Category Archives: Blog

When I traveled to Mongolia to speak at the National University of Mongolia, one of my Mongolian friends took me to Gandantegchinlen Monastery–a Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Ulaanbaatar. Together, we spent an entire morning listening to the meditative chanting of the monks, and admiring the beautiful Buddhist art displayed in temples on the monastery grounds.

The Tibetan name of this restored monastery is “Great Place of Complete Joy.” It is one of the few Buddhist monasteries in Mongolia that survived the mass destruction of religious buildings in the communist period. At a time when monasteries, monks, and religious art were being ruthlessly purged, this monastery served as a “show monastery” for visiting foreign dignitaries.

Inside the monastery is a towering 26.5-meter-high gilded copper statue of Avalokitesvara, and next to the monastery is the Öndör Gegeen Zanabazar Buddhist University–established in 1970. You can view the Gandantegchinlen Monastery from on high in the beginning of the video below…

This week in Beirut, my students and I have been looking at the influence of Manicheism on St. Augustine, who was a Manichean for ten years before converting to Christianity. The Prophet Mani regarded his doctrine as the completion of the preceding religions of Christianity, Zoroastrianism, and Buddhism, and practice of his religion stretched from North Africa to East Asia. Manichean texts from Central Asia depict Jesus, Zarathustra, and Buddha as revered carriers of truth, and contain Buddhist doctrinal terminology and numeorus Persian technical terms. One Manichean Parthian text contains this fragment: “For in this cycle of birth and death, there is nothing more beautiful than merit and good deeds.” Eventually, anti-Manichaen campaigns on the Silk Road led to the conversion of many Manichean temples into Buddhist temples.

As a passionate fan of puppets, I was delighted when I found puppets popping up all over Ulaanbaatar. From the Mongolian Puppet Theatre to the Mongolian Theatre Museum, puppetry (and its history) is alive and well in Mongolia…

When I was visiting Buddhist nuns in Mongolia, I noticed these wise words hanging on the wall…

I enjoyed listening to live music in Mongolia, when I was in Ulaanbaatar to speak on archaeology, religion, and cultural heritage at the National University of Mongolia…

Today in Lebanon, a number of student clubs at the American University of Beirut gathered together on campus to promote women’s rights and awareness of women’s issues in Lebanon…

While shopping in Ulaanbaatar, I had the opportunity to try on some Mongolian masks and put my masked performance training to the test…

If you travel to Mongolia, take a trip to Erdene Zuu Monastery and visit the marvelous stone turtles resting near the monastery’s mighty walls…

Forget your troubles and dance!
Forget your sorrows and dance!
Forget your sickness and dance!
Forget your weakness and dance!

Every week, my Iranian friends and I translate verses of Persian poetry by Rumi into English. The verses we picked this week reminded me of my time visiting the house in Afghanistan where many Afghans believe Rumi’s family once lived (though Tajiks and others claim he was from Wakhsh). The spirited Afghan children I found crawling in and out of these “Rumi” ruins enthusiastically told me all about Rumi’s life–and even quoted some of his poems to me in Persian…

I was ​​ascetic and pious​.​
​Y​ou made me a writer of ​lyrics​.
Since then, I have had a wine cup in ​my ​hand,
and become full of delight and passion.
I used to always be on my prayer rug, full of virtue.
But your love ​has ​made me crazy and distraught​.​
I ​have ​bec​o​me the play of children in the alley…

— Rumi

A colleague and good friend of mine will be presenting an Islamic perspective on yoga psychology at this exciting yoga conference in California…