Who was Jamgon Kongtrul and who are his successors? From the Fall 2016 Buddhadharma. Jamgon Kongtrul is often described as one of the greatest scholars in the history of Tibet. A Karma Kagyu lama and model of rimay ecumenical activity, he collaborated closely with the Sakya lama Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo and the Nyingma treasure revealer (terton) Chokgyur Lingpa in the [...]
Do You Know Your True Face?
Lama Rod Owens says we all need to look honestly at who we are, in all our complexity -- and that includes those who teach the dharma. Excerpted in the Fall 2017 Buddhadharma, "The Best of 15 Years." About a year after I finished the traditional three-year retreat program and had begun my work as a dharma teacher, I experienced a kind of breakdown, a severe sense of being [...]
Awakening the Bodhisattva
Venerable Pannavati, Anne Klein, and Ejo McMullen on the possibilities and challenges of the bodhisattva path. Introduction by Taigen Dan Leighton. Bodhisattvas are beings dedicated to helping relieve suffering for all, realizing universal awakening, and leading all beings to that same awakening. Such practice cannot be merely about self-help or personal salvation. [...]
I Vow Not to Burn Out
Mushim Ikeda says it's not enough to help others. You have to take care of yourself too. At the end of January, one of my close spiritual friends died. A queer Black man, a Sufi imam “scholartivist” (scholar–artist–activist) and professor of ministry students, Baba Ibrahim Farajajé died of a massive heart attack. He was sixty-three, and I’m guessing he had been carrying [...]
You’re Ready Enough
Wherever you find yourself, says Pema Khandro, that’s the starting point of the bodhisattva path—all you need to do is take that first step. Once upon a time, many aeons before he took birth as a prince, Shakyamuni was an ordinary being born into a hot hell realm, where he was forced to pull a chariot through the fires. Distressed over the struggles of his feeble [...]
Open View, Solid Ground
Jamgon Kongtrul championed the view of rimay, recognizing the inherent value of all Buddhist teachings. But as Alex Gardner explains, he remained firmly loyal to his own tradition. Practitioners today enjoy exposure to a great variety of Buddhist traditions. In the last several millennia, the Buddhist teachings have branched into innumerable traditions and lineages, each [...]
Shaping Buddhadharma’s Future
Earlier this year, our not-for-profit foundation underwent a name change. If you were a reader of our other magazine, Shambhala Sun, you surely noticed, as both the foundation and that magazine changed their name to Lion’s Roar. If you’re strictly a Buddhadharma reader, however, this change might have passed you by. The lion’s roar was said to be the Buddha’s own metaphor [...]
Inside the Fall 2016 Buddhadharma magazine
The Fall 2016 issue of Buddhadharma: The Practitioner's Quarterly is available now. Below is a preview of what you’ll find in the magazine. How to Be a Bodhisattva In Accord with All Time If you know yourself as the unity of past, present, and future, says Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, then you see you're right where you ought to be. Do You Know Your True Face? Lama Rod Owens [...]
Book Briefs for Fall 2016
So much of our life is spent asleep—“dead to the outer world, but potentially alive to an exciting inner world,” as author Andrew Holecek puts it. In Dream Yoga (Sounds True 2016), Holecek draws on decades of experience navigating this inner world to give us detailed instructions on how to induce lucid dreaming and develop it into a transformative practice. Skillfully combining [...]
Get Very, Very Close
Sayadaw U Pandita’s instructions for satipatthana vipassana. Our meditative tradition was founded by the late Venerable Mahasi Sayadaw of Rangoon. According to his instructions, satipatthana vipassana, also known as insight meditation, is the primary teaching. Discourses on metta are also offered, though far less often. This is because insight wisdom has the capacity to [...]
