Teaching Zen Buddhism?  Concentrate your mind like this practitioner and if a tiny fly like the one on his forehead bothers you, follow the path of this interesting simulation. Read more

Young Mormon women can now become missionaries when they turn 19. Until October 2012, they had to be 21. According to this fascinating story in the New York Times, this is one of the biggest changes in the Church of Latter Day Saints in many years. The change in age has tripled the number of young Mormon women who have signed up to become missionaries. According to the New York Times, “these women are expected to fundamentally alter this most American... Read more

Studying Buddhism. Here’s a great Prezi from a college professor about the development of Mayahayana Buddhism in China. It’s long and includes several video clips but you could certainly adapt parts of it. I particularly enjoyed the early part of the Prezi about the role of trade routes like the Silk Road in the cross cultural transmission of Buddhism. In another section, the author reviews the significance of the Dunhuang manuscripts, religious documents from the 5th to 11th century. Read more

The Metropolitan Museum of Art just opened an exhibit that shows how the Buddhist Tibetan traditions drew from outside influences, especially in the 11th and 12th centuries. That’s when Islam came into the northern part of India and disrupted political and religious traditions. And that’s when, according to exhibit literature, monasteries of the north began an exchange with Tibet. Tibet wanted to “purify their understanding of Buddhism and thereby establish correct religious practice.” As a consequence, northern Indian monasteries sent... Read more

Studying Christianity? Black liberation theology is an interesting and controversial strand of contemporary Christianity. It’s controversial because one of the founders, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, was also President Obama’s home pastor in Chicago. Opponents of the president brought up some of Rev. Wright’s more incendiary sermons during the 2012 election. What is liberation theology?  According to Bill Moyers in the video clip above,  it attempts to “read the Bible through the experience of people who suffered and who are then able... Read more

The exhibition, “Yoga: The Art of Transformation,” left the Freer and Sackler Galleries in Washington, DC last month and is now at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco until May 18. You can preview the exhibition with the very short introductory clip below. The exhibition is all about the visual culture of yoga and the different meanings of yoga to both practitioners and to those who interact with them, according to the Sackler curator. If you cannot visit the... Read more

The largest private collection of Tibetan texts, recently donated to a Chinese University in Chengdu, are a “treasure trove” for Buddhist scholars. One text even includes details about Kublai Khan’s wife. The collection includes 12,000 texts and, according to the New York Times, was amassed by E. Gene Smith, a private collector in New York.  Smith died in 2010 but wanted his collection in Asia where it came from. The texts ended up in China rather than Tibet because government policies make... Read more

These Buddhist temple caves in Asia are beautiful. You can see larger versions of these and others at the Huffington Post. The first image is part of the Yungang Grottoes in Shanxi, China (252 caves and 51,000 statues), and the second is the Khao Luang Cave Temple in Phetburi, Thailand.     Read more

Should free speech ever be restricted when it comes to religion?  In 1978, the ACLU defended neo-Nazi;s who wanted to march through Skoie, Ill where many Holocaust survivors lived. The government allowed the march. In India, Penguin Publishers pulled a new book that criticizes Hinduism. Critics inside and outside India question the publisher’s commitment to freedom of press. The short clip above summarizes the issue. Penguin Books in India recently withdrew a new book about Hinduism by Wendy Doniger, an... Read more

For Valentine’s Day, here’s a Sufi poet that few students know by name but whose poetry they may have read. His name is Jalaluddin Rumi. He’s a 13th century mystical poet and one of the best selling poets in the west. The son of a Sufi scholar, Rumi, as he is known, wrote many poems describing his love of god. You can read many of his poems in Coleman Barks translation called The Essential Rumi. In 2012, Krista Tippet discussed Rumi on her... Read more