It manifests very much in certain situations.  For example, I tend to “get Buddhist” when I lose things.  Impermanence man.  And usually I can let things go that way.  However, this year for the first time I lost something that no amount of Buddhist rationalizing could temper the sense of loss I was feeling.  The object that was lost: a fake fur stole.  Now this was a fake fur mass that one drapes around one’s neck and it creates a luxurious fur collar.  It made me feel about 75 years old and glamorous.  In short, I loved it.  But anyway, I mistakenly took this fur stole out with me to a show on a Friday night.  A tip for all Bates students: don’t bring anything you like out with you on a weekend night.  It will be gone.  And you will be sad.  Like I was when I couldn’t find my fur stole after the show.  I lamented the entire night and into the morning.  When I woke up still depressed, I decided a simple acceptance of impermanence wouldn’t cut it.  Buddhism wasn’t enough.  I needed to feel the sweet warmth of that stole around my neck, not find the Middle Way.  So I hopped in my car to drive over to the place where the concert was held for maybe it wasn’t stolen and I would find it and could move on with my life.  As I was driving there, I saw a mass of fur by the side of the road.  It was my stole!  I can’t tell you how happy I was!  I leapt out of the car and put it immediately around my neck.  It smelled a bit as I had just taken it off the ground and it had been outside all night but it was my stole.  It was great. [More...]

Journalist Bill Porter, aka “Red Pine,” will make two presentations about the relationship of the environment to Chinese history and culture at Bates College on Thursday, March 22. Both events are free and open to the public.

At 9:30 a.m. in Room 204 of the Carnegie Science Center, 44 Campus Ave., Porter will discuss the Chinese hermit tradition and associations around the hermit in Western culture, with some forays into poetry and philosophy. The presentation includes slides and discussion.

At 4:15 p.m. in Room 104 of the Olin Arts Center, 75 Russell St., Porter will give a slide presentation titled Yellow River Odyssey, based on a 1991 journey he took from the mouth of the river to its source on the Tibetan Plateau. His original trip to the river’s source, the first ever undertaken by a Westerner, resulted in a series of 240 radio programs introducing listeners to Chinese history and culture and their relationship to the river.

Porter is a translator of Chinese poetry and Buddhist texts. He worked as a journalist at English-language radio stations in Taiwan and Hong Kong, where he produced more than 1,000 programs about his travels in China. Porter has published more than a dozen books and won a number of literary awards. His recent publications include translations of the most important sutras used in Zen Buddhism and China’s most popular anthology of its poetry.

Porter’s visit to Bates College, offered in the context of the Bates environmental studies seminar “Nature and Human Culture” taught by Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies Jonathan Skinner, is sponsored by the environmental studies program. For more information, contact Skinner at this jskinner@bates.edu.

Professor emeritus of religious and East Asian studies, Middlebury College, Keenan has published translations of Yogacara (a Sanskrit term literally meaning ‘practice of yoga’) Buddhist texts and has incorporated Mahayana Buddhist philosophy (which includes diverse beliefs, various sects and trends) in his teaching and his pastoral work as a priest. The author of The Meaning of Christ: A Mahayana Theology (Orbis Books, 1989) and the forthcoming The Letter of James: Everyday Practice for Everyday Christians,the currently serves as the vicar of St. Nicholas Church in Scarborough.