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When The Teacher Fails

The press reported recently that Osel Tendzin, the successor to Buddhist meditation master Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, has had AIDS for years. Tendzin made love with some of his students without telling them they were at risk, and passed the virus on to them and their unknowing partners.

getting to know HIM

When Lana left I still kept on talking to Him every day.

He was never IN when I did but I was able to get a lot of information about Him from the Fiery Finger that appeared and wrote on the wall of my cell.

Uniting The Opposites

An Interview With M.C. Richards

I think that as we become more creative, we move toward a concern with social justice and compassion. That’s the natural movement. We come, maybe through times of loneliness, toward experiencing the reality of another person. As we create, you might say, we are created. We move toward a deepened awareness of reality. Outwardly, we move toward social justice; inwardly we move toward compassion.

Celebrating The Charnel Ground

Notes On Death And Meditation

In Tibetan Buddhist liturgy, a reminder of death is chanted before each session of religious practice: “The whole world and its inhabitants are impermanent; in particular, the life of beings is like a bubble; death comes without warning; this body will be a corpse.”

Centering

In Pottery, Poetry, And The Person

Knowledge and consciousness are two quite different things. Knowledge is like a product we consume and store. All we need are good closets. By consciousness I mean a state of being “awake” to the world throughout our organism. This kind of consciousness requires not closets but an organism attuned to the finest perceptions and responses.

Duty

A rhinestone butterfly pin, an appointment for next Saturday, “Louie Louie”

The Cabalist

The Face Of Maitreya

Flies are constantly present in human life. They investigate the baby’s diaper and have to be shooed away from the dying grandmother’s face. They cannot be ignored.

The Roshis

My friend is rushing toward Jasmine. Her scream reverberates in my mind, with a quality of despair that surprises me, as if she knows something I don’t.

Without Fear

Talks With American Students

It is important to be aware of what is, not what should be, because the “what should be” is a fiction, a myth, a romantic notion, which all religions and idealists throughout the ages have nurtured and exploited. What good is the ideal of nonviolence if I am full of violence?