> The harmony between the master and the disciple was as fortunate as a mustard seed falling from the sky hitting the point of a needle.

> Early texts, like the Vimalaprabhā or the Lam yig of Man luṅ pa, do not describe Śambhala as a paradise on earth. They rather stress the spiritual qualities of the country and its inhabitants. Later works, especially the smon lam, the most popular texts on Śambhala among the Tibetan and Mongolian Buddhist lay people, concentrate on the paradisiac nature of the hidden kingdom.

> Science and scientists can learn much from religion when it comes to how to deal with scientific fundamentalism.

This short film follows novice monks, many starting at a young age, at Phukthar Monastery in Zanskar through their rigorous schedule of work, study, and meditation.

> Contrary to popular assumption, the thought world of the Pali discourses is well populated with gods and spirits, demons and ghosts, as picturesque as the imagination of a reader of Tolkien's novels could wish for.

> Contrary to popular assumption, the thought world of the Pali discourses is well populated with gods and spirits, demons and ghosts, as picturesque as the imagination of a reader of Tolkien's novels could wish for.

> Students who are well-trained in Mindfulness cope with dukkha in a very different fashion from the rest of us whose minds are still at the “drunken monkey” stage.

> Tantra is an important part of the path to liberation in the Geluk tradition. It is a path to liberation that is held to involve distinct, esoteric methods, but without diverging from the philosophical view of emptiness, which is indispensable.

> Jane Goodall started asking people to consider whether we are alone on _this_ planet.

> Another interesting source of 'slavery' in Buddhist temples in historic Sri Lanka was donating oneself voluntarily as a slave to gain merit attached to the deed...

> These commentaries, known as *sūtra sannayas*, and/or as *sūtra vistara sannayas*, were composed in large numbers beginning in the middle of the eighteenth century. In what follows, I present the historical context for this change in Buddhist textual practices...

> This paper is critical of any Buddhist environmentalism that fails to give due attention to both dimensions, and it emphasizes that both the relational and developmental dimensions must be held in balance in order for a genuine Buddhist environmentalism to be possible.

> Scholars of Chinese Buddhism have given much attention to vilified foodstuffs such as meat and pungent vegetables and less attention to celebrated foods. > While proscriptions are important for their role in constructing boundaries used in group identification, we should not overlook the celebration of particular foods such as congee (zhōu 粥).

> Socioecological models for agriculture provide an opportunity to explore feedbacks, trade-offs, and synergies that can optimize and strengthen emerging connections between farming and society. > With the right incentives, innovative research, and political will, a sustainable agriculture is within our reach.

> The position of the family-priest is legitimated by the application of a fundamental [Tantric] Buddhist idea: the hierarchy of Disciples' Way (śrāvakayāna), Great Way (mahāyāna) and Diamond Way (vajrayāna). > Thus the family-priesthood in Newar Buddhism, exercised by the Vajrācāryas alone, is justified in terms of the images of bodhisattva (altruistic saint) and siddha (accomplished one), the ideals of Great Way and Diamond Way respectively. > Vajrācāryas are monks, householders and priests all at once and the contradiction this seems to entail in modern eyes is avoided traditionally by viewing this sequence as a hierarchy.

> Taking the verses in the Dasanipata of the Theragatha as examples, this article focuses on the stylistic interplay of rhythmic uniformity and change in the expression of core messages in a Pali poem. It aims to unveil the poets’ strategies in the use of various types of metres and prosodic elements to create the narrative style of each poem and draw the audiences’ attention to the Buddha’s key teachings in the verses.

> You live in the mountains a few years and then you go into town, you sit on the bus... you look at all those people and you feel, 'Who are you struggling for?'

> ... because I have discerned the teachings by perceiving my own mind, I feel respect for the tradition that bases itself on mind [i.e., Chan]. Moreover, because I have understood the cultivation of mind by discerning the teachings, I have reverent regard for the meaning of the teachings.

> So when in deep, rapturous meditation, we enter the state of flow, when we are one with the present moment, this is the 'immortal nectar.' This is why the Tibetan texts speak of *amrita* as the elixir of timeless awareness. It's not an external liquid. It's a byproduct of steeping in the awareness of the present moment which, when all the hormonal centers of the brain kick in, feels like being soaked in honey, basking in the nectar of the eternal 'now.'

> Orientations of temples at Ayutthaya seem to have been determined by magnetic compass

> The present note is concerned primarily with the translation and interpretation of the final summary paragraph, both in the sutta and its commentary

> This article examines a poem in the Kaludayittherapadanavannana which expands on the poem attributed to Kaludayitthera in the Theragatha; the poem in the Kaludayittherapadanavannana did not make it into the final canon. > The hypothesis of this paper is that the poem may be a popular Dravidian song adapted to Buddhist use and translated into Pali, and this is the primary reason it was excluded from the canon.

> Conflating religious practice with ethnic culture is considered to carry the risk of breeding “splittism” – especially in Tibet and Xinjiang. > While in the post-Mao era the outright hostility against religion has given way to a religious revival, keeping religion and politics separate has remained a major concern for the Chinese Communist Party. > Religion is supposed to be a private matter that does not interfere with politics. > Against this backdrop, a recent phenomenon in the Tibet Autonomous Region is all the more remarkable: the (re-)fusion of ethnicity and religion under the label of cultural heritage and its protection.

> Many rural crime sprees punctuated the last two decades of King Chulalongkorn’s reign, but one of the worst broke out in early 1903. A violent gang of robbers repeatedly made off with herds of water buffaloes, consistently eluding the newly established provincial police force...

> In this article, after focusing on one particularly radical group, whose beliefs consisted of worshipping one’s own future Buddha (法身) residing within oneself (the Dilun school 地論宗), I show that all three schools born of the northern region—the Huayan 華嚴, Chan 禪 and the Three Stages Movement 三階教—succeeded the radical group...