On Having a Body
Fall 1994 Vol. 11 #1
Fall 1994 Vol. 11 #1
Introduction
Our editors offer thoughts and a brief overview of this issue’s topic.
Features
Miranda Shaw discusses Tantric practices and women’s historic contributions to Buddhism.
Discussing his vision of practical mysticism, Andrew Harvey asks, “How can we save the world when we don’t have a vision of the glory of ordinary life?”
Grappling with breast cancer, Barbara Gates finds kinship and nourishment in nature and community.
Poet Gary Snyder looks on meditation “as a kind of white-water raft trip where you go down the flow of the mind watching what passes by.”
Dr. Robert Hall describes learning from Randolph Stone to directly experience the body’s truth by following the movement of sensations.
Richard Strozzi-Heckler sees similarities between aikido and vipassana meditation, both of which teach us “what it means to truly be a human being.”
As Stan Grof evolved from Freud analysis to psychedelics to meditation and holotropic breathwork, he experienced the importance of rebirth.
The Body at the Center: Mindfulness of the Body in the Practice Instructions of the Buddha
By Gil Fronsdal
Gil Fronsdal says that physical difficulties aren’t nuisances to be ignored or transcended; rather they are the actual substance of practice.
Ed Brown leads us through mindful eating, for better or for worse.
Kate Lila Wheeler contemplates the classic Theravadan thirty-two parts of the body and other “loathsomeness practices.”
Poems & Not Poems
Dharma Jewel
The Turquoise Bee: The Lovesongs of the Sixth Dalai Lama, translated by Rick Fields and Brian Cutillo, illustrated by Mayumi Oda
Reviewed By Lama Surya Das
Lama Surya Das tells the backstory of this book of poetry, describing the tantric adventures of the Sixth Dalai Lama and putting it all in context.
Reviews
(416 pp., Parallax Press)
Women in Praise of the Sacred: 43 Centuries of Spiritual Poetry by Women, Edited by Jane Hirshfield
Reviewed By Lenore Friedman
(259 pp., HarperCollins)
Dharma Family Treasures: Sharing Mindfulness with Children, Edited by Sandy Eastoak
Reviewed By Shoshana Alexander
(280 pp., North Atlantic Books)
In Praise of Single Parents: Mothers and Fathers Embracing the Challenge, by Shoshana Alexander
Reviewed By Susan Moon
(404 pp., Houghton Mifflin)
Sangha Speaks
Patrick McMahon recreates the experience of being on a retreat where Curious George wears brown monk robes.
Practice
Andy Olendzki reflects on the Buddha’s teachings on the body as a foundation of mindfulness.
The Dharma & the Drama
Wes Nisker puts everything in perspective (past, present, future, on earth and in the cosmos).