A warm new year’s greeting…

Ganachakra

• Announcing the publication of Modern Tantric Buddhism!
  On October 29th Modern Tantric Buddhism: Embodiment and Authenticity in Dharma Practice was released by North Atlantic Books! This book is a distillation of much of my teaching and writing over the past few years focusing on how we can bring our practice into our lives in fresh and bold ways, and how we can […]
• On the panic that accompanies that which goes bump in the night…
  People are scared to empty their minds fearing that they will be engulfed by the void. What they don’t realize is that their own mind is the void. Huang Po Not too long ago, when a lama came to the dharma center to teach on the Dujom Tersar cycle of chöd, I came across a […]
• On a more pastoral vajrayana and haughty lamas…
  A few weeks ago I read an excellent article about Pope Francis shaking up the ecclesiastic leadership in the United States, and the subsequent reactions from more conservative Catholics. I found myself, despite my own sense of satisfaction in learning more about how the nuts and bolts of how Catholicism in America works, feeling sad […]
• On voices from the wilderness: “where we go from here…”
  We recently lost two very important Kagyu Rinpoches, Karma Chagme, the head of the Nyedo Kagyu and direct lineal descendent of the great mahasiddha Rāga Asya , the very emanation of Amitabha himself, and Kyabje Choje Akong Rinpoche, a great social activist, dharma teacher.   Along side Trungpa Rinpoche, Akong Rinpoche as one of the […]
• On real time Buddhist pastoral care and the experience of loss when a lama dies
  The past week has been a tough one for the Kagyu lineage.  Recently the great Karma Chagme Rinpoche passed away in New Delhi, and one of the first trailblazers of dharma in the West, Akong Rinpoche, along with two travel companions was murdered in Eastern Tibet.  Needless to say, these two important lamas impacted the […]
• on bustin’ up sacred cows like piñatas and re-envisioning our frames of reference…
  A participant and fellow traveler on the journey created by the new class on Buddhist Tantra which recently set sail from New York Tsurphu Goshir Dharma Center suggested that I write a blog post to explore and refute the analysis of how the Madhyamaka view arose in India as presented by Ronald M. Davidson in […]
• on Chöd, bodies of illusion, and transmission of the blessings of lineage…
  A reader recently reached out on facebook and asked me to write a blog post touching on how lineage inspires us and how transmission works in modern day terms.  Needless to say, I was heartened by her request as I found it flattering, and because I have been playing around with this topic as it […]
• on time machines, weaving words and loosening our belt so that our minds can expand…
  My last blog post touched a lot of nerves- in a good way, from what I can tell, and it also seemed to have displeased others who came away from it thinking that it was written to complain about laziness, ‘spiritual materialism’ and the existence of a spiritual marketplace which often become more of a […]
• on the shakedown, being a contender and the tantric rub…
  In my training as a chaplain there was a fair amount of emphasis on learning how to connect and remain with difficult feelings that others were in the midst of negotiating.  Sickness, old age and death certainly shake up a lot of feelings- add depression, psychosis, loss, and physical/emotional/spiritual pain and you really have a […]
• on text, owning our language and the ghostly apparitions of self…
  I have been somewhat remiss in writing over the summer- my primary excuse is the time consuming work that I have put into renovating the space that we will be using for New York Tsurphu Goshir Dharma Center. My secondary excuse cuts a little closer to the bone; I was feeling uninspired and unsure about […]