Lama Tsultrim Allione, M.A. was one of the first American women to be ordained as a Tibetan nun in 1970 by the 16th Karmapa. After four years as a nun, she returned her monastic vows, married, and raised a family of three. Author of Women of Wisdom and Feeding Your Demons: Ancient Wisdom for Resolving Inner Conflict, she is the founder of Tara Mandala retreat center in Pagosa Springs, Colorado. Lama Tsultri ...

when he saw the shrapnel in his leg, he decided to take up running   … to leave, to embrace, to murderously oppose— visceral decisions two boys must face daily. One boy to mother—“I hate you; please let me come back to live with you at home, those other people I am with... are cruel!” Their tears articulate, meander through the ducts and down the nose, giant lumps choke off the throat and all flows rev ...

taper smoke twirling in the heavy dark   perfume of danger   the rotted opposite of hometown matins   Timothy Gray is author of Gary Snyder and the Pacific Rim (2006) and Urban Pastoral (2010), both published by University of Iowa Press. His newest book, Reading Roots Rock Writing is also forthcoming from University of Iowa Press. He has new poems this year in Willows Wept Review and Pirene's ...

Driving through Los Banos on the busy highway, I see a man in sunglasses smoking calmly in the middle of the road waiting for a gap in traffic so he can finish crossing. His face is stubbled, sleeves rolled high on his biceps against the heat. He is in no hurry, taking one drag then another from his cigarette, letting the smoke drift haloed about his head—a rogue angel, the entire scene swirling round the f ...

I always thought of death as something that happens to you. Until I met Daniel. He set about dying with a keen sense of responsibility, as if elected to an important office—hoping to set a good example. And he did. *** Birds flying nearly vertical, landing lightly on bare limbs. Needles high above us, deep green clusters. The dry ones fell. They clicked on the tent roof at night when the wind blew and sound ...

Zen Master as Apostle for Change by Nelson Foster In the summer of 1976, the man we were still learning to call Aitken Roshi took a break from life on Maui to join the Continental Walk for Disarmament and Social Justice, midway in its ten-month march from the West Coast to Washington. Linking up with this small and anarchic bicentennial-year mission urging Americans to rethink their political views and to e ...

I first discovered Kristine Huskey when I read her book, Justice at Guantánamo: One Woman’s Odyssey and Her Crusade for Human Rights. It spoke to me for a number of reasons. Rather than simply offering an analysis of the human rights issues pertaining to the treatment of detainees at Guantánamo, Huskey offers a woman’s perspective on what it’s like to be there. Her story also spoke to me because she is a wo ...

  Last autumn, in the weeks leading up to President Obama’s decision to send more troops to Afghanistan, two courageous Afghani women were touring the United States trying to educate American citizens about what is happening in their country. In October, Zoya, a member of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), gave a speech in San Francisco. Two weeks later, in early November ...

The drone of early morning crickets drowns out the sound of my footsteps as I walk through the doors of the Pagoda View Hotel, the dirt drive damp from the heavy Rangoon mists, the sun hefting itself wearily above the horizon. Mo Win stands off to the side of the driveway; I can barely make him out in the shadow of two tall trees. U Thein Ya waits with the engine of his taxi turned off. He flashes on the he ...

I’ve long felt that the spiritual calling is not really so different from one religion to the next. At their core, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Paganism, Native American traditions, all of them are looking at things that are as mysterious as looking up into the sky at night, all those stars, all that infinity… and looking for a response. But back here on earth, the question is a little ...