Rev. Danny Fisher

Lama Sarah Harding (left) with the author (right) at Lady Kunchok Palden’s birthday party in Boulder, CO, May 2006. Photo by Jenna Herbst.
This week and last week, those marvelous Buddhist Geeks spoke with my old Naropa University prof Lama Sarah Harding. Sarah is a lama in the Shangpa Kagyu tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, who in 1980, under the supervision of H.E. Kalu Rinpoche, completed the very first three-year retreat ever for westerners. Her published translations include Creation & Completion: Essential Points of Tantric Meditation and Machik’s Complete Explanation: Clarifying the Meaning of Chöd. She’s also a complete delight, the bee’s knees–you can tell in the interviews. Give ‘em a listen. The links are below.

In an editorial appearing in today’s Washington Post, Archbishop Desmond Tutu writes about “what Burma needs from the White House.” Here’s the choicest snippet:

As the administration reviews its policy, I hope it will remember that the voices of those with the most at stake cannot easily be heard. My sister Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, the heroic and beloved leader of the Burmese democracy movement, remains under house arrest and cannot speak to the world. In recent months, hundreds of prominent activists, Buddhist monks and nuns, journalists, labor activists, and bloggers who want the world to maintain pressure on their government have been sentenced to years, even decades, in isolated jungle prisons, where not even their families can visit. Meanwhile, those who support or have resigned themselves to their government’s approach are free to speak out. This repression cannot be rewarded; the voices of those it has silenced must be heard as if the walls of their jails did not exist.

I hope that the Obama administration will energize global diplomacy on Burma. It should be willing to talk to Burma’s leaders, to work intensively with Burma’s neighbors and to make clear that there is a dignified way forward for all those in Burma who are willing to compromise. It should support carefully monitored humanitarian assistance directed to help Burma’s people, so aid reaches them and does not reinforce corruption or result in other unintended consequences.

The incredible Robert Aitken Roshi writes:

I will return to the subject of Zen next time. For now I want to report a brand new health development. I have been diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease and require 24 hour nursing care. I am not so concerned about this. I can dictate my stuff. I know an effective political activist who has been living with Parkinson for 20 years. I am, however, really worried about the new, exorbitant cost of 24 hour nursing care. This is not an appeal, but if you are moved to help out, please check: http://www.aitkenroshi.org/

[Image via Robert Aitken Roshi.]