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Thursday, February 14, 2013 at 3:49PM 
DO NOT STAND BY
In this message to Buddhadharma’s readers, Jack Kornfield talks about the response of Western Buddhist leaders to the ethnic violence incited by Burmese monks and abbots.
Thursday, February 14, 2013 at 3:13PM Buddhist teachings talk about having no distinction between “self” and “other.” But they also talk about using meditation to discover one’s “true self.” if we’re trying to diminish the gap between self and other, how does discovering one’s self help in that process? When i meditate, i discover more about myself, but that seems to get in the way of dropping my sense of self. So this confuses me a lot!
Thursday, February 14, 2013 at 3:00PM 
Clinical therapist Tamara Kaiser asks why Buddhist communities have not adopted ethical standards long accepted by the rest of society.
What happens in your sangha if a member has a conflict with a spiritual teacher over alleged psychological or sexual exploitation? Is there room for open discussion about the conflict, or is any such discussion automatically interpreted as a violation of “right speech” and suppressed? As a therapist and, for want of a better term, “spiritual seeker” whose practice includes meditation, I have followed the discussion regarding sexual and psychological exploitation in the American Buddhist community for a number of years. I first became acquainted with these issues in the Buddhist community through my husband, a longtime Zen practitioner and meditation teacher. In my own profession, I have worked extensively with boundary issues in my roles as a therapist and supervisor of therapists (including those who have been sanctioned by a licensing board for violations of the profession’s code of ethics) and also as a teacher of therapists and their supervisors.
Thursday, February 14, 2013 at 2:10PM 
THE ARTS OF CONTEMPLATIVE CARE: PIONEERING VOICES IN BUDDHIST CHAPLAINCY AND PASTORAL WORK
Edited by Cheryl A. Giles and Willa B. Miller
Wisdom Publications, 2012
$34.95; 368 pages
BUDDHIST CARE FOR THE DYING AND BEREAVED
Edited by Jonathan S. Watts and Yoshiharu Tomatsu
Wisdom publications, 2012
$22.95; 312 pages
Reviewed by Frank Ostaseski
Thursday, February 14, 2013 at 1:29PM 
RECEIVING THE MARROW TEACHINGS ON DOGEN by Soto Zen Women Priests
Edited by Eido Frances Carney
Temple Ground Press, 2012
$18; 266 pages
Reviewed by Steven Heine
Nearly eight hundred years ago, the celebrated Japanese Zen master Dogen gave a remarkable sermon revealing his egalitarian attitude toward women, an attitude reflected in both his teachings and writings. With the publication of Receiving the Marrow, a collection of essays edited by Eido Frances Carney, eleven accomplished Zen women priests share their understanding of Dogen’s teachings, as well as their appreciation.
Thursday, February 14, 2013 at 1:06PM by Michael Sheehy
How we have received and continue to interpret Buddhism through European lenses is the subject of The Cult of Emptiness (University Media 2012), which presents us with a glimpse into the European discovery of Buddhism. The author, Urs App, explores and narrates this history, beginning with sixteenth-century Jesuit and Christian missionaries who encountered Zen Buddhists in Japan. App looks at how these encounters shaped the invention of a unified “Oriental philosophy,” an atheistic doctrine of nothingness that was attributed to the Buddha and thought to originate in Egypt. Bringing to light new sources for the study of these encounters, we see how the history of Buddhism was rewritten by the Church. The story of what was known about Buddhism and how that knowledge was manipulated, not to mention how it informs our perceptions of Buddhism today, makes for a fascinating read.
Thursday, February 14, 2013 at 12:34PM 
by Andrew Merz
We must carry an iron yoke with no hole,
It is not a slight matter, the curse is passed
on to our descendants;
If you want to support the gate and sustain
the house,
You must climb a mountain of swords with
bare feet.
When asked about the challenges of teaching Zen, Josh Munen Bartok sensei, one of the four guiding teachers of Boundless Way Zen (BWZ), recalls these rather severe lines from The Gateless Gate, a thirteenth-century koan collection compiled by the Chinese master Wumen.
Thursday, February 14, 2013 at 12:27PM 
by Shayne Larango
Things were not good with me, but little did I know they were about to get worse. Something was pulling me from a self-destructive relationship with my job. I had started wearing flip-flops to my corporate office, I developed an eye twitch, and my blood pressure was rising. Every day, I felt as though I was walking underwater against the current. But instead of taking all the pills my doctor had recommended, I started seeing an acupuncturist who gently suggested I try meditation.
Friday, February 1, 2013 at 9:56AM 
Photo: Naomi SchmidtBy Andrea Miller
A year before his death in 1981, His Holiness the Sixteenth Karmapa, head of the Karma Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism, was traveling in the United States on what would become his last world tour. At that time, he showed some of his students a sketch he had made years before. It depicted what His Holiness envisioned for his prin- cipal seat in the Western world: a fully functioning Tibetan-style monastery in a North American setting. Now, more than twenty-five years later, his vision – Karma Triyana Dharmachakra (KTD) – is on the verge of completion.
Commentary: Newtown and the Three Poisons
My teacher, the late Master Sheng Yen, once said something very simple, but which requires a lifetime of practice to actualize. I share it with you in this difficult time: “Wisdom does not give rise to vexations; compassion has no enemies.”
Wisdom is to be free from greed, hatred, and ignorance, which are the three root vexations. Compassion is to act without opposition. Siding with those who agree with me is greed; opposing those who don’t agree with me and wishing they would go away is hatred; not being able to see this mechanism is ignorance. Do our decisions and interpretations of what we experience foster vexations? Do greed, hatred, and ignorance live in us? How many times in our life have we tried to blame others for our suffering? How often do we see things in opposition, as victim and victimizer, good and bad?
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