Notebooks of a Wandering Monk by Matthieu Ricard, (Translated by Jesse Browner. 2023. 702pp. Hardback £28.00) This is a giant, magnificent book in weight and its import, depth, and unique and extraordinary viewpoint. Matthieu Ricard gives us an intimate insider’s perception of the world of Tibetan Buddhism over its last half-century journey and beyond. This […]
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“In each eon there are at least a few individuals who understand what man’s (or woman’s) real task consists of and keep its traditions for future generations and a time when insight has reached a deeper and more general level. First the way of a few will be changed and in a few generations there […]
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“This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness”. – Dalai Lama Kindness? How wimpy is that? isn’t that for your Aunt Matilda rather than a world-changing philosophy? Surely there is more to all this […]
Read more…Early on in George Eliot’s seminal Novel, Middlemarch, Dorothea says to her would-be husband, the dried-up scholar Mr. Casaubon: “I have longed for some great purpose in my life that would give it shape and meaning.” Looking at the sad struggles of our world and reflecting on this desire to have meaning in our lives, […]
Read more…On the theme of Beginnings, here Clive Lindley-Jones takes us on a fascinating journey from Japan, through the Buddhist Society in London and the early years of the White Plum Sanga in the UK to StoneWater today. One of my early Zen teachers, Soko Morinaga Roshi, in his book, ‘Novice to Master: The Extent of […]
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