Via the Facebook page of Buddhist teacher Michael Stone, which has become an active place for updates and comments since his sudden hospitalization last week and subsequent passing on the night of July 16, comes an official statement. It reads, in full: Michael Stone’s Passing – Official Statement from Carina Stone, Erin Robinsong & Rose Riccio Michael Stone passed [...]
Letter to Sogyal Rinpoche from current and ex-Rigpa members details abuse allegations
A letter dated July 14, 2017 and signed by current and ex-members of Rigpa, the international network of centers and groups founded by Sogyal Rinpoche in 1979, has been posted on the internet, detailing abuses allegedly committed by Sogyal Rinpoche. “As long-time committed and devoted students we feel compelled to share our deep concerns about your violent and abusive [...]
Remembering Buddhist teacher Michael Stone
Stone, 42, was an activist, family man, and teacher of yoga and Buddhism. [Friday, July 21 update: Carina Stone, Erin Robinsong and Rose Riccio have released an official statement on the passing of Buddhist teacher Michael Stone. Read “Official statement on passing of Michael Stone released” here.] Following a period of hospitalization that began on Thursday, July 13, as [...]
Buddhist Recovery Summit to explore how dharma can help addiction sufferers
The Buddhist Recovery Summit 2017—a collaboration between the Northwest Dharma Association and the Buddhist Recovery Network—will run from October 20 to 22 at the Gwinwood Retreat Center in Lacey, Washington. Organizers say the Summit is open to all who are interested in Buddhist Recovery. According to the Buddhist Recovery Network, the movement uses Buddhist teachings and [...]
“Ice stupas” bring water to drought-stricken villages of Northern India
Traditional Buddhist monuments are bringing life to a Himalayan community grappling with climate change. Villagers in Northern India have invented a way to fight drought, inspired by traditional Buddhist architecture. Each winter since 2013, the people of Phyang, Ladakh, have built stupas — traditional Buddhist monuments — made out of ice. When the whether warms and [...]
SGI issues further statements advancing anti-nuclear weapon cause
As Religion News Service reports, "On July 7, the group Faith Communities Concerned about Nuclear Weapons issued a joint statement in support of the historic adoption of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons at UN Headquarters on the same day." The statement is "supported so far by more than 40 groups and individuals of Christian, Quaker, Buddhist, Muslim and Jewish [...]
Buddhist teacher Michael Stone, after hospitalization, to be taken off life support
[Friday, July 21 update: Carina Stone, Erin Robinsong and Rose Riccio have released an official statement on the passing of Buddhist teacher Michael Stone. Read “Official statement on passing of Michael Stone released” here, and "Remembering Buddhist teacher Michael Stone" here.] As reported here on Friday, July 14, Buddhist teacher Shoken Michael Stone was hospitalized on [...]
Kagyu Thubten Choling addresses sangha about Lama Norlha Rinpoche’s sexual misconduct with students
On April 12, 2017, Kagyu Thubten Choling, the Wappinger Falls, New York-based monastery and retreat center in the Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism, hosted a Sangha-wide Disclosure Meeting to inform their community that the founder and principal abbot of their monastery, Lama Norlha Rinpoche, had been involved sexually with a number of female students over the last two [...]
Buddhist teacher Michael Stone “in a coma, and being monitored closely”
[Friday, July 21 update: Carina Stone, Erin Robinsong and Rose Riccio have released an official statement on the passing of Buddhist teacher Michael Stone. Read “Official statement on passing of Michael Stone released” here, and "Remembering Buddhist teacher Michael Stone" here.] According to a message posted Friday afternoon on the Facebook page of British Columbia-based [...]
Buddha statue repeatedly vandalized with sledgehammer in L.A. neighborhood
A beloved Buddha statue in the Los Angeles neighborhood, Palms, has been vandalized with a sledgehammer for the fourth time, the LA Times reports. Last month, the Buddha statue was decapitated when a man in a white sedan pulled over and began destroying the statue with a sledgehammer. The statue, which sits on a traffic island at Jasmine Avenue and National Boulevard in [...]