by Vishvapani | Feb 21, 2012 | Buddhism in the West, Buddhist World, Featured
A few years ago I wrote on my previous blog an article called ‘NKT: Succession & Question of Authority regarding difficulties in the New Kadampa Tradition in managing the succession from Geshe Kelsang Gyatso to a new generation. Much has changed in the subsequent...
by Vishvapani | Dec 27, 2011 | Buddhist World, Reviews
The Book of Enlightened Masters: Western Teachers in Eastern Traditions by Andrew Rawlinson (Open Court, 1997) £31.50 Review by Vishvapani Not long ago, when the East was axiomatically ‘mystical’, teachers of eastern religions were assumed to be possibly mad, probably...
by Vishvapani | Dec 21, 2011 | Buddhism, Mindfulness, Practice
If you could sum up the whole of the Buddha’s teaching in a single word that word might be ‘impermanence’: the fact that everything around us is changing all the time and that therefore we can change ourselves. That’s easy to say, but knowing that...
by Vishvapani | Dec 5, 2011 | Buddhist World, Practice, Vishvapani
Challenging Times: Stories of Buddhist Practice When Things Get Tough Edited by Vishvapani Available from the Windhorse online store, £10.99 Interview on the Windhorse Publications Blog How would you introduce ‘Challenging Times’ to those...
by Vishvapani | Nov 29, 2011 | Buddhism in the West, Buddhist World, Comment
One of the most surprising groups in western Buddhism are the Roma (‘gypsy’) Buddhists of Hungary. The link is Dr Ambedkar, the leader who inspired tens of millions of India’s dalits to adopt Buddhism. A group of Romas locate their community’...
by Vishvapani | Nov 19, 2011 | Buddhist World, Interviews
In 1975 when Helena Norberg-Hodge first met her friend Tsewang Paljor in a Ladakhi village, Tsewang told her, ‘We don’t have any poverty here.’ That was before this the remote Himalayan region – politically part of India but culturally part of the old Tibetan Buddhist...
