| PAGE ONE Fall, 2001 Issue: Spirit & Crisis EDITOR'S NOTE BUDDHASCOPE DHARMATALK FOUNDOBJECTS GUESTCOLUMN QUOTES POETRY READING ROOM REVIEWS CONTACT US SITE INDEX SUBSCRIBE |
GIFT GUIDE Sections
- 1. BOOKS: Awakening the Buddha; Plain Mindfulness; Wherever You Go; Daily Dalai Lama; a Pocket Buddha.
- 2. TAPES: The Art of Thich Nhat Hahn; Beginner's Mind via Peter Coyote; Rumi's Timeless Tape Recordings.
- 3. OBJETS D'BUDDHIST: Inquiring T-shirts; Zen Blocks for Kids and Adults; Bargain Zafus & a few other things.
- 4. GIFTS of SERVICE & AID: Don't give them an object, but give the bee's knees to someone in their name.
- 5. NO COMMENT: A few items that demonstrate that in the name of the spirit, people will try anything.
GIFTS of SERVICE & AID
Of course, you don't have to give anything for the holidays. You can give something to someone else in the NAME of someone on your gift list---a gift of metta, or loving-kindness in the spirit of Buddhist compassion. Or, alternatively, everyone in the family can contribute a portion of their Christmas cash that would have gone to presents to instead purchase one of the gifts of service and aid below to benefit a complete--and needy--stranger.
$50 Gift of Service for blindness prevention and sight restoration in places like Nepal, Tibet, India, Malawi and Cambodia, through SEVA Foundation. Web page: www.seva.org. Phone: 800-223-7382
The SEVA Foundation offers some pretty cool gifts---gifts of healing and renewal. This is a time-tested organization that has been offering its gifts of service for 20 years. In the name of an individual, a family or an organization, you can give such true gifts as:
- A $100 Gift of Service to purchase much-needed materials for Mayan communities in need of sustainable and reliable water systems.
- A $50 Gift of Service can provide eye care and blindness prevention in rural communities in Nepal, India, Tibet and other countries through a program that teaches cataract surgery, eye care practices and others skills.
- A $50 Gift of Service will buy native seeds and tools needed for family gardens on Native American reservations in the American West.
- A $30 Gift of Service will buy basic educational materials for one midwife in Guatemala.
Your gift is announced to the person in whose name it is given with a card from SEVA. You could also include with your gift, a special "Sing Out for Seva CD" (Gift No. M8 for $20, including shipping and handling), which features performances at a SEVA benefit concert starring David Crosby, Graham Nash, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Wavy Gravy, Bruce Hornsby, Mickey Hart and others.
Gift of Bees for $30, through the Heifer Project International. Website: www.heifer.org. Phone: (501) 907-2602.
Give another kind of living gift through the Heifer Project International. In your name or in the name of a gift recipient, you can purchase for rural communities from Vietnam to Guatemala to rural India milk cows, water buffaloes, chickens and bees, among other crucial, life-giving and sustaining living things. (You can also add a note of support to the Heifer Project recipient families.) It's remarkable to consider that for the cost of one routine, expensive meal at a toney Western restaurant, you could be responsible for providing a single goat or cow that could benefit an entire family for years. The Gift of Bees above, for instance, helps families in Cotopaxi, Ecuador cross-pollinate new plants on behalf of honey production and modern organic farming techniques coupled with traditional practices.
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