There is a key moment, says Pema Chödrön, when we make the choice between peace and conflict. Here she describes a practice we can do at that very moment to bring peace for ourselves, for others, and for the world. If we want to make peace, with ourselves and with the world at large, we have to look closely at the source of all of our wars. So often, it seems, we want to [...]
He Has Tried in His Way to Be Free
And to a remarkable extent, Leonard Cohen is succeeding. In 2007, Sarah Hampson had a rare opportunity to spend an afternoon with the famed singer and poet. He had the wisdom of age but was still the essence of cool—the perfect reflection of his years of Zen. The park is like a poem: self-contained and spare. Smokers sit on benches in the morning drizzle. Pigeons swoop [...]
Finding Freedom: The Death Row Journey of Jarvis Jay Masters
Susan Moon on the spiritual journey of Jarvis Jay Masters, a Buddhist practitioner on death row at San Quentin prison in this article first published in Lion's Roar in 2007. Read our 2010 review of Jarvis Jay Master's book That Bird Has My Wings. Jarvis Masters lives on a prime piece of real estate beside San Francisco Bay, in pricey Marin County, California. But he can’t [...]
Here, Now, Aware: The Power of Mindfulness
It’s the essence of the contemplative path and the key to transforming our lives. In this teaching from his book, A Heart Full of Peace, Insight Meditation teacher Joseph Goldstein describes this simple yet profound expression of our mind’s natural awareness. Mindfulness is the key to the present moment. Without it we cannot see the world clearly, and we simply stay lost in [...]
The Ecology of Aging
Many people look at the aging population as a problem, but Theodore Roszak thinks it could result in a wiser and more caring society. Ready or not, like it or not, the modern world is tilting steadily toward gerontocracy. Irresistible trends in family life, medical science, public health, fiscal economics, and political power all run in that direction. In another [...]
Writers and the War Against Nature
Buddhism, art, and environmentalism—all honor the beauty and magic of the natural world. In a powerful autobiographical essay, the poet, sage, and Zen practitioner Gary Snyder traces his lifelong commitment to the environment and calls on all creative people to rise in its defense. I grew up in the maritime Pacific Northwest, on a farm north of Seattle where we kept a hen [...]
Books in Brief November 2007
Basic Teachings of the Buddha by Glenn Wallis Modern Library Classics, 2007; 181 pp.; $19.95 (paper) Basic Teachings of the Buddha is “serious” Buddhism, both in its conception and its execution. Buddhist scholar and translator Glenn Wallis has rigorously selected, translated, introduced, and parsed sixteen essential discourses from the Pali canon, a vast collection of [...]
The Interdependence Movement
Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw it Coming By Paul Hawken Viking, 2007; 342 pp.; $24.95 (cloth) Those of us who live at the center of an empire often know the least about the world. Information tends to flow out from the center, not in from the periphery. Thus half the people on earth have seen Baywatch, but how many [...]
The Seeds of Peace
Richard Reoch, president of Shambhala International and a longtime human rights worker, says the same practices that bring peace within can help bring peace to the world. How exactly are we going to practice peace in a time when there is such a staggering amount of war? If we were to ask most people to name the wars currently underway in the world, they would likely [...]