Rev. Danny Fisher

Dr. Michaela Haas

I’ve got a brand new video interview with Dr. Michaela Haas (pictured to the left) over at my Patheos blog Off the Cushion.

Dr. Haas is an international reporter, lecturer and consultant. In addition, she is the media consultant for and a board member of Lotus Outreach — the secular humanitarian organization founded by Buddhist teacher Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche and dedicated to “ensuring the education, health and safety of at-risk and exploited women and children in the developing world.” In the interview, we talk a bit about the organization and how readers/viewers can help.

We also talk a bit about Buddhism, women, and social justice. Among many other things, Dr. Haas is also currently a lecturer and research scholar in the Religious Studies department at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is also an adjunct faculty member at my home institution of University of the West, where she is currently teaching our “Women and Buddhism” graduate Religious Studies course. Dr. Haas recently finished a book about contemporary Tibetan Buddhist teachers who are women that will be published soon with Snow Lion Publications as well.

In addition, Dr. Haas is a regular contributor to The Huffington Post and a must-follow Twitterer @MichaelaHaas. Make sure you keep up with her!

Watch our interview here.

Tenzin Wangmo.

Please check out my latest news post for Buddhadharma: The Practitioner’s Quarterly Online. I don’t mention every short news post I write for the site here, but this one is especially important and I wanted to make sure to say something about it. In it, I talk about (and link to) a petition Change.org is currently hosting, which asks President Obama to prevent the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), “a US Federal agency which operates the Voice of America (VOA),” from ceasing VOA’s broadcasts to Tibet. With China’s crackdown on both Tibetan activism and outside media scrutiny increasing all the time, such broadcasts are crucial for Tibetans. Tenzin Wangmo, an executive board member for Students for a Free Tibet who graciously answered my request for a comment (and is pictured to the right), makes this point and helps put the petition into much larger perspective in the post as well. Please do take a look here — and make sure to sign the petition!

Please check out my brand new interview with Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi — the well-known and prodigious translator of Pali Buddhist texts into English, and founder of Buddhist Global Relief, the visionary, Buddhist-inspired humanitarian organization that contributes to relief and justice efforts worldwide — over at Buddhadharma: The Practitioner’s Quarterly Online. In it, we discuss BGR’s efforts in honor of this year’s International Women’s Day. Please do take a look — these are very important matters. Read the full interview here.

You can also read my past interviews with Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi here, here, here, and here.

I’m very happy to share with you all that I am a contributor to Wisdom Publications’ upcoming volume The Arts of Contemplative Care: Pioneering Voices in Buddhist Chaplaincy and Pastoral Work, edited by Harvard Divinity School profs Cheryl A. Giles and Willa B. Miller. My chapter, “May You Always Be a Student,” is part of a section of the book about university and military chaplaincy. It’s about what I’ve learned during my time working as Coordinator of the Buddhist Chaplaincy Program at University of the West.

Other contributors include Roshi Joan Halifax, Lew Richmond, Grace Schireson, Robert Chodo Campbell, Koshin Paley Ellison, Dean Sluyter, Sumi Loundon Kim, Daijaku Judith Kinst, Wakoh Shannon Hickey, Jennifer Block, and many more.

The book now has a cover (look above and to the left), and an official Facebook page. Please “like” the page if you’re a Facebook person — and read the book when it arrives! It will be published sometime in the fall of 2012, but that’s as specific as I can be right now. I’ll let you know more precise information as soon as I get it.

Please check out my brand new interview with Lama Surya Das – the mighty American-born Tibetan Buddhist teacher, founder of the Dzogchen Center in Cambridge, and author of such books as Awakening the Buddha Within and Buddha Standard Time – over at Buddhadharma: The Practitioner’s Quarterly Online. In it, we discuss his upcoming mini-workshop at InsightLA, which is called “The Secrets of Tibetan Mindfulness: Remembering to Remember” (the event is March 17th, and tickets are still available and can be purchased here). We also talk about humor, contemplative education, technology, and more. Read the full text of our interview here.

I previously interviewed Lama Surya Das about last year’s Buddhist Teacher’s Council for The Buddhist Channel. You can read that interview here.