You can live a better life if you can be the master of your own heart. There is a saying that what you have internally will be shown externally. External appearances reflect the psychological status of a person. For example, the facial appearance of selfish people is one of tension. For fear of loss or […]
Author: Teahouse
The Beauty of Buddhist Tradition: Celebrating Vesak with Hongkongers
On 27 May, I was in the Buddha-Dharma Centre of Hong Kong (BDCHK), Hong Kong, to celebrate Vesak. It was the weekend, with lay Buddhists from diverse backgrounds: including local Hongkongers, Mainland Chinese, Bangladeshis, Sri Lankans, and Thais. Devotees who came to BDCHK on this special day were dressed in white clothing. Twelve Buddhist monks […]
Education for Development
Sónia Gomes has a PhD in Marketing and Communication and is the founder, CEO and owner of Spaso Zen Wellness Centers in Portugal. Her interests lie in female empowerment, Tibetan Medicine, health and education, gender discrimination and the role of women in Tantric Buddhism. She has been an international advisor in a Nepalese NGO called Lotus Heart since February 2018 and […]
The True Friend
Original story in Chinese by Prof. Lee Chack-fan; retold by Raymond Lam There is an old fable, a story about the meaning of stories… a reflection on the virtue of the virtues themselves. This is a folk memory about the most important virtue of them all, without which other strengths become perverted and distorted into […]
Amitabha Buddha’s Twelve Kinds of Light: A Brief Explication (General Exposition)
Dharma Master Huijing; translated by Sam Suen, edited by Householder Fojin —Part 8— 8. Hope for All Sentient Beings The Buddha of Infinite Light relates to time while the Buddha of Boundless Light relates to space. Both surpass time and pace, and cannot be impeded. As elaboration normally follows a chronological order, let us start […]
Celebrating Vesak at Hong Kong’s Sri Lankan Buddhist Cultural Centre
Last month, I had a truly inspiring and uplifting Vesak (the annual celebration of the Buddha’s life) among Hong Kong’s Sri Lankan Buddhist community. The families comprising the island’s immigrants and expats here come from diverse backgrounds and work in many different trades. What binds them together is a sense of community and duty to […]
Postcard from Raymond: The World is Your Temple
I have a beautiful portable shrine that is dedicated to the worship of Amitabha Buddha, the central Buddha of the Pure Land school and the most popular object of reverence in Chinese Buddhism. Owners of a shrine this size can take it anywhere around the world with them. Elegantly carved out of wood, it fits […]
Bridging China and Japan, the Buddhist Way
It’s the rawest of sensitive matters, the heaviest of historical burdens. I am referring to the shadow of past pain, bloodshed, and war crimes inflicted by Japan against China during the Pacific War that raged from 1937 until 1945. Yet behind the scenes of turbulent political relations and unhealed wounds, influential Buddhist forces in China […]
The Buddhist Concept of Femininity in Western Thought
In Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism, femininity is related to transcendental or primordial wisdom. The concept of feminine wisdom can be found in the Buddhist tradition but also in Western schools of thought in philosophy and science. There are profound representatives of the sacred feminine in Buddhism that share parallels, for example, in the applied science […]
Transitions
“All compounded things are impermanent,” we are taught by the Buddha. Yet how often do we cling to this or that manifestation of reality, or a particular manifestation of politics, or our religion, or the dispositions of our loved ones or ourselves? Spring has arrived fully in my city of Seattle. With it comes a […]