Category: Spirituality/Eastern

Almost everybody needs healing in some way. Some of us are fearful of intimacy. Others are grappling with the difficulties of being the child of an abusive family. There are those caught in the grip of alcoholism or other drug abuse, and those who can’t cope with stress. But no matter what personal problem you might be grappling with, you know that there is hope for recovery and that you can do it. This is true because others before you have suffered situations similar to your own and have recovered. If they can recover, so can you.

The Zen Of Cuban Coffee

by Michael Lamas

Dozens of "The Zen of ..." books are available today. From The Zen of Cats to The Zen of Wooden Kayak Building, if it exists, then you can Zen it. Cuban coffee is no exception. The Japanese Green Tea Ceremony (JGTC), a ritual that Buddhist monks developed centuries ago, was the original Zen of Tea. Today in Japan, the practice has settled into a social event for the upper classes, and consequently, it has lost much of its spiritual usefulness. The Cuban Coffee Ceremony (CCC) is loosely based on the JGTC and, as a discipline, can stimulate you spiritually.

Buddha and the Female Spirit

Christine Hall

Since the 1960s, many women have turned to alternative religions, seeking to find a system that doesn’t treat women as second class spiritual beings. Writers like National Public Radio’s Margot Adder and west coast Wiccan Starhawk have written about their disenchantment with Christianity. In “Drawing Down the Moon,” sort of a catalog of Goddess-based religions, Adder speaks of finding herself drawn to neo-Paganism, with it’s emphasis on Goddesses like Demeter, Isis and Aphrodite. She says that this feminine aspect spoke to her in a way that Christianity, with it’s emphasis on a male God, couldn’t. Starhawk, in “Dancing the Dark,” talks about a Paganism that believes in shared power, instead of the “power over” philosophy of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic traditions.

But it’s not only the Goddess-based religions that have been gaining converts from among the ranks of disenchanted women. Many have also turned to the practices of Tibetan Buddhism, attracted by its emphasis on personal attainment. However, Buddhism in its current form is no utopia of matriarchy, nor is it the genderless system that it claims to be. Tibet and India are both extremely patriarchal societies, and all spiritual systems tend to mirror the values of the societies from which they come.

Buddhist literature is full of stories of great male practitioners that are offered as examples for other followers, but relatively few stories of great female Buddhists, though there have been many. This may seem like a moot point, until we realize that it’s through myth and parables that we attain much spiritual knowledge. The story of male Buddhists like Milarepa or Naropa may teach us much about how to be a good male bodhisattva, but very little about how to be a good female Buddhist.

For the past three years I have traveled annually to Chennai, India to study the principles of Vastu Science as applied to architecture. I had become aware of this tradition of sacred architecture, that was supposed to be founded in basic principles of the laws of nature, through my work and research during the previous two years. During that time I had been commissioned to design two buildings that conformed to what my clients called Sthapatya Vedic architecture.

In the world of alternative spirituality people are on all sorts of paths. There are those who gather in covens to uncover the spirit of the old European paganism. There are Ceremonial Magicians who attempt to open the door on the Magick of the ancient Egyptians. There are those who sit in their asanas and practice the esoteric breath techniques from India to arouse their Kundalini. In the New Age, there are all sorts of crystal and sound and whatever-feels-good bliss ninnies as well.

As disparate as these groups are, they have more in common that one might at first think. For one thing, all of these groups will readily pay homage to Tibetan Buddhism. In fact, in the New Age Buddhism has become something of an orthodoxy, in much the same way that the Catholics and Episcopalians (or Presbyterians and Methodists - take your pick) represent orthodox Christianity.

I've been thinking a lot about death recently. More specifically, I've been thinking about those who have died. This was brought about by the death last week of my roommate's grandfather, a generous and kind man who had always treated me as if I were part of his own family.

When the Dalai Lama made an appearance on a recent Sunday afternoon in New York’s Central Park, a crowd of 40,000 people showed-up to hear him speak. Granted, that’s no big number for Central Park, which fairly regularly plays host for groups of over 100,000 for big name musical shows. But this was no entertainment event. There was no Streisand, Jagger or Garth Brooks to entice this crowd, only a simple man who lives in India and who probably would’ve never become known in this country if he had not been driven from his native Tibet by the Chinese back in 1959.

The other day I was talking with an associate about a mutual acquaintance. In the past, both of us had experienced difficulties with this person, although my associate had experienced much more grief from this man than me. My friend said, “I had a lot of trouble getting over the way I felt about him. It took a lot of work, but I finally learned to ‘love my enemy.’”

Editor's Note: This article was orinally published immediately after our "victory" in Afghanistan, and before our involvement in the fiasco in Iraq.

Green Tara, one of twenty-one Taras, each with the name of a color, is the mother protector of the Tibetan people. She and her sister White Tara, a spiritual ice queen who is too pure to be much involved in our worldly affairs, are the most popular and well known colors, or flavors, of this goddess rainbow. Because she is the loving mother, she is much revered by her people. To the Tibetan Buddhists, she is a self-created deity and only exists when a person is being mindful of her. She cannot write, talk or otherwise express herself in the same manner as you and I.