What will I see when I leave this world? Will my “sight” even be the kind of visual “seeing” that I’ve known all my life? What will I hear when I have no auditory organs? What will I bring with me when I sigh farewell? Nothing. I will have nothing. I can take zilch, nada […]
Raymond Lam
Postcard from Raymond: How interconnected do you feel?
This image is a simulation of the “cosmic web,” a network of the scaffolding holding together the structure of the universe. This structure constitutes galaxies, dark matter, the gas that coalesces into stars, and “filaments”: regions of galaxy clusters woven together through what resembles slender, cobweb-like threads. This image from UC Riverside highlights how these […]
Postcard from Raymond: The Phoenix and the Lion
Medieval China. The Tang dynasty has been toppled and from the chaos rises an incredible woman with a monastic courtier helping to pull the strings. The brilliant, tenacious, and fearless Wu Zetian (624-705) was China’s first and only empress and her alliance with one of the most powerful monks of the day, Huayan preceptor Fazang […]
Festival of Star Spirits: Or, a Visitation on Qixi Festival
Raymond Lam (Link to Water’s Moon, Mirror’s Flower) The stars were out tonight. The celestial partygoers were celebrating the seventh day of the seventh month, when the constellations of the Weaver Girl and the Cowherd would be together for one blissful night. One observer of their reunion had come out on the porch, downing a […]
Water’s Moon, Mirror’s Flower
Short Stories About the Dharma in China Invoking the timeless and poetic themes of illusions, heartache, and dreams, Water’s Moon, Mirror’s Flower is a series of tales about Chinese Buddhist landscapes, characters, and events with a dash of magic and eeriness. Featuring diverse themes from over two millennia of Chinese history, some of the stories feel historical, […]
Postcard from Raymond: Tianzi’s Dream
“We saw the most extraordinary sight,” a disheveled Emperor Ming would exclaim to his courtiers at daybreak. A vision of a radiant, golden… man? A deity? Something like that. He had no idea what it could compare to. It certainly looked like a human, with some unusual features like curled tufts of hair in the […]
Postcard from Raymond: Pax Buddhica
Apparently it had only been a few centuries, a mere heartbeat in the eternally present minds of the holy men he had been hosting. How did one fellow – one gentle, wandering teacher – found this new religion? How did he establish a movement so great that long after his death, lords and kings would […]
Uncle Toby and the Fly: Compassion for Animals in Tristram Shandy
Raymond Lam On my way to the office I was listening to my favorite podcast, the BBC’s almost-peerless In Our Time. I was on the episode where Melvyn Bragg and his guests were discussing the idiocsyncratic and bonkers novel The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. Written by the clergyman Laurence Sterne, Tristram Shandy is the 18th-century […]
Postcard from Raymond: The View from Afar
Artist Pablo Carlos Budassi has put together a stunning “logarithmic scale conception” of the observable Universe, with the Solar System at the centre. Thanks to discoveries by physicists, mathematicians, and many others in the 20th century, we know that time and space are interrelated, and that the universe is expanding every second, with galaxies, stars, […]
What to Look Forward to This Year
Raymond Lam Our BDG contributors and columnists, our Tea House bloggers, and I wish you a very happy new year (both Gregorian and Lunar!), and all the best of health and happiness for 2017. As I’m writing this, Donald Trump has moved into the Oval Office, fresh off his inauguration ceremony as president of the US. […]