Showing results for "Land" in Buddhism

Steve Hobson went blind about eight years ago. In adapting to his new life he searched for a retreat, somewhere quiet and peaceful that would allow him to relax. He attended a Sesshin at the Stonewater Zen Sangha. Stonewater Zen Sangha is a Zen Buddhist group based in Liverpool. Steve's book explains his life as a blind person, and what happens during a Zen Buddhist retreat. It is a warm, well-written, account that will inspire the listener.

Theravada, Tibetan and Zen may be the most well-known forms of Buddhism in the West, but in many parts of the East it is the Pure Land schools which dominate. Though their roots are clearly embedded in the initial teachings of the historical figure of Shakyamuni, the richly devotional nature of Pure Land Buddhism lends a unique character to its approach and practice.

My budding career as a literary scholar was suddenly hijacked by a singular seemingly random event. It was 1976 when I tiptoed into a tiny Buddhist shrine room in a farmhouse nestled into the Black Mountains of Wales and there beheld a Tibetan master, the 16th Karmapa. That glimpse into the enlightened mind became embedded like a seed and grew into a quest over the next decades to find the key places on our planet called the Hidden Lands. Why did it take decades to get there? What made the right ingredients emerge to penetrate this sacred sanctuary? And who hid it and why?