Archives: LR Articles
Sex & Buddhism
Robin Kornman argues that, unlike other religions, Buddhism doesn’t view sex as a particularly important spiritual issue.
Penis Passion
bell hooks argues that our erotic lives are enhanced when men and women can celebrate the penis in ways that don't uphold macho stereotypes.
Liberalism and Religion – We Should Talk
Liberalism's objections to mythic forms do not apply to formless awareness. Thus liberalism and authentic spirituality can walk hand in hand.
Pure Passion
Judith Simmer-Brown on the role of desire in Buddhist Tantra: "The intensity of desire can only be liberated by desire itself."
Post-Porn Priestess of Pleasure: Annie Sprinkle Takes a Sex-Positive Position
Former porn-star, now artist and educator, Annie Sprinkle's real specialty is the public display of a positive attitude toward sex.
Confessions of a Spiritual Shopper
Don Morreale on checking out the Buddhist scene and finding what’s right for you. (It only took him thirty years to decide.)
Time for Boomers to Ponder Old Age
So perhaps this is an apt time to discover dignity in old age, lest my generation become for a puling exit from the stage of life.
Is It Only Rock and Roll?
"I am constantly asked, why pay any attention to any of it? Isn't this middle brow culture somehow not really spiritual? What a small God, that."
Ordinary Initiations
"I've come to think that experiences of initiation are very common, very ordinary, very subtle. They happen to us all as a natural part of living."
Howard Cutler and the Dalai Lama’s Art of Happiness
The Shambhala Sun talks to psychiatrist Howard Cutler about The Art of Happiness, the book based on his series of conversations with the Dalai Lama.
Open to Understanding
The longing to be understood is very strong but it is in direct conflict with ego’s desire to be seen as independent and admirable. Karen Kissel Wegela on giving the ego a break and opening up instead.
Why We Travel: A Love Affair with the World
Like falling in love, travel throws us into a state of delight, uncertainty and self-discovery. Like lovers, travelers both give and receive.
Good Medicine For This World
Buddhist teacher Pema Chödrön and novelist Alice Walker on how tonglen meditation practice opens our heart, expands our vision, and plants the seeds of love in our lives.
Constant Consciousness
"That which is not present in deep dreamless sleep is not real." Ken Wilber discusses Emptiness.
Ain’t She Still a Woman?
Increasingly, patriarchy is offered as the solution to the crisis black men face. Black women face a culture where everyone wants us to stay in our place.
The Llama and the Shmuck
I confide my feelings to Bubo as if he were a therapist; he doesn't comment because he's a Freudian llama.
There Are No Words
Roshi Bernard Glassman discusses his practice of bereavement following the death of his wife and dharma partner, Sensei Sandra Jishu Holmes.
The Power of the Tao Te Ching
Perhaps the most valuable message the Tao Te Ching offers is that when something occurs, it contains within it the seeds of the negative and the positive.
Inheritance
"When my father said, ‘You descend from kings,’ he was reminding us that though we did not have the money of the powerful, we were powerful nonetheless."