Art

We usually think of impermanence as bad news, and often it is! But if we step back a bit we can see how impermanence can also provide us with resilience and even joy if we understand it wisely.

Have we misunderstood the Buddha's earth-touching gesture? I'll look at how the narratives surrounding the image hold a different way to see it, and how it all fits into the early, contested history of Buddhist iconography.

One of the most well-known images of the Buddha shows him touching the earth at the time of his enlightenment. Yet no mention is made of such a gesture in the early texts. Where, when, and why did it arise?

Buddhist art largely began in the south. That's the thesis of a show on now through mid-November, 2023 at the Metropolitan Museum in NY. I visited the show recently and will discuss some highlights of the exhibit as well as what they tell…

The the Buddha's image plays a complex role in Buddhist history. We will look at how Buddhism seems to have changed from a largely aniconic tradition into one that was considered by its religious rivals as the epitome of "idolatry".

Is it important or worthwhile to cultivate refined taste or connoisseurship in one's aesthetic preferences? This often seems to be one of the aims of formal education. We'll look at some Western thinking around the notion of refined…

What are some of the hallmarks of Buddhist art, and how has it developed over the years? These are big questions that we will only begin to tackle in this video. We'll look at Buddhist art with an emphasis on its origins, and finally ask…