Radical Buddhist Reflections: The Angry Asian Buddhist

Anger has been a common subject of conversation for me over the last few months.  I've been experiencing my own anger and frustration at the challenges of interfaith dialogue and engagement.  But recently the conversation of religious anger has shifted, to include the voice of my friend Dolma Shepa, a Nyingma Buddhist originally from Nepal.  Recently, Dolma and I talked at length about what it means to her to be an Angry Asian Buddhist.

Yesterday, my friends were joking with me and they said, "There is so much rage in that tiny Buddhist body of yours." Oh, it's so true.

Radical Buddhist Reflections: Nyingma Buddhism

This is the first of five posts which all stem from an interview I did with Dolma Sherpa.  Dolma is originally from Nepal and is a Sherpa Nyingma Buddhist.  With a Jewish father and a Buddhist mother, she has always lived a multi-cultural life with complicated religious influences.  A few years back, she came to Los Angeles to go to college.  In our interview, she shared a lot about her own spiritual journey and her experiences understanding Nyingma Buddhism.  Here are some of my favorite pieces of what she shared.

Explaining Solstice

Today I got an email asking me to explain why pagans celebrate the solstice.  My fellow classmate was hoping to have me write something up for our seminary's monthly journal.  I find it hard to remember that so many people know so little about pagan practices.  Even though Winter Solstice is included as a sign of interfaith recognition, it seems that a lot of people know very little about what this holiday has meant to human beings for tens of thousands of years.  I obviously can't speak for all of them.  I can't even speak for modern day pagans.  But I reworked something else I had written previously to reflect the beliefs of my tradition and offered this up (along with the recipe in last year's blog entry).