A friendly talk about love and loving-kindness for ourselves and for others. Moderated by Melvin McLeod. Sharon Salzberg: In speaking about metta practice, or loving-kindness practice, one of the hardest things is not to sentimentalize. That’s especially hard in our society, where the whole idea of love can be degraded and considered a weakness. But in your books, the power, [...]
Adam Yauch: Check His Head
Back in the day, Beastie Boy Adam Yauch brought Tibetan music and Buddhist philosophy to music fans everywhere. Originally published in the January 1995 Shambhala Sun magazine (that's the previous name of Lion's Roar), this interview finds Yauch after the release of Ill Communication, candidly talking about about hip-hop, hardcore, helping people, and his relationship to [...]
Is Nothing Something?
Illustration by Jessica McClure. Thich Nhat Hanh answers children’s questions. Children have a special place in the Plum Village tradition of Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh. There are special practices, vows, and programs designed especially for children and teens, and Thich Nhat Hanh often fashions the first part of his dharma talks with them in mind. He regularly takes [...]
Building a Community of Love: bell hooks and Thich Nhat Hanh
bell hooks meets with Thich Nhat Hanh to ask: how do we build a community of love? Thich Nhat Hanh has been a presence in my life, as a teacher and guide, for more than twenty years. In the last few years I began to doubt the heart connection I felt with him because we had never met or spoken to one another, yet his work was ever-present in my work. I began to feel the [...]
Pema Chödrön & bell hooks on cultivating openness when life falls apart
In this conversation from 1997, bell hooks talks to Pema Chödrön about how to open your heart to life's most difficult challenges. Initially when I enter the classroom, I share with my students that we are there to think critically — to engage the world of ideas that we live in fully, deeply, and with our whole heart. Pema Chödrön's work gives me this gift. Consistently she [...]
Love and Liberation: An interview with Thich Nhat Hanh
In this 2010 interview, Thich Nhat Hanh talked to me about true love, the benefits of suffering, and the insight that will set you free. He says that he teaches original Buddhism with a Mahayana spirit. I say that no one else today presents the Buddha’s central teachings as clearly and powerfully. — Melvin McLeod, Editor in Chief of Lion's Roar Melvin McLeod: Why is [...]
Is Buddhism a Religion?
Amitabha (Amida), contained within a closed shrine. Photo courtesy of Free Sackler. Is it a religion, psychology, or way of life? The “religion without God” has baffled Western thinkers for hundreds of years. Our three experts, Charles Prebish ("Yes”), Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche ("No”), and Joan Sutherland ("Kind of”), join the debate. Yes, Buddhism is a religion A religion [...]
Beyond Privilege: a Q&A with angel Kyodo williams
To make diversity real, says Zen teacher angel Kyodo williams, Buddhists must look deep into their own hearts. Brooklyn Zen Center executive director Greg Snyder has spoken of a mind-meld that’s gone on between you and he, and BZC guiding teacher Teah Strozer. Let’s talk about that connection. I’m a New Yorker. I lived in Fort Greene and had a little sitting group, an [...]
Where Buddhism & Yoga Meet
In the forests of Vedic India, pupils gathered around teachers who instructed them in the path of liberation called yoga, meaning "union." One such student, in the 6th century BCE, was a young mendicant who came to be known as the Buddha. Three centuries after that, the teachings of yoga were compiled by Patanjali as the Yoga Sutras, and another two millennia later, the [...]
Richard Gere: My Journey as a Buddhist
In this 1999 interview, Richard Gere talks about his many years of Buddhist practice, his devotion to his teacher the Dalai Lama, and his work for Tibetan freedom. I suppose it's a sign of our current cynicism that we find it hard to believe celebrities can also be serious people. The recent prominence of "celebrity Buddhists" has brought some snide comments in the press, and [...]