The growling thunder of my soul. That’s a cliche, isn’t it? But even clichescan tell the truth. In wild isolation, my soul feels crowded by thespecial conditions of living. As if it’s under a crateof cinderblocks, eighty thousand metric tons. I know. Never to use the word ‘soul’-not if you want to be a good poet. […]
Mongolia’s Buddhist Diplomacy and India’s Union of Religious and Foreign Policy
The Vivekananda International Foundation (VIF), along with Indian, Japanese, and Mongolian partners, hosted its third Samvad (which, in Hindi, means “dialogue”) conference in Ulaanbaatar over last Friday and the weekend. As reported in BDG’s news article on the conclave, Mongolian political and religious leaders took this event very seriously. In his closing speech on the […]
Daydreamers
Despite my urgent need to tap into somethingthat is necessary for my time, I am left with a visionof numbers. My pagan blood and sleeping momentson the beach. Why do I still want to be Jimmy Buffett? Idle and brutal from all eternity, like Rimbaud, sittingon a park bench with my two best friends. The wind blowing. The […]
Different Abilities, Different Individuals: Shifting Perceptions About Disability
In most schools with a progressive curriculum and solid ethics, students living with disabilities are welcomed, their needs accommodated, and encouraged to participate as fully as they can in the life of the school. However, once they graduate, many feel thrown into a world where diverse institutions neither have nor care to have the kind […]
Even a Full Moon Needs Sunlight
Understand that even a solar burpis bigger than Planet Earth. And the corona shone. In 250 million yearsit will come around again, even though it is right here, all of the time. The vital Sun. Trapped in a beltor aurorae. Solar winds. Nothinglives without it. Even a full moon needs sunlight. George Cassidy Payne is a […]
Falling Into the Well
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 […]
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 […]
How Children See
Children see melodies crackling, 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 […]