Each Friday, we share three topical longreads in our Weekend Reader newsletter. This week, LionsRoar.com editor Sam Littlefair asks: how can we find sanity in our dizzying media landscape? Sign up here to receive the Weekend Reader in your inbox. We live in a maelstrom of media. When I first wake up in the morning, I check Twitter on my phone. At the store, pop music [...]
About Sam Littlefair
San Francisco’s famed Zen hospice closes doors while seeking funding
The Zen Hospice Project guesthouse opened in 1990, during the height of the AIDS epidemic. The guesthouse of the Zen Hospice Project in San Francisco saw its last patient in June. For more than a month, operations at the guesthouse have been suspended due to lack of funding. The project runs largely on donations, which have diminished in recent years as donors have [...]
Understanding Buddhist nationalism in Myanmar
Each Friday, we share three topical longreads in our Weekend Reader newsletter. This week, LionsRoar.com editor Sam Littlefair looks at the crisis in Myanmar. Sign up here to receive the Weekend Reader in your inbox. Most Buddhists are aware that there is a humanitarian crisis unfolding in Myanmar, a nation where almost 90% of the population is Buddhist. The United [...]
Heat maps illustrate the sacred routes of Buddhist pilgrims
In Strava's heat maps, the devotional movements of tired pilgrims become blazing symbols of sacred geography. Back in January, the fitness app Strava caused a stir when it released a global heat map of its users' fitness activity. The heat maps, meant to illustrate popular running routes, inadvertently revealed the locations of secret US military bases. But Jennifer Rowe, [...]
How to Read and Study Buddhist Teachings
There is such a wealth of Buddhist books and teachings to consume. Where do you start? Here are some tips on how to tackle your reading list. A lot of people think Buddhism is all about sitting in silence and finding inner wisdom. When you start practicing Buddhism, it’s easy to carry that stereotype onto your spiritual path. But any teacher will tell you: At some point on [...]
How to Cry
Each Friday, we share three topical longreads in our Weekend Reader newsletter. This week, LionsRoar.com editor Sam Littlefair looks at the practice of crying. Sign up here to receive the Weekend Reader in your inbox. It’s been a hard few weeks. As a journalist, it’s my job to keep up with the news every day. As a human — and with the world the way it is — that can be really [...]
How Buddhists are responding to America’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy
In the past six weeks, approximately 2,300 children have been separated from their parents at the US–Mexico border. Though US President Donald Trump announced Wednesday he would end the practice, CNN reports, "it's unclear whether those children will be reunited with their parents." Just one section of a very long line of people surrounding the ICE building at 4310 SW [...]
200 Buddhist teachers call for end to separation of children and parents at US–Mexico Border
"As people of faith and conscience, we feel that it is important that we speak out clearly in defense of basic human rights at this time." On Monday, the Soto Zen Buddhist Association released a statement on the separation of children from their parents at the US–Mexico border. The statement, which you can read in full below, is signed by more than 200 teachers across [...]
Kunga Dawa, first Western teacher trained by Trungpa Rinpoche, dies at 78
Buddhist teacher Kunga Dawa, also known as Richard Arthure, died in Colorado on Monday at 78 years old. Dawa met the pioneering Buddhist teacher Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche in England in 1966 and served as his private secretary for several years. In 1968, Dawa was with Trungpa Rinpoche when he composed the Sadhana of Mahamudra, an important contemporary Buddhist text. Dawa [...]
Happy Birthday, Buddha!
Each Friday, we share three topical longreads in our Weekend Reader newsletter. This week, LionsRoar.com editor Sam Littlefair discusses the meaning and importance of Vesak. Sign up here to receive the Weekend Reader in your inbox. On Tuesday, millions of Buddhists will celebrate Vesak, or “Buddha Day.” As LionsRoar.com assistant editor Lilly Greenblatt writes, Vesak “marks [...]
