From 7-8 February, the British Library hosted a conference titled, “Unlocking Buddhist Written Heritage.” This conference featured many veteran names in Buddhist textual studies, many of whom our website has covered and interviewed over the years. The conference was held in partnership with SOAS and supported by The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation.
Raymond Lam
Love and Unity Must Rise to Meet Sorrow and Anxiety
I’ve written briefly about my afternoon at World Religion Day in Hong Kong, which was organized by the local Baha’i community. It took place only a couple of weeks before the coronavirus crisis took hold in Wuhan and spread across China and the world. The virus has plunged the global community into a crisis – […]
Celebration and Mourning: Two Sides of Togetherness
Last Sunday I attended World Religion Day 2020, which was co-organized by the Baha’i Community of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong Network on Religious Peace. While our cosmopolitan city has (in my opinion) a ways to go in catching up with New York or London in terms of culture, there is one field in […]
Budding Buddha: A Conversation with Artist James Stanford
James Stanford, “Budding Buddha.” From artfixdaily.com James Stanford is a longtime Buddhist artist with a distinct aesthetic and inspiration. Last November, he donated his “Budding Buddha” art to the Art for Tibet exhibit and auction at Gallery Eight in New York, which was organized by Students for a Free Tibet. Can you describe a bit your background in […]
Rima Fujita: Art and Action
Rima with His Holiness the Dalai Lama. ©Tenzin Choejor/OHHDL An enlightened, ineffably wise face deep in contemplation of the bottomless realities of the cosmos. Yet the colours are so vibrant as to have an almost childlike, playful quality. This vibrant and vivid aesthetic is Rima Fujita’s instantly recognizable artistic style, which has captured the attention of […]
Nritya Mandala Mahavihara’s 10th Anniversary
From 21-22, Prajwal Ratna Vajracharya’s center in Portland, Orgeon, celebrated its tenth anniversary, with much of the discussion centered on its unique position as the only Nepalese Buddhist temple in the West: it is well known that the unique expression of Newari Buddhism is gaining both academic and popular attention in Europe and North America. […]
Observations on the Indo-Mongolian Buddhist Partnership
It was no coincidence that just a fortnight after the third Samvad conclave from 6–7 September in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolian President Khaltmaagiin Battulga paid a state visit to India from the 19th to 23rd. This month has seen, from the perspectives of both Mongolia and India, a significant diplomatic victory over some years in the making.
Mongolia’s Buddhist Diplomacy and India’s Union of Religious and Foreign Policy
The Vivekananda International Foundation (VIF), along with Indian, Japanese, and Mongolian partners, hosted its third Samvad (which, in Hindi, means “dialogue”) conference in Ulaanbaatar over last Friday and the weekend. As reported in BDG’s news article on the conclave, Mongolian political and religious leaders took this event very seriously. In his closing speech on the […]
Different Abilities, Different Individuals: Shifting Perceptions About Disability
In most schools with a progressive curriculum and solid ethics, students living with disabilities are welcomed, their needs accommodated, and encouraged to participate as fully as they can in the life of the school. However, once they graduate, many feel thrown into a world where diverse institutions neither have nor care to have the kind […]
A Circle of Buddhist Democracies: India’s Buddhist Strategy for Asia
In May’s Indian elections, PM Narendra Modi’s BJP fared considerably well, indirectly securing a mandate for its Buddhist diplomacy. This “quiet” exercise of power began several years ago in September 2015, with the Vivekananda International Foundation’s (VIF) first Samvad conference. For this event we were taken to the diplomatic enclave of Chanakyapuri in New Delhi, […]