Sumeru Books

07/23/2024

What does the look like and how can respond. [My latest article, in Lion's Roar]

John H. Negru on why, in our unprecedented era, we must engage in the liberating act of awakening to interdependence together.

07/23/2024

A conversation with Tim Ream, teacher.

American ecoBuddhist, activist, and Zen practitioner Tim Ream offers a lifetime of wisdom as he teaches the fundamental ecological and spiritual need for us to love Earth

07/20/2024

Worth watching again!

Kundun is a 1997 American epic biographical film written by Melissa Mathison and directed by Martin Scorsese. It is based on the life and writings of Tenzin ...

07/20/2024

Worth watching again!

Watch Little Buddha - Zina Davis on Dailymotion

07/16/2024

It's almost here! Volume II of "Kalyanamitra: A Model for Buddhist Spiritual Care" by Monica Sanford. This volume is subtitled "Pragmatic Skills for Buddhist Chaplains". We're looking at a September publication date.

Contents include:

PART ONE / Pragmatic Skills for Every Context
1. Presence
2. Listening & Responding
3. Empathy & Compassion
4. Spiritual Assessment
5. Personal & Professional Boundaries
6. Spiritual Leadership
7. Part One Conclusions & Reflection

PART TWO / Pragmatic Skills for Particular Contexts
8. Prayer & Ritual, by Victor Gabriel
9. Interreligious Competencies, by Nathan Jishin Michon
10. Intercultural Competencies, by Henry Shiu
11. Practical Psychology for Chaplains, by Linda Hochstetler
12. Privilege, Oppression & Power
13. Part Two Conclusions & Reflection

06/29/2024

06/29/2024

06/23/2024

My latest article focuses on ecodharma initiatives in Asia:

John Harvey Negro looks at the ongoing work of the International Network of Engaged Buddhists in their efforts to build sustainable Dharma networks

06/13/2024

Once again, the New Yorker has a publishing cartoon that's a hit!

06/13/2024

Send a message to learn more

06/13/2024

Wow!

Send a message to learn more

06/07/2024

A lovely photo-essay about the closing of a 192-year-old letterpress company in England. The good old days!

Tucked away, down a side turning of a bustling country market town, you’d be forgiven for never knowing of the existence of Cupiss Press...

05/23/2024

John Bell's roadmap to the Beloved Community is articulate, eloquent, comprehensive, heartfelt, and grounded in deep experience. It's the best invitation to the Buddhism of the future I've ever read, weaving together profound insight, trauma-informed practice, and social action. A well-thumbed copy sould be in every dharma centre library and act as the guide to many Sangha discussion groups. Six stars out of five!

https://www.buddhistdoor.net/features/the-earth-holder-community-branching-out/

05/17/2024

Zen book advice

05/14/2024

Pleased to report that the ebook edition of "A Zen Life of Bodhisattvas" by Rafe Martin (ISBN 9781998248025) is now available from your favourite online bookseller! The print edition is also available, of course! Here's more info about the book:

A Zen Life of Bodhisattvas, by Rafe Martin ISBN 978-1-896559-99-5 / 198 pages, 5.83 x 8.27 / October 2023 Also available as an ebook from your favorite online bookseller! ISBN 9781998248025 Drawing on his knowledge of myth, legend, Zen koans, pop culture, and Buddhist folklore, and speaking from a f...

05/08/2024

The Barre Center for Buddhist Studies has done extensive work in its teachings, land and building use, and collaborations to put it on the cutting edge of contemporary ecodharma

04/30/2024

https://tricycle.org/article/interview-richard-bryan-mcdaniel/

Talking with writer and Buddhist chronicler Richard Bryan McDaniel about the changing landscape of American Zen

04/30/2024

https://www.buddhistdoor.net/news/sarvodaya-shramadana-movement-founder-and-buddhist-leader-dr-a-t-ariyaratne-has-died-in-sri-lanka-aged-92/

The socially engaged Buddhist leader and founder of the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement Dr. A. T. Ariyaratne died on 16 April at the age of 92.

04/29/2024

Thank you for this smartly written guide to the end-of-life! Fully captivating. I will recommend it in chaplaincy & end-of-life consultations.

04/26/2024

Dear Venerable teachers and friends,

The 2nd talk by Bhante Sirinanda will be on April 27, this coming Saturday - tomorrow! Also, the recording for the first talk is shared below.

Innovative Buddhist prison chaplaincy Programs and Services in the Springhill Penitentiary in Nova Scotia
Speaker: Bhante Sirinanda, Site Chaplain, Springhill Penitentiary, Nova Scotia
Summary of Talk: In his presentation, Bhante Sirinanda will delve into the transformative potential of Buddhist chaplaincy within the Correctional Service Canada (CSC), highlighting innovative programs such as mindful eating and communication, along with the comprehensive "Buddhism in a Year" initiative. His vision for a mindfulness-based halfway house is a testament to his dedication to holistic rehabilitation, incorporating practices that promote mental wellness and reduce recidivism through personal growth and skill development. Leveraging insights from the Mindful Eating program launched at Springhill Penitentiary, he will demonstrate how these programs significantly improve psychological well-being and foster a mindful relationship with food, as outlined in the Mindful Eating Course and supported by findings from recent evaluations.

These initiatives contribute to inmate rehabilitation and also enhance broader community safety and wellness, highlighting the need for adaptable and culturally enriched educational methods in correctional environments. He will conclude his talk by discussing the wider implications of these programs and the future of chaplaincy in prisons, advocating for the ongoing support and growth of these compassionate and innovative approaches to correctional education and rehabilitation.

Bhante Sirinanda is a Sri Lankan born Buddhist monk who has dedicated his life to spread the teachings of Buddhism in Canada. While studying in the master's program at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax in early 2015, Bhante Sirinanda co-founded the Atlantic Theravada Buddhist Society where he is currently Abbot and President. He subsequently joined the Correctional Service Canada as a chaplain and spiritual care counsellor, and currently works at Springhill Penitentiary. He is also pursuing clinical psycho-spiritual education courses with Ottawa hospital and Wilfrid Laurier University.

He began his monastic life as a novice at the age of nine in Sri Lanka. After completing his primary monastic education at Nalanda Dharmayatana Pirivena and Saddharmakara Pirivena, Bhante Sirinanda pursued his undergraduate degree in Psychology at Sri Jayawardanapura University, graduating with honors in 2009. He went on to obtain a Psychology Counsellor Diploma from The Sri Lanka Mental Health Foundation in 2009 and a Post-Graduate Diploma in Psychology in 2011. Additionally, he holds an M.A. degree in Buddhist Philosophy from the University of Buddhism and Pali, Sri Lanka.

Please find below the (same) zoom link to attend the 3 remaining presentations.

Topic: Buddhist Healing In Prisons Speakers' Series
Time: Apr 27, 2024 02:00 PM America/Toronto
May 18, 2024 02:00 PM
May 25, 2024 02:00 PM

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85407270237?pwd=bHB0THliVi9TZWovYTZrT09LNkhSZz09

Meeting ID: 854 0727 0237
Passcode: 487120

I am also sharing with you here the video recording of the 1st talk by Acharya Samaneti for those of you who missed it or wish to watch it again:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IxZWbH-rT00j5l7JEnW_4Co7wQC-fmbF/view?usp=sharing

We look forward to seeing you on April 27, 2:00 pm!

Have a nice day,

BIPC Team
http://www.buddhisminprisons.ca/events.html
[email protected]

​Buddhist Healing In Prisons

04/26/2024

https://www.chronicleproject.com/book-review-of-pith-instructions-from-my-teachers/

James Gritz has written a profound Dharma book, which he organized in the form of a spiritual memoir.

04/16/2024

If you or someone you know will die (in other words, everyone), this is valuable information:

In this episode of the Death Dhamma Podcast, host Margaret welcomes Linda Hochstetler, an accomplished social worker, psychotherapist, Buddhist meditation te...

04/10/2024

On-line Speakers’ Series: Buddhist Healing in Prisons
​4 Saturdays, April and May, 2024, 2:00 to 3:30 pm (Toronto time)
Free admission. All welcome!
To Register, please complete registration form here https://forms.gle/Piqc58Gs9AfY6GmW9

Please share the information with anyone who may be interested. A page has been set up - please join to help us with promotion. Thanks :D https://www.facebook.com/groups/1633554654083391

http://www.buddhisminprisons.ca/events.html
​1. Bearing witness to the suffering in Canadian prison setting and sowing the seeds for forgiveness, wisdom, compassion, joy, and change
April 20, 2024
Speaker: Acharya Samaneti, Site Chaplain, Regional Reception Centre, Ste-Anne des Plaines, Quebec
Acharya Samaneti is a prison chaplain, philosopher, a lover of the written word, and truth seeker. The contemplative life called him early in his life; an only child, Samanetti found comfort in silence, reflection, and personal inquiry. Samaneti is interested in bearing witness to the oneness of suffering and the loving actions that awaken hearts; this mission draws him to work with the incarcerated and other marginalized populations. A student of Venerable Pannavati and a graduate of the Dharmacharya Program at Heartwood Refuge in Hendersonville North Carolina, USA.

Summary of Talk: As spiritual care providers we witness suffering and oppression on a scale that is hard to explain, we walk in the shadows with the forgotten and witness their hardships, their tears, their feelings of helplessness and hopelessness, their remorse, their isolation, and we remind them that they are still human in a world that does all it can to dehumanise them every day. We see people take their own lives out of the complete hopelessness of what laid ahead of them. We do, however, also witness: forgiveness, wisdom, compassion, joy, and most importantly change.

Our work happens away from the limelight. We bring a value that is not easily measured. We are a safe haven: someone to confide in, and someone to help the incarcerated through their difficult times. The benefits that we bring to the offender's lives is not measured through statistics and percentages. There are no indicators to determine how effective spiritual care is in the process of rehabilitation. And yet as anyone witnesses, they discover that we are an essential part of the healing process of the broken lives of the inmates. We are a ray of hope in an otherwise hopeless world... The dhamma has never been more alive than it is behind these fences and barbed wire...

2. Innovative Buddhist prison chaplaincy Programs and Services in the Springhill Penitentiary in Nova Scotia
April 27, 2024
Speaker: Bhante Sirinanda, Site Chaplain, Springhill Penitentiary, Nova Scotia
Bhante Sirinanda is a Sri Lankan born Buddhist monk who has dedicated his life to spread the teachings of Buddhism in Canada. While studying in the master's program at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax in early 2015, Bhante Sirinanda co-founded the Atlantic Theravada Buddhist Society where he is currently Abbot and President. He subsequently joined the Correctional Service Canada as a chaplain and spiritual care counsellor, and currently works at Springhill Penitentiary. He is also pursuing clinical psycho-spiritual education courses with Ottawa hospital and Wilfrid Laurier University.

He began his monastic life as a novice at the age of nine in Sri Lanka. After completing his primary monastic education at Nalanda Dharmayatana Pirivena and Saddharmakara Pirivena, Bhante Sirinanda pursued his undergraduate degree in Psychology at Sri Jayawardanapura University, graduating with honors in 2009. He went on to obtain a Psychology Counsellor Diploma from The Sri Lanka Mental Health Foundation in 2009 and a Post-Graduate Diploma in Psychology in 2011. Additionally, he holds an M.A. degree in Buddhist Philosophy from the University of Buddhism and Pali, Sri Lanka.

3. The Challenges and rewards in volunteering for Buddhist prison chaplaincy
May 18, 2024
Venerable S*k Yin Kit, Head Nun of Po Lam Buddhist Association, Chilliwack, BC

Speaker: Venerable S*k Yin Kit is ordained in the Mahayana Buddhist tradition. She is also a Mindfulness Meditation teacher, who works with penitentiaries in British Columbia. Whether we are inside or outside of a physical prison or not, she cautions that we can be prisoners of our own minds. Through meditation, she believes that all people have the ability to transform and correct their minds.

4. The role of Multi-faith Chaplaincy and Buddhist Chaplaincy in the Provincial Correctional System in Ontario
​May 25, 2024
Speaker: Rev. Frank Loo, Provincial Chaplaincy Coordinator, Ministry of the Solicitor General, Executive Director’s Office
​– Ontario Corrections – Institutional Services

For inquiry, please email [email protected]
Poster can be downloaded from here:http://www.buddhisminprisons.ca/uploads/1/2/4/2/124215333/poster_1_p.pdf

NEW JOB POSTING Niagara Detention Centre in Thorold (apply by April 17)
If you can’t open the file below, please let me know.

A BUDDHIST NEWSLETTER for inmates in prisons

If you are interested in this idea, please email me. This idea is suggested by Rev. Frank Loo, the co-ordinator of chaplaincy in Ontario prisons (the fourth speaker of our speakers’ series). Thanks!

04/02/2024

How are Buddhists in the West working for climate justice and restoration? Here's one example.

By urging action in the peaceful and peacefulness among activists, One Earth Sangha is building a community of people who care deeply for our earth and all of our myriad interconnections

03/26/2024

The Axial Shapeshifters of Japanese Buddhism

“Honen 法然 (1133-1212) proclaimed that the simple recitation of Amitabha’s name (南無阿弥陀仏 namu-amida-butsu), even just ten times, could erase eons of bad karma and gain one entry into Amitabha’s Pure Land at the moment of death. This teaching, however, was not designed as a simplified, inferior version of dharma practice, often given by monks to lay people whom they feel are unable to realize the highest forms of Buddhist practice. Rather, in this Age of the Final Dharma (末法 mappo), the ‘exclusive nenbutsu’ (専修念仏 senju-nenbutsu) was the best and indeed only way of realizing the highest goal of Buddhism, eventual enlightenment after Birth in the Pure Land (往生 ojo) …. Honen’s isolation of this teaching into a single, exclusively focused school of practice marked a spiritual revolution that in many ways was a call to social revolution—a kind of liberation theology for the masses to throw off the domination of the Heian aristocracy and the clan warlords and to seek for their own independence.” [https://sumeru-books.com/products/engaged-buddhism-in-japan-volume-1, p. 66-67] Image: Honen feeding rice gruel to lepers.

03/13/2024

You are invited!
On-line Speakers’ Series: Buddhist Healing in Prisons
​4 Saturdays, April and May, 2024, 2:00 to 3:30 pm (Toronto time)
Free admission. All welcome!
To Register, please complete registration form here https://forms.gle/Piqc58Gs9AfY6GmW9

Please share the information with anyone who may be interested. A page has been set up - please join to help us with promotion. Thanks :D https://www.facebook.com/groups/1633554654083391

http://www.buddhisminprisons.ca/events.html
​1. Bearing witness to the suffering in Canadian prison setting and sowing the seeds for forgiveness, wisdom, compassion, joy, and change
April 20, 2024
Speaker: Acharya Samaneti, Site Chaplain, Regional Reception Centre, Ste-Anne des Plaines, Quebec
Acharya Samaneti is a prison chaplain, philosopher, a lover of the written word, and truth seeker. The contemplative life called him early in his life; an only child, Samanetti found comfort in silence, reflection, and personal inquiry. Samaneti is interested in bearing witness to the oneness of suffering and the loving actions that awaken hearts; this mission draws him to work with the incarcerated and other marginalized populations. A student of Venerable Pannavati and a graduate of the Dharmacharya Program at Heartwood Refuge in Hendersonville North Carolina, USA.

Summary of Talk: As spiritual care providers we witness suffering and oppression on a scale that is hard to explain, we walk in the shadows with the forgotten and witness their hardships, their tears, their feelings of helplessness and hopelessness, their remorse, their isolation, and we remind them that they are still human in a world that does all it can to dehumanise them every day. We see people take their own lives out of the complete hopelessness of what laid ahead of them. We do, however, also witness: forgiveness, wisdom, compassion, joy, and most importantly change.

Our work happens away from the limelight. We bring a value that is not easily measured. We are a safe haven: someone to confide in, and someone to help the incarcerated through their difficult times. The benefits that we bring to the offender's lives is not measured through statistics and percentages. There are no indicators to determine how effective spiritual care is in the process of rehabilitation. And yet as anyone witnesses, they discover that we are an essential part of the healing process of the broken lives of the inmates. We are a ray of hope in an otherwise hopeless world... The dhamma has never been more alive than it is behind these fences and barbed wire...

2. Innovative Buddhist prison chaplaincy Programs and Services in the Springhill Penitentiary in Nova Scotia
April 27, 2024
Speaker: Bhante Sirinanda, Site Chaplain, Springhill Penitentiary, Nova Scotia
Bhante Sirinanda is a Sri Lankan born Buddhist monk who has dedicated his life to spread the teachings of Buddhism in Canada. While studying in the master's program at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax in early 2015, Bhante Sirinanda co-founded the Atlantic Theravada Buddhist Society where he is currently Abbot and President. He subsequently joined the Correctional Service Canada as a chaplain and spiritual care counsellor, and currently works at Springhill Penitentiary. He is also pursuing clinical psycho-spiritual education courses with Ottawa hospital and Wilfrid Laurier University.

He began his monastic life as a novice at the age of nine in Sri Lanka. After completing his primary monastic education at Nalanda Dharmayatana Pirivena and Saddharmakara Pirivena, Bhante Sirinanda pursued his undergraduate degree in Psychology at Sri Jayawardanapura University, graduating with honors in 2009. He went on to obtain a Psychology Counsellor Diploma from The Sri Lanka Mental Health Foundation in 2009 and a Post-Graduate Diploma in Psychology in 2011. Additionally, he holds an M.A. degree in Buddhist Philosophy from the University of Buddhism and Pali, Sri Lanka.

3. The Challenges and rewards in volunteering for Buddhist prison chaplaincy
May 18, 2024
Venerable S*k Yin Kit, Head Nun of Po Lam Buddhist Association, Chilliwack, BC

Speaker: Venerable S*k Yin Kit is ordained in the Mahayana Buddhist tradition. She is also a Mindfulness Meditation teacher, who works with penitentiaries in British Columbia. Whether we are inside or outside of a physical prison or not, she cautions that we can be prisoners of our own minds. Through meditation, she believes that all people have the ability to transform and correct their minds.

4. The role of Multi-faith Chaplaincy and Buddhist Chaplaincy in the Provincial Correctional System in Ontario
​May 25, 2024
Speaker: Rev. Frank Loo, Provincial Chaplaincy Coordinator, Ministry of the Solicitor General, Executive Director’s Office
​– Ontario Corrections – Institutional Services

For inquiry, please email [email protected]

​Buddhist Healing In Prisons

03/05/2024

I wish every rural retreat centre would follow this outstanding example of stewardship!

A Buddhist retreat center in western Canada is working to protect nature on its land in perpetuity

03/02/2024

The International Dunhuang Project has marked their 30th anniversary with a great new website with lots of fascinating resources about Buddhist art and history!

The International Dunhuang Programme, formerly the International Dunhuang Project, provides access to images, information and learning resources about manuscripts, printed materials and other items from sites of the Eastern Silk Roads through its online platform. We currently link the collections of...