Highlighting its enduring presence among the Indian Buddhist community since 2011, on 24 July the International Buddhist Confederation (IBC) hosted this year’s Asadha Poornima over YouTube and Facebook Live, bringing together Buddhist leaders and supporters of the Buddhist tradition from around the world. Asadha Poornima is otherwise known as Dharma Chakra Day, and commemorates the […]
Raymond Lam
Healing the World with Thangtong Gyalpo’s Prayer
Since 1 August 2020, Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition (FPMT) Sangha have been coming together as a global community reciting “Thangtong Gyalpo’s Prayer” to reduce the suffering caused by the COVID pandemic. This 1 August marks its first year – a milestone that the founders themselves would have preferred not to reach. […]
Tony Miller’s “The Missing Buddhas”
“In the absence of any government restrictions, China’s Gods have become a lively trade article.” Friedrich Perzynski, Hunt for the Gods (1913) In the early days of the Republic of China, a unique group of sixteen Buddhist sculptures called the “Yixian Luohans” (luohan means arahat in Chinese) appeared on the embryonic market of Chinese art. […]
Celebrating Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche’s 60th birthday
Happy birthday, Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche! You are the exquisite and peerless flower of heaven (tshangs pa lha’i me tog). Your arrival on this day, 18th of June, sixty years ago have revealed the truth of non-duality that aims to cut through our confused state of mind. Your immaculate speech is not separate from Lord […]
Overturned Alms Bowl: The Buddhist Take on the Myanmar Crisis
Aung San Suu Kyi. From Reuters Since the generation of Bogyoke Aung San (1915–47), the father of modern Myanmar and father of Aung San Suu Kyi, the nation has been locked in constant political tension over the direction of the country’s governance. On 1 February, the Myanmar military deposed the Burmese government, declaring a year-long […]
Buddhist Monastics in Palliative Care: A Milestone Program from Dr. Sneha Rooh
As Buddhist leaders explore inroads into pastoral care and palliative treatment, Bylakuppey-based Dr. Sneha Rooh has developed a program of palliative care that is tailor-made for monastics to train in. This is a monastic-driven, fundamentally pastoral initiative that Buddhists in traditional regions like the Tibetan plateau, the Himalayan regions, and India have long needed. Titled […]
Prayer to the Ogyen Menla for our COVID crisis
Since the beginning of 2020, the world has been struggling against a once-in-a-century public health crisis in COVID-19. Even if the world returns to some degree of normalcy, life will probably never be truly the same again. In fact, the Global South is suffering an ever-worsening resurgence of the pandemic. India has been a particularly […]
“Seven Line Prayer to Guru Padmasambhava” – A Milestone Translation and Song
I remember first listening to the magical Imee Ooi over the speakers of a souvenir shop at Ngong Ping Village, which leads to the famous Po Lin Monastery in Hong Kong. It was 2010. Her songs, which are contemporary renditions of Buddhist dharanis, mantras, and passages from Buddhist texts, evoke aural Pure Lands. Her ethereal, […]
Frederik L. Schodt’s “My Heart Sutra: A World in 260 Characters”
The pithy Heart Sutra is celebrated as perhaps the most profound Mahayana Buddhist scripture that remains relatively famous and accessible, frequently appearing not just onstage at pop stars’ concerts in China but also referenced in East Asian films and Japanese manga. For forty years, this Buddhist text has hung on the bedroom wall of Frederik […]
Visuals of Compassion: Artist Rima Fujita on her new exhibit, “Karuna”
Rima Fujita is a long-time painter of Buddhist art with a distinctive style that focuses on vivid colours and fairytale-like landscapes and figures. A keen devotee of Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of compassion, she is holding a solo exhibition titled “Karuna” at Isetan Art Gallery in Shinjuku, Tokyo. We caught up with Rima to learn more […]