Category: Articles

  • HOW TO FIND INNER PEACE

    If you are reading these words, it means that you either realize you’re not at peace and want to be, or the sound of the word drew you … it’s something you haven’t really thought about, but it resonates and you want it in your life. The universal truth is that we all suffer.  Whether rich…

  • WAR AND PEACE

    In their miniature world, cramped between wooden crevices of a make-shift dugout, the ants busy themselves with homemaking and egg laying, ensuring their lineage. “Come on lads, let’s all pull together, we can get this done today!” They carry their dainty furniture, food and precious eggs purposefully back and forth, undisturbed by the mayhem around…

  • LIVING AND DYING IN PEACE

    Living & Dying in Peace Dying in a graceful and joyful way – the practice that we need to work on. Ringu Tulku Rinpoche Our vision for this evolving website is that there will be ongoing guidance and instruction from Ringu Tulku on living a peaceful, purposeful life and how to face, embrace and engage…

  • STORIES OF REINCARNATION

    A conversation with Erlendur Haraldsson: Professor Emeritus of Psychology, University of Iceland, Reykjavik. Sitting round a table at the back of a dining hall with several others, Professor Erlendur Haraldsson is explaining his research into  reincarnation and the world of the dead and dying. At the hour of death, people who are about to die…

  • RINGU TULKU RINPOCHE’S VISIT TO DUBLIN

    We were delighted to have Rinpoche in Ireland again last month. This is his 29th year visiting us and he continues to travel great distances to teach to whomever wishes to hear Dharma. We are very fortunate in Ireland that he spends almost a week here in a very busy schedule. For the first few…

  • Must Have Sea View

    On the forklift truck on a grey morning Boz had a dream.  It was always the same dream; he was a man of stubborn allegiances and wild expectation. His luck would turn and he would retire to the seaside, the English seaside. He’d been happy there. Not so much the overpowering smells of vinegar, frying…

  • A LOVE CALCULUS

    Multiply the number of groups of people you hate by the number of individuals in those groups. The sum equals the number of reasons, causes, and triggers for you to experience the feeling of hatred in your heart; not only at those times of direct encounter with those persons, but also in each and every…

  • THE FINAL WORDS OF PADMASAMBHAVA

      While strolling down the main boulevard in Shigatse, the home of the Panchen Lamas, in 1987, I see only a few people and almost no cars. Tibet has just opened up for foreign travellers and back-packers some months before. Standing on the pavement, perusing the items displayed on makeshift tables in the market stalls,…

  • ERNIE BUCK: AN INTERVIEW

      When and how did you first discover Buddhism? Oh heavens!  In a conventional sense I would say by accident.  I started doing TM in about the early nineties or late eighties.  I had a quite stressful job at Bradford Chamber of Commerce; lots of squabbles and small ‘p’ politics, that sort of thing.  I…

  • THE ENJOYMENT OF SOUND: THE WORDS AND POETRY OF JEAN PAIRA PEMBERTON BY DIRK DE KLERK

    I remember, many years ago, visiting the Samye Ling monastery for my annual vacation from Germany to meditate, reflect and to attempt to recover from the existential anxiety of a young, displaced composer. I spent much of the time in silence, hoping to accelerate the process. I met Jean Paira Pemberton when she joined me…

  • KEEP SWIMMING

    This summer I went swimming,This summer I might have drownedBut I held my breath and I kicked my feetAnd I moved my arms around,I moved my arms around. Loudon Wainwright 111 “Swimming Song” Greatness in Small Things After contracting polio as a baby it was deemed, thankfully, that swimming would be good therapy for me.…

  • HELLO FROM GOA

      AUGUST 30, 2017 in ARTICLES, PERSONAL STORIES. Hello from Goa, land of blue skies, sunshine and palm trees swaying in the balmy breeze. But lest you think that Liz and I are living the languid life of lotus eaters (okay, occasionally…) we are of course as trumped and brexited as the rest of you – but in…

  • THE DANGERS OF DILUTED BUDDHISM

    Some charismatic leaders take advantage of Western misconceptions rather than correct them, a Tibetan Buddhist teacher from the UK argues. In today’s Western society, where the dominant cultural systems are failing to provide explanations for life’s philosophical questions, a space has opened up that Buddhism is uniquely suited to address.

  • FAIRYLAND

    Warm, five o’clock, Scottish, June sunshine bathes my old ripening skin as I sit here by the Harbour Cottage Art Gallery, overlooking the deep muddied channel of the river. A faint smell of diesel is in the air. Fishing boats are queued up, blue and white, some a little rusted, moored and waiting. Empty lobster…

  • LET’S DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT.

      Question: How does one stop making the story real? Sometimes I feel the story, my narrative is so crystalized and I can watch a pattern happen again and again and it’s frustrating to continue repeating the same hurtful patterns. I am interested in learning to keep my heart open, even though it’s scary. Dear Friend,…

  • BULGAR WHEAT WITH SPRING ONIONS AND MUSHROOMS

    (Serves 6.) 4 tbs vegetable oil 2 spring onions, trimmed and sliced in fine half rings (including green) 6 medium-sized mushrooms, wiped with a damp cloth and sliced 1 teaspoon of salt Medium or coarse-grained bulgar wheat, measured to the 15fl oz level in a glass,  measuring jug, or weighed. Heat the oil in a heavy pot…

  • Buddhist Humour