Conference Papers

Ven. Chao-hwei Shih[1] Translated by Doris L. W. Chang[2]  Introduction On Sep. 1st, 2011, Mr. Mangesh from Nagarjuna Training Institute (NTI) at Nagaloka, India, visited Buddhist Hongshi College and asked me about my views on ethical issues regarding monastic-lay community orders. Right away, I told him that both Buddhist monastic and lay practitioners should be equal. It will be better if all of us work as a team...

By Matteo Pistono When I first journeyed to Tibet in the late 1990s, I was on a pilgrimage in the foot­steps of a nineteenth-century Tibetan mystic named Tertön Sogyal. A horse-riding bandit turned meditation master, Tertön Sogyal eventually became the teacher of the XIII Dalai Lama, the predecessor to the current Dalai Lama. Such was the prevailing belief that Tertön Sogyal’s mantras and prayers could...

by John Stanley & David Loy It may seem impossible to imagine that a technologically advanced society could choose, in essence, to destroy itself, but that is what we are now in the process of doing. Elizabeth Kolbert, Field Notes from a Catastrophe Looking again and again at that which cannot be looked at, Unseeable reality is seen just as it is. ...

  The International Network of Engaged Buddhists will hold our bi-annual conference on “The Future of Buddhism, from Personal Awakening to Global Transformation” at Buddhagaya, India, the place where the Buddha was fully enlightened 2,600 years ago. The future of the teachings of the Buddha is at stake. The major task ahead is to make them appropriate for humankind and all sentient beings at least...

FUTURE of BUDDHISM:  from Personal Awakening to Global Transformation Hans van Willenswaard More or less the same day that Sulak Sivaraksa delivered his acceptance speech to receive the Niwano Peace Prize in Kyoto, Japan, the UN General Assembly adopted a unique resolution on happiness prepared by member state Bhutan. This historically significant parallel, rather than just a coincidence, challenges the world to “re-think” development. The...

Hozan Alan Senauke July 2011 Seeds of the future are planted in the present. The future is always arriving. In the dharma forest countless Buddhist traditions are alive today in Asia and the West, and I expect they will continue to evolve and flower long into the future. Like all conditioned things traditions change, but buddhadharma cannot be harmed or impeded. Buddhadharma is not going anywhere....

Joan Halifax, PhD Upaya Institute and Zen Center, Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive.(1.)  His Holiness the Dalai Lama I’m up late admitting patients to the inpatient hospice unit. Just when I think I’m too old for these late nights without sleep, a person in all their rawness, vulnerability and pain lays before me and as...

Jonathan Watts Jodo Shu Research Institute, Tokyo  This paper is an excerpt from the Introduction to The Vihara of Compassion: Buddhist Care for the Dying and Bereaved, which will be published in late 2012 by Wisdom Publications (USA). It brings together 5 years of research on Buddhist initiatives in hospice care, death and dying and Buddhist chaplaincy in East Asia, South East Asia, Europe, and the...

By Venetia Walkey   Understanding the nature of impermanence is vital to our understanding of the Buddha’s teachings. Everything that exists is constantly changing. Nothing exists independently. We cannot be certain of anything, apart from the knowledge that one day we will die. If we practice mindfulness of breathing in and breathing out we have a simple example to observe. When our body dies, there is no...

By John Stanley & David Loy "The entire cosmos is a cooperative. The sun, the moon, and the stars live together as a cooperative. The same is true for humans and animals, trees, and the Earth. When we realize that the world is a mutual, interdependent, cooperative enterprise -- then we can build a noble environment. If our lives are not based on this truth,...