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Kabul, Afghanistan — Even as once-secure parts of Afghanistan succumb to criminality and the insurgency, and the Afghan financial system hovers on the brink of failure, there are small signs of hope here.

A spectacular Buddhist archaeological site is now being excavated by the Afghan government’s National Institute of Archaeology, near where Al Qaeda ran a training camp in the 1990s.

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What is Zen Buddhism

Zen in India

The history of Zen begins in India. In Buddha’s lifetime, yoga as a practice in the concentration of the spirit was widespread. It is in the nature of yoga to concentrate the spirit on one point: the achievement of serenity through seated meditation. In fact, the yoga methods of the day were limited at this time to restrictions on what was to be eaten, fasts, and certain vows such as the vow to remain standing on one leg for a prolonged period of time. Through such ascesis and a whole array of exercises, the yogi trained himself in indifference to external stimuli and in the control of the slightest movement of his own spirit.

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New Delhi, India — Much of the source material available on Cambodian Buddhism is in French. This is understandable, given that France was Cambodia’s colonial power. What is available in English is only scanty.

This book is an attempt to fill this gap. In a chronological order, it traces the development of Theravada Buddhism before the arrival of the French, and then the politicised Buddhism, which had its beginnings in the middle of the 19th century. That the author, Ian Harris, has made extensive research into the primary as well as secondary sources stands out clearly from the work.

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Arrival of Buddhist Scriptures
The history of Tibetan Buddhism can be traced back to the latter half of the 2nd century when Thothori Nyantsen was the king of Tibet. During his time, some Buddhist scriptures arrived in southern Tibet from India. The 3rd century saw the spread of scriptures in the northern part of Tibet. At this point of time, Buddhism was not a dominant religion in Tibet but was actually beginning to take shape. The tantric text were yet in the process of being written in India. Continue Reading »

Including Buddhist mythology: stories about Buddha and his previous lives (jatakas) and Buddhist art.

• Buddha’s Life
  • Siddharta’s conception and birth Continue Reading »

In the 500′s BC, during the later part of the Vedic period in India, the idea of reincarnation became very strong among Hindus. Most people believed that after you died, you would be reborn in another form, and then reborn again, and again, forever. But then people started to not like this idea. They didn’t want reincarnation to just go on and on forever. Wasn’t there any way to stop this; to get off the wheel of reincarnation and just be?

A young Indian prince named Siddhartha Gautama Buddha had an idea. He thought that you could get off the wheel of reincarnation if you were good and pure enough.

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