Welcome to the first issue of Many Roads, the Bodhicharya ‘blogazine’!
In this first bumper issue in ‘articles’ we start off with Jet Mort’s interview with Ringu Tulku Rinpoche at the recent Bodhicharya summer camp. With many thanks to Jet and of course RTR for giving his time so generously. Following on, we have Annie Dibble’s beautiful and life affirming piece about the Dalai Lama’s visit to Northern Ireland in 2007. Margaret Richardson then shares her enchanting story about how she came to help ‘Lucky’ in Nepal. Marita Faaberg also shares with us her thoughts on modern spirituality in Dreaming Our World. Then, the very wonderful and inspiring story of a spiritual journey over many decades and Denise Nélis explains ‘Why Buddhism’ and exactly why she became a Buddhist officially at the age of 82! Most of you won’t be surprised to know that meeting up with a certain RTR had a lot to do with that.
But we haven’t finished yet, oh no, still lots more! We then have Vicki McKenna who tells us just why mindfulness and contentment have become her practice. Then the first of our regular contributions from Laurent Nottale who starts off by explaining why he is attracted to Buddhism as a scientist. The following Happiness article came about when, as the editor of this first issue, I took the opportunity of exploring my favourite subject, happiness, and I sent a set of questions to a number of Sangha members about their experiences and thoughts on the subject. Their very personal replies are included in full here. Following on, Rinchen, who is now a RTR monk and who used to be a Zen monk, tells us just how that came about. Then, a very brave story of breaking free from Blue Butterfly, who is a young Asian woman who was born and brought up in the UK and how she has found inner freedom.
In ‘Reviews’ we have Cesare Saguato’s reflections on Rinpoche’s teachings in London this Spring and Annie Dibble’s thoughts on Pico Iyer’s 2008 book ‘ The Global Journey of the 14th Dalai Lama. We finish off in our Arts section with some amazing photos and art from our US cousins (with thanks to Jackie Roemer in Oklahoma for sending these to us). And finally some poetry; just because I like poetry.
I have been very touched and rather overwhelmed by the generosity of all the contributors to this first issue of Many Roads and I thank them all very much. Please take your time and enjoy all they have shared here. Please do comment, we really want to hear from you, whether about the idea of the magazine generally or the individual articles. We also need your contributions for our next issue; please share a little of yourself. You can add your comments at the end of each article or send your views and/or articles or questions direct to me at manyroads@bodhicharya.org We are looking forward to hearing from you.
With many thanks to the Many Roads team, Jet Mort, Claire Trueman, Minna Stenroos and Rachel Moffit. Special thanks to Jet for her enthusiasm and energy and support for this project. And to Minna, my patient ‘techno’ friend and genius who input most of the photos in the magazine. Also, with great appreciation, our thanks to Paul O’Connor for his invaluable help in setting us up on-line and making it all look so beautiful.
Now, just enjoy.
Margaret Ford
For Many Roads at Bodhicharya.
Deadline for the next issue of Many Roads is 30 January 2011
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