Thursday, September 24, 2009

Come See Gary Gach at University of the West this Monday, Sept. 28th, at 7 p.m.!

The Buddhist Chaplaincy Program at University of the West is extremely honored and happy to welcome Gary Gach, the American Book Award-winning author and Zen teacher, to campus for a lecture this coming Monday, September 28th, at 7:00 p.m. in the WASC Room of the ED Building. Gary will speak to us on the topic “Free Nirvana: Buddhist Wisdom in Uncertain Times,” and take questions from the audience. (If you have copies of his books, bring them along—he’s happy to sign them.) The public is encouraged to attend.

Gary Gach is an American author, editor, and teacher. A student of Dainin Katagiri Roshi, he was later ordained as a Buddhist minister by the Very Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh. He leads mindfulness meditation at the Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples in San Francisco, and serves on the International Advisory Panel of The Buddhist Channel. He writes the blog “Where Buddha Meets Freud” for Psychology Today, and leads the Haiku Corner for the Tricycle Community’s Poetry Club. In addition, Gary is a prolific author, translator, and editor. His many books include the American Book Award-winning What Book!?: Buddha Poems from Beat to Hiphop (Parallax Press, 1998); translations of Ko Un’s Ten Thousand Lives (Green Integer, 2005), Songs for Tomorrow: A Collection of Poems 1960-2002 (Green Integer, 2009), and Flowers of a Moment (Green Integer, 2006), for which he won the Northern California Book Award; and The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Buddhism (Alpha Press, 2009), the bestselling guidebook which just last month went into his third printing. Gary and his work have been featured at The Huffington Post, Fora.TV, The Internet Writing Journal, and elsewhere.

University of the West was founded in 1991 and accredited by WASC in 2006. It is one of three accredited Buddhist universities in the United States and the only one of the three offering a Master’s in Business Administration degree. Its current enrollment is approximately 260 students. UWest is located at 1409 N. Walnut Grove Ave., Rosemead, CA 91770.

Driving Directions:

From the west (Los Angeles):
Take CA-60 EAST towards POMONA FWY/POMONA
Take SAN GABRIEL BLVD exit towards ROSEMEAD
Turn left on TOWN CENTER DR
Turn left on SAN GABRIEL BLVD
Turn right on WALNUT GROVE AVE


From the east (Rowland Heights/Hacienda Heights):
Take CA-60 WEST towards LOS ANGELES
Take SAN GABRIEL BLVD exit towards ROSEMEAD
Turn right on SAN GABRIEL BLVD
Turn right on WALNUT GROVE AVE

Buddhist Chaplaincy Symposium V – October 3rd, 2009

The Coordinator of the Buddhist Chaplaincy Program and several student at University of the West will be there. You going?

For more information or to register, go to http://www.buddhistchaplainsnetwork.org.

Even More about Buddhist Army National Guard Chaplain Thomas Dyer!

Last week, National Public Radio interviewed Buddhist Army National Guard chaplain Thomas Dyer. Give it a listen!

The New York Times on Hmong Shamans Caring for Hospital Patients

There's a neat article in the New York Times today about Hmong shamans visiting the sick in hospitals in New York. Not only is the piece really interesting in and of itself, but it points to a larger trend chaplains would do well to take note of:
    A recent survey of 60 hospitals in the United States by the Joint Commission, the country’s largest hospital accrediting group, found that the hospitals were increasingly embracing cultural beliefs, driven sometimes by marketing, whether by adding calcium-and iron-rich Korean seaweed soup to the maternity ward menu at Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles, on the edge of Koreatown, or providing birthing doulas for Somali women in Minneapolis.

Roshi Joan Halifax on CBC Radio's Tapestry Program

Our friend Roshi Joan Halifax was recently a guest on CBC Radio's Tapestry program. Listen here.

More about the Army's First Buddhist Chaplain

I recently posted about Buddhist Army National Guard chaplain Thomas Dyer. Scripps Howard News Service, The Tennessean, and the Buddhist Military Sangha have even more about him. Take a look! (The big news is that Dyer is being deployed to Iraq.)