Category: Buddhism

Nhat Hanh-isms

The following come from Thich Nhat Hanh’s books, The Miracle of Mindfulness, The Heart of Understanding, Peace Is Every Step, Being Peace, and Interbeing. Breathing in, I calm body and mind.  Breathing out, I smile….

Two Books I Finished Reading Today

A Flash of Lightning in the Dark of Night: A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life [A commentary on Shantideva’s great manual], by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. We Were in Auschwitz / 6643…

Chinese Communists, Vietnamese Buddhists

Liu Shao-Chi, How To be a Good CommunistForeign Language Press, Peking 1964 Thich Nhat Hanh, Interbeing: Commentaries on the Tiep Hien PreceptsParralax Press, Berkeley, 1987 An immature revolutionary has to go through a long process…

Quit Complaining!

Cold Mountain: 100 Poems by the T’ang Poet Han-shanTranslated and with an Introduction by Burton Watson I first learned of Han-shan 30 years ago when reading Jack Kerouac’s novel, The Dharma Bums, which starred Japhy…

The Main Compass

First Thought: Conversations with Allen GinsbergEdited by Michael Schumacher  When it comes to interviews with Ginsberg, I prefer the larger and deeper Spontaneous Mind, which warrants a complete rereading.   But then I come across…

Power Versus Love

Robert Topmiller, The Lotus Unleashed: The Buddhist Peace Movement in South Vietnam, 1964-1966 We are not savages; we are people with an ancient culture, and we are sick in our bones of war. I do…

Awe

Two things fill the mind with every new and increasing wonder and awe, the oftener and the more steadily I reflect upon them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me. I…