Meet the Mengshan Mountain Giant Buddha. He’s the second largest stone carved Buddha in the world and probably the oldest in China, dating back almost 1500 years. He is wearing the gold robe to protect his crumbling body. According to the Mail Online, the robe  is “golden in colour to emulate the gowns worn by Buddhists in monasteries.” Mining and weather have taken its toll on the Buddha. But China’s Ministry of Land Resources has come to the rescue with millions of... Read more

It’s one of the  largest pilgrimages in the world rivaling or even surpassing the number of pilgrimages to Mecca during Ramadan! Arbaeen celebrates the martyrdom of the third Shia Iman Hussein, the  grandson of the prophet Mohammad. Pilgrims commemorate the event with a walking tour of Karebala in Iraq where the Imam Hussein Shrine is located. According to this story  in the Independent, Iman Hussein died in the 7th century in the Battle of Karbala where he and his supporters were... Read more

Alan Watts, the author of the 1957 classic, The Way of Zen, helped popularize Zen Buddhism in the United States. In the animated  clips below, which I found on  Open Culture, Watts illustrates some Japanese Buddhist concepts and in “The Story of the  Chinese Farmer, discusses the “unity and interconnectedness of all things.” Read more

Can an American citizen list Israel as their  place of birth, instead  of  Jerusalem? That’s what the  Supreme Court is going to decide next year. A 12 year old  boy sued the US  government to allow the designation on his passport. It’s a big  deal. The Washington Post  calls it a tinderbox. “That’s  because the issue of sovereignty over this ancient city is a very delicate matter.” NPR notes that “Israel considers Jerusalem its eternal capital and has controlled the... Read more

Studying human rights?  Here’s a touching, engaging, and excellent  primer illustrating what they are and why they are so important from United  for Human Rights.   Thanks to Face to Faith for the link. Read more

An angry dog? No! It’s a Shinto guardian in Tokyo. It’s called a Komainu or lion dog.  Paris of them are found at the entrance of most Japanese Shinto shrines and temples. According to the Encyclopedia of Shinto, the lions are usually made of stone and a male is often paired with a  female. One has an open mouth while the other has a closed mouth which, the Encyclopedia of Shinto notes, represents”the so-called un-posture symbolizing the “alpha” and “omega”... Read more

Wow! Muslims asked the Montgomery County School Board in Maryland to add the Muslim holy day of Eid al-Adha as a holiday. Instead of adding the holiday, because it did not meet certain guidelines for adding holidays, the board decided to scrub the Christian holidays of Christmas and Easter. Students will still get time off, but now Christmas will be called winter break and Easter will be called spring break. The decision angered both Muslims and Christians. As this story in the Washington... Read more

Learn the history and development of Buddhism  from some of its greatest sites. British historian Bettany Hughes visits seven amazing sites in this 2011 BBC documentary to try to better understand Buddhism. She starts at the Mahabodhi Temple in India where the Buddha first attained enlightenment and finishes in Los Angles at the Hsi Lai Temple. Read more

Teaching Buddhism? The first five minutes of this 2006 Bill Moyers interview with Pema Chödrön provides a good introduction to Buddhism as its practiced today. And we learn about an extraordinary “Bodhisattva warrior.” According to the Moyers PBS site “Ani Pema Chödrön is an American Buddhist nun and author whose teachings and writings on meditation have helped make Buddhism accessible to a broad Western audience. She currently directs the Gampo Abbey in Nova Scotia, Canada, the first Tibetan monastery in... Read more