Savaka Sangha ::: A Buddhist Community

Together with our friend, author Lodro Rinzler, the Shambhala Sun is bringing you weekly selections from Shambhala Publications’ Under 35 Project, which collects writings from younger practitioners. In this week’s selection, Jenna Hollenstein explores how and why she quit drinking, and came to realize that alcohol was just one of many distractions she was using [...]

Watch this video published yesterday by RightWingWatch.org: I have two reactions to this. What are yours?  My first reaction is, Who in hell does Pat Robertson think he is? The second is, Who in hell does Pat Robertson think Buddhists are? He seems to think we’re the enemy. Well, we’re not the enemy, Pat. Buddhists [...]

On June 4, Ohio Congressman Tim Ryan will be giving a talk to benefit InsightLA, a meditation and teaching center in Santa Monica, California. Ryan, who InsightLA calls “the highest-ranking U.S. official to champion the benefits of mindfulness,” will talk about how mindfulness is being incorporated into many different sectors, including health care, education, and [...]

Tonglen, as Judy Lief explains in the coming July 2012 issue of the Shambhala Sun, is a meditation practice in which “we breathe out what we normally cling to and breathe in what we usually avoid” to connect with suffering and change our relationship with others. In the following piece, Emily Strasser visits with a [...]

According to Vajrayana Buddhism, the fast track to awakening is to look directly at your own mind and discover its true nature. In this Shambhala Sun feature adapted from his new book Open Heart, Open Mind: A Guide to Inner Transformation, Tsoknyi Rinpoche explains how to experience one of the mind’s most profound but often [...]

The July 2012 Shambhala Sun magazine celebrates the qualities of awakened mind and the Buddhist meditations the cultivate them. Our Annual All-Teachings Issue, it features seven teachings — paired with meditations you can easily try —including Sylvia Boorstein on how to be insightful; Thich Nhat Hanh on being more grounded; Dzogchen Ponlop on the development [...]

The Lady, which was released for awards consideration late last year, is now playing in limited release throughout the U.S. and Canada. At the time Danny Fisher saw the film at an advance screening, Burma was in the news as Hillary Clinton became the first U.S. Secretary of State to visit Burma in more than [...]

Andy Karr, co-author of The Practice of Contemplative Photography: Seeing the World with Fresh Eyes, has just returned from teaching a photography workshop in São Paulo, Brazil this past weekend. He shared with us some photos of the event taken by his host, Dharma/Arte magazine publisher Carlos Inada, as well as the photos below, which [...]

Making its television premiere on Independent Lens on PBS tonight, Summer Pasture is a documentary about the rapid changes happening in the Dzachukha grasslands in eastern Tibet. Locally, the area is known as “the five-most” — it’s the highest, largest, coldest, poorest and most remote area in Sichuan province. The film focuses on Locho and [...]

Time now for a little meditation inspiration, by way of Heart Advice, Weekly Quotes from Pema Chödrön: “Discipline is important. When we sit down to meditate, we are encouraged to stick with the technique and be faithful to the instruction, but within that container of discipline, why do we have to be so harsh? Do [...]