Common threads of religious insight between Ancient Egyptian Ma’at and the Buddhadharma
myth
Wall art, to age, abandoned house
The game: you give me a Buddhist-themed noun, an action, and a location, and I create the story. Today, I was given the noun “wall art,” the action “to age,” and a location “abandoned home.” Hope you enjoy the read! Two loud knocks, a pause, followed by another three loud knocks; Hiroshi went through the […]
Postcard from Raymond: Taking Care of Your Magic Dragon
There is a magical dragon dwelling inside every one of us. Leonard Lipton and Peter Yarrow’s Puff the Magic Dragon, which was masterfully sung by folk group Peter, Paul and Mary, is a melancholic song about losing the capability for imagination, for wonder. When I first heard this song as a kid, I thought that […]
Homage to Prajnaparamita
Prajnaparamita is the Buddhist goddess of wisdom, a personification of knowledge, revealed in the Prajnaparamita Sutras that laid the foundations of Mahayana Buddhism. The term combines the Sanskrit words prajna (wisdom) and paramita (perfection). Paramita is interpreted as having reached the opposite shore of samsara, and prajnaparamita is translated as “perfection of wisdom” or “transcendental […]
Fathers and Sons: The Buddha and King Suddhodana
This Sunday will be Father’s Day in Hong Kong. Most young people, luckily, will get to enjoy the 18th with their old men. In the grand scheme of things it’s not uncommon for kids to lose their father (or both parents) earlier in life. In the end, we all are destined to be orphans. We […]
Postcard from Raymond: The Old Gods
What is a god? Human figures with the heads of animals are intentionally absurd images. They look frightening, ridiculous, inexplicably endearing. They arrest us, shake us out of our dull, seen-it-all before everyday complacency and force us to take a second look at them because they reveal themselves as intentionally strange beings. In ancient Egypt, […]
A Monkey’s Tale Retold
Steve Braff It is said that in the ninth year of the Buddha’s ministry a quarrel arose between two parties of monks. One party consisted of experts in the disciplinary code, or the Vinaya laws; the others were experts in the Dharma, or the teachings. The Buddha tried to settle the quarrel peacefully, but finally, when his […]