L I N K P O S T : June 3, 2012

Linkposts will periodically summarize recent news and information from around the web, particularly if the content relates in some way to the greater Houston area.

• This Texas Monthly article from March 2001 describes the growth of Buddhism in Texas and interviews some of the same folks (including Anne C. Klein and John Whittlesey) whom I either tracked down or attempted to locate for my May 9, 2012 summary of local Buddhism information resources (I wasn't aware of the Texas Monthly article's existence at the time of my post).  You'll need to register your email in order to read the full article, but it's worth it, because it's written in the type of enchanting crystal-clear, easily-readable style that characterizes "better" journalism...

• ...but of course, the rest is history:  following that period about twelve to fourteen years ago when Mr. Whittlesey apparently served as one of the driving forces behind the formation of the Texas Buddhist Council as an umbrella group to unite area Buddhist groups, some unknown thing(s) happened, and the effort was suspended.  Which is one of the reasons that prompted me to ask the obvious question upon reading Tricycle's recent interview with the blogger known as the "Angry Asian Buddhist":  How can Buddhist practitioners, who place so much emphasis on the interconnectedness of all things, be so profoundly blind to their own lack of interconnectedness?!  The anonymous "Angry Asian Buddhist" is angry because he (or she) perceives that English-speaking American Buddhists ignore or minimize content and literary contributions from Asian immigrants.  In the comment thread to that Tricycle post, I argued that this is not a problem in itself, but is rather a symptom of a much larger disconnection phenomenon - that same disconnection phenomenon that prompted me to create South Houston Sangha News as a means of supplying some of the obvious missing connectivity here in our neck of the woods.  

• In other semi-local news, on April 28, the New York Times re-plated (from Texas Monthly) this article about Lama Lobtsul and the Buddhist center known as Palri Pema Od Ling in Austin. 

• And speaking of Tibetan Buddhism, I watched The Sun Behind The Clouds last night, a documentary about the 2008 uprisings in Tibet.  The NYT kinda panned it, but I actually learned quite a bit from it, possibly because I had watched no other political docus on the Tibetan issue. 

• And speaking of both movies AND Tibet, I'm still waiting for Crazy Wisdom to be released on DVD.  It's available for download screening only, and the DVD apparently won't be released until later this year.  So we'll have to wait for unfettered access to this film biography of the fascinating and controversial Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche.  For the moment, I can leave you with this embedded five-minute trailer from YouTube: