While looking for the way, we fall into the only placewhere we can quench our thirst. The way is not out there. It is notaround the corner. The way is whatwe need and do not give into. The way is what we are and do notallow others to know. The way falls into us,like an open-eyed man falling into […]
Author: Teahouse
Woodenfish and Shenzhen: Building Networks with Researchers in Buddhism and Science
On 22 August, I travelled with my wife from Hong Kong to Shenzhen in Mainland China to present a paper at a conference titled, Buddhism, Science, and Future: Brain Science and Mental Well-Being. The Woodenfish Foundation, an international Buddhist educational NGO, organized this conference at the Interlaken OCT Hotel Shenzhen from 23–24 August. Woodenfish was an […]
Janguli: Goddess Protector from Snakes and Poisons
Yellow Janguli. From Facebook Janguli is a Buddhist goddess who protects from snakes and poisons, worshiped in the ancient past by the shamanic tribes in Northern India. Her Sanskrit name means “subjugator of snakes.” In Tibet she is known as Dugselma – “remover of poison.” The goddess masters all poisons and uses them not to […]
My Core
My core does not speakin Classic Greek hexametersor return to the left margin.It is a scallop shell, a snakeshedding its skin, with an infinite supply of words and pages to turn over.Yet, my whole is recordedon a single, foreboding page.38 years of life. One exposed solitary page. George Cassidy Payne is a poet from Rochester, […]
How Children See
Children see melodiescrackling, jumping, stretching,crowding, living like hummingbird bones taking offfrom a cage of suet.They see corn, millet, oats, and sunflowers,devouredinto the bloodstream, racingdown the arteries of a secret language, a communication flooding the transcendent, and the soft distance of headlights, as she waitsfor him to come back. Children see storm cloudsand distant planets,the tendons of other animals moving about,and the seconds growing rarer and more […]
We Are This Kind of Species
We grew this way; weare this kind of species. Sculling past the underpasses,just unpreventable fragments ofour former selves. We grew thisway; we are this kind of species. Unmarked. Lost from the hive.Barely living off the sun. Stealingfrom the sun. With unlaced shoes, uncombed hair, hand made signs,and machine egos once as big as Texas. We […]
A Force of Life That We Named
By switching off the gateway,we open up the hallways. Aquantum shift. Transpersonal,and full of pain. Opening upcommunication that I have neverhad before. Emergency controlover the transcendent. A wiseway to use the awareness of abiochemical religion. Flooding thebrain with traumatic happiness, Irise from the cracks of our razzlezone. A heart opening. A release ofsome other force of life that we named.
It Exists In You
Is there anywhere elsein the universe thathas meaning? Meaning emerges from a configuration of atoms-An only island of meanings.I think it’s more wonderfulto say that we are it. Two trillion galaxies, such widespaces in between. What else can we think andwhat else can we want? We are that. It exists in you.
A Circle of Buddhist Democracies: India’s Buddhist Strategy for Asia
In May’s Indian elections, PM Narendra Modi’s BJP fared considerably well, indirectly securing a mandate for its Buddhist diplomacy. This “quiet” exercise of power began several years ago in September 2015, with the Vivekananda International Foundation’s (VIF) first Samvad conference. For this event we were taken to the diplomatic enclave of Chanakyapuri in New Delhi, […]
St. James Parish, Barbados
We are not divided byour politics. That’s a lie.We are divided by chainsof mountains formed bythe folding of the earth’s crust.A full Gospel assembly of geological ruckus.Under extreme pressure, when the butter melts and foams on the rubber spatula of a mountain boulder, racedoes not keep us from understanding,at least not the way erosion does.The […]