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| A Conversation between Ajahn Pasanno and Julia Butterfly Hill by Ajahn Pasanno and Julia Butterfly Hill | ||||
| Ajahn Pasanno ordained trees in Thailand as a way of saving them, and Julia Butterfly Hill climbed into one grand old redwood in order to save it, creating news that inspired millions. Inquiring Mind editors Dennis Crean, Barbara Gates and Wes Nisker brought the two of them together for a conversation about trees, activism and love.
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| A Former Monk Looks Beyond Buddhism - An Interview With Alan Clements by Jeannie Davis (WorldDharma) | ||||
| Alan Clements was the first American to have pioneered the dharma for the remote South East Asian Buddhist country of Burma, where he lived in a Buddhist monastery during the 1970’s and 80’s, five years of which were spent as a monk. During this time he trained in classical Buddhist psychology and vipassana (insight) meditation with two of the most respected meditation masters of our era, the late Venerable Mahasi Sayadaw, and his successor Sayadaw U Pandita. more... | ||||
| An interview with Ajahn Pasanno by Remembering our Goal | ||||
| I think we have to really remember what our goal is - it's practising this Dhamma-Vinaya and trying to understand the teachings of the Buddha: how to apply them, so that there's a clear acknowledgement of the fact that there is suffering and there is the end to suffering and be able to experience liberation.
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| An interview with Ajahn Sucitto: A Ripple in a Pond by Insight Magazine Archives, Volume 16: Spring 2001 | ||||
| I know how reticent monks are to talk about themselves, but I cannot help but begin by asking about your own Jàtaka story. How did you wind up as a Buddhist monk living in England? more... | ||||
| An Interview With Ajahn Sumedho : Everyday Path Moments by Published in the Spirit Rock News, Volume 19, Number 1, February 2006 – August 2006 | ||||
| Ajahn Sumedho is abbot of the Amaravati Buddhist Centre in Hertfordshire and a former disciple of the late Thai meditation master Ajahn Chah, under whom he studied for ten years at the Wat Pah Pong monastery. Born in Seattle, Washington in 1934 and fully ordained in 1967, Ajahn Sumedho has worked closely with several lay organizations, including The English Sangha Trust. In 1975, he established Wat Pah Nanachat, international forest monastery, in Ubon Province, Thailand, and is considered a founding figure of the Thai Forest monastic tradition in the West. He is the author of Now is the Knowing, and his teachings are widely recognized for being practical and direct. Ajahn Sumedho was interviewed by Philip Moffitt, vipassana teacher and founder of the Life Balance Institute, for a feature in the Spirit Rock News, Volume 19, Number 1 (February 2006-August 2006)
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| An interview with Ajahn Sundara: It Can be Very Simple by Insight Magazine Archives, Volume 17: Fall 2001 | ||||
| Thank you, Ajahn, for taking the time to talk with us this morning. Let me start by asking you something simple: What do you feel is the essence of dharma? more... | ||||
| An interview with Bhante Henepola Gunaratana - Going Upstream by Tricyle Magazine | ||||
| (Tricycle): Are there ways of encouraging a monastic life in modern times?
(Bhante Gunaratana): To update the monastic tradition, people don't have to be totally cut off from their societies. Even in monastic lives, there are certain things that people can do in order to make it more lively. In early days, monastic life seems to have been very grueling, very dark. The monks sat under trees or in caves and meditated all the time. One of the accusations that we get here from some very strict monastics is that we are too relaxed. Not that we have lost sight of monasticism, but that we try to update it by making certain adjustments.
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| An interview with Bhikkhu Bodhi: Climbing to the Top of the Mountain by www.dharma.org | ||||
| What do you make of the fact that Buddhism is becoming so popular in this country?
It is not difficult to understand why Buddhism should appeal to Americans at this particular juncture of our history. Theistic religions have lost their hold on the minds of many educated Americans, and this has opened up a deep spiritual vacuum that needs to be filled. For many, materialistic values are profoundly unsatisfying, and Buddhism offers a spiritual teaching that fits the bill. It is rational, experiential, practical, and personally verifiable; it brings concrete benefits that can be realized in one’s own life; it propounds lofty ethics and an intellectually cogent philosophy. Also, less auspiciously, it has an exotic air that attracts those fascinated by the mystical and esoteric.
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| An Interview with Joseph Goldstein by By Amy Gross, Tricycle Magazine: The Buddhist Review (Summer 1999) | ||||
| Joseph Goldstein grew up in his family's resort in the Catskill Mountains of New York and graduated from Columbia University, where he majored in philosophy. Courses in Spinoza and Eastern Religion sparked an interest in both metaphysics and spiritual inquiry. "I read the Bhagavad Gita, and the whole notion of non-attachment-of acting without attachment to the fruits of the action-just made sense to me." He went to Thailand with the Peace Corps in 1965, met teachers of vipassana meditation in the Theravada tradition, and spent most of the next eight years in Asia. In l975, he, along with Sharon Salzberg and Jack Kornfield, cofounded the Insight Meditation Society (IMS), in Barre, Massachusetts, one of the first vipassana residential retreat centers in the country. In 1989 he also helped establish the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies.The author of The Experience of Insight: A Simple and Direct Guide to Buddhist Meditation; Insight Meditation: The Practice of Freedom; and co-author of Seeking the Heart of Wisdom, Goldstein is now working on a new book, tentatively titled One Dharma. He is also involved in planning the Forest Refuge, a retreat center adjacent to IMS that will hold thirty to fifty people doing long-term intensive meditation practice-a next step, he says, for dharma practitioners in the West.
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| An Interview with Joseph Goldstein : The Practice of Impermanence by Inquiring Mind, PO Box 9999, Berkelely CA 94709 (Fall 2000) | ||||
| Could you briefly explain the three characteristics and their role in the Buddha's teaching?
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| An Interview with Joseph Goldstein: Empty Phenomena Rolling On by Helen Tworkov,in October 1993,Tricycle Magazine,in Barre. | ||||
| This interview took place in Barre in October 1993, and was conducted for Tricycle Magazine by editor Helen Tworkov at IMS in October, 1993. Reprinted with permission of Tricycle Magazine. more... | ||||
| An interview with Joseph Goldstein: To the Forest for Refuge by Andrew Olendzki (From Fall 1998 issue of Insight) September 1, 1998. | ||||
|
Joseph, after practicing in India for ten years and teaching in this country for more than twenty, you have recently returned from a well-earned teaching sabbatical, in which I understand you did quite a bit of personal meditation practice. Has anything emerged from this experience, in terms of greater clarity? more... | ||||
| An Interview with Kamala Masters and Steve Armstrong: Sharing A Vision Of Practice by Insight Magazine Archives, Volume 9: Fall 1997 | ||||
| Kamala Masters has been practicing insight meditation for two decades with Munindra-ji, Sayadaw U Pandita and others, and has been mentored in her native Hawaii by Steven Smith and Michele McDonald-Smith. She has been leading retreats at IMS and elsewhere with Steve Armstrong and others for several years. She and Steve make their home on Maui, where they are raising a daughter.
Steve Armstrong first came to IMS in 1977, served on the staff for more than two years and on the IMS board of directors before seeking ordination as a Theravada monk in Burma. He spent five years as the bhikkhu Buddharakkhita, practicing meditation with U Pandita and studying Abhidhamma with U Zagara. Since returning to lay life in 1991, he has been leading vipassana/metta retreats at IMS and worldwide. more... | ||||
| An interview with Myoshin Kelley : FINDING OUR PLACE by Insight Magazine Archives, Volume 15: Fall 2000 | ||||
| What was it like in Burma? It must have been difficult, in some ways.
Seeing so many monks and nuns of all ages on the streets wherever I went left a special impression on me.
I immediately noticed the diligence of the nuns and laywomen in Sayadaw U Janaka’s monastery, where I was to do my practice. There were many old and young women; often teams of mothers and daughters meditated side by side. I had never experienced this before—being in a country that was so supportive of practice. Both the wealthy and the poor showed such joy in offering meals to everyone in the monastery, so these teachings could be continued. This generosity of spirit provided the container for my practice and sustained me when things started to get harder.
Things got very hard. My body started literally disappearing before my eyes. I lost a lot of weight, which happens to many foreigners in Asia with the change of diet. Although I had some intellectual understandings of the culture before I arrived in Burma, my Western framework of expecting and receiving relative equality as a woman got challenged. I started to notice and become reactive to the way women were treated. more... | ||||
| An interview with Paula Green : A Beautiful Paradox by Insight Magazine Archives, Volume 18: Spring 2002 | ||||
| Tell us the story of the Peace Pagoda.
It is a wonderful story. When the monks were first given the land there was a town hearing in Leverett, which is a little New England town outside of Amherst, to get permission to build a Peace Pagoda there. The town was divided. On one side of the room were a number of progressive people like myself, mainly involved in Buddhism, and on the other side were old Yankees who had lived in New England for a long time. These little guys in orange robes and Japanese accents, bowing a lot, seemed very strange to the old timers, and they did not want to approve the building of the Peace Pagoda. It was a very agitated and strident town meeting. more... | ||||
| An Interview with Ruth Denison: BOWING TO LIFE DEEPLY by Insight Magazine Archives, Volume 8: Spring 1997 | ||||
| Ruth Denison is the founder and resident teacher of Dhamma Dena Desert Vipassana Center in Joshua Tree, California. She is the first generation of women teachers of vipassana in the West, and has been teaching at Insight Meditation Society in Barre since its inception in 1976. Ruth shared her life story and thoughts with Insight's editors while teaching at IMS in the fall of 1996. .
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| An interview with Sharda Rogell: Seeing the Truth of Freedom by Insight Magazine Archives, Volume 13: Fall 1999 | ||||
| Sharda Rogell has been teaching retreats at IMS for more than ten years. After living in England for the last three years, she will soon be moving back to the US. more... | ||||
| An Interview with Susan Piver by http://www.drweil.com | ||||
| There are so many kinds of meditation. How do I figure out which one is right for me?
There are two styles of Buddhist meditation most commonly taught in the West.
Shamatha is a Sanskrit word that means "calm abiding." In Shamatha practice, one takes the breath as the object of meditation. We're always meditating on something - usually we're meditating on our fears, doubts, and cravings. In Shamatha, the breath becomes the focus instead. You simply place your attention on your breath (usually at the tip of your nose) and "ride" it in and out. Thoughts will continue to rise and fall but in this practice we take our mind off of them and put it on the breath instead. (Sometimes people think meditating means ceasing thought. This is impossible. What is possible is to change your relationship to thought.) When you notice that attention has strayed away from the breath, simply bring it back. This practice stabilizes the mind.
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| An Interview with Thanissaro Bhikkhu: A Question of Skill by Insight Magazine Archives, Volume 14: Spring 2000 | ||||
| Thanissaro Bhikkhu, also known more informally to many as Ajaan Geoff, is an American-born Theravada monk who has been the abbot of Metta Forest Monastery near San Diego, CA, since 1993. He teaches regularly at BCBS and throughout the US and has contributed significantly to the Dhamma Dana Publications project with his books Wings to Awakening, Mind Like Fire Unbound, and a new free-verse translation of the Dhammapada. more... | ||||
| Author Interview James William Coleman by http://atheism.about.com | ||||
| Can Buddhism can really adapt to Western culture or if it will always remain something Asian (and I presume you mean foreign to us) at heart? The basic assumptions upon which Buddhism is built are certainly very different from those of Western culture. But it seems to me that the movement of Buddhism to the West is part of a slow process of cultural globalization. People in the East are already thinking more like Westerners and perhaps the cultural flow is starting to move in the other direction as well.
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