Rev. Danny Fisher

Stephen Colbert, the titular host of The Colbert Report, interviewed Lama Surya Das on his program last night. Take a look at their conversation below.

Surya Das also has an addendum to the interview at his blog, which you can read here.

Today’s mailbag question comes from a reader struggling with something that will resonate with a lot of lay practitioners: how to go through a breakup with wisdom and compassion. This person contacted me in private recently, and I felt like their question and my answer might be helpful to share here. As always, your feedback is invited. Please feel free to leave comments, further questions, or your own recommendations below.

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DEAR DANNY: Do you have any good books to recommend on working through grief when a relationship ends, as well as ones about working towards wholeness in relationships? — ANONYMOUS

DEAR ANONYMOUS: It’s terribly painful to go through a breakup, isn’t it? “Matters of the heart are the hardest,” as the old platitude goes. And if you’re reaching out for book recommendations, I’d imagine that you’re coming up against notions about love and intimacy that don’t feel particularly helpful to you. In my own experience, I’ve certainly found heartbreak exacerbated by the fact that our culture generally nourishes ideas about romance and relationships that don’t necessarily help us to meet people, situations, or our feelings as they really are. (I’m reminded of a line in the film High Fidelity, when John Cusack says, “Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable, or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?”) A lot of books and things out there start with assumptions that I just can’t get on board with–in fact, they even seem to me to actually perpetuate suffering in the Buddhist sense. As a result, I find them a very limited help, if any help at all.

In terms of good books to recommend, though, the Buddhist world has produced a couple of “must-reads” in my view. One name pops immediately to mind: John Welwood. He’s a clinical psychologist who has been writing about intimate relationships and contemplative practice for years. In particular, I’d recommend two of his books to you:

Love and Awakening: Discovering the Sacred Path of Intimate Relationship

Perfect Love, Imperfect Relationships: Healing the Wound of the Heart

My good friend and past blog interviewee Judith Simmer-Brown has also done some beautiful work on this subject. Her piece “Romantic Vision, Everyday Disappointment” for editor Marianne Dresser’s book Buddhist Women On the Edge: Contemporary Perspectives from Western Buddhist Women is really something great.

There are certainly other good titles and authors out there, but I think Simmer-Brown and Welwood’s works are the best places to start. — DANNY

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Got a question for me? You can send it to me via email, Facebook, or Myspace, or by leaving a comment in this or other posts.

NEXT TIME: The lineage of Buddhist military chaplains.

The BBC recently published a report by Hilary Andersson which presents evidence showing that China is currently helping Sudan’s government militarily in Darfur. The report is already causing controversy, despite the fact that Andersson’s sterling reporting is currently being used as evidence in the International Criminal Court’s case against Sudanese president Omar Hassan al-Bashir (who was recently charged with genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes). The Associated Press has more on the I.C.C.’s charges in the video report below:

Our friend Erick sends us two reports from The Times about China’s continued crackdown in Tibet. One has to do with the Chinese army cordoning off “rebel” monasteries like the historic Drepung Monastery. The other, even more disconcerting, intimates that the Chinese government is preparing to enact a new campaign of “re-education” in Tibet.