To understand Japanese culture, one must know something of the wabi-sabi concept. The Japanese sense of beauty, unlike some of the elaborately embellished Chinese manifestations, usually relies on delicate understatement. What is left out is [...]
It had been a cool morning. Expectedly, there had been a number of phone calls – one from a student who asked if he could make up the meditation class he had missed, one from [...]
The world is a reflection of ourselves. What we see without is an accurate measure of what we are within. If there is serenity inside, the outside world seems friendly. When we go to a [...]
The lengthening twilight seemed almost interminable as the old car plowed along the dismal roads east of Baroda. Indian sunsets are particularly spectacular where there is flat country and few trees or buildings to break [...]
There is a profound difference between the life-negating pessimism of traditional Indian Buddhism and the life-prolonging, immortality-seeking attitude of Chinese Taoists. The Indian Buddhist sees the world as a place of complete impermanence, a forest [...]
It is always cold when we arise at 5:30 a.m. on a winter’s morning in Kyoto. If I am staying at the small Tenrikyo Church community, just off Karasuma Street near the ancient Emperor’s Palace, [...]
