Liberation & the Sacred
Fall 1997 Vol. 14 #1
Fall 1997 Vol. 14 #1
Introduction
The editor’s notes for this issue describe a rich collection of diverse insights, with the caution, “please don’t look for consensus, for it is not to be found”!
Features
Drawing on the canon of the Sarvastivada, an early school of Buddhism, Zen teacher Norman Fischer revisits the myth of Siddhartha’s renunciation and his wife’s birthing of their son: inner tuning and outer birth comprise the fullness of the Path.
Musing about the contradictory inner tendencies that shape and guide and live themselves out through our spiritual pursuits, Andrew Cooper sets the stage for the five articles that follow.
Sayadaw U Pandita clears up some basic misunderstandings of the teachings of the Buddha.
Joseph Goldstein describes the benefits and means of letting go of the mind’s habits of attachment and delusion.
Jack Kornfield differentiates between “true teachings” and culture-specific skillful means as he asks, “What will we teach in the West?”
Ruth Denison explains that while Dharma practice is hard work, it is also delightful and meaningful, a beautiful offering from yourself to yourself.
With nods to history, nature and interdependence, Joanna Macy debunks the myth that Buddhists use impermanence as a goad to nonattachment. “Because your beloved is dying, do you love him or her less?”
With poetic and harrowing beauty, Anita Barrows and her two young daughters bear witness at a nuclear test site in the Nevada desert.
A near-fatal accident brings Patrick McMahon a sense of connection and an awareness of us all, vulnerable and mortal, paying a terrible price for our conveniences and comforts.
Steven D. Goodman conveys a range of approaches reflected in Buddhist traditions, noting that each perfectly fits a certain temperament and capacity.
Engaged Buddhist Diana Winston grapples with her desire to go on retreat in Burma despite that country’s oppressive government.
Three years after a cancer diagnosis, Barbara Gates seeks an understanding of what it means truly to love life.
Poems & Not Poems
Reviews
Buddhism Without Beliefs: A Contemporary Guide to Awakening, by Stephen Batchelor
Reviewed By Judith Stronach
(144 pp., Riverhead Books, 1997)
Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of Mindful Parenting, by Myla and Jon Kabat-Zinn
Reviewed By Shoshana Alexander
(416 pp., Hyperion, 1997)
Altars in the Street: A Neighborhood Fights to Survive, by Melody Ermachild Chavis
Reviewed By Alan Senauke
(272 pp., Bell Tower, 1997)
(204 pp., Padma Publishing, 1997)
A Mind Reader’s Briefing
Reviewed By Peter Dale Scott, Ronna Kabatznick
Short reviews of Who is Myself? A Guide to Buddhist Meditation • The Book of Tibetan Elders • Chuang Tzu: The Inner Chapters • Opening the Lotus: A Woman’s Guide to Buddhism • The Knitting Sutra: Craft as Spiritual Practice • Sleeping, Dreaming, and Dying: An Exploration of Consciousness with The Dalai Lama
Practice
Green Gulch Farms’ Wendy Johnson writes about gardening as practice and as metaphor.
The Dharma & the Drama
Wes Nisker takes us on a tour of our bones, reflecting on their evolutionary history and mystery.