Leaders of the largest Buddhist temple in the world want it “to be like Mecca is in Islam, a global center,” says Rachelle Scott, an expert on the group and assistant director of religious studies at the University of Tennessee. “Critics question the intentions of the temple. They think that the primary intention is to make money.” More →

June 13, 2014

For decades, the Indian government has encouraged pilgrims to come to one of India’s holiest locations, the ancient city of Bodh Gaya. Now there is an effort to revive the Buddhist university that once flourished there long before universities like Cambridge and Oxford were founded in the West. More →

September 6, 2013

The Earthquake Thunder Fish, Yosuke Ueno Since its “opening” in 1854 by U.S. Navy Commodore Matthew Perry, Japan often has been defined in the West by a single, simple image. Sometimes that image has been one of exotic, romantic tradition … More →

March 18, 2011

“Just sit down and feel your breath,” suggests teacher and author Sharon Salzberg. “We tune in, we connect, we come back.” More →

February 18, 2011

“I think there is something beautiful and magnificent in silence,” says meditation teacher Sharon Salzberg. “Meditation opens up our attention so we can see things differently.” More →

February 18, 2011

  BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: The Dalai Lama is now here in the US for nearly a month of teaching across the country. He is the world’s best-known representative of Tibetan Buddhism, perhaps of all Buddhism. But now another potential Buddhist … More →

July 11, 2008

In Buddhism we believe that all beings are bound to samsara. Samsara is what non-Buddhists understand as reincarnation. So long as one doesn’t achieve spiritual enlightenment, one’s continually reborn in samsara, over and over again, and for Buddhist practitioners, the goal is to escape from this cycle, to achieve supreme Buddhahood, which is nirvana. More →

July 20, 2007