‘Symbols; institutional, religious, commercial, are all around us. We respond to them based upon our experiences with the entity that the symbol represents, as well as the visual message conveyed by the graphics and an understood meaning. When an image which has a...
‘Mid-February I had the opportunity to participate in the ‘Hizmet International Conference: Responses to Contemporary Challenges’ held in Long Beach, California. What is Hizmet, what was the conference about and what is Hizmet’s relationship to Tendai Buddhist...
‘May you live in interesting times’, is a Chinese curse that might describe the world we live in. More so for people who are plugged into the many streams of information, disinformation and misinformation that abound in our world. How I long for what the Japanese...
In the morning before breakfast Shumon and I conduct a daily gongyo. Before starting the service we sit in front of the Butsudan (family Buddhist altar), that is located to the left of the shumidan (the front altar with the main Buddha image) and offer our prayers. It...
The eighth of December is the observance of Śakyamuni Buddha’s enlightenment, Shaka-Jōdō-e in Tendai. An important aspect of that occasion is the teaching of the Middle Way (Madyamā-pratipad), a path of moderation of away from extremes. Siddhārtha Gautama was a...
