Buddhism

Interfaith Youth Conference: What a Thrill!

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In one room, young Muslims, Jews, Christians, Hindus, secular humanists, and others cluster in a circle to learn strategies for facilitating constructive interfaith discussions about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Down the hall, more young people — bareheaded or wearing headscarves or kippot — crowd together to discuss multifaith intentional living communities, learn about the Baha’i faith, create videos about youth-led interfaith activism, and train to volunteer as advocates for undocumented immigrants. Talk about a rich space for conversation. All this happened during one morning of the Interfaith Youth Core’s 2009 conference, which took place October 25-27 at Northwestern University, just north of Chicago. The conference brought high school and college students engaged in interfaith work together with religious leaders, politicians, and authors interested in interreligious cooperation.

Buddhism

Between Heaven and Earth: A Brushstroke by Barbara Bash

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“At a certain moment the canvas began to appear to one American painter after another as an arena in which to act. What was to go on the canvas was not a picture but an event.” — Harold Rosenberg, art critic, who coined the term “Action Painting” in 1952 (later called Abstract Expressionism). Standing barefoot atop a long, white strip of paper laid out on the ground, the artist holds a mop-sized paintbrush dipped in black paint. She quiets her mind, remembering everything and then letting it go, her whole life, the entirety of existence.

Buddhism

Obama and the Dalai Lama

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Today at The Immanent Frame, Professors Robbie Barnett, Cameron David Warner, Carole Ann McGranahan, and Edward Friedman respond to our questions about President Obama’s recent decision to postpone meeting with the Dalai Lama until after his upcoming summit with Chinese head of state Hu Jintao:
What does Obama’s decision say about his strategy regarding the protection of human rights and the competing demands of geopolitical gamesmanship? What do the decision and the strong reactions it has provoked say about the Dalai Lama’s authority as both a religious and a political leader? How does the intrinsic duality of his position play out on the international stage? Read the responses here.

Buddhism

Buddha Park

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I’ve been thinking recently of Buddha Park, which Diana and I visited in Laos almost five years ago. There are ways it seems less bizarre now than it did at the time, and ways in which it seems even stranger. I guess some explanation is needed. (And since a picture is still worth over 900 words (the exchange rate has dropped slightly with the advent of digital cameras) visit the Buddha Park page in Tikkun Daily’s art gallery!)
Buddha Park (more formally known as Xieng Khuan) is one of two sculpture parks created by Bunleua, an apostate Buddhist monk who created his own religion, a syncretic blend of Buddhism and Hinduism. Both Buddha Park, built in 1958, and Sala Keoku, created in 1977, (I saw it in 1988, just across the Mekong river in Thailand) feature giant concrete sculptures of major and minor Hindu and Buddhist deities, interspersed with more than a few pinches of surrealism.

Buddhism

True Nature

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From Barbara Bash’s beautiful blog True Nature. Barbara is a Buddhist, a calligrapher, artist and writer of children’s books and of a memoir of a year’s quest for connection with spirit and nature which is destined to be a classic. It’s worth going to her blog just to see what happens to this picture of the tips of the corn. I am tempted to say that if you are short of a present for a special person this Christmas Chanukah Kwanzaa Solstice, you might want to look at that memoir, but we are four hours away from putting an issue to Tikkun to bed in which we are promoting the idea of giving people home made things and services you can perform…. Barbara was a neighbor and dear friend of ours back in the Hudson Valley before we moved to Berkeley so I could work on Tikkun.

Buddhism

Was it the Jonas Brothers? Hannah Montana? No. Those kids were screaming for Craig Kielburger and the Dalai Lama

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Imagine thousands and thousands of teens and tweens in a gigantic auditorium, leaping out of their seats, screaming, applauding wildly…… Is it a Jonas Brothers concert? Hannah Montana? Nope – those kids were going nuts at the We Day gathering in Vancouver as Free the Children founder Craig Kielburger introduced the Dalai Lama to talk about how kids could change the world. If you needed just a bit of hope that the next generation was ready to build a better world than the one we have created, this was the perfect boost.

Buddhism

When Government Employees Truly Care

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Imagine that government services were designed and delivered by people who really care. Wouldn’t that have been so attractive we would have had universal healthcare by now? But what does it mean to really care for the people who receive government services? My friend Chase knows what it means for her in her office. She is a member of the covenant group my wife and I joined at our Unitarian Universalist Church.

Buddhism

Interfaith Weddings in a Unitarian Universalist Landmark

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I perform weddings as a lay minister at First Unitarian Society in Madison. Frank Lloyd Wright built our original church, so many non-members want to get married there — too many for our professional ministers to handle. As a result, I often have the opportunity to perform interfaith weddings where I put my Unitarian Universalist (UU) principles to work. UU’s believe in the “inherent worth and dignity of all people,” “acceptance of one another,” and “a free and responsible search for truth and meaning.” Instead of a creed or dogma, what holds us together is a set of seven principles, three of which I just listed for you.

Buddhism

Spiritual Wisdom of the Week

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This week’s spiritual wisdom has been circulating for years as an internet meme, but it’s actually from David M. Bader’s humorous book Zen Judaism: For You, a Little Enlightenment (Harmony Books, 2002):
Be here now. Be someplace else later. Is that so complicated? To find the Buddha, look within. Deep inside you are ten thousand flowers.