The God Issue
Fall 2013 Vol. 30 #1
Fall 2013 Vol. 30 #1
Introduction
It’s hard to talk about God. Impossible to name the Nameless. “The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao.” Yet in The God Issue, that’s what we’re asking of ourselves and our contributors. Guest editor Martha Kay Nelson offers her thoughts.
Features
Norman Fischer finds no inconsistency in praying to God while leading a Jewish meditation group and giving Zen teachings that never mention God.
Tracking the gods in early Buddhist texts, Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi discovers deities who need lessons from the Buddha. Often, when they inquire into the idea of a creator god, the suttas take a satirical turn that might give you a good laugh—on the gods.
Susan Moon never imagined her Zen path would wind its way to a Benedictine hermitage. Looking for God at Sky Farm, she met an extraordinary priest who helped her see that God is with her as long as she keeps looking.
Years after leaving the Greek Catholic Church, Askold Melnyczuk had a powerful experience of God. Through Tibetan Buddhism, he found a way to understand this experience.
Interview with Anne Klein: Every Consciousness Rides a Steed of Wind
By Barbara Gates, Martha Kay Nelson, Susan Moon
Buddhist scholar and teacher Anne Klein unravels the mysteries of Tibetan deity practice where we encounter ourselves in the disguise of the divine.
Tom White brings his training as a scientist and Zen student to the question of intelligent design, concluding that there is no need to introduce “God” as the explanation for the awesomely beautiful construction of the universe.
Sufi teacher Pir Shabda Kahn, once a Jewish boy from New York City, draws from many traditions—Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam—all of which supported him through the Madoff disaster, cancer and the death of his son.
A Buddhist-based spiritual practice returns Yael Shy to her original Jewish faith and a fresh understanding of the Hebrew God.
A chance meeting between Thomas Merton and Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche provides a backdrop for Rob Lee’s personal odyssey from Roman Catholicism to Vajrayana Buddhist “nontheism.”
On a harrowing van ride through Himalayan foothills and on a chairlift near Vulture Peak, Barbara Gates confronts her fears. Each jolt furthers her pilgrimage, loosening attachment to self.
In her bathtub, Martha Kay Nelson wrestles with her devils—or are they angels in disguise? Through practice, she “gives away” the answer.
In memoriam: our 1987 interview with this cherished teacher (1924–2013).
In this excerpt from giovanni singleton’s latest work, Maya Angelou dies and goes to heaven—sort of.
Poems & Not Poems
I was tending a deathbed at noon. Doubt appeared beside me, an efficient nurse. She touched everything in the room with …
cloudy pearls glimmering in a dark room somewhere flashing messages into the emptiness everywhere lit and flickering candles in an old stone …
An angel came and told me: “You’re falling asleep on your feet but you cannot sleep.” The night feels fresh—it …
Searching for the divine takes a whole new form in Andrew Chaikin’s word puzzle.
Dharma Jewel
“It may seem an odd thing to say—when a man’s as wrong as that—but I think, from what I saw of …
Reviews
(443 pp., Sounds True, 2013)
The Hidden Lamp: Stories from Twenty-Five Centuries of Awakened Women, edited by Zenshin Florence Caplow and Reigetsu Susan Moon
Reviewed By Taigen Dan Leighton
(400 pp., Wisdom Publications, 2013)
(247 pp., Copper Canyon Press, 2013)
Petals and Blood: Teachings, Stories and Poems of Ecstasy and Annihilation, by Gavin Harrison
Reviewed By James Schnebly
(136 pp., Pau Press, 2013)
Jesus and Buddha: Practicing Across Traditions—a film by Anne Macksoud and John Ankele
Reviewed By Bob Levitt
(44 minutes, Old Dog Documentaries)
Practice
Chris McKenna teaches mindfulness for those in high-stress situations, which may include everyone alive in the modern world.
The Dharma & the Drama
Wes Nisker calls together all the gods and goddesses for a “summit meeting” and proposes a solution to all of humanity’s holy wars and religious struggles.