The Grace of Gold: Buddhist Exhibit Highlights at The British Library’s “GOLD: 50 spectacular manuscripts from around the world”

In lieu of physically attending a private viewing of The British Library’s “GOLD: 50 spectacular manuscripts from around the world,” I was privileged to enjoy a rich and informative virtual tour of the exhibit in the early hours of the Hong Kong morning with others that could not be in London this month. Gold is grandeur. […]

Octopus Buddhas and Aliens: The Story of Tako Yakushi

One of my favorite films about aliens is Arrival (2016), based on Ted Chiang’s Story of Your Life (1998). It portrays otherworldly visitors as enlightened extraterrestrials with a literally timeless grasp of language and causality. Aside from being spacefaring travellers and inhabiting spacecraft that leave no residue, traces, or pollution, the advanced creatures of Arrival perceive time […]

Jon Kolkin’s “Inner Harmony: Living in Balance” – Visual Stories from the Heart of Asia

Dr. Jon Kolkin’s photographic volume Inner Harmony: Living in Balance exudes creative ambition and heart. A cursory look at the time it took for him to compile this collection of images – seventeen extended visits to Asia from 2007 to 2018 – attests to the time, patience, and toil that the distinguished and globe-trotting creator […]

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 […]

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 […]

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, […]