Miya Ando’s painting Yugen Gold Blue is a Zen koan of sorts. The nocturnal seascape, lit by the hazy glow of a rising moon, is at once a portrait
Tuva is a remote Russian republic in southern Siberia, the capital of which, Kyzyl, lies in the geographic heart of Asia. The Tuvans are a
The organization I direct, Core of Culture, which had already worked with Tantric Buddhist monks in other parts of the Himalayas, was invited to undertake
In November 1989, as an 11-year-old, I watched a puzzling scene unfold on our black-and-white TV: huge crowds of people had gathered in central Prague
Buddhism first came to Russia in the 17th century and became firmly established mainly in three Russian republics, Buryatia, Kalmykia, and Tuva, where it had
The transmission of Buddhist art from India to China is a fascinating topic. Indeed, how did pious and profound art, along with a complex belief
To many practitioners of the Mahayana schools of Buddhism of East Asia and the esoteric traditions of the Himalayas and Japan, bodhisattvas, or “enlightenment beings,”
Institutional corruption has been a hot topic in the news of late. The seismic election of brash political outsider and controversial tycoon Donald Trump as
There are not so many places left on Earth where the population is virtually 100 per cent Tantric Buddhist. Spiti Valley in Himachal Pradesh, India,
On 7–9 September, the international scientific conference “Buddhism in the Third Millennium: Trends and Prospects for Development” was held in the sacred land of Tuva.
In my previous article,* I introduced a method of reading Japanese Buddhist texts, especially writings by the Japanese Zen master Dōgen (1200–53).** Here, I would
One of the most widely practiced of all Japanese art forms is ikebana, or flower arrangement. The word “ikebana” literally means “living flowers,” suggesting that while
