Since he was sent to prison in 2012, Michael Hanson has relied on Buddhism to give him strength and prepare for life on the outside.

Hanson participates in weekly meetings with volunteers from Aryaloka, a Buddhist center in Newmarket that runs an outreach program for inmates. He meditates with a group on Saturdays and reads the religious texts he can access behind bars. ... Subscribe or log in to read more

Since he was sent to prison in 2012, Michael Hanson has relied on Buddhism to give him strength and prepare for life on the outside.

Hanson participates in weekly meetings with volunteers from Aryaloka, a Buddhist center in Newmarket that runs an outreach program for inmates. He meditates with a group on Saturdays and reads the religious texts he can access behind bars.

Hanson stays in touch with the tenets of his faith. But as a practitioner of Shaolin Chan, a strain of Buddhism that flourished centuries ago at the Shaolin monastery in China, Hanson hasnt found anything within the walls of the New Hampshire State Prison for Men that speaks directly to his beliefs.

The study of Buddhism, or any spiritual practice, is important in rehabilitating a person, he said, and so the time that Im spending in prison, Im trying to use it wisely to become a different person a better person and its difficult for me to do that without having that part of my spirituality.

Hanson was jailed at the Rockingham County House of Corrections in 2011 after he pleaded guilty to trying to access child pornography. A probation violation the next year sent Hanson back to jail this time to the state prison in Concord.

During Hansons first stint behind bars, a book that outlined the philosophy of Shaolin Buddhism was a source of comfort. And although Hanson was allowed to read the book in the Rockingham County jail, he was barred this year from getting a copy in state prison. Officials determined information about martial arts contained within the book, The Shaolin Grandmasters Text, posed a security risk.

Sometimes painted with a broad brush, Buddhism and its many disciplines can be as varied as the denominations of Christianity. Shaolin Chan centers around the idea of nonattachment, but unlike some other Buddhist practices, Shaolin focuses heavily on martial arts. For Shaolin disciples, kung fu functions as a form of meditation through action.

Hanson maintains that the Grandmasters Text is fundamentally a religious work with only cursory information about martial arts. Without it, Hanson says he has no way to study Shaolin philosophy. He is suing the prison to gain access to the book, alleging the prisons Literary Review Committee violated his constitutional rights.

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Banning books in prison spurs lawsuit: Playboy OK, but books on Buddhism and sailing rejected

Published September 30, 2014

Myanmars radical Buddhist monk Ashin Wirathu attends a media briefing in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2014. Wirathu, known for his anti-Muslim campaign, has formalized an agreement with a like-minded Sri Lankan Bodu Bala Sena or Buddhist Power Force to work together to protect Buddhism which he says is challenged worldwide. (AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena)(The Associated Press)

Myanmars radical Buddhist monk Ashin Wirathu, center, exchanges copies of a three-point agreement with the officials of Sri Lanka's Bodu Bala Sena or Buddhist Power Force during a media briefing in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2014. Wirathu, known for his anti-Muslim campaign, has formalized an agreement with a like-minded Sri Lankan group to work together to protect Buddhism which he says is challenged worldwide. (AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena)(The Associated Press)

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka A Myanmar Buddhist monk and a Sri Lankan ultranationalist both known for campaigning against Muslims have formally signed an agreement to work together to protect Buddhism.

Ashin Wirathu leads the fundamentalist 969 movement that has been accused of instigating deadly violence against minority Muslims in Myanmar. He was a special invitee Sunday at a rally of Bodu Bala Sena, or Buddhist Power Force, which claims minority Muslims are trying to take over Sri Lanka by having more children, marrying Buddhist women and taking over businesses.

Wirathu signed the agreement with Bodu Bala Sena in Colombo on Tuesday after saying at the rally they would join forces. The groups said their agreement involves networking and building the capacity to stabilize Buddhism. They promised to release the contents of the agreement soon.

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Buddhists hard-liners from Myanmar, Sri Lanka formalize agreement to protect religion

Ever since his stark 1967 musical debut, Songs of Leonard Cohen, the Canadian performer, poet, and songwriter has earned more than his fair share of accolades and awards. He's sold over 23 million albums and published 12 books of verse. Through it all, Cohen has remained both unique and consistent in his attention to his most important themes.

For example, his 1971 Songs of Love and Hate was just that, an exploration into the conflicting deepest drives of the human condition. In 1992, The Future was the call of an Old Testament prophet crying for the need for hope, perseverance, and reformation for all of us living in dark times. In 2012, his Old Ideas was taken by many as a restatement of these concerns from the point of view of an elder statesman of verse looking back over a long career through the lens of Zen Buddhism. His new Popular Problems, Cohen's 13th album, is a continuation of these themes, juxtaposing hope and despair, grief and yearning, and, yes, love and hate. It's also another illustration of how words can mean very different things on the page as opposed to an audio performance of them.

Released two days after his 80th birthday, Cohen's nine-song Popular Problems is a collaboration with co-writer Patrick Leonard. As with Old Ideas, Cohen still draws from the same philosophical and spiritual wells of his past, and he again paints his lyrical mysteries from the perspective of a sage who's earned his world-weariness. For example, the atmospheric opener, "Slow," is built on a low-key organ base with horn section punctuation in which Cohen looks back over his life and claims he always liked things slow. It's not age, he sings, that makes him want to "finish last."

The equally moody and percussive "Almost Like the Blues" has Cohen revisiting tropes from The Future, this time a little uncertain about the possibility of salvation in a world of murder, rape, and "bad reviews." There's a wry wit present in Cohen's vocals that might not be obvious when reading lines like, "So says the great professor of all there is to know/But I've had the invitation that a sinner can't refuse/And it's almost like salvation/It's almost like the blues."

A sad violin provides the middle and coda for one of the set's most distinctive offerings, "Samson in New Orleans," which sounds like one of Cohen's oblique hymns where he moves from the first to the second person to address a modern Samson who thinks New Orleans is better than the USA, but he needs to take the temple down. As usual, such obscure pronouncements sound more revelatory than they actually are.

Likewise, the elliptical "A Street" has Cohen saying the party is over as he addresses a colorful friend who wears military uniforms, telling him the poet is standing "on a corner where there used to be a street." Cohen acknowledges the illusory meaning of words in the dirge, "Born in Chains," chanting "Blessed by the name, the name be blessed."

In a similar vein, Cohen revisits the topic of war in "Nevermind" where Cohen muses over what is truth, what comes from "a bowl of lies," with the lyrics interspersed with a chanted Middle-Eastern counter-melody. When it comes to love, Cohen sends mixed signals. A plucking dobro gives "My Oh My" a haunted bluegrass dimension where Cohen admits, "It was easy to love you, I didn't have to try." But the surprising "Did I Ever Love You" is a list of unanswerable repeated questions about love delivered in shifting tones and settings. Once again, there's nothing easy about nailing down Cohen's feelings on anything.

Perhaps the least mysterious song is the album's closer, "You Got Me Singing" which is as straightforward a personal statement as Cohen has ever shared. Supported by acoustic guitar and violin, Cohen confesses he's inspired to sing even if the world is gone and everything seems bleak. "You got me thinking that I'd like to carry on/You got me singing/Even though it all looks grim/You got me singing the hallelujah hymn." But these hymns are sung by a man who claims, "There is no God in heaven/And there is no Hell below."

The principal difference between Old Ideas and Popular Problems is that the latter has a fuller, more spacious sound. That's perhaps due to the presence of Patrick Leonard in the control booth. That's not to say Popular Problems has the same depth and punch of The Future, but all the musical support evokes the kinds of settings Cohen has employed from the beginning. In particular, he still likes the gospel harmonies of female backing singers, horn sections, and strings that make the songs more affirming and sometimes celebratory than the lyrics would suggest. In other words, Cohen is to be experienced as an artist and no one should pretend to understand when he is being ironic, deliberately vague, playful, or too mystical for simplistic explication. And that's what poetry is all about.

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Music Review: Leonard Cohen - 'Popular Problems'

Last Updated 7-17-2014

Alternate titles: Chan; Seon; Sn; Thien; Zen Buddhism

Zen,Chinese Chan, Korean Sn, also spelled Seon, Vietnamese Thien, important school of East Asian Buddhism that constitutes the mainstream monastic form of Mahayana Buddhism in China, Korea, and Vietnam and accounts for approximately 20 percent of the Buddhist temples in Japan. The word derives from the Sanskrit dhyana, meaning meditation. Central to Zen teaching is the belief that awakening can be achieved by anyone but requires instruction in the proper forms of spiritual cultivation by a master. In modern times, Zen has been identified especially with the secular arts of medieval Japan (such as the tea ceremony, ink painting, and gardening) and with any spontaneous expression of artistic or spiritual vitality regardless of context. In popular usage, the modern non-Buddhist connotations of the word Zen have become so prominent that in many cases the term is used as a label for phenomena that lack any relationship to Zen or are even antithetical to its teachings and practices.... (169 of 3,634 words)

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Zen (Buddhism) -- Encyclopedia Britannica

The tagline of a famous coffee brand: a lot happens over coffee, is penned by my friend, a former ad man. With a proclivity for tea, I said in jest: More happens over tea. Whats the more? he asked.

For that, I delve into a facet that no other beverage possesses mysticism. Tea is associated with the great awakening of Chinese Buddhism, which believes tea drinking helps sippers calm the mind, achieve self-enlightenment, revive from sleep and confusion, part with annoyance, and regain consciousness. Zen Buddhism seeks tea to get in touch with the inner workings of the self in the most direct way; Chanoyu, the Japanese tea ceremony, being the most practised form. This I see as the more in tea.

And yet, this attribute is esoteric and limits itself to a few practitioners and to the connoisseurs of the brew. This more is therefore less. It lost to the zillions who savour their cuppa as just an eye-opener. My cup of tea; Gods in heaven; alls well with the world.

But where more is truly more is in the sheer number of cups drunk daily. Tea consumption equals all other manufactured drinks in the world including coffee, chocolate, soft drinks, and alcohol put together. Here it is an obvious more.

At all this my friend looked thoughtful and we had some tea reading Kenneth Cohens The Buddha In A Cup of Tea

I am not I, and tea is not tea!...

What is tea? Just this, just this, just this

Some more, I asked.

Much more, he said.

More here:

More happens over tea

As Justin Smith was nearing graduation from UW-Madison, he met with a career counselor to see what job options were out there for a pony-tailed guy from Waukesha with a degree in East Asian religious studies.

During the meeting, the counselor asked if Smith had ever heard of Zendesk, the San Francisco-based company that makes help desk software for handling customer service issues. The firm was hiring people for its new office in Madison.

Since Smith had an interest in Zen Buddhism, he was intrigued with the company name and ended up applying.

On Wednesday afternoon, Smith was enjoying a bottle of craft beer while working in the new Zendesk offices in the Glass Bank building at 1 S. Pinckney St. on the Square.

Just look at the view, he said, gazing down East Washington Avenue from the sixth floor offices.

Smith, 23, is one of about 60 employees working for Zendesk in Madison. Its the largest office for the company outside of San Francisco and the primary support center for customers around the world.

Zendesk has now joined Google, Microsoft and Dell in mining for tech savvy graduates coming out of UW-Madison. But rather than relocating staffers to the company headquarters, firms are finding it easier and in many cases less expensive to simply to open a satellite office here.

Zendesk CEO and founder Mikkel Svane says he isnt sure how much the company is paying to rent the swanky space in the Glass Bank.

But Im pretty sure its less than in San Francisco, he says during a tour Wednesday of the new office space.

Getting more firms like Zendesk to take a look at Madison raises the standard for every other employer in town in terms of office perks and community benefits, says downtown Ald. Scott Resnick.

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Zendesk staffer: 'It's nice to have options other than Epic'