Street Wise: Bernie Glassman in Yonkers
In the 1990s the American Zen teacher Bernie Glassman ditched traditional forms of practice and plunged into the poor, black community that surrounded his Center in Yonkers, New York. In 1997 I travelled there to witness this remarkable experiment in Buddhist social action and ask Bernie Glassman: is it working? and is it Buddhist?
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The Buddha and The Scream
Edward Munch's The Scream has just become the most expensive painting ever sold at auction. Meanwhile, Buddhists around the world are celebrating the Buddha's Enlightenment by contemplating images of the Buddha. What is the mysterious power that images have over us? What do the express? And which should we choose to dwell on?
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Visiting Auschwitz: Pilgrimage or ‘Dark Tourism’?
When I spent a week at Auschwitz Concentration Camp with a Buddhist-led interfaith group, I confronted the question, is such a visit meaningful or morbid? We may not be able to make sense of such places, but 'bearing witness' to their horrors has a mysterious power
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Buddhist Rebels & Buddhist Despots in the Burmese Spring
Burma's struggle isn’t between Buddhists and their opponents but between different kinds of Buddhists. The monastic establishment's complicity with the generals' Buddhist tyranny shows the need to reform Buddhism, freeing it from ancient practices that obscure its essential teachings
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Learning From Mindfulness Based Approaches: the State We’re In
Buddhists are often wary of secular mindfulness training. But Mindfulness Based Approaches are a meeting ground between meditation and modern psychology and we can learn much about the psychological issues people face and how do they produce suffering. The first of two posts.
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Buddhism & the Mindfulness Movement: Friends or Foes?
We’re in the middle of the Mindfulness Boom as Buddhist-derived meditation practices enter the cultural mainstream. But is this the Dharma touching and transforming western society, or is Buddhism being turned into a self-help technique and a consumer product? Its time for Buddhists to start reflecting seriously on the mindfulness movement and to learn its lessons.
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Don’t Rely on Lineage
Many Buddhist traditions claim that they are reliable and authoritative because they inherit a lineage of realised masters dating back to prestigious teachers of the ancient past. That sounds impressive and appealing but the Buddha advised us to check out the truth of a teaching in our own experience. Perhaps the whole notion of lineage is a beguiling diversion from what Buddhist practice is really about.
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Discovering the Buddha
What’s left to say about the Buddha? Everything, I discovered in writing my biography: Gautama Buddha: The Life and Teaching of the Awakened One. And the funny, original, surprising Buddha of history is more relevant than ever
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Buddhism & the Mindfulness Movement: Friends or Foes?
We’re in the middle of the Mindfulness Boom as Buddhist-derived meditation practices enter the cultural mainstream. But is this the Dharma touching and transforming western society, or is Buddhism being turned into a self-help technique and a consumer product? Its time for Buddhists to start reflecting seriously on the mindfulness movement and to learn its lessons.
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‘Compassion for My Torturer’: A Meeting With Palden Gyatso
Tibetan Buddhist monk, Palden Gyatso, spent 33 years imprisoned by the Chinese and drew deep on his Buddhist practice to survive his brutal treatment. He escaped to the West to tell his story, and when I met him in London he told me about his experiences and reflections. ‘I never regretted what I did. I did not put up the posters to alleviate my own suffering, but for the good of Tibet. The whole country was in prison, so it was not important what happened to me’.
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Don’t Rely on Lineage
Many Buddhist traditions claim that they are reliable and authoritative because they inherit a lineage of realised masters dating back to prestigious teachers of the ancient past. That sounds impressive and appealing but the Buddha advised us to check out the truth of a teaching in our own experience. Perhaps the whole notion of lineage is a beguiling diversion from what Buddhist practice is really about.
Read More
Discovering the Buddha
What’s left to say about the Buddha? Everything, I discovered in writing my biography: Gautama Buddha: The Life and Teaching of the Awakened One. And the funny, original, surprising Buddha of history is more relevant than ever
Read More
How western Buddhism has changed in 50 years
It's 50 years since Buddhist teachers started arriving in the west in the early 60s and Buddhism crash-landed into the counterculture. So what have we learned about western Buddhism? An article for The Guardian
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Kalu Rinpoche’s Confessional Video and the Tulku Fantasy
The young Kalu Rinpoche, reborn 'tulku' of a respected Tibetan Buddhist teacher, has posted a video detailing sexual abuse by Buddhist monks, his tutor's attempt to murder him and his descent into drug addiction and alcoholism. His testimony should lead us to question the tulku system and the adulation blinding us to its problems
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Surviving Tibetan Buddhism: Review of “The Novice”
A review of Stephen Schettini’s heartfelt and vivid account of becoming a Tibetan Buddhist monk and his valuable reflections on what it means for westerners to practice Buddhism
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The Shugden Dispute
The controversy surrounding the deity, Dorje Shugden became an open dispute in 1996. Here are my reflections then and now.
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NKT, Succession and ‘The Rules’
As the controversial, fast-growing Buddhist movement, The New Kadampa Tradition prepares for life after its ageing founder it has produced a new constitution. It raises issues of control and diversity that concern Buddhists of all hues.
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Responding to Praise and Blame
What happens when we are praised - and what happens when we're criticised? Here's some advice from the Buddha, placed by later Buddhists on page 1 of the User's Manual of Buddhism
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I’m a writer and teacher of Buddhism, mindfulness & meditation based in Cardiff and a member of the Triratna Buddhist Order. I contribute to Thought for the Day on BBC Radio 4 and my biography, Gautama Buddha: the Life and teachings of the Awakened One is published by Quercus 