March 17, 2013 – 12:10 pm
Featured on the ShambhalaSun.com homepage today is “Annie Mirror Heart,” a chapter from an unfinished novel by Maura O’Halloran. O’Halloran was a young Irish-American woman who took to Zen practice (and how!), as famously recounted in her journals, posthumously published as the book Pure Heart, Enlightened Mind: The Life and Letters of an Irish Zen [...]
How’s this for a headline: “Music Group Fronted by Japanese Monks Bring Buddhist Sutra to the Dance Club, Wear Awesome Helmets.” Yep, it’s real, and this item from Japanese/Asian news source Rocket News 24 profiles the awesome-helmet-wearing act in question, Tariki Echo. Formed by two aspiring Jodo Shinshu priests, the group released their first album, Buddha [...]
This spring, activist and Buddhist/yoga teacher Michael Stone, along with filmmaker Ian MacKenzie, sought donations for a crowdfunded short film called Reactor, about Japan’s response to last year’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. Stone and MacKenzie have exceeded their fundraising goal and traveled to Japan, where they’re posting updates about their travels and filmmaking process. Click [...]
Activist and yoga/Buddhist teacher Michael Stone — author of “What’s the Music All About?”, found in our current, May 2012 magazine — is currently crowdfunding for a new short film project called Reactor. The film visits post-tsunami Japan to ask the questions “How are the old Zen traditions and cities of beautiful temples responding? How [...]
The Art of Peace By Morihei Ueshiba. Translated & edited by John Stevens Shambhala Publications, 2010; 192 pp., $18.00 (cloth) Translated and edited by John Stevens, The Art of Peace is a compilation of quotes from Morihei Ueshiba (1883-1969). Morihei was a great, almost invincible warrior from Japan, who despised violence and hatred, and, thus, [...]
Here on SunSpace the other day, visual arts writer and novelist Kyo Maclear shared her experiences of trying to make sense of the news of Japan’s disaster last month. (See that post here.) In this second post from Kyo, she discusses how we might find relief and perspective when such a crisis seems to take [...]
What do stillness, inwardness, and silence offer in times of tragedy and terror? Visual arts writer and novelist Kyo Maclear shares her experiences of trying to make sense of the news of Japan’s disaster last month. It’s March 11th and the country that has been my second home since childhood has just experienced a catastrophic [...]
She’s safe and sound, thankfully, but OM Yoga teacher/founder Cyndi Lee recently came back from an unforgettable leg of travel: “The earthquake,” reads the first line of a recent blogpost, “hit five minutes after I got off the plane.” As you might imagine, the post, “My Earthquake Friends in Narita” is harrowing, complete with aftershocks, [...]
Via the San Francisco Zen Center comes a new suggestion for pitching in to relief efforts for Japan: “Respond to a request from Daigaku Rummé, the director of the Soto Zen Buddhism North American office, with donations by check payable to: Japan Earthquake Disaster Fund, Soto Zen Buddhism North American Office, 123 S. Hewitt Street, [...]
December 27, 2010 – 11:10 am
Those who’ve been following (for example) Osamu Tezuka’s Buddha graphic novel and its film adaptation, or Deepak Chopra’s “Buddha” comic book, know that it’s not so new to mix Buddhism and comics. But it does seem to work, and one Buddhist temple is getting in on the act. As Culture Clash Daily reports: This month [...]
April 27, 2010 – 12:01 pm
Yuto is a special child, a healer of hearts. He’s Japanese, he’s Jewish; he’s universal. Read about how author Leza Lowitz and her husband came to welcome Yuto into their life in this excerpt from Lowitz’s “Adoption,” from our May 2010 issue.
January 24, 2010 – 4:59 pm
Yes, even PerezHilton.com posted this video, writing: “LOLs! In an attempt to attract new, younger followers to Buddhism, Buddhist monks in Japan are trying a new approach – rapping! Check out the HIGHlarity of the hip hop monks…” (And comments there have been positive, too, so far.) What do you think of Mr. Happiness and [...]
October 20, 2009 – 3:57 pm
Via the smarties at MAKE (whose headline — “Pop-up Lego Zen temple is itself wonderfully Zen” — can’t really be beat), check out this amazing Lego reproduction of Kyoto’s Kinkaku-ji, the famed Rinzai Zen “Temple of the Golden Pavilion.”
October 8, 2009 – 12:33 am
Our friend and contributor Steve Silberman alerts us to the existence of an unusual trend, that of “Buddha Girls.” So what — or who — are they? Well, as Global Voices reports, “Buddha girls” are “Japanese ladies in their 30s or 40s [who are] passionate about visiting temples and admiring statues of Buddha and Bodhisattva[s].” [...]
October 2, 2009 – 9:35 am
“Many of [Japan's] approximately 75,000 temples are facing the biggest crisis in their history,” reports IPS, “because hardly anyone ever goes to them these days.” It’s a crisis of culture, and of fading traditions. So Japan’s local religious leaders are taking a different approach. …Are they going too far?
