China says it will stamp out the Dalai Lama’s image and voice in Tibet. They will  look for illegal satellite dishes,  and monitor the internet  in an attempt to stop his “propaganda.”  According to Yahoo News, Tibet’s Communist party chief wrote, “strike hard against the reactionary propaganda of the splittists from entering Tibet.”  The New York Times says that the Communist Party sees the Dalai Lama as a “wolf in sheep’s clothing.” In the clip above, the Dalai Lama speaks... Read more

Happy Diwali! The Hindu festival of Lights, which is celebrated all over the world, begins today. It lasts five days and Hindus celebrate it with food, dancing, parties and lots of lights.The International Business Times says that “the festival symbolizes the victory of light over dark, good over evil, and knowledge over darkness, and honors of the return of Hindu god Rama to his kingdom after years of exile.” The Times also has an excellent slide show of Diwali celebrations.... Read more

Teaching Buddhism? Here’s a great Prezi introduction to Buddhism with several short video clips. I showed it to my World History students last week when we started classical India and they seemed to like it. Read more

Here are 50 “stunning” synagogues, according to the Huffington Post, who recently posted 50 “amazing”  mosques. The synagogue above is the Hechal Yehuda Synagogue in Tel Aviv, Israel and the synagogue below is the The Cymbalista Synagogue and Jewish Heritage Center also in Tel Aviv. There are more traditional synagogues such as the one below this one. It’s called Grand Synagogue of Paris and it’s in France, of course. The slide show at at the Huffington Post does indeed include... Read more

Teaching Islam?  Here’s a great story about a Turkish Iman, Ahmet Muhsin Tuzer, who is attempting to soften the image of Islam with music, combining Sufi mysticism and psychedelic rock, according to this fascinating NPR story. He plays in a rock band called FiRock at night while in the daytime he leads his village in prayer.  The clip above is a short report about the Iman from the European Journal. Many people support his part-time venture into music but some... Read more

Teaching Buddhism? Here’s a great introduction to the Vietnamese Zen Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat from Oprah Winfrey. Martin Luther King nominated Thich Nhat Hahn for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1967 for his work trying to reconcile north and south Vietnam. Denied permission to return to Viet Nam after the Paris Peace Accords, he founded a Buddhist retreat in 1982 in southern France called Plum Village. It is a monastery for both Buddhist monks and nuns. He has spent much... Read more

Want to learn more about Buddhism? Here’s a very readable book by Pankaj Mishra. His book is called “An end to Suffering: The Buddha in the World,” It is more than just a biography.  As one reviewer noted, it “is part biography, part history, part travel book, part philosophic treatise.” Mishra is not a Buddhist himself. He could not sit long enough to meditate but he did live in a small Himalayan village where he researched and wrote much of... Read more

Should Saudi women be allowed to drive? Several Saudi women got behind the wheel this weekend to protest the ban, risking arrest. Social activist and comedian Hisham Fageeh made this video clip yesterday, the day the women protested the ban. The video has made Fageeh an internet sensation. Here’s an interesting story by The Washington Post’s Max Fisher about Fageeh and the video. Thanks to@jennphillips for the tweeting the link. Read more

Teaching Hinduism?  Is it a monotheistic religion or is it a polytheistic religion? Here’s an excellent short clip about the concept of God in Hinduism developed by the magazine, Hinduism Today and the Hindu Students Association.  It explains Hinduism as a monotheistic religion in which Hindus believe in “one all-pervasive supreme being who is both immanent and transcendent.” Read more