In the current issue of Tricycle, Pema Chodron explains that developing compassion for others requires “unlimited friendliness” toward ourselves.  “When we wish to benefit others, we start by developing warmth…

Via the Worst Horse, we learn that Michael Roach — someone I have crabbed about in the past — has a new book out called Karmic Management — What Goes…

Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared. – Buddha…

Having found no self that is not other, The seeker must find that there is no other that is not self, So that in the absence of both other and self, There may be known the perfect peace, Of the presence of absolute absence. “The Tenth Man” by Wei Wu Wei…

The virtues, like the Muses, are always seen in groups. A good principle was never found solitary in any breast. – Buddha …

Victorian Premier John Brumby, it seems, is too busy to meet the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.

The latter addressed Victorian politicians at a reception at parliament house on Wednesday, but Brumby was noticeably absent, reports The Australian.

The Dalai Lama spoke to over 100 people on Wednesday in a private address organised by the informal group, Victorian MPs for Tibet.

In a speech that lasted more than 30 minutes, the Dalai Lama promoted peace, harmony and secularism and urged Australian MPs to visit Tibet to test Chinese claims about Buddhist practices.

It was the Tibetan leader’s only address at an Australian parliament during this visit. He spoke in a committee room and did not address the chamber.

Afterwards he was introduced to Opposition Leader Ted Baillieu, saying he always sides with the “minority”, to which Mr Baillieu replied: “We are the strongest but we are the minority”

Brumby joins Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in declining to meet with the Dalai Lama.

The Dalai later told the media he was not fazed.

“No, no. No concern,” he said, adding “My visit (is) non political.”

Mr Brumby was in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs announcing the redevelopment of the Box Hill hospital during the Dalai’s address.

He blamed a clash of schedules for not meeting with His Holiness and said it had nothing to do with damaging relations with China.

Related articles about the Dalai Lama

• Dalai Down Under (online.wsj.com)
• Dalai Lama: Obama Not Soft On China (huffingtonpost.com)
• Dalai Lama says Obama not soft on China (seattletimes.nwsource.com)

Dalai Lama Welcomes US Appeal to China on Tibet Sources in China's Sichuan province say dozens have been arrested after protests over the detention of a Buddhist monk jailed for a series of bombings. …

BEIJING: A top Chinese official has suggested that talks over Tibet could resume if demands to have the military and non-Tibetans pull out of Tibetan-inhabited areas were withdrawn by the Dalai Lama, …

NEW DELHI: In a sign of lowering of temperatures between India and China, a top military official from the Tibet region is currently on an official visit here being hosted by the Eastern Command. Lt….

A Buddhist nun has taken in more than 70 orphans and displaced children, raising them and sending them to school for the past 11 years.

Despite her limited savings, Zhenrong (真融) managed to establish an orphanage in Yilan County’s Wujie Township (五結), making ends meet by producing and selling dried Chinese radish, and spinning “like a Tibetan prayer wheel” as she ferries the kids to and from school.

It all began in 1998 when she saw two boys dressed in rags wandering near a river in Suao (蘇澳).

Talking to them, she learned that the boys, ages six and seven, had to scavenge for food because their father was a jobless alcoholic and their mother had left.

She allowed the boys to live at her mini-monastery named after Samantabhadra, a boddhisatva who symbolizes truth and reality and who, in Tibetan Buddhism, is considered an Abi-Buddha or primordial Buddha.

“There is a sad story behind every child I have taken in,” she said.

The youngsters were originally displaced or abandoned because their parents had either died, separated or had been locked up for drug or alcohol abuse.

“Some babies were sent here after being born out of wedlock to teenage girls,” she said.

“It grieves me that none of the abandoned babies’ parents have ever visited since,” she said.

With about NT$4 million (US$120,000) in her savings account, she took out a loan of more than NT$8 million from a bank the next year to buy an abandoned resort in Wujie, where she set up an orphanage, which allowed her to take in more children.

Since it cost at least NT$70,000 per month to run the home and her monthly mortgage was NT$80,000, Zhenrong needed to make money and began curing Chinese radish, making it a staple of the home’s dining table.

Her dried radish turned out to be a major source of income after a restaurant franchise operator from Taipei visited the orphanage and offered to buy her product.

Zhenrong also raised money by running a recycling plant and soliciting donations from Buddhists.

She said she finds her life of hardship and toil quite rewarding when she sees “her” children receive an education, become socially adapted and emerge from their shells after an early childhood of poverty and being uncomfortable even making eye contact with other people.

“Their wardrobe now is basic but clean,” Zhenrong said.

Related articles about Buddhism

• Boston schoolboy named Buddhist high priest (telegraph.co.uk)
• This wayside shrine was a bit different something magical (telegraph.co.uk)
• Beastie Boys’ Adam Yauch ’strong and hopeful’ at beating cancer (guardian.co.uk)