Miya Ando’s painting Yugen Gold Blue is a Zen koan of sorts. The nocturnal seascape, lit by the hazy glow of a rising moon, is at once a portrait
By now, many of us will have seen the familiar Christmas images in advertisements, on billboards, and behind the glass windows of shops. The scenes
From the top of a mountain we can see far and wide. We can see the land and the sky. Standing at the meeting point
To many practitioners of the Mahayana schools of Buddhism of East Asia and the esoteric traditions of the Himalayas and Japan, bodhisattvas, or “enlightenment beings,”
The History Boys (2006), a masterful film adaptation of playwright Alan Bennett’s drama of the same name, has a thoughtful and melancholy ending. The film deploys
My first meditation retreat was in 2004, in Ladakh, northern India, at the far western end of the Himalayas. Our meditation hall was an army
One of the most widely practiced of all Japanese art forms is ikebana, or flower arrangement. The word “ikebana” literally means “living flowers,” suggesting that while
Throughout the United States this year, Americans have taken to the streets to protest police violence against unarmed black citizens. Some of these demonstrations have
In 2006, Taiwanese-American artist Echo Lew (b.1951) was visiting Shanghai from his home near Los Angeles. One night, he found himself standing on a street
The exploration of the relationship between creative writing—especially poetry—and Dharma practice carries with it a multitude of questions. Can such writing be considered a part of
Victoria Montrose (“Tori” to her friends, a fittingly Japanese epithet) has been immersed in Japanese culture since childhood. Victoria was four when her American father
When she first walked into the 100-year-old Japanese garden, abandoned and overgrown, hidden behind an old house in Los Angeles, American author and Zen teacher
