2011 February « Rev. Danny Fisher

February 25, 2011

“15 Years Have Passed Since Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche Passed”

Erik Pema Kunsang remembers his teacher, the great Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche (1920-1996), in a beautiful post at the Blazing-Splendor blog.

For those who don’t know, Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche was one of the most remarkable Kagyu/Nyingma masters of the last century, as well as father of renowned Buddhist masters Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche, Tsikey Chokling Rinpoche, Tsoknyi Rinpoche and Mingyur Rinpoche. Erik Pema Kunsang, one of his main students, is a prolific translator of Tibetan texts and teachings into English whose works include the digital Dharma Dictionary and (with Marcia Binder Schmidt) Blazing Splendor: The Memoirs of Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche.

February 25, 2011

Wisdom 2.0 Begins — Follow it Live!

Keep tabs on the event by livestreaming here. In addition, Shambhala Sun is “live-tweeting” @shambhalasun.

February 24, 2011

A Gift of Dharma for 2.24.11

Today’s quote is another from the much-beloved Acharya Ani Pema Chödrön, whom I first quoted and wrote a little biography for in this post. This is it – yet another one of Tricycle‘s Daily Dharma quotes this week:

Life is a good teacher and a good friend. Things are always in transition, if we could only realize it. Nothing ever sums itself up in the way that we like to dream about. The off-center, in-between state is an ideal situation, a situation in which we don’t get caught and we can open our hearts and minds beyond limit. It’s a very tender, nonaggressive, open-ended state of affairs.

February 24, 2011

Tricycle Book Club: Living This Life Fully: Stories and Teachings of Munindra

At the Book Club: A discussion of Living This Life Fully: Stories and Teachings of Munindra The Tricycle Book Club will focus on Mirka Knaster’s Living This Life Fully: Stories and Teachings of Munindra this March. As I previously mentioned, I was very, very fortunate to travel to and live at Bodh Gaya, Bihar, India, with several other undergraduates on Antioch Education Abroad’s Buddhist Studies in India Program in 1999. During that time, we were blessed to receive instruction in vipassana meditation from Godwin Samararatne and Anagarika Sri Munindra(1914-2003) – the Bengali master who is the subject of Knaster’s book, and whose many students included such luminaries as Dipa Ma, Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzberg, and Lama Surya Das. I have many wonderful memories of Munindra-ji, including sitting with him at our group’s last dinner together with him in Bodh Gaya. (I remember him asking me a little bit about my home state of Indiana, and checking in with me periodically to make sure I was getting enough to eat and drink.) One of my very first teachers, he was a truly extraordinary little man who left an indelible impression on me. Check out the book and join the discussion at the Tricycle Book Club!