ever mind, a poem

"Ghost Train 4" by Emmet Tulos via Flickr (ravensong75). Creative Commons Attribution.

Craig Matsu-Pissot submitted “ever mind“ to Mandala to our great pleasure. It reads like a meditation on the nature of the mind and is certainly worth lingering over.

“… shadows of behaviors which have appeared repetitively / like the passing cars of a ghost train / which of course leads back to a birth place no longer relevant …”

From Mandala January-March 2010.

Adele Hulse on ‘Dealing with Grief’

Grief Rooted, watercolor on skin parchment. © 2000 Cathy Weber www.cathyweber.net

“Whenever I am with a group of people who have experienced extraordinary suffering, the first thing I notice is a lightness in the air,” writes long-time FPMT student Adele Hulse. “… [I]f you spend your time with the suffering, you can’t really lose.”

From Mandala October-November 2006.

Robert Page’s Art for Liberation Prison Project

In April of 2011, Mandala received the sad news that Liberation Prison Project student, Robert Page, had taken his own life (obituary page 52 of July-Sept 2011). Robert was a talented musician and artist who studied with Liberation Prison Project during a ten year prison sentence and after his release five years ago. While incarcerated, Robert created a beautiful image of a double dorje and offered it to Liberation Prison Project. The image was used, as well as other prisoner art, for a series of journals and notebooks produced by Liberation Prison Project to raise funds for the project.

From Mandala July-September 2011.