Models of Buddhist Caring

Taiwan Monk offers hope to African orphans with Buddhist teachings

2012-01-30T13:14:00.000-08:00

Taipei, Taiwan -- Master Hui Li, chairman of the South Africa-based Amitofo Care Centre (ACC), decided to set up orphanages in Africa after an eye-opening visit to South Africa in 1992.

During that trip, Hui Li saw the devastating effect that HIV/AIDS was having on the children of the country and decided that Buddhist teaching were the solution to the misery he saw.

"The fundamental principle of Buddhism is that everyone is equal," the 56-year-old said in a recent interview with CNA. "Practicing Buddhism helps heal the kids and teaches them how to treat others with respect."

At present, he added, his non-profit organization has adopted more than 3,000 orphans across the continent in countries such as Malawi, Swaziland and Lesotho. Source

Buddha-shaped pears

2012-01-06T06:22:00.000-08:00

Buddha-shaped pears grow on the trees at an orchard in Weixian county, north China's Hebei province. Hao Xianzhang, a local fruit farmer, spent six years to perfect the process by growing the pears inside molds.

The Buddhist temple built using 1.5million recycled beer bottles

2011-04-28T20:44:00.000-07:00

"Built using more than a million beer bottles, this incredible temple in the north-east of Thailand is a novel way to recycle any empties.

The resident Buddhist monks at the Wat Pa Maha Chedi Kaew complex encourage local authorities to deposit any used bottles at the temple which they then use to build new structures.

Having already built the a temple and even shelters, the monks who live in the town of Khun Han really have got into the spirit of recycling." Article

Non-Violent Prisoner Strike in Georgia Crosses Racial Lines

2010-12-18T18:50:00.000-08:00

Buddhist or not, this model of non-violence is worthy of note, globally.

"Non-Violent Prisoner Strike in Georgia Crosses Racial Lines
Fed up with their living and working conditions, prisoners across the state of Georgia last week staged a six-day mass peaceful protest that transcended racial boundaries.

Black, Latino and white inmates at least six prisons, including Hays State Prison, Telfair State Prison, Macon State Prison and Smith State Prison, banded together to show their unhappiness by staying in their cells. The families of some prisoners reported that corrections officers responded violently, destroying personal effects and beating inmates at one penitentiary while another facility cut off the hot water supply.

Inmates spent months coordinating the protest by using cell phones smuggled into the prisons.

They have demanded better living conditions, medical care and nutrition, more educational and self-improvement opportunities, wages for work performed in prison and better access to their families, among other demands." Article

Ron Allen....Detroit

2010-02-26T18:42:00.000-08:00

2006 Los Angeles Poverty Department (LAPD) invited African American Buddhist priest and a Viet Nam veteran Ron Allen to direct poetry workshops on Skid Row. FRIED POETRY is a skilletful of individual and group spoken word pieces and music on the subjects of spirituality and recovery from addiction. In Fried Poetry, LAPDer's invoke their insights into recovery as means of healing self and society.

"There is no question that Dharma has taken hold in Detroit. In the face of great odds, closed-off highways and harsh winters, Still Point fills every Sunday. We have over 120 members now. There is a waiting list for seminary slots. Two years ago, Kogam Gary Schwocho started a sangha in Royal Oak, Muddy Water Zen. It will only grow. Bodhidharma Ron Allen is a one man prophet of the Dharma – he has his own set of formal students and has integrated Buddhist teachings into his plays and poetry, most notably his recent play about the Tibetan Book of the Dead." Article

War - we don't need No ore trouble

2009-10-26T16:35:00.000-07:00

Lama Rangdrol to give public teaching in San Diego and San Francisco

2009-10-20T11:14:00.000-07:00

A great time to meet:

San Diego:
November 4, 2009
Indigo Village
1054 Second Street, Suite B
Encinitas, CA 90024

San Francisco:
November 6-8

Real Conversion

2009-10-14T12:49:00.000-07:00

Bodhisattva

2009-10-14T12:37:00.000-07:00

We are not alone

2009-10-10T21:56:00.001-07:00

Peace Summit

2009-10-03T17:10:00.000-07:00

Learning to live again: Brooke Hopkins struggles through rehab after bicycling accident - Salt Lake

2009-09-13T02:09:00.000-07:00

"One night a Tibetan Buddhist monk in maroon-and-saffron robes swept into
His wife, Peggy Battin, comforts Hopkins after a particularly grueling day of off-the-vent breathing and therapy. (Leah Hogsten/The Salt Lake Tribune)
Hopkins' Bountiful rehab room and delivered a piece of ancient wisdom. The body is nothing; it is ephemeral,' the lama told him. 'The mind is everything.'

Hopkins remembered that sentiment when he saw, for the first time, his emaciated body in the mirror while being wheeled into the shower. He either could be depressed by the sight or celebrate his expanding mental powers and social skills, either indulge in self-pity or confront the challenges ahead with dignity and drive.

'The lama's words came back with their full force,' he recalls, 'and I understood them for the first time ... and my potential depression lifted.' Article
Audio

Lama Rangdrol wins film award

2009-01-03T17:51:00.000-08:00

.
Festival Canceled Due to Heavy Rain, a film about Lama Choyin Rangdrol's spiritual journey to Cambodia has been awarded the Aloha Accolade Award for Excellence in Filmmaking at the 2009 Honolulu International Film Festival.

The award notice said, "...judges felt that your film demonstrated superior and standout filmmaking and is deserving of one of our our most esteemed awards. Your film was among the very best of the several hundreds of films submitted from over 30 countries around the world."

Our HBCU world premiere was well received in America's bible belt at Nashville's International Black Film Festival and we are screening again at the Pan African Film Festival in Magic Johnson's theaters in South Central Los Angeles. An award from the film community of Honolulu, city of multi-generational Buddhists as well as hometown of president elect Obama, adds an exciting dimension of contemporary relevance to Rainbowdharma's achievements.

The award will be presented at the Closing Night Awards Ceremony to be held 10:00 pm March 8, 2009 at the beautiful and historic Hawaii Theatre in the heart of Honolulu. Join us! And if you can't make it, consider making an offering to help cover Lama's attendance. A donation of any amount, large or small, is a pure offering that supports the goal of promoting diversity, and spiritual health in America at a time it needs it the most.

We'd like to thank those who have supported Lama Rangdrol's work over the years. If you are new to the Rainbowdharm experience, we look forward to adding your name to our growing list of supporters, and keeping your informed about the film's progress.

make offering here:
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_donations&business=MB4JLJWL9R4FG&lc=US&item_name=Rainbowdharma&currency_code=USD&bn=PP%2dDonationsBF%3abtn_donateCC_LG%2egif%3aNonHosted
______________________________________________________

Festival Canceled

Lama, marriage, and teaching peace to the community

2008-12-29T21:36:00.000-08:00

Many Western Buddhist students are confused about the freedom of Lamaism's student/teacher relationship. They bring their Judeo-Christian concerns about sexuality to the environment of Lamaism and become judgmental and fearful. Their misconceptions are also prompted by Buddhist traditions from Southeast Asia that hold celibacy in supreme regard. Southeast Asian monks and nuns are forbidden to have sexual relations even in their imagination.

The chaste Buddhist monk has been stereotyped to a degree Buddhist traditions to the contrary are mistakenly viewed as corrupt and exploitive. Western Buddhist students and non Buddhist onlookers disconcert with ideas of chastity and violation in ways that serve no one as well as diminish the idea that love can be a powerful vehicle of teaching in some Buddhist settings.

In Lamaism a student and teacher falling in love is not only acceptable but serves as a working example of the interpersonal blended with the spiritual at the most intimate level.

Here is a wonderful example of how a loving relationship between teacher and student can serve an entire community:

Lama teaches path to peace, happiness - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: "By the time Grossmann decided to finish her doctorate, she and Lama had fallen in love. They got married and moved to Pittsburgh after Grossmann landed a post-doctoral research position at Carnegie Mellon University's Department of Engineering and Public Policy." Watch the video.

Crime Fighting Through Mass Meditation

2008-12-01T23:01:00.000-08:00

Meditation as a community approach to crime fighting is new to the West. But for those who have studied Buddhist meditation historically it has always been nothing more than an international mental health program. Here's an example of mass meditation in America's hardest hit areas of crime and violence.

Cambodia's elderly require priority attention

2008-11-30T12:46:00.000-08:00

Growing old in the Kingdom of the young

Cambodian Buddhist temple compounds are the final refuge where the elderly spend their last years.

Pech Poy, 50, has been living at Wat Ounalom for eight years, devoting the rest of his life to the acquisition of Dharma. “I see that most old people live in difficult situations because they don’t have a place to stay, so I am luckier than most,” he said. “When I die my next life will be better than this. I believe I will be reborn in a good condition because now I try to do good and save the Dharma."