According to the Washington, DC-based Pew Research Center, 18.2 per cent of China’s population—that is 224 million people—are Buddhists, accounting for about half of the
This column “Dharma Project of the Month,” which started in January 2016, was intended primarily to showcase the many efforts of Buddhists—both monastics and laypeople—to
It is impossible to overstate the profound difference that Tsoknyi Rinpoche has made in the lives of the young nuns of Tsoknyi Gechak Ling, a
The tall and robust teacher of Ajahn Chah’s forest tradition speaks with a typically blokeish Aussie accent, however the words of wisdom and compassion he
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
The light of the guru is a lamp that never goes dark. My root teacher is still the North Star in the night sky, though
In 2000, Ven. Bhikkhuni Santini Theri, better known as Ayya Santini, became the first modern woman to be ordained in the Theravada Buddhist tradition in
Each year in October, throngs of Dalits, members of India’s “untouchable” Scheduled Castes, across the subcontinent undergo a deeksha (initiation ceremony) to formally convert to Buddhism. These
Have you ever taken a moment to wonder where your thoughts come from? Are your thoughts really your own? Or are they a product of
David McMahan is professor of Religious Studies at Franklin & Marshall College, Pennsylvania. In recent years he has offered the Buddhist Studies community a more
In diverse locales around the globe where Buddhist masters fill hotel ballrooms, concert halls, and country clubs, the Vajrayana master Khandro Thrinlay Chodon has her
Alexandra David-Neel (1868–1969), a French traveler and a prolific writer, is variously celebrated for being “the first Buddhist in France,” “a fearless explorer,” “the first
