Archives: LR Articles
Niutou’s Song of Mind: A Commentary by Sheng Yen
Teachings at a meditation retreat by the renowned Chan Master Sheng Yen on stanzas one through five of the Chinese classic Song of Mind.
The Future of Ice
Novelist Gretel Ehrlich spent a year travelling the world's coldest places, meditating on the experience of winter and exploring the polar regions.
Daughter Time
The time of childhood is going to go fast. I'm doing what I can to slow it down. There's still time for me to learn some of what they see and know and feel.
Elaine Pagels’ Search for Christ the Mystic
Who was Christ, really? Barry Boyce profiles Elaine Pagels, the leading authority on Christianity's suppressed gospels.
Koan Practice: The Great Way is Not Difficult If You Just Don’t Pick and Choose
Home to care for his dying mother, Zen teacher John Tarrant discovers what it means for himself and those around him to give up picking and choosing.
The Wisdom of the Body and the Search for the Self
From the impermanent to the heroic to the sacred—The Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche on how the view of body changes and evolves in the three vehicles of Buddhism.
Searching for the Truth that Is Far Below the Search
Below the level of thoughts, concepts and even emotions are the subtle ways that life is felt directly in the body. David Rome explains how to Focus.
Trikaya: The Mahayana Buddhist Trinity
The “three bodies of the Buddha” may seem like a remote construct, says Reginald Ray, but the trikaya is present in every moment of our experience.
Intimate Distances
Speculations on the nature of self, other, boundary and embodiment by the great cognitive scientist and Buddhist practitioner Francisco J. Varela, written after undergoing a liver transplant. The scene is viewed from the side. The patient is lying on his half-raised hospital bed. Tubes, sutures and drains cover his body from nose to abdomen. On…
When the Candle is Blown Out: On The Death of Katagiri Roshi
Natalie Goldberg offers a remembrance of her teacher and a cri de coeur over all that is left incomplete and unanswered by his death.
Not Every Gauntlet Requires Picking Up
Not every challenge – nor every thought – needs to be acted on, says Sylvia Boorstein. We could be happier just letting go.
Make Your Decisions for Others
The reason it's so hard to make decisions, says Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, is that we're confused about what we really want. If we're motivated by the happiness and welfare of others, we'll have no trouble making clear and wise decisions.
What’s Right With Islam
In a discussion with Melvin McLeod, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf says the true spirit of Islam is one of tolerance, pluralism, and democracy.
Khandro Rinpoche’s Tough Love
She is demanding of her students and uncompromising about the dharma, and she is a rarity—a prominent Tibetan teacher who is a woman. Trish Deitch Rohrer experiences the provocative and challenging Khandro Rinpoche. You took your twelve-year-old daughter to a children’s blessing the Venerable Khandro Rinpoche was presiding over a few years ago while on…
Be Peace Embodied
"And if peace is their goal, they will in the field of politics be themselves peace embodied," Charles R. Johnson on the principles of enlightened politics
Forum: Understanding Dogen
When student approach the work of Dogen Zenji, the founder of Soto Zen, they find enigma and obscurity, plus great clarity. A roundtable discussion on this.
The Great Love
As well as its famed doctrines of emptiness and nonattachment, the heart of Buddhism is the love and compassion we feel toward all beings.
Stay with the Soft Spot of Bodhichitta
Pema Chödrön on how to awaken bodhichitta—enlightened heart and mind—the essence of all Buddhist practice.
Discovering the True Nature of Mind
Geshe Tenzin Wangyal teaches us a Dzogchen meditation that goes from contemplating our worst enemy to the discovery that mind is empty, clear and blissful.