A poem by artist Oleg Yuzefpolsky
wisdom
Talking to Strangers Who Start Fires

What do the burning woodlands of California tell us about insight?
Giving with a Cheerful Heart

When some people see others in unfortunate situations in their lives, they may act with subconscious feeling of superiority. A response that appears to come from a sense of compassion or justice may actually be a response that merely feeds the ego. To put this into clinical terms, these people may be suffering from a […]
A Letter to Thich Nhat Hanh (Thay)

“We will meet at the source of each moment, and we will meet again in different forms of life.” Dear Thay, In deep gratitude for meeting Thay and the Plum Village Sangha. Thay, it has been some time since you passed away. Still, your memory remains more alive than ever. I still remember the morning […]
How to Dry Feet

“Don’t pat the feet! We need them to be dry!” Those were the stern words that the abbot of a forest monastery said to me as I was drying his feet and the feet of monks who had just cleansed them with water before entering the meditation hall. Drying the feet of monastics was the […]
The TLKY International Conference 2021 Interview Series – Prof. Jin Y. Park

Welcome to our series of conversations with participating speakers at this year’s Tung Lin Kok Yuen International Conference – Buddhist Canons: In Search of a Theoretical Foundation for a Wisdom-oriented Education (27–28 November 2021). In each blog post, I speak with keynote speakers and paper presenters about their subject at this conference. Register for this […]
In…sigh…t

is how we breathe, a light, delicate, clean breath, bathing the tonguewith a core of earth,the way sliced apples taste on a crisp fall day George Cassidy Payne is a poet from Rochester, NY. His work has been included in such publications as the Hazmat Review, Moria Poetry Journal, Chronogram Journal, Ampersand Literary Review, The Angle at St. John Fisher College, and 3:16 Journal. George’s blogs, […]
Distillation

Having grown bored with wisdom, resting by an old fence of fist sized rocks, chalk white as baby powder, a young man leans back and closes his eyes, recognizing the subtle earthiness of not knowing how a few drops of water can spin sugar nests from grain. George Cassidy Payne is a poet from Rochester, NY. His work has been included in such publications as the Hazmat Review, Moria Poetry Journal, Chronogram Journal, Ampersand Literary Review, The Angle at St. John Fisher College, […]
Prajnaparamita in Tibetan Buddhist Art

Yellow Prajnaparamita with four hands Prajnaparamita (Tib. sherab kyi pharol tu chinpa), the Mahayana goddess of wisdom, appears in the Perfection of Wisdom sutras as a fundamental deity in Tibetan Buddhism. In Tibet, she is known as Sherchinma or Yum Chenmo, the “Great Mother.”
Buddhism and Today: Ancient Principles, Contemporary Conscience

Buddhism. It’s a millennia-long religious story that begins at Lumbini, at the foothills of the Himalayas in Nepal, where the historical Buddha, Prince Siddhartha Gautama, was born. There, he lived in comfort, until, the legend tells us, he was motivated to begin his journey to Buddhahood after seeing a white-haired, wrinkled old man dressed in […]