Incredibly, modern publishing has been a fertile valley for Buddhist thought, if one can sort through all the pseudo-literature, half-baked myths and downright urban legends that fly, like swarms of insane gnats, through cyberspace. With… Read More
Are you thinking about visiting the most famous Buddha statues on earth? Do your daydreams drift to mountain paths that lead to ancient caves packed with Buddhist art and relics? If so, you are not… Read More
Buddhism is one of the oldest faith traditions in existence, and three of its most prominent leaders are still thriving and teaching well into their eighties. Bhante Henepola Gunaratana, the most visible and venerated of… Read More
Perhaps no major faith tradition is more subject to misunderstanding than Buddhism. The world’s second-oldest religious belief system has undergone plenty of changes in 2,500 years and admittedly much Buddhist dogma is intended to be… Read More
No one can pinpoint the exact date that Buddhist doctrines came from China to Japan, but the best guess is that the historic transfer took place in the year 538 A.D. The written record of… Read More
Kintsugi is a Japanese art of pottery which emphasizes brokenness and the worn nature of objects as being beautiful. For those of you coming here to learn how to say “beautiful in Japanese, this is it: Utsukushi-sa or 美しさ.… Read More
Buddhism is an outsider among religious traditions when it comes to cinema. Indeed, given the tradition’s 2,500-year history and millions of followers, only a handful of overtly Buddhist films have been made and fewer have… Read More
Vipassana meditation, or insight meditation, is now one of the most widely known Buddhist practices. There are meditation centers on every continent and in most major cities. Yet, this form of mindfulness contemplation is at… Read More
The term “taking refuge” has different meanings to different people, but to the world’s Buddhists those words have a special, powerful definition. For most of the 540 million adherents of the second-oldest religious practice, there… Read More
Breath is life. It sounds almost comical to say that there is a correct and incorrect way to breathe, but medical science agrees with that assertion. There are indeed “efficient” as well as counterproductive ways… Read More
