Word: buddhisme
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
This has been going on since the 6th century, with the result that few of the accumulated images that spell "typical Japan" to a foreigner were invented by the Japanese themselves. Zen Buddhism was an import, and pagodas and brush calligraphy and bonsai trees (originally known to the Chinese as penjing). Likewise the microchip and the small, inexpensive car. Tempura, the name of one of the Japanese dishes most popular among foreigners, is a mangled Latin word that refers to the Portuguese Catholic propensity to eat fish on Fridays as penance, as distinct from the Japanese practice of eating...
...Chinese import like Buddhism, and the histories of both are twined inextricably: together they afford the prime example of how the Japanese throughout their history have taken foreign forms and metabolized them into wholly Japataken foreign forms and metabolized them into wholly Japanese practices. In time, tea came to define the difference between the Chinese and Japanese ideals of exalted beauty: the former based on symmetry and minute gradations of fixed etiquette, the latter on irregularity and "natural" grace. Sen No Rikyu (1521-91), greatest of the tea masters, established chanoyu as a kind of psychic enclave in which warlord...
...Vientiane (pop. 115,000), the organs of state power are evident enough, but their presence seems muted by crenellated temple roofs and reinvigorated marketplaces. In contrast to the oppressive presence of Communism in Hanoi, few propaganda banners festoon the streets, and soldiers in battle dress are rarely encountered. Buddhism flourishes: Marxist reservations notwithstanding, men still don the saffron robes of priesthood for a time and rise before dawn to walk through the morning mist in search of alms. Well-off Laotians may apply for exit visas and generally receive them. Items such as enamel spray paint, light bulbs and vitamins...
...known of the people who built and used it, or of the reasons it was permanently abandoned in 1006 after an earthquake and the eruption of the nearby Merapi volcano. Covered with some two miles of bas-reliefs that depict the life of Buddha and the sacred stories of Buddhism, Borobudur is a source of immense national pride to Indonesia, even though Islam is now the religion of more than 95% of its people...
...woman with long, lustrous dark hair, Foster claims to be three-quarters Cherokee (she also says she is 27; Maryland lists her as 38). The walls of her cell are decorated with bold, dark drawings of Indian faces. Books on Indian lore are piled together with other texts on Buddhism, martial arts and the occult. She is allowed half an hour out of her cell each morning for a shower and an hour of exercise later in the day, but she has felt increasingly estranged from other inmates and no longer takes a recreation period. She receives no visitors because...