Walking the Middle Way in Bagan

Uncovering Myanmar’s unique brand of Buddhism With almost 90 percent of
the population identifying as Buddhist, Myanmar is one of the most devoutly Buddhist countries in the world. The “Land of Pagodas” has more than 56,000 monasteries, home to up to half a million monks and 50,000 nuns to go with an uncountable number of pagodas … Read more

Middle Way

A Young Man Forgoes Wealth to Become a Monk Ha Van Thanh is set to become a monk in a month. There is still hair on his head, but not much. He shaved it off with a trimmer recently. He still goes by his birth name these days, but soon he will be given a … Read more

In la la land

The word ‘Shangri -la ’ conjures up visions of a magical realm tucked away on some distant, exotic mountain, an idyllic place equally difficult to find as it is to leave. Shangri-la was first introduced to our imagination by James Hilton in his 1933 novel Lost Horizon, a story centered on a mythical monastery high in … Read more