A TIO Interview by Megan Anderson
This month, TIO “sat” down via Zoom with Matthew Fox and Lama Tsomo to talk about compassion and the role it plays in our world today.
Matthew Fox & Lama Tsomo Explore Compassion
Ordaining Trees to Save Them
by Kiley Price
At a time when Pope Francis is calling upon religious leaders to step up as environmental advocates, Thai Buddhist monks are answering the call.
Meditating on the Buddha in the Midst of Buddhist Terror
by Richard Reoch
The Buddha was no stranger to genocide. His own people, the Sakyas, were the victims of mass slaughter. One of the final acts of his life, recounted in the opening verses of the Mahaparinirvana Sutra, was to refuse a request to give his blessing to an act of genocide.
Epiphany at the Altar of a Sand Mandala
by Billy Doidge Kilgore
Five Buddhist monks stand in a row, torsos wrapped in maroon robes and scalps adorned with golden headdresses. In their arms, they hold cymbals, drums, and horns.
Eco-Dharma: Awakening to the Environmental Crisis
by David Loy
Interest in eco-dharma — the ecological implications of Buddhist teachings — is growing after years of apparent indifference and little conversation about it in Buddhist sanghas (communities). The environmental crisis has been in and out of headline news since at least 1992, when the first President Bush attended the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro
Pope Fancis’s New Interreligious Dialogue of Action
The Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue (PCID), in collaboration with the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India and Religions for Peace, held the Vatican’s fifth Buddhist-Christian Colloquium February 12-13, 2015 at Bodh Gaya in India. Bodh Gaya is the site of the Buddha’s enlightenment and was chosen for a dialogue since it has temples and monasteries from many different types of Buddhists.
Bronze Head of Buddha
The flame rising from the top of the head represents the transcendent light of true wisdom. Sometimes called the Lotus Blossom Flame, this dynamic ushnisha was continued in Thai art for centuries. The traditional teaching is that the rise to Buddha-Consciousness involves raising awareness from its lowest levels to its highest levels.
Buddhist-Muslim Meeting Pushes for Peace
As reported in The Jakarta Post, the Muslim and Buddhist leaders of Southeast Asia and South Asia released the Yogyakarta Statement to refute the “use of Islam and Buddha in the olitics of discrimination and violebnce.” As a result of the “Overcoming Extremism and Advancing Peace with Justice” meeting, which drew leaders from Buddhism and Islam to Indonesia, the Yogyakarta Statement was released Thursday, March 5.
Why Are We Buddhists? Korean-American Perspectives
Scholars of American Buddhism generally categorize Buddhism in America into two groups: “Asian immigrant Buddhism” and “American convert Buddhism.” The former refers to the Buddhism that immigrants from Asian nations brought with them and continue to practice in the new land, whereas the latter indicates Buddhism practiced by westerners.
Dharma and the Death of My Father
On April 1,t 2004, my world turned upside down. I was rushed from the middle of a normal day at junior high school and was immediately brought to the hospital bedside of my father, who had just been diagnosed with terminal cancer. I remember walking into the four-occupant hospital room. The walls glowed with a melancholy yellow stain. I saw his face, which defined the word defeated. As a Japanese immigrant, raising a family of his own in a new country, I cannot imagine how he felt when he received his diagnosis.
Study Surveys Buddhist Group’s Global Impact
A recent study shows how digital and social media has allowed one of the largest international religious and benevolent organizations to keep in touch with its more than 10 million followers worldwide, and help them in their mission to provide humanitarian relief.
All People Are Chosen, All Lands Are Holy
Gurus, Seekers, and Being Accountable
Western Transmitters of the Dharma
Buddhism and Same-Sex Sexuality
Where Science and Religion Coexist
Mainstreaming Hindu and Dharmic Americans and Values
Buddhist Translators without Borders
I’m sitting in a retreat bungalow in the Australian bush south of Brisbane, near Mudgeeraba, Queensland. I am translating an ancient Buddhist scripture with twenty other people, most of whom are in different countries.
Yes, But Pay Attention to the Details
Count me a team-member of the interspiritual movement. I am in sympathy with the goals of The Coming Interspiritual Age by Kurt Johnson and David Robert Ord, a grand, ambitious work with an optimistic vision of future global unity. Kurt Johnson’s mental scope on display here is astonishing. A polymath, he was for thirty years a distinguished scientist at the Museum of Natural History, penned an award-winning New York Times best seller about Vladimir Nabokov and butterflies, and regularly contributes to Wikipedia, all attesting to the breadth of his discussion of how humanity came to its current crises of religious conflict and spiritual dis-ease. Johnson and Ord’s ability to weave facts into sweeping historical narrative lends strength to their conclusions.
Shinnyo-en Memorial Ceremony Draws 40,000
More than 40,000 converged on a beach in Hawaii to witness and participate in Tōrō Nagashi, the floating lantern ceremony on Memorial Day this year. Millions more witnessed it on television and the internet. Veterans, city officials and state legislators, clergy from various traditions, and thousands of children, gathered at Ala Moana Beach Park on O’ahu’s south shore at dusk Monday, May 28. They joined in a day of memorial observances culminating in 3,300 lantern-bearing paper boats floating into the sunset with prayers for lost loved ones and for peace.[Ala Moana Beach Park on Memorial Day 2012]