by Kevin Townley
A short story about revenge, compassion, and boners.
by Kinsey Durham
A personal ”diary-like” piece about relationships and dating as a 22 year old woman trying to figure all of this out.
by Brian Blueskye
A Gay Buddhist talks about the joys and frustrations of dating in modern times.
by Caitlin Bargenquast
“I’m a soul mate slut. I have more than one. Actually I have many of them.”
by Kate Menzies
A reflection on the path of monogamy
by Sarah Flood
Bringing kindness and awareness into the dating world
by Kipp Efinger
An essay with a Buddhist take on lust. I’ve often had a sad feeling about being in relationships, since it seems like you aren’t supposed to be curious about or attracted to anyone other than your current partner. Inevitably, I have been curious, and often this feeling made me feel like I needed to put a leash on myself. This essay came out of contemplation on how to relate to feelings of lust in a healthy way, inspired by the Dharma.
by Nick Walser
A brief love-letter to those who support our Dharma practice by being all romantic and lovely with us and at the same time not caring two hoots about Zen or whatever crazy spirtual thing it is that we do.
by Sarah Lipton
Is it possible to love more than one person? What does it mean to love openly? Can love blossom in a single moment? Everything in me resoundingly thunders: YES!
But first, we must un-hinge the bear trap.
by Jennifer Kramer
My submission is a poem I wrote recently, when I was having a difficult time processing an intense crush. Through confusing giddiness and desire, I tried to figure out what it was I
really wanted, what or who I wanted at the center of my heart's mandala. This poem is the answer I got.
by Abbey Pleviak
These poems are spoken-to-written translations, erasures of poems, and in some cases letters, that were first gathered from various languages by Jerome Rothenberg and Jeffrey C. Robinson, and then read aloud during the 2007 Naropa University Summer Writing Program lecture, “Translations from Experimental Romanticism.” Many of the original poems, from which this collection is derived, can be found in Volume 3 of Poems for the Millennium. Many thanks are due to the translators and especially to Jerome Rothenberg for helping me to piece together the fragments of my memory into proper citations. These poems have previously appeared in Summer Stock online journal and Jerome Rothenberg's blog.
by Sara Gray
Sometimes when you're on OK Cupid, the well read, cute, Zen Priest is exactly who you don't want to meet (much less invite into your bedroom).
by Stillman Brown
Contemplations from that night at the NYC beer hall, newly single, back in the flesh market for the first time in years and suffering from a kind of spiritual distress, when I wondered: is it possible to be mindful in such a chaotic sexual environment? Is it possible to be genuine when everyone else can seem so artificial?
by James Crews
I hadn’t dated anyone in the six months I’d been practicing, so it was hard not to think: This is it! Meditation has led me to the right man! Some part of me, I realize now, thought that I deserved a kind of reward for those many sweaty mornings and nights I’d spent on the cushion...
by Britton Estep
Vulture Biology is an excerpt from my dharma nature poetry memoir, Signals. Signals is the writing that happened after my father suddenly died in 2010. It is a collection of contemplative stories which detail the nature of impermanence both personally and planetary. When my eyes were opened by the deep sadness I was experiencing, I could not stop looking at just my pain. My previous pronoun boundaries of me, you, and them- all became a blurry mess as the world I had known was wiped clean away.
Grief handed me Buddhism as a way to continue to open my heart.
by Anthuan Vuong
A story of my life’s journey with my father that spanned three years, crossing five borders, across two continents, by land, sea, and air. It is also a journey of my personal growth with across a quarter of a century. My father’s unexpected death allows me to look inside myself to see that I’m his continuation. As his continuation, my father in me has died and reborn each brand new day.
