March–April 2003, Volume 30
Life Is Larger Than Globalization
Reflections
How You Act Reveals Your Past, Present, and Future
by Nikkyo Niwano
The Virtue of Humility
by Nichiko Niwano
When we realize what a blessing our life is and the impulse to thanksgiving arises within us, we become able to accept everything that occurs around us as a blessing.
Interviews
Life Is Larger Than Globalization
An Interview with IARF President Eimert van Herwijnen
How God Is Present in Other Cultures
An Interview with Catholic Bishop Samuel Ruiz Garcia
The Vatican Promotes Knowledge of Islam
by Eva Ruth Palmieri
Fr. Justo Lacunzabalda, chairman of the Vatican’s Pontifical Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, speaks eloquently on the need to improve and foster dialogue between Christianity and Islam based upon mutual understanding and respect.
Essays
Buddhists Engaged in Social Development
by Phra Paisal Visalo
A small number of Theravada Buddhist monks in Thailand actively concern themselves with social and human development in their country. The author of this article, a socially engaged monk from northeastern Thailand, addressed Japanese Buddhists during a symposium entitled “Buddhism, NGOs, and Civil Society” in Tokyo in July 2002. This article is adapted from the translation of his speech.
Democracy and Monasticism
by George A. Sioris
Buddhist and Western monastic communities were governed by a set of rules that were both democratic and authoritarian at the same time. Here the delicate balance between these two seemingly opposing ideas is examined in the light of how well the system worked for the monastic orders East and West.
The Stories of the Lotus Sutra
One Great Cloud and Many Kinds of Plants
by Gene Reeves
Just as a cloud drops rain upon all plants, and the sun and moon shed light upon all things, so is the One Vehicle for all beings. We are all nourished by it and in turn can nourish others–and thus become like buddhas ourselves.
Buddhist Living
How Being Grateful Changed My Life
by Yukiko Hicks
A Japanese member of Rissho Kosei-kai now living in the United States addressed the twentieth anniversary meeting of the New York Branch on October 27, 2002. This is a slightly edited version of her talk, in which she described the strength her faith has given her.
Gotama Buddha (59)
The Great Earthquake
by Hajime Nakamura
As he neared the end of his existence, Sakyamuni Buddha sat beneath a tree in Capala and renounced the rest of his life, resolving to enter nirvana. When he did so, the earth trembled, shook, and quaked mightily; at the same time, his very renunciation lengthened his life span a little more.
Buddhist Sculpture
The Cosmic Buddha Seated in a Three-Dimensional Mandala
by Takeshi Kuno
In 823, Kukai, founder of the Shingon sect, was granted the temple Toji, where he established in the lecture hall a three-dimensional mandala by arranging twenty-one Buddhist sculptures. The central image is a fifteenth-century carving of the Cosmic Buddha, Vairocana.
