Outstanding Women of Buddhism Honoree Dies Ruth Denison

The Buddhist Channel, March 17, 2015

JOSHUA TREE, Calif., (USA) -- In the great movement of Buddhism to the West, Ruth Denison was a pioneer. Jack Kornfield, founder of Spirit Rock Meditation Center, called her "one of our most amazing Buddhist elders, whose vision has helped plant the Dharma in the West."

< Ruth Denison. Sept 29, 1922 - Feb 26, 2015

The first Buddhist teacher to lead an all-women's retreat and the first teacher to use movement and dance to train her students in mindfulness, Denison, who asked everyone to call her simply Ruth, created a quintessentially female, body-centered way of teaching.

She was one of the first meditation instructors at the Insight Meditation Society in Massachusetts, as well as at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in California; for forty years she taught extensively in the United States and Europe, helping to establish meditation centers in Canada, Germany, Alaska, Massachusetts, Colorado, Portland and California.
She founded Dhamma Dena Desert Vipassana Retreat Center near Joshua Tree, CA, in 1977, where she led retreats thrice-yearly up until last year. She was an ardent supporter of female Buddhist monastics' efforts to be allowed full ordination and often welcomed nuns to Dhamma Dena. In 2006, the Women's International Meditation Center Foundation recognized Ruth as an for her role in bringing Vipassana Buddhism to the West.

THE BUDDHIST METTA (LOVINGKINDNESS) PRAYER

 The Buddhist Metta (Lovingkindness) Prayer is simple but profound. It starts by blessing oneself and gradually expands outward from there, eventually wishing good intentions for the entire world and all beings, even our enemies. There are many variations and translations of this prayer, but what follows is the essence of it; if we all said this prayer with sincerity at least once per week, the world could be a very different place:

To be Buddhist monks at Harvard

By Anthony Chiorazzi, Harvard Gazette, March 23, 2015 As Divinity School students adapt to University life, they also face assumptions made about them. Cambridge, MA (USA) -- Bhante Kusala says being a Buddhist monk at Harvard has its quirks. << Priya Rakkhit Sraman (left), a Buddhist monk from Bangladesh, speaks with Seng Yen Yeap (holding beads), a monk from Hong Kong. Leaning forward and adjusting his cinnamon-colored robe in the crowded Rock Café at Harvard Divinity School (HDS), the shaven-headed Kusala confided, “In this culture, people like to give a hug in friendship, but monks don’t do that. We don’t even shake hands.” When asked what he does when hugged by a Harvard student, the Sri Lankan monk and first-year HDS student laughed and said, “We’re supposed to hug back, or I believe it’s very rude.”

Dana, Sila, Bhavana

How India Is Squandering Its Top Export: The Buddha

Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse  Posted: 06/04/2015

India and Nepal gave the world one of its most precious resources -

the Buddha. Yet neither country truly values this extraordinary legacy, 

let alone takes pride in it. In the Buddha's own birthplace and homeland, 

his teachings are marginalised, his wisdom is unappreciated, and his 

legacy is invisible in society.

The pervasive neglect of this treasured inheritance is an inestimable loss. 

After all, few products from this region have ever been so widely valued 
and respected, or traveled as far and as successfully, as the teachings 
of the Buddha.

Yes-yoga, curry, basmati rice and Bollywood have their global influence. 
But Buddhism has transformed whole societies in China, Thailand, 
Burma, Vietnam, Japan and more, is fast penetrating the Western world, 
and continues to touch the hearts and minds of millions around the 
world.And yet, amazingly, this intense global interest is barely evident in 
the lands where the Buddha himself was born, became enlightened, and 

taught. 

It is unfathomable that neither governments nor the vast majority of
people here in India and Nepal truly cherish the Buddha today or hold 
him in their hearts and minds as one of their own.This lack of concern 
for their Buddhist heritage is both a leadership failure and an endemic 
societal blindness. In Nepal, interest in Buddhism only seems to be 
roused when someone claims the Buddha was born in India, at which 
time the Nepalese zealously declare their own country as his birthplace - 
even though neither Nepal nor India existed as entities 2,500 years ago.

Charter must include Buddhist ideas of governance

by STEPHEN B YOUNG, The Bangkok Post, 28 Mar 2015 Bangkok, Thailand -- I have recently hosted five round tables - one each in Germany, London, Paris, The Netherlands and Madrid - where Thai Buddhist ideas on governance were presented to appreciative audiences. This fact is important as Thailand edges closer to drafting a new constitution. My fear for Thailand is that many of the key features in the proposed constitution are of the close the barn door after the horses have bolted variety. Designing a new constitution merely to stop self-serving and corrupt wrongs and excesses of arbitrary power is to look backward and not forward. A good constitution should be designed for the future as architecture, not as interior design for a particular temporary occupant.

Five facts that one should reflect on