by Vishvapani | Mar 17, 2012 | Buddhism in the West, Buddhist World, Featured
It’s 50 years since Buddhist teachers started arriving in the west in the early 60s and Buddhism crash-landed into the counterculture. So what have we learned about western Buddhism? This piece appeared in The Guardian (Saturday 17 March 2012). These thoughts...
by Vishvapani | Mar 14, 2012 | Buddhist World, Featured
The young Kalu Rinpoche, the reborn ‘tulku’ of a respected Tibetan Buddhist teacher, has posted a video detailing his sexual abuse at the hands of Buddhist monks, his tutor’s attempt to murder him and his descent into drug addiction and alcoholism....
by Vishvapani | Mar 7, 2012 | Buddhist World, Reviews
Vishvapani reviews Schettini’s heartfelt and vivid account of becoming a Tibetan Buddhist monk and his valuable reflections on what it means for westerners to practice Buddhism When I first encountered Buddhism in the UK around 1980 there was already a generation of...
by Vishvapani | Feb 28, 2012 | Buddhism in the West, Buddhist World
In my last post I wrote about current issues within the New Kadampa Tradition (NKT). As promised, to fill out my attitude to the NKT I am posting an article I wrote in 1996 in the second issue of Dharma Life magazine, just as the dispute over Dorje Shugden was...
by Vishvapani | Feb 21, 2012 | Buddhism in the West, Buddhist World, Featured
A few years ago I wrote on my previous blog an article called ‘NKT: Succession & Question of Authority regarding difficulties in the New Kadampa Tradition in managing the succession from Geshe Kelsang Gyatso to a new generation. Much has changed in the subsequent...
by Vishvapani | Dec 27, 2011 | Buddhist World, Reviews
The Book of Enlightened Masters: Western Teachers in Eastern Traditions by Andrew Rawlinson (Open Court, 1997) £31.50 Review by Vishvapani Not long ago, when the East was axiomatically ‘mystical’, teachers of eastern religions were assumed to be possibly mad, probably...
