Tabla de contenidos para September 2019 en Lion's Roar

FOLLOW IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF THE BUDDHA We’re delighted to share a wonderful opportunity with our readers: to participate in a pilgrimage to the sacred sites of India, led by our friend, Dharmacharya Shantum Seth. Highly regarded as one of the top guides to these beautiful and potent places—where the buddhadharma was first presented, and its depth expounded over the Buddha’s life (and beyond)—Shantum Seth offers a studied, intimate experience not easily found. Our first trip to India with Shantum is this November. If you act decisively, there’s still time to join in this special opportunity. Read more at lionsroar.com/pilgrimage. SEEKING 108 NEW MONTHLY DONORS Reader donations are the foundation of the annual giving campaigns upon which Lion’s Roar depends (and we’re depending on them now, perhaps, more than ever).…

“Monks, the All is aflame… Aflame, I tell you, with birth, aging, and death, with sorrows, lamentations, pains, distresses, and despairs.” —Adittapariyaya Sutta: The Fire Sermon ALL IS AFLAME. The scale at which hatred and despair are spreading feels exponential to me these days. There is fear that democracy, never a perfect system, is being eclipsed by totalitarianism and fascism. Whether you identify as a social justice activist or not, if you’re alive, you’re acting in the world, and your thoughts and actions have consequences. How can we act in alignment with our spiritual values for the long haul? If we’re feeling anxious, angry and fearful, we need to take good care of ourselves, so rest up and gear up, bodhisattvas, because this time of trouble won’t be over anytime soon. We…

FROM THE MOMENT LANGUAGE blinked into existence, humans have tried to hold onto the words that accompany our mysterious moments of insight. We’ve etched them on bones, written them on papyrus scrolls, attached them to the refrigerator with a magnet. A bit more than a millennium ago, people in China started to call these words koans. They were sayings, records of conversations, bits of verse, and stories. It appears that koans came out of a very old tradition of improvised, spoken word poetry, art that crystallized out of a particular moment of insight. Soon there were great collections of koans, and people discovered that meditating on them was a transformative practice. Koans came to be a way of communicating understandings about the nature of reality. When I first heard about…

SOMETIMES IT CAN FEEL like we’re at the center of our own universe, fixated on our personal concerns without much regard for other people. Experiencing awe can jolt us out of this self-focused mindset, stirring feelings of wonder and inspiration by reminding us that we’re a part of something larger than ourselves. Researchers define awe as a response to things we perceive as vast and that transcend the way we understand the world. Research suggests that experiencing awe not only enhances happiness and physical health but also reduces feelings of entitlement and increases generosity. Experiencing awe may seem like something that requires travel to distant lands, but there are many opportunities closer to home—we just need to seek them out and notice them. This practice is designed to help you…

IN ONE OF THE JATAKA TALES, the traditional stories about the Buddha’s previous lives, there is a great black hound. This gigantic beast—as dark as midnight and with four fangs the size of plantains—has one purpose: terrifying people into right action. My childhood dog Raffy—a white poodle–Lhasa Aspo mix—was no great black hound making the world right. And yet, he thought he was. With his surprisingly guttural woof, Raffy struck fear into anyone who had the audacity to ring the doorbell, and if the German shepherd next door stepped a paw onto our property, Raffy ran her off. (Why did she flee from a dog less than half her size? Possibly because she was confused by the incongruity of his ferocity and lamb-like looks. Surely, he must have some nasty…

“ I ’ M A MARXIST, ” I blurted out in front of a group of Buddhists. We were gathered one Monday evening in New York for the Buddhist Action Coalition’s monthly meeting. I don’t remember the specific context. It may have been a discussion on finding a sustainable direction in our work, or maybe a deliberation on a dharma–political theory study group. After the meeting, one of the Buddhist teachers in attendance came up to me and said, “That was the best part of the meeting.” We both chuckled. He and I have had spontaneous dialogues on socioeconomic theories, Marxism in particular, but those had been one-on-one conversations. This declaration was public, and was my first amidst fellow Buddhists. It was a significant moment. I was out of the…

“IF YOU DEDICATE YOURSELF to a life of compassion, is it possible you still may have to engage in a fight?” This was the question I posed in May to a newly ordained priest in my Buddhist community. As part of the ordination ceremony, our new clergy engage in dharma combat, when anyone in the sangha can pepper them with questions. “Yes,” the new priest replied. He then cited the tragic death of Kendrick Castillo, an eighteen-year-old who had died four days earlier engaging a gunman at his school in Colorado. He disrupted the attack and saved an unknown number of lives. It wasn’t quite the answer I expected—at least not the answer I had in my own head—but it was certainly a relevant answer for our times. For the…

I DON’T KNOW WHEN my ten-year-old son’s obsession with dragons began, or why. What I do know is that I will encounter those fierce and powerful beasts at some point every day—be it an in-progress drawing tucked between the pages of a book, or an epic battle written out in harrowing detail along the lines of semi-mangled notebook paper, or an intricate Lego creation winging its way across the house, body held aloft by my son’s small, steady hands. Each time I discover another one of these creations, I’m reminded that dragons can have profound significance. While living in Japan, I learned that dragons symbolize clarity, truth, and enlightenment, and that gives me pause every time my son’s favorite mythical creature appears. It’s like a bell ringing in a quiet…

DHARMA DRUM RETREAT CENTER in Pine Bush, New York, was founded in 1997 by the late Master Sheng Yen (1931–2009). It is affiliated with the Chan Meditation Center in Queens, New York, as well as with temples and centers in fourteen countries, from Canada to Australia. A leading Chinese Buddhist teacher, Master Sheng Yen was a dharma heir in both the Linji (Japanese: Rinzai) and Caodong (Japanese: Soto) schools of Chan (Japanese: Zen). Combining the two traditions, he created the Dharma Drum Lineage of Chan Buddhism, and went on to establish a spiritual, cultural, and educational foundation that he called Dharma Drum Mountain. Based in Taiwan, it’s now one of the most influential Chinese Buddhist organizations. Dharma Drum Retreat Center, nestled in woods and meadowland, lies below the ecologically protected…

MY NINE-YEAR-OLD HAD SAVED UP her money for roller blades. When we were at the sporting goods store, I got inspired too and purchased a pair of oldschool white roller skates with pink wheels. I was thrilled to share this new pastime with her and we spent the afternoon in blissful mommy–daughter union. We were learning together, it was outdoors, and we were away from screens. It was all great until the next day, when I caught my toe in a crack, fell, and torqued my knee in an awful direction. Alongside the excruciating knee pain, I was filled with equally painful self-recriminations. What was I thinking, what a stupid idea, I can’t believe I screwed this up. Summer’s ruined! If I got hurt, what’s going to happen to her?…

SHARON SALZBERG: I was once on stage with the Dalai Lama when he started talking about his mother, who he always says was his greatest teacher. “She taught me compassion,” he said. “She taught me everything.” I could feel the mood in the room go down because many of us were thinking about how hard life is if you didn’t have a parent like that. So I raised my hand and said, “I didn't have that kind of childhood.” And both the Dalai Lama and his translator, their mouths went, “Awwww!” [drags down corners of mouth with fingers to make sad face. Laughter]. They looked so sad. Although I didn’t have a mother like the Dalai Lama’s, what I did have was a strong intention. I wanted to be better.…

A CHINE SE DWARF HAMSTER, even fully grown, will fit neatly in the palm of your hand. Holding one, it’s as if you’re feeling the delicate ingredients of sentience itself. Beneath the hamster’s impossibly soft, gray and white fur, every feathery bone is palpable, especially the jutting scapulae. The little heart beats at electric-razor speed, even at rest, in a low vibratory hum. Jet-black eyes stare unselfconsciously and breath cycles through a pink nose the size of a dewdrop. I have had various dwarf hamsters for about seven years now, and every time I scoop one out of the cage, I am awed anew. What trust these defenseless creatures place in me, a human who could crush them with one squeeze! It’s hard to fathom their role in evolution—their “point”…

I BELIEVE MODERN THOUGHT’ S greatest contribution to Buddhism is deepening our understanding of the second noble truth—the causes of suffering. According to Buddhism, the root cause of suffering is ego, our mistaken belief in a solid, separate, and continuous self, and the three poisons we use to protect it—aggression, attachment, and ignorance. We act selfishly in service to a non-existent self. This is Buddhism’s essential, life-changing insight. By understanding and acting on it, we can reduce, and maybe even end, the suffering of beings. The second noble truth is the diagnosis that leads to the cure. Today our diagnosis is more accurate than ever. Buddhism traditionally said that the cause of suffering was personal and individual. Now to the personal causes of suffering we have added the psychological and…

ONE OF MY FAVORITE ZEN STORIES is short and simple. A student asks the master, “What is the constant activity of all the buddhas and bodhisattvas?” In other words, what’s special about the day-to-day lives of awakened people? The master replies: “Responding appropriately.” That’s all. No special powers, except being fully attentive to what’s actually happening and acting accordingly. That’s an easy thing to do in a monastery. When the bell rings, you put on your robe and go to the Buddha Hall for meditation. But what about when one leaves the monastery gates and steps out into a world with many problems, most ominously an ecological crisis that is severely degrading the biosphere. How do we respond appropriately to a climate emergency that threatens even the survival of our…

With each step and breath, the Buddha comes alive. Shantum Seth’s knowledge, insight, and humor brings joy to those journeying with him in the footsteps of the Buddha.—Thich Nhat Hanh Discover the Buddha’s Incredible Life in India Lion’s Roar is pleased to present this once-in-a-lifetime, transformative pilgrimage of discovery, meditation, and friendship. Explore the Buddha’s life in India in comfort and security with the guidance of one of the world’s leading experts on the life of the Buddha, Dharmacharya Shantum Seth. At each pilgrimage site along the way, Shantum tells stories of the Buddha, the drama of his life and the significance of what he taught. There is time for daily sitting and walking meditation, regular discussion, and contemplation. Friendly, colorful, magical—India is a land of contrasts, from the hubbub…

FOR MANY PEOPLE, artificial intelligence is the Wizard of Oz of our time—a mysterious and threatening power behind the curtain, ominous and seemingly omnipotent. The entertainment industry has done more than its fair share to feed us horrific futuristic scenarios about AI: HAL in 2001, Ava in Ex Machina, humans used as batteries in The Matrix. Our primal fears have been manipulated and magnified by the big screen. Should we be so afraid of AI? Buddhist teachings offer many sophisticated tools and strategies to work with fear. One is wisdom and understanding. So let’s start with answering the question: what is AI anyway? There are two types of AI: weak and strong. In weak AI, a computer simulates the mental states and behavior of sentient beings like us. A weak…

Question: I love my grown-up children, but the truth is I’m disappointed in them. How can I come to terms with the fact that they’re not leading the lives I’d hoped for them? Answer: We have hopes and fears about our children’s lives because we want the best for them—and because what they accomplish, or don’t, affects how we feel about ourselves as parents. I recall the things I said to my new-borns: “How beautiful you are! What lovely fingers! Maybe you’ll be a great pianist,” and, “You’re twenty-one inches long! Maybe you’ll be a great basketball player!” When I ask mothers whether they also talk to their newborns, they say, “Of course!” It’s a way of saying, “I love you! I want the best for you.” I felt proud…

Vows are common in the world’s religions. What vows do Buddhists take and why? There are many different kinds of vows in Buddhism. Some are very detailed, while others address our ethics and intentions generally. Monastics in the Theravada world, for example, vow to follow the many specific rules in the vinaya that govern their day-to-day conduct, including celibacy. Lay Buddhists in all traditions vow to follow the five basic precepts (not killing, stealing, lying, engaging in sexual misconduct, or taking intoxicants), although there are wide differences in how these are interpreted. In some traditions, one formally becomes a Buddhist by taking the refuge vow. Recognizing there is not freedom from suffering anywhere in samsara, one takes refuge only in the Buddha, dharma, and sangha. Mayahana Buddhists may also take…

AS SHAMBHALA PUBLICATIONS celebrates its fiftieth anniversary, co-owner Sara Bercholz quips that when the company got its start, “The interest in spirituality was very much in the air, but there wasn’t a lot of ground.” Maybe it was the psychedelic drugs giving people a glimpse into other realities, or maybe it was the Vietnam War shaking up the status quo, but whatever the reason, there was a widespread hunger back in 1969 to learn about Buddhism and other Eastern religions. People were looking for answers. Yet in English there were few books on these topics, they were hard to get ahold of, and the books that did exist were of limited scope. As Shambhala Publications’ cofounder Sam Bercholz puts it, “The books were academic, intellectual. They were based on someone’s…

AS A CHILD, I WOULD REPEAT certain words over and over again—piano, nine—until the words lost all meaning and became simply a sequence of sounds. I’d stare at my hand for so long that it no longer appeared to be “mine,” or even a hand. It was a fascinating object. I’d lie on the lawn and look up at the sky, and I’d wonder whether the color I called blue was the same color my friend David saw when he used that word to describe the same patch of sky. Many of us have these childhood experiences, yet in adulthood, we write them off as childish ignorance. Animals bring that wonder back into our lives. When in 2010 I went off half a lifetime of antidepressants, I listened to multiple…

IN MARCH, I joined sixty other Japanese American and Japanese Latin Americans who paid homage to parents and grandparents who had been unjustly incarcerated during WWII at the Crystal City, Texas Family Internment Camp. We were reminded of the interconnectedness of all things as we proceeded to Dilley, Texas, where today 2,400 Central American women and children seeking asylum are being unjustly detained in prison facilities. We wanted the children inside to know that someone outside cared. We wanted the world to know that we will not be silent when people are suffering at the hands of a cruel and unjust government policy so resonant of our own family experience. I was already too familiar with the suffering happening behind the fences of such detention centers. Three years ago, a…

NO ONE WHO HAS EVER touched liberation could possibly want anything other than liberation for all. But obscuring the path of liberation for us all is race. When I say race, I mean ethnicity and heritage and skin color and all of those things that we have conflated into the concept of race for hundreds of years. In this country, white supremacy and hindrance from liberation are one and the same thing. We have to begin by recognizing that the construct of white supremacy is an illness. I don’t wish it on anyone—not on myself, and not on you. We have all been told a lie, and our work—particularly for those of us who identify with the path of liberation—is to free ourselves of that lie, to get in there…

AURELIO, THE YOUNG MAN behind the counter, greeted me cheerfully. Throughout my pregnancy he’d been scooping me up mountains of pasta salad, piles of orzo, buckets of teriyaki chicken wings, never commenting on my voracious appetite and ever-changing cravings. He glanced down at my now-flat belly, then at the empty top basket of my shopping cart. “How’s your baby?” he asked with a big grin. I stared at him. This was the first time I’d gotten this question, which I would get countless times again. I couldn’t think of anything polite to say. “She’s dead.” We stared at each other for a moment. “She died,” I said again, and burst into tears. I walked away, leaving the cart where it was, the groceries still in it. I drove home, crying.…