Our relationship with our body, in general, is unhealthy since our view toward it tends to be not only flawed, but even negative in a way that can be harsh and unkind. Many organized religions have a reputation for being “anti-body.” In his book Walking Words, the Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano (1940–2015) understood this problem clearly and summarized it in a poem that pointed out these unnatural and unhealthy attitudes toward the body that are prevalent in both religious and secular society:The church says: the body is sin.Science says: the body is a machine.Advertising says: the body is business.The body says: I am a fiesta.

Orthodox Christianity, which became a distinct communion of churches following the schism between Constantinople and Rome in 1054, is the majority religion in regions such as Greece, Eastern Europe, and Russia (with important minorities in Iran and Turkey). In recent decades, following the expansion of interfaith dialogue between Buddhism, Catholicism, and Protestantism, there has been gradually increasing interest in a potential dialogue between Buddhism and this specific expression of the Christian faith that is not only geographically and historically closer to Buddhist regions, but also shares some important thematic echoes. One milestone publication on the topic is Romanian theologian Ernest Valea’s 2015 volume Buddhist-Christian Dialogue as Theological Exchange: An Orthodox Contribution to Comparative Theology, which presents a dialogue between the Mahayana vehicle and the Orthodox Church.

The Buddha’s First Noble Truth is hard to argue with no matter what your religious beliefs are. It states that life is full of suffering. It is certainly hard to escape the poverty, violence, war, starvation, health crises, and ecological disasters occurring in the world today. Everyone—the poor, the rich, the left, the right, the sick, and the healthy—faces some level of day-to-day stress and strain. Living is commonly understood to be a struggle, a battle that must be fought in a slow onward march toward old age and death.  

Mindfulness meditation has earned a big following in the West in recent years, thanks in large part to its therapeutic benefits. It is no surprise, therefore, that Robert Wright, a best-selling science journalist, would be drawn to this fascinating and occasionally contentious subject.

HONG KONG—The Civil Affairs Bureau of Taichung City in western Taiwan has launched a “Card of a Fulfilled Life” as part of an initiative to promote environmentally friendly funerals and to encourage funeral autonomy—enabling people to express funerary preferences that may differ from traditional expectations.

Imagine that you lived a few hundred or even a few thousand years ago. If you had told people then that there are going to be bad times for a while and that good times will follow, and the ups and downs will continue, it’s almost certain that your words would withstand the test of time and you might be remembered as a wise person who could predict the future of nations. This has to do with fact that almost every country in the world goes through ebbs and flows of well-being. Today, we are facing an unprecedented situation in which no one can predict the future of humanity at large. It’s not a great time for anyone who wants to be a wise man or woman giving predictions to dispel the public’s fear of the unknown. It seems that our brains have a bias against the unknown and constantly seek certainty. These neurological traits are very difficult to change. By comparison being a fortune teller or palm reader in the modern day would be a much easier job since their work only involves predicting the future for individuals.

On 1 November, Buddhistdoor Global caught up with Dilgo Khyentse Yangsi Rinpoche for a conversation about the authentic practice of Buddhism in today’s ever more complex world. Born on 30 June 1993 in Nepal, Rinpoche is the incarnation of the late Vajrayana master and Nyingma head Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche (1910–91). Educated in Bhutan and having all the empowerments that Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche received, he is intimately aware of the challenges facing Buddhism in today’s times. He is a deeply compassionate and perceptive teacher committed to the future of Buddhism.

Maia Duerr has worked as a qualitative researcher, an anthropologist, a writer, and an editor. She served as the research director of the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society (CMIND) from 2002–04 and as the executive director of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship from 2004–07. In 2010, she wrote an introduction to engaged Buddhism for the PBS movie The Buddha, and launched a blog called the Liberated Life Project that same year. This past December she released the book, Work that Matters: Create a Livelihood That Reflects Your Core Intention (Parallax Press, 2017). This month we interviewed Maia about her life and her new book.

Our little blue planet has commenced a new orbit around our grand and ancient star. We have 365 new days to make 2018 a meaningful year that brings joy, comfort, and insight to as many people around us as possible. It’s perhaps best to approach New Year resolutions in this spirit: rather than worrying necessarily about specific targets, we should look at how we can make peace with habit patterns and neuroses that hinder us from “being well and being good.” Our resolutions should help us embody good examples, whether at the individual or collective level.

From as early as the Frankfurt School, dialectic philosopher Herbert Marcuse (1898–1979) pondered what role technology would play in human emancipation. Conversely, because it was developed within a certain ideological structure and culture, technology itself could be an oppressive form of ideology that contributes to domination more than freedom. Marcuse specifically identified the American culture of his age as one of domination, violence, and consumption as people’s compensation for alienation as cogs in the capitalist machine.