Traditional Buddhist monuments are bringing life to a Himalayan community grappling with climate change. Villagers in Northern India have invented a way to fight drought, inspired by traditional Buddhist architecture. Each winter since 2013, the people of Phyang, Ladakh, have built stupas — traditional Buddhist monuments — made out of ice. When the whether warms and [...]
How Steve Jobs found Buddhism
Buddhism had a significant influence on Steve Jobs. Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli explain that Jobs' 1974 trip to India sparked an interest in Buddhism that stayed with him for the rest of his life. From their book, Becoming Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs ostensibly went to India hoping to meet Neem Karoli Baba, known as Maharaj-ji, the famous guru who was an inspiration to his [...]
Contest invites you to “leave reality behind” with 100-day TV binge at Buddhist monastery
Lots of Buddhist monasteries have terrifying illustrations of suffering beings trapped in cyclical existence. Now, Samsung's Swedish branch is offering you the chance to enter a monastery as a living example of one! (That is, if you agree that spending 76 hours figuring out how Ted Mosby met his kids' mom is the epitome of samsaric suffering.) This month, Samsung is awarding a [...]
Ambedkar’s Vision for India’s Dalits
The Buddhist revival in India ignited by Dr. B.R. Ambedkar more than fifty years ago has brought millions of the country’s most impoverished and marginalized people to the Buddhist path. There is much we can learn from them, says Alan Senauke. With justice on our side, I do not see how we can lose our battle. The battle to me is a matter of joy… For ours is a battle not for [...]
Actor Michelle Yeoh blends Buddhism & activism
Buddhist actor and activist Michelle Yeoh was in Ladakh last week to offer aid relief in the wake of flash flooding. While on her trip, Yeoh met up with Conde Nast Traveller to talk about her activism and how it relates to her Buddhist practice. “I think you are always a practicing Buddhist,” she told interviewers. “You are learning every day.” Yeoh was born into a [...]
Watch: “Touching the Untouchable” — and learn more about Dalit Buddhists
From Meena Srinivasan, author of the Lion's Roar post Beyond Caste: Connecting with the Dalit Buddhist Community, and her partner Chihiro Wimbush, comes a moving new short film, about the Dalit Buddhist community in Tamil Nadu, India. As Meena writes in "Beyond Caste": "Previously lower-caste Hindus, the Indian Buddhists in Nagpur converted under the political influence of [...]
A typical day in Old Delhi
Shambhala Sun editor-in-chief Melvin McLeod has just returned from India, where he visited with the Dalai Lama for an exclusive interview that will be the centerpiece of our coming special publication in honor of His Holiness’s coming 80th birthday. (Click here to reserve your copy.) Here Melvin—no stranger to India—shares an episode from his trip. I first went there in 1980, [...]
Help Kickstart a “cinematic pilgrimage into the heart of India”
Filmmaker John Bush, who made the famed "Journey into Buddhism" trilogy -- Dharma River (which takes us to Laos, Thailand, and Burma), Vajra Sky Over Tibet, and Prajna Earth (Bali, Cambodia, and Java) -- is back at work on a new documentary project. Journey Om: Into the Heart of India is a non-sectarian "cinematic voyage into India's 5000-year-old tradition of pilgrimage to [...]
“Bones of the Buddha” to air on PBS Tuesday night
PBS is again offering appointment TV revolving around the Buddha. (You may recall director David Grubin's 2010 epic, Richard Gere-narrated documentary, The Buddha, which traced the journey of Prince Siddhartha from opulent palace life to full spiritual awakening.) On Tuesday, July 23, a new episode in the series Secrets of the Dead entitled “Bones of the Buddha” will air from [...]
Tonglen: A Lesson in Giving and Taking
Tonglen, as Judy Lief explains in the coming July 2012 issue of the Shambhala Sun, is a meditation practice in which "we breathe out what we normally cling to and breathe in what we usually avoid" to connect with suffering and change our relationship with others. In the following piece, Emily Strasser visits with a Tibetan monk in India who's putting tonglen into practice to [...]