Since 1 August 2020, Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition (FPMT) Sangha have been coming together as a global community reciting “Thangtong Gyalpo’s Prayer” to reduce the suffering caused by the COVID pandemic. This 1 August marks its first year – a milestone that the founders themselves would have preferred not to reach. […]
Author: Teahouse
Tony Miller’s “The Missing Buddhas”
“In the absence of any government restrictions, China’s Gods have become a lively trade article.” Friedrich Perzynski, Hunt for the Gods (1913) In the early days of the Republic of China, a unique group of sixteen Buddhist sculptures called the “Yixian Luohans” (luohan means arahat in Chinese) appeared on the embryonic market of Chinese art. […]
Till death do us part
You were still a stranger to me then, when I longed to figure out your secrets, if you had any, before we fell in love and learned how to solve each other’s problems. Once I read a story about the “Wild Boy of Aveyon,” and you reminded me of that poor wolf child, a creature urged on by hunger, […]
Tonight: A Zoom Conversation with Matthieu Ricard!
Tonight on 19 July at 19:00, our sister platform, Buddhistdoor en Español (BDE), will be co-hosting with Padmapani Publications a conversation with acclaimed monk and author Matthieu Ricard about his new book: Enlightened Vagabond: The Life and Teachings of Patrul Rinpoche. The program is hosted in Spanish (Vagabundo iluminado: La vida y enseñanzas de Patrul Rinpoche), but Matthieu […]
Catacombs of Domitilla
Bones as mere decor. Stored in metallic ink, eachmorning, waking without a comparison point, folded intoa cast-iron pot, fragrant withcumin, and ripe with profaneadverbs, in the unvaccinated catacombs of Domitilla.
Birding
Fragile, shalehands holdthe womb wilderness isborn The CosmosWalleyed PikesJune nights andthe call of Loons Everything thatwe need to dream To feelTo love So littleseparatesus from whatwe need The nightyou wereborn Wearing the skin of God The worldwas born My new Cosmos And by the timeit was written even Green Heronin the cool spring marshcould tell me
A Moment in the Backyard
The way some fireflies hide within the obsidian grass, faking the blinking signals of cold heat, I waited for you to want my offerings, as badly as I wanted to givethem to you. Perhaps we shall soon understand why.
The Lost Part of the Human Brain
(Inspired by Terence McKenna) Glaciers are new. The home star arrivinglater than we sensed. Summoned. The sunoff the main sequence. An arc out of here.
Lost Monarchs
By the lookof his wool held in placeby a universalgrammar of touch I will be prayingto my higher self just to be with him. You know, that placewhere the jasper seawaves dance, like lostmonarchs, throughand with the ocean mist.
Elegy for Nirvana
Signless and aimless,I have come to accept that I amwho I amlooking for. I am already what I havesearched for. As the master taught: Barn’s burned down- now I can see the moon. What do I see when the moonlooks at me? The memory of my muscles aching for you to see me. […]