Forced conversion -- in other words, forcing people to adopt a new religion by bribery, physical force or other coercive means -- is a hot issue in much of Asia. ... Read More

At Wild Fox Zen, Soto Zen teacher Dosho Port looks at a poll question asked of Japanese Soto Zen monks about what happens after death. A large majority of the ... Read More

The local duck pond is, truth to tell, a murky lagoon fed by the environmentally compromised Bronx River. Commuter trains clatter by frequently on one side of the pond, and ... Read More

A few days ago Aung San Suu Kyi was removed from her home, where she has been in detention for several years, and placed in a Burmese prison. She is ... Read More

There's a charming story about traveling the "Buddhist circuit" by Ralph Frammolino in the New York Times. Frammolino and his partner, Julia, toured the major pilgrimage sites in Nepal and ... Read More

First news reports coming from a war zone often are scrambled, so it is difficult to know what is really happening in Sri Lanka right now. However, the news reports ... Read More

This sorta kinda goes along with the current spotlight feature, "Misunderstanding Buddhism." At the religion blog of the Dallas Morning News, columnist Rod Dreher poses the questions "What don't most ... Read More

Although I haven't written much about the ongoing violence in Sri Lanka, I've been trying to understand it, and especially the role the Buddhist establishment plays in it. Along those ... Read More

What is agnosticism? This is a question asked on the Guardian's "belief" website. But notice the subhead: Is agnosticism anything more than a polite, or cowardly veil around atheism? In the ... Read More

Aung San Suu Kyi has been removed from her home and placed in a notoriously harsh prison. Apparently she's to be kept silent until next year's elections. Jonathan Aitken writes ... Read More

At the Guardian's Comment Is Free blog, Mark Vernon picks up Ed Halliwell's "pick and mix" theme (see the last post, "No Picking and Choosing") and carries it a bit ... Read More

I enjoy Ed Halliwell's posts on Buddhism at The Guardian's Comment Is Free blog. But his most recent post is a tad off, I think. Halliwell notes that crusading atheists ... Read More

Shunryu Suzuki Roshi said, It is a kind of mystery that for people who have no experience of enlightenment, enlightenment is something wonderful. But if they attain it, it is nothing. ... Read More

Michael Gerson wrote a column this week on the decline of religious affiliation in America. A number of recent studies have shown that an increasing number of Americans are either ... Read More

In Indonesia, one of the Buddha's newer disciples observes Buddha Day by giving alms to a monk. Today is Vesak Puja for Theravada Buddhists and Buddha's Birthday for many Mahayana ... Read More

Last March I wrote a post called "Life in Labrang Monastery" about one of the great monasteries of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism. Among other items, the post discussed ... Read More

The terrible humanitarian crisis in the Swat Valley of Pakistan continues, as tens of thousands of people, possibly hundreds of thousands, flee violence to save themselves. Harry Underwood of The ... Read More

There's an article on abortion and karmic consequences at Huffington Post that I think needs some response, and unfortunately I won't get to that response today. The author, Matthew Weiner, ... Read More

This is an update on the last post, in which I criticize Andrew Sullivan for linking to a really wrongheaded article on Buddhism on his Atlantic blog. The post "provoked ... Read More

What with everything else going on in the world, I have no idea why Andrew Sullivan took time out to slam Buddhism. And he does it by citing a six-year-old ... Read More

As part of their training, Tendai monks in Japan complete 100-day kaihogyos. This means they run or walk briskly 25 miles a day for 100 consecutive days, up and around ... Read More

Douglas Todd of the Vancouver Sun (see also "We're Cool!") has another interesting commentary, this time on Buddhism and psychiatry. He notes that for the past several years all manner ... Read More