Category Archives: SEB News

Arun, author of the blog Angry Asian Buddhist, sent out this announcement about what looks to be a great new journal, coming out in June 2010. The cover sure is gorgeous! Here’s the info:

Some friends and I are starting up a new Buddhist journal called Prapañca (www.prapancajournal.com), a publication aimed at reflecting the diversity and creative energy of the Buddhist community. We’re particularly interested in promoting the work of literary and visual artists. Diversity is important to us, and we want to include and spotlight the work of People of Color and/or female artists—groups often underrepresented in American Buddhist publications.

Submissions don’t need to be by Buddhists or based on explicitly Buddhist material—our issues follow general themes, for example our first issue will be on “imperfection.” Future issues touch on the Four Protections and anatta (“selflessness”). We don’t hold rigid submissions expectations—please feel free to be creative with these topics!

Please let me know if you, your friends & family and other people in your network are interested in having your work displayed in Prapañca. You can visit our submissions page for more information: http://www.prapancajournal.com/submissions.php

I was just surfing the web and looking for socially engaged Buddhist events for a list I will post soon here, and I came across this fascinating piece of news. Sarvodaya, the Sri Lankan-based organization founded by Dr. A.T. Ariyaratne, organized and just finished a 12-day mass meditation event held in Colombo, with over 2,000 people participating. The purpose of the meditation was to “[harness] the spiritual energy of individuals through out the country to ensure a peaceful presidential election 2010 and to contribute to creating a peaceful society.”

There’s another story about the event here, from Asian News service.

In the past, Dr. Ariyaratne, surely one of the exemplars of socially engaged Buddhism, has led peace meditations with hundreds of thousands of people, embodying his belief that it is necessary for peaceworkers to themselves awaken, spiritually, and to transcend religious and ethnic differences.

If you’re a news junkie, you can do no better than bookmarking Rev. Danny Fisher’s Buddhism Beat column on the Shambhala Sun website. Danny filters through all the Buddhist-related news worldwide so that you (and I) don’t have to.

A gander at this week’s issue will get you updated on the news from:

• Bhutan (the government recently convened a workshop on Gross National Happiness)
• Burma (Aung San Suu Kyi will meet with three leaders from the National League for Democracy party this week)
• The Netherlands (the launch of the Dutch Buddhist Broadcast Foundation, “the first independent Buddhist broadcasting foundation in the West to produce and broadcast Buddhist programs within a country’s Public Broadcasting Foundation System.”)

and that’s just a few of the things you’ll learn… Thanks for keeping us updated, Danny!