/25655-em-excerpted-from-em-br-the-practice-of-the-wild The Genuine Heart Of Sadness Basic goodness is good because it is unconditional, or fundamental. It is there already, in the same way that heaven and earth are there already.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/25975 Tue, 01 Jul 2014 00:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/25975-the-genuine-heart-of-sadness Sunbeams

They say that God is everywhere, and yet we always think of Him as somewhat of a recluse.

Emily Dickinson

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/23049 Tue, 01 Oct 2013 16:48:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/23049-sunbeams Selected Poems — from “I Stand in the Doorway” | Sometimes when you say goodbye you know it’s goodbye for keeps. / You touch your lips to her cheek, or you squeeze his hand & walk off. / What else can you do?

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/27635 Tue, 01 Oct 2013 00:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/27635-selected-poems <em>excerpted from</em><br />Ten Conversations At Once The Dalai Lama climbed the ladder and entered the dome of this same Great Hum. Already five others had seated themselves. One of these was a highly developed lama who could sing three notes at once, each note carrying a different conversation. Another could carry on two conversations, and the other three could carry on only one. This meant that eight conversations were already taking place. Since the Dalai Lama could carry on two, his arrival completed the number of visitors allowed, and he closed the door after him.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/27982 Tue, 01 Oct 2013 00:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/27982-em-excerpted-from-em-br-ten-conversations-at-once It Is No Longer Necessary To Write Novels I think it was Jorge Luis Borges who said that it was no longer necessary to write novels; it was sufficient to write the review of the novel. I say it’s no longer necessary to write novels; you may just write the first line.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/26378 Mon, 01 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/26378-it-is-no-longer-necessary-to-write-novels <em>excerpted from</em><br />Creating An Enlightened Society The premise of Shambhala vision is that, in order to establish an enlightened society for others, we need to discover what inherently we have to offer the world.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/21865 Thu, 01 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/21865-em-excerpted-from-em-br-creating-an-enlightened-society I Just Died It’s summer, and I’m hearing my landlady’s pets more than I’d like to. She lives upstairs and told me when I moved in that her animals were quiet. Clearly I was a fool to believe her.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/21478 Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0500 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/21478-i-just-died Beyond Belief But if you really give your full attention to nature, it does speak to you. If you’ve ever been out in the woods and suddenly experienced a shock of grief or awe or a sense of belonging to something greater, that’s because nature has spoken to you. That’s why there’s a timeless, universal tradition of experiencing God in nature. It’s one way of recognizing that we’re part of something greater than ourselves.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/22450 Thu, 01 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0500 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/22450-beyond-belief <em>excerpted from</em><br />Siddhartha He ceased to see his friend Siddhartha’s face. In its stead he saw other faces, many, a long series, a flowing river of faces, hundreds, thousands, which all came and went, and yet all seemed to be there at once, which all constantly changed and became new ones, and yet were all Siddhartha.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/24332 Thu, 01 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0500 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/24332-em-excerpted-from-em-br-siddhartha