Strange Friends: Barry Boyce on The Dharma Protectors

In Tibetan Buddhism, the dharma protectors are among the most striking and mysterious figures in the entire tradition. Fierce, wrathful, often terrifying in appearance. What exactly are they? And what does it mean to actually work with them in practice?

For our May Mindful Gathering, we're delighted to welcome Barry Boyce for a conversation with Bill Moriarty and the community on this rich topic. This conversation will be an open exploration: what the protectors are, why they matter, and how practitioners relate to these forms. No prior familiarity with the subject required.

Barry Boyce is editor-in-chief of Mindful, a print and digital magazine focusing on the application of mindfulness to everyday life.

Boyce is also editor of the anthology The Mindfulness Revolution; coauthor of The Rules of Victory, a commentary on Sun Tzu’s Art of War from a contemplative perspective; the editor of In the Face of Fear: Buddhist Wisdom for Challenging Times; and a staff writer and senior editor at Shambhala Sun magazine, today’s best-selling and most widely-read Buddhist magazine.

Barry Boyce has been practicing mindfulness since 1972 and teaching it since 1980. For more than 25 years, Boyce has taught seminars, retreats, and leadership programs on how to effectively apply the strategies of The Art of War. Boyce is member of the Denma Translation Group, which produced a critically acclaimed and best-selling translation of The Art of War.