Buddhism

Ahmadinejad and Shahroodi Wanted: Freedom from religion

The theocratic repression in Iran is a reminder that there can be no freedom without secular government
  • Movies not to miss: "Unmistaken Child"

    A heartbroken monk looks for his lost master among 2-year-olds. Plus: Bisexuality, rediscovered yet again!
  • Eat your saints, purge your demons

    Why do people worship religious relics, and why is the number of trainee exorcists rising? Two new books suggest that our desire to believe in magical forces remains irresistible.
  • Meditation for murderers

    Buddhism without parole, in Alabama's darkest prison. Plus: Hot housewife seeks Asian stud, physics geek goes nutzoid and more.
  • Tibetan Orientalism

    Chinese pop star Sa Dingding has big plans for taking her blend of Tibetan Buddhism and world music international. Is now the right time?
  • Seduced by the Dalai Lama

    He may be a global icon of goodness, as Pico Iyer's biography reminds us. But is the Dalai Lama the political leader Tibet needs?
  • Dive-bar dharma

    To attract a new generation of Buddhists, two teachers are replacing the old hippie trappings with a tattooed aesthetic and references to Jay-Z.
  • Fragments of the Tocharian

    How did Buddha get from India to China? And what does a 97-year-old translator in Beijing have to do with it?
  • The barefoot art of war

    Thousands of Buddhist monks have hit the streets in Myanmar, deploying some shrewd political jujitsu against the corrupt, iron-fisted junta.
  • If you meet the Buddha in Salon

    The author and Buddhist responds to readers who called him anti-science and challenged his belief in reincarnation.
  • Buddha on the brain

    Ex-monk B. Alan Wallace explains what Buddhism can teach Western scientists, why reincarnation should be taken seriously and what it's like to study meditation with the Dalai Lama.
  • I'm a Buddhist in Big Pharma -- is that cool?

    How can I reconcile my beliefs with the necessities of research?
  • The disbeliever

    Sam Harris, author of "The End of Faith," on why religious moderates are worse than fundamentalists, 9/11 led us into a deranged holy war, and believers should be treated like alien-abduction kooks.
  • Breaths, not bombs

    Can a Zen Buddhist sage teach us something about the art of counterterrorism?
  • A full moon over Sri Lanka

    Inside Buddhist and Muslim temples, I discover how Sri Lankans are coping spiritually with the disaster. Nothing has been more moving during my entire trip.
  • From street thug to dharma punk

    Noah Levine rejected the spiritual path of his father, Stephen, and then, many tattoos later, joined him.
  • My past life as a dog

    For 12 years, Buddhist nun Tenzin Palmo meditated alone in a tiny cave in Tibet. Now she wants to elevate the status of other Buddhist women, believed to be reincarnated as females as punishment for past mistakes.
  • "Zig Zag Zen," by Allan Hunt Badiner, ed.

    A book about Buddhism and psychedelics asks whether it's best, when seeking higher consciousness, to take the stairs or the elevator.
  • "Buddha" by Karen Armstrong

    A former Catholic nun's short biography of the Buddha explains the elusive Eastern sage in terms that even drama-hungry Westerners can understand.
  • Save the children, or the Buddhas get it

    Afghanistan's roving ambassador tells a Southern California student association why he was ready to "blow a statue" himself.
  • Boomer Buddhism

    American converts are taking a 2,500-year-old faith and making it over in their own image -- self-absorbed.
  • Who's afraid of Falun Gong?

    Journalist Danny Schechter says the peculiar spiritual movement isn't a cult, but explains why China is cracking down on it so forcefully.
  • The Dalai Lama

    China hates him, the West wants to hug him. The spiritual leader of Tibet isn't just the bodhisattva of compassion -- he's one heck of a marketer.
  • Faith in America

    What does religion mean now? Is it a mystical experience, a collection of social protocols or just common sense?
  • Egomania!

    Lucianne Goldberg's is monumental; Judge Jerry's is bigger than Judge Judy's; Rick Rockwell's is black-and-blue; but Muhammad Ali's is definitely the greatest of all time.
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