In The Princess Bride, outcasts and loners find true friendship. Drawing on the classic film, Ethan Nichtern offers Buddhist teachings on how to make friends with yourself and others. OBEY FEZZIK. When Andre the Giant’s stenciled face began appearing everywhere in American cities in the 1990s, immortalized against brick and concrete in artist Shepard Fairey’s series of [...]
Stand Against Suffering: A Call to Action by Buddhist Teachers
Thirteen prominent teachers explain why Buddhists need to be be politically engaged at this crucial time in the country’s history, in this statement published in Lion’s Roar magazine and co-signed by more than 140 Buddhist leaders. As long as a society protects the vulnerable among them, they can be expected to prosper and not decline. —The Buddha, in the Mahaparinirvana [...]
A Meditator’s 7-Point Practice Plan for 2017
Buddhist teacher Ethan Nichtern shares the practices he'll be undertaking to stay healthy and responsibly engaged this year. In addition to the deaths of many special people, last year saw the deaths of some misguided ideas — including my view that my practice of meditation and Buddhism can happen without full and complete engagement with our society. Disabused of that notion, [...]
Opinion: One Buddhist Teacher’s Guide to the 2016 Election
Buddhist teacher Ethan Nichtern says you have six options on November 8. (And for more about how to relate to politics and citizenship -- through a Buddhist lens -- see the November 2016 "Hope & Healing" issue of Lion's Roar, featuring a guide for spiritual activists, meditations to work with fear and despair, and more.) I don't buy the strange premise that spiritual [...]
Do We Have to Talk About Ethics?
The subject usually brings up negative reactions, but in this preview of his book The Road Home, Ethan Nichtern proposes a better way forward. I find that when the conversation shifts to ethics, people tend to have three basic reactions that complicate the exploration. I’ve been guilty of having all of them at different times. They seem impossible to avoid and are each worth [...]
Tonglen: In with the Bad, Out with the Good
“Accepting and sending out” is a powerful meditation to develop compassion—for ourselves and others. Ethan Nichtern teaches us how to do it in formal practice and on the spot whenever suffering arises. Tonglen, which in Tibetan means “accepting and sending out,” is one of the most powerful and intense compassion meditations in the Buddhist tradition. The Buddhist [...]
Generational Diversity Baby Boomers, Gen Xers, and More
Usually when I think of diversity, I think of ethnic and socioeconomic realities. But there’s another kind of diversity that is crucial for any community to survive and flourish: generational diversity. As a young practitioner in the Shambhala community—the Buddhist sangha that I grew up in—it was hard to see this kind of age diversity. The rise of my own strong interest in [...]
