Photo credit: John Francis

From Cosmopolitan

I know youre feeling some type of way about going back to school soon. Dont lieyou clicked on this story for a reason. Maybe its your love of highlighters (same) or just seeing your friends on the reg. Or maybe its because you know that back-to-school szn 2020 is going to be weird.

Regardless, if youre here because youre looking for a quote to write in your planner, caption a gram, or create some fun DIY art to deal with those feels, we got you. (Even if youre stuck at home for another semester instead of on campus with your Twin XL sheets.)

Here, we gathered more than 30 (!!!) quotes to turn up your school spirit again. Your 6-hour study sessions, 20-page papers, and finals week are no match for this positivity boost to go alongside your 3,210,328th cup of coffee.

School is a building which has four walls with tomorrow inside. Lon Watters

Education is the key to unlocking the world, a passport to freedom. Oprah Winfrey

You learn something every day if you pay attention. Ray LeBlond

Let us remember: One book, one pen, one child, and one teacher can change the world. Malala Yousafzai

The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next. Abraham Lincoln

Learning is never done without errors and defeat. Vladimir Lenin

The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be ignited. Plutarch

He who asks a question is a fool for five minutes; he who does not ask a question remains a fool forever. Chinese proverb

Powers not given to you. You have to take it. Beyonc Knowles Carter

A good education is a foundation for a better future. Elizabeth Warren

You dont have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great. Zig Ziglar

Youve got to get up every morning with determination if youre going to go to bed with satisfaction. George Lorimer

Im not going to school just for the academics. I wanted to share ideas, to be around people who are passionate about learning. Emma Watson

The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain. Dolly Parton

Everything is a learning process: Any time you fall over, its just teaching you to stand up the next time.Joel Edgerton

The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows. Sydney J. Harris

If you dont go after what you want, youll never have it. If you dont ask, the answer is always no. If you dont step forward, youre always in the same place. Nora Roberts

The only difference between success and failure is the ability to take action. Alexander Graham Bell

Story continues

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. Eleanor Roosevelt

When we empower girls hungry for education, we cultivate women who are emboldened to effect change within their communities and globally. Meghan Markle

Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better. Maya Angelou

Knowledge will bring you the opportunity to make a difference. Claire Fagin

Believe you can and youre halfway there. Theodore Roosevelt

Education is not just about going to school and getting a degree. Its about widening your knowledge and absorbing the truth about life. Shakuntala Devi

Dont try so hard to fit in and certainly dont try so hard to be differentjust try hard to be you. Zendaya

The expert at anything was once a beginner. Helen Hayes

Youre perfect when youre comfortable being yourself. Ansel Elgort

It always seems impossible until its done. Nelson Mandela

Nothing is impossible. The word itself says, Im possible. Audrey Hepburn

If people did not do silly things, nothing intelligent would ever get done. Ludwig Wittgenstein

Courage doesnt always roar. Sometimes, courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, I will try again tomorrow. Mary Anne Radmache

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TOKYO (AP) Buddhism suffers from a gloomy image in Japan. It is so closely linked to death funerals, graves and memorial rituals in which priests chant sutras based on Chinese rendering of Sanskrit texts that no one else understands that people refer to it as funeral Buddhism.

The powerful forces of secularization and population decline have caused the religion to steadily wane in Japanese society, with disinterest in Buddhism and faith in general particularly pronounced among the young.

Buddhist leaders say a third of the countrys 75,000 temples are barely functioning, with rural flight hurting the traditional danka system of financial support by parish households, to the extent that some country temples have closed and priests are taking second jobs.

Meanwhile, intensifying competition from discount funeral businesses and nonreligious cemeteries has cut into income from the death rituals and grave plots.

But a younger generation of priests is working to reverse the faiths downward spiral, innovating to try to make Buddhism more appealing and relevant to daily life and the modern world.

We need more priests to be aware of the needs of people around them and how to maintain the temple not as a business but based on Buddhist teachings, said Yoshiharu Tomatsu, secretary-general of the Japan Buddhist Federation, an umbrella group overseeing the countrys 58 sects. Otherwise, we have no reason to exist in this society.

Since most people dont have much opportunity to interact with Buddhist priests, 43-year-old Yoshinobu Fujioka spends evenings in downtown Tokyo at his Vowz Bar, a play on bouzu, Japanese for monk.

The watering hole typically sees 100 customers crammed into two small second-floor rooms on weekend nights or at least it did until the coronavirus pandemic hit. A Buddhist altar sits in the corner while jazz music plays in the background.

Unlike Buddhist priests elsewhere, those in Japan can marry, drink alcohol and eat meat, thanks to an 1872 imperial edict. Sharing cocktails in a cozy atmosphere encourages people to open up about their struggles, Fujioka said.

Twice a night he spends 15 minutes leading customers in chanting sutras, followed by a short talk or story. One evening in March, amid the growing pandemic, he talked about non-financial ways of giving alms, such as looking kindly on people, smiling and paying attention to those in need.

Lots of young people come and listen earnestly, said Fujioka, who also performs with a band in live clubs. Buddhism gives wisdom for living. Everyone is starving for truth. Hearts are dry. ... If we offer that to people, they will soak it up.

Haruka Umeyama, a 30-year-old tour guide, described herself as a typically religiously confused Japanese who didnt know much about Buddhism but felt at home at Vowz.

I came here and its great, she said. They make the words of Buddha easy to understand. And for some reason, even though I wasnt brought up religious at all, some of the things they say here make sense.

Kanho Yakushiji, a 41-year-old Zen Buddhist priest from the southern island of Shikoku, grew up loving music and formed a band in his 20s because he didnt want to inherit his fathers temple, as is typical in Japan. Music was kind of an escape for me, he said.

But he gradually began exploring his Zen roots, which emphasize meditation and discipline, and realized he needed to confront his fears about becoming a priest. At 30 he entered a two-year training regimen at a Kyoto temple that included grueling cross-legged meditation sessions lasting for hours.

Yakushiji emerged convinced he wanted to incorporate music into his ministry. Today hes recorded three solo albums and has toured Japan, China and Taiwan, playing his guitar in his priestly vestments, his head shaved.

His early songs were pop or folk tunes about family, friends and his hometown. Most didnt contain explicit references to faith but were more subtle: Treasuring the important things in life and Buddhist teachings are really one and the same, he said.

Lately Yakushiji has been experimenting with a different and distinctly Buddhist sound: harmonized sutras chanted to dreamy guitar chords. His recent arrangement, Heart Sutra, has garnered 2.8 million views on YouTube.

Buddhism has done little to spread, Yakushiji said. But now young priests are reaching out in a lot of different ways, so I think things are changing.

Like the other priests interviewed for this story, 37-year-old Naoyuki Ogi of southern Yamaguchi prefecture said he spreads Buddhist teachings because they offer practical help in daily life and ultimately a roadmap to nirvana, or enlightenment.

Among such core tenets are the importance of self-reflection and self-improvement, as well as awareness that all living things are connected. Another is the idea that ones ancestors protect and help the living and can be prayed to or even worshipped.

Ogi goes on TV shows to promote those and other teachings, and also works at the Society for the Promotion of Buddhism, which distributes copies of The Teaching of Buddha in hotel rooms.

My primary purpose is not to convert people to Buddhism or expand my temples members, said Ogi, whose temple danka has shrunk to 110 families from 150 about 20 years ago. My main goal is, how do I introduce Buddhist teachings to people? Because they are so useful.

Unlike Christianity and Islam, mainstream Buddhist groups in Japan generally dont seek converts, although some offshoots are zealous about proselytizing.

Religion is a flexible concept anyway for most Japanese, who often mix Buddhism with Shinto, the indigenous worship of spirits in nature, or even Christianity. Many people dedicate their children at the local Shinto shrine, tie the knot in Christian weddings and hold Buddhist funerals, without considering any of that contradictory.

That makes it hard to pin down religious affiliation. Government data based on tallies from temples and shrines shows Japan is roughly split between followers of Buddhism and Shinto, with some people counted in both camps. But when Japanese were asked to pick one religion they believed in, in a 2018 survey by the International Social Survey Program, 31 percent of respondents said Buddhism, 3 percent Shinto, 1 percent Christianity and 62 percent no religion at all.

For Ogi, creed doesnt matter when it comes to his ministry.

Even if you are a Christian, and you like Buddhist teachings, please use them, he said. No problem.

Tsuyuno Maruko, a 33-year-old priest in the Tendai sect, found her niche in the often humorous storytelling tradition called rakugo. In one story she likens various Buddhist hotoke, or godlike figures, to shopkeepers on a street, noting how each has a store serving different needs.

Maruko is among those abandoning the danka system. She's building a new temple in the southwestern Hyogo prefecture modeled on a Christian church and supported by visitors contributions and her own storytelling performances.

I think many Japanese view religion as something suspicious or a bit dangerous, she said. We need to communicate that faith is part of everyday life, just like eating our meals.

Maruko, whose husband is Christian, said many priests are either complacent or too inwardly focused on whether their temples will survive.

That kind of preoccupation with ones own livelihood seems to have lost sight of the essence of religion, she said.

That was going to be the gist of her message to fellow priests at an April seminar on addressing the crisis facing Buddhism, but it was postponed due to the pandemic. She still plans to drive home the point that you should not be working for yourself but for others.

Ittetsu Nemoto, 48, had no interest in religion as a youth. By his own account, he partied hard, danced all night and was kind of a delinquent.

But he practiced Buddhist meditation as part of his karate training, believing it helped him discern opponents moves. After a motorcycle accident sent him to the hospital, Nemoto began questioning his life, felt empty and decided to become a Zen priest.

Around that time, about 15 years ago, Japan saw a surge of suicidal people meeting online and then taking their lives in small groups, often through carbon monoxide poisoning in sealed vehicles. Nemoto, who had lost an uncle and two former classmates to suicide, began seeking them out through the internet and going to talk with them.

After sharing their stories, they would become friends and give up their suicide plans, he said. He created a web-based support group to keep in touch with them.

By the time Nemoto became chief priest of a small temple in central Gifu prefecture, he had a reputation as a suicide counselor. Over the next several years, he counseled thousands of people by phone, in person and in small groups.

He developed a workshop, depicted in the 2017 documentary The Departure, with mock funerals that force participants to confront their own death. In one activity, people are asked to write down things they hold dear, helping them see what they would be giving up.

Nemoto farms to help support his family. And while he doesnt want his 700-year-old temple to close, he is a staunch believer in reorienting ministry, perhaps around technology instead of the temple.

Outside needs are growing and temple needs are declining, Nemoto said. With just your smartphone, you can do almost anything. Buddhism needs to think about how it will function in that world.

In unsettling times of pandemic, loneliness and natural disasters, Nemoto sees growing spiritual hunger and believes Buddhism can help.

Buddhism saved me from a messed-up youth and helped me see things clearly, he said. If it cant be used to save people from death, it has no value.

___

Associated Press religion coverage receives support from the Lilly Endowment through the Religion News Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

___

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The National Museum of China is showcasing its collection of Buddhist art in Beijing. Artwork representing Tibetan Buddhism is a major part of the collection. Other highlights of the show include an iron sculpture from the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), a wooden sculpture of Guanyin head dating to the Song Dynasty (960-1279) and a colored wooden sculpture of Guanyin from the Song era.[Photo by Lin Qi/China Daily]

Sculptural representations in Buddhism convey people's supreme devotion. They are also testaments to the aesthetic evolution and maturity of workmanship over centuries, promoting their status to an important department at either museums or the art market today.

There are more than 30,000 items of Buddhist art in the National Museum of China's collection, ranging from sculptures to thangka paintings in different media such as gold, bronze, textile and paper, according to Tong Chunyan, a curator at the museum.

A selection of Buddhist sculptures had been on show at the museum since the museum opened in 2011. In December, Tong and her colleagues reorganized the artwork to give this permanent display a face-lift.

The new Ancient Chinese Buddhist Sculpture exhibition gathers 265 fine examples, navigating the evolution of Buddhist art in China.

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Confluence of ideas - Chinadaily.com.cn - Chinadaily USA

Here are some important facts to note about the future of the worlds Buddhist population.

Buddhists monks pray in Bangkok, Thailand. Image credit: PhaiApirom/Shutterstock.com

Unlike most other major religions of the world, Buddhism is projected to witness a decline in the number of followers in the coming decades. According to forecasts by Pew Research Center, the Buddhist population will initially rise from 488 million in 2010 to an estimated 511 million in 2030. However, it will thenceforth drop to around 486 million. In contrast, the global human population is projected to increase considerably during the same period. As a result, the share of Buddhists in the population is projected to decrease from 7% to 5% between 2010 and 2050. Here are some other important facts to note about the future of the worlds Buddhist population:

Buddhists are older than most of the major religious groups of the world except for Jews. The Buddhist population has a median age of 36 that is equal to that of the religiously unaffiliated population. Muslims, Hindus, and Christians have a median age of 24, 27, and 30 respectively. Thus, an older population of Buddhists means that there will be fewer people of child-bearing age to produce children to add to the population.

Buddhist women have a Total Fertility Rate (TFR) of only 1.6 children per woman which is way low than that of Muslims (2.9), Christians (2.6), and Hindus (2.3). It is also below the replacement level of 2.1 children per woman which is the number needed to maintain a stable population given other influencing factors remain the same. The TFR of Buddhists is also lower than that of the total population of the Asia-Pacific region (2.1) where most of the worlds Buddhists live.

Currently, around 99% of the worlds Buddhists reside in the Asia-Pacific region and this scenario is predicted to remain largely unchanged in 2050 as well. However, the absolute number of Buddhists as well as their percentage share in the regions total population are both projected to fall in the coming decades. Between 2010 and 2050, the share of Buddhists in the total population of Asia-Pacific is expected to decrease from 12% to 10%. Their numbers are projected to decline from an estimated 481 million to 476 million during the same period.

Interestingly, although the share of Buddhists in Asia-Pacifics population is forecasted to experience a drop, the share of the same in most other world regions will increase. The Buddhist population in the Middle East and North Africa is expected to grow by 137% that is higher than the regions overall population growth of 73%. In Europe and North America, the Buddhist population is also expected to grow at a faster rate than the regions total population growth rate.

There is little reliable data available to predict religious switching in the Buddhist population. North America is the only region where adequate data related to this aspect of the Buddhist population has been noted. If this data were to be taken into account, then the Buddhist population is expected to experience a net loss of numbers due to religious switching. However, as the Buddhist population in North America is very low, this trend does not provide a clear picture of religious switching in the global Buddhist population.

Oishimaya is an Indian native, currently residing in Kolkata. She has earned her Ph.D. degree and is presently engaged in full-time freelance writing and editing. She is an avid reader and travel enthusiast and is sensitively aware of her surroundings, both locally and globally. She loves mingling with people of eclectic cultures and also participates in activities concerning wildlife conservation.

This page was last updated on June 9, 2020.

By Oishimaya Sen Nag

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5 Facts To Know About The Future Of Buddhism - World Atlas

Emily Temple began writing her debut novel, The Lightness, with a desire to capture a particular placeKarm Chling: Shambhala Meditation Center in Barnet, Vermont. Raised as a Buddhist, Temple used to visit the center with her family every summer. It was my favorite place in the world, she told Observer. It felt magical. Yet writing about such a setting naturally led her to consider both the upsides and problems of Buddhism itself, and as her story sprouted from that initial inspiration, she found the location lending a more sinister tone (sorry, Karm Chling, she joked). On page 1, the writer sets her readers up for intrigue, death, and different versions of the same dark events. A suicide, they said. Nothing to suggest otherwise. If not a suicide, perhaps an accident. The steep cliff, the shifting rocks, Temple writes. But who died, and why? Temple guides her readers on a wildly suspenseful tour to finally answer these questions.

Who better to bring such serious drama to a tranquil place than four teenage girls? Temple creates a spirited young crew whose mystical and carnal desires generate haunting conflicts. Yet her narrator, Olivia, tells the story retrospectively, from a grown-ups point of view. As she obsessively pieces together the events of one summer, the book considers how we mythologize our youths. I wanted to make space for the way we process and reorganize our memories, and learn things about them as we get older, said Temple.

SEE ALSO:Naoise Dolans Debut, Exciting Times Ponders What We Learn From Language and Young Love

As the novel opens, 16-year-old Olivia arrives at a Buddhist center, which is hosting a summer program for troubled girls. Her beloved father, a devout Buddhist, has recently disappeared after his own visit to the center. While Olivia doesnt literally find him here, she discovers (hi, Freud) someone that reminds her of him: a sexy gardener with a top knot. Temple perfectly captures Olivias youthful lust and shyness as the character sees him for the first time: He stood and wiped the sweat away from his face, leaving a few traces of dirt in his beard, Olivia says. His shirt was open a little. His throat shone like a birds. I turned my face up to the sky to avoid staring. Was it bluer this far up, or was I imagining it? Thanks to a lucky chore designation, Olivia spends her summer helping Luke in the centers gardenthat most allegorical site of knowledge and threat.

Back in the bunks, Olivia swiftly makes three new friends (though rivals or co-conspirators might really be more appropriate here). Two, the tomboyish Janet and the lovely, willowy Laurel, sneak out of their bedroom every night. Olivia joins their nocturnal escapades to find Serena, a mysterious girl who stays in a tent and seems exempt from all camp rules. Serena has become preoccupied with ASMR, and the girls regularly attempt to tap into The Feeling, which Olivia describes as the shiver you get when someone massages your scalp with too light a touch and youre both enjoying it and desperately reaching out with your very skin and hair for more. Orgasmic, indeed! Yet what Serena really wants is to learn how to levitate, and for Luke to teach them. What could possibly go wrong?

In creating her coven of four, Temple said she started from archetypes, considering how we expect girls to be in pop culture, the roles that are available to them and that we give to them. Growing up, she felt that her choices were limited to being a Janet or a Laurel; she could either be rebellious or pleasing. Serena and Olivia, on the other hand, she considers hybrid characters with more power or flexibility. Through rich and surprising turns too good to spoil here, Janet becomes the most complex character by the end of the book. Thankfully, Temple relies on good plotting and character development, rather than any kind of pedantry, to rupture age-old stereotypes.

Creating four main characters also allowed Temple room to play. She shared that as she was writing, she experimented with different configurations and numbers of girls. One is the outsider. Thats the stance of the storyteller, she said. Two is too few. Thats just a best friendship youre intruding on. Three allows more of a dynamic: a ringleader and two secondary people to vie for space and status. Janet and Laurel were initially fused into a single character, whom Temple ultimately split to create a more electric group.

Temple herself is obsessed with stories of teenage girls. She told me her favorite movie is Heathers, and references to Buffy the Vampire Slayer speckle her novel. The intensity of emotion is fun to write about, Temple said. These characters have ridiculous, outsize ideas. Like: Were going to levitate. Only teenagers would decide, this is what were doing with our summer.

While it was a challenge for Temple to modulate how much her young characters would recognize or understand about their situations, she said the larger issue was external: She feared the industry would see that she was writing about teenage girls and assume her work was simply fluffy or best suited to a YA audience. Not that theres anything wrong with YA or fluffy books if theyre meant to be, but its the assumption that everyone brings when you say its a book about teenage girls. They think its for children, Temple said.

In contrast to the younger characters naivety and impulsivity, Olivia as an adult is scholarly and reflective. Instead of simply focusing on her own memories and any objects that could hold keys to her past, she fixates on psychology, religion, and language itself. Temple said she play-acted Olivia, doing all the research that her own character details. In fragments that break up the primary narrative, Olivia analyzes the term come to harm, summarizes the stories of St. Teresa of vila and the Buddha, investigates claims of levitation, and examines the rate of suicides for dentists.

Altogether, these diverse interjections reveal the older Olivias desperate desire to reclaim the past and preserve youth itself. Through her efforts, readers may recognize lost pieces of themselves in these characters turbulent, circumscribed lives. While Temples winning foursome must ultimately abandon their attempts at magic, the older Olivia clearly hasnt given up on transcendence. Her obsessive investigations and storytelling adopt an urgent, incantatory quality. Through her own aesthetic powers, Temple transports her reader, who cant help but be totally enchanted.

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Emily Temples The Lightness Spins a Mystery Around Troubled Teen Girls at Summer Camp - Observer

To say the world today is interconnected is a clich.

Never before have so many people been linked by their activities and consequences. But knowing how to think and act as a citizen of this small world is no easy matter.

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues and Americans worry about their health, loved ones and jobs it can be difficult to grasp that the crisis began after the coronavirus spread from animal to human on the other side of the planet.

Indian thinkers have been reflecting on interconnectedness for more than two millennia. I study Indian philosophy, and I believe this diverse tradition offers rich and timely insights about how people might better understand global interconnectedness today and act more wisely.

The Guide to the Awakened Way of Life by Shantideva, an eighth-century Buddhist monk, explores the arduous path from ignorance and suffering to spiritual liberation. For Shantideva and his fellow Mahayana Buddhists the predominant branch of Buddhism in north and central Asia this involves cultivating a wise understanding of the interdependence of things and a compassionate concern for all sentient beings.

The Hindu scripture the Bhagavad Gita, written between 400 B.C. and 200 A.D., is a classic of world literature. Through the story of the great warrior Arjuna and his friend and spiritual advisor Krishna, the text explores how ones actions in the world can become a path to spiritual freedom.

These texts, which depict the struggle to find freedom in the world, still resonate today.

In both texts, wisdom requires changing ones perception of the world and ones place in it. One must come to see the world as an interwoven tapestry of cause and effect, and see oneself as part of that tapestry and capable of spiritual freedom within it.

Buddhist thinkers like Shantideva learned to analyze complex things and recognize the network of causes and conditions that give rise to them. As he puts it: Everything is dependent on something else. Even that thing upon which each is dependent is not independent. The deepest form of wisdom is seeing that all phenomena are empty of any fixed, independent existence. The central message of the Guide is that the awakened life unites the wisdom of interdependence with active compassion for all those who suffer.

In the Bhagavad Gita, the natural world is understood to be a dynamic, evolving tapestry. Our human bodies, minds and actions are inextricable from the larger patterns of cause and effect in nature. Yet the most interesting theme of interconnectedness in the text is not causal but social and moral.

The text opens at the start of a battle between clans for the fate of a kingdom. Describing the scene to his blind king, the seer Sanjaya refers to the battlefield as a field of dharma, the spiritual and moral order that upholds the world. That is, a site of impending conflict, death and chaos is also one of relationship, duty and moral choice.

This is a central message of the Bhagavad Gita. The human world is inextricable from nature. But as a human world it is upheld by our relationships and responsibilities to one another.

The wise person must see his or her own roles as parent, child, worker, citizen in light of this field of relationships. Amid war, or the uncertainty and suffering of a pandemic, the central question is: What can I do to uphold right relationships with others?

Despite their views on the interconnectedness of the world, classical Indian thinkers were not starry-eyed romantics. They recognized that pain and loss are inescapable. They saw that human selfishness and ignorance are deeply woven in the fabric of life.

Shantideva describes the human situation like this: Hoping to escape suffering, it is to suffering that they run. In the desire for happiness, out of delusion, they cut down their own happiness, like an enemy.

For Indian philosophers, one must see the world clearly in order to act wisely in it. What, then, is the wise response to an interconnected world that inevitably includes the good and bad even pandemics?

For Shantideva, the awakened life is one of altruistic concern for all sentient beings. Spiritual freedom is waking up from the delusion of being a separate self in conflict with the world. Instead, the wise person realizes that all those happy in the world are so because of their desire for the happiness of others.

Ones own happiness arises from compassion for others. In an interconnected world, Shantideva asks: In the same way that hands and other limbs are loved because they form part of the body, why are embodied creatures not likewise loved because they form part of the universe?

In the Bhagavad Gita, the key to inner freedom in an uncertain and conflicted world is to change ones focus when acting. Krishna advises Arjuna:

It is in action alone that you have a claim, never at any time to the fruits of such action. Never let the fruits of action be your motive; never let your attachment be to inaction.

Action in the world is unavoidable. So rather than obsessing about the fruits of action for oneself, such as praise or blame, one should focus on the moral quality of the action.

The Bhagavad Gita highlights three aspects of action one should focus on. Is the action right? Does it serve the welfare of the world? Is it motivated by love? Krishnas message to Arjuna is that, even in battle, wise action consists in giving up selfishness and doing ones duty out of a sense of love and commitment to the common good.

In both texts, the world is understood as an interconnected web of cause and effect, happiness and suffering, life and death. In such a world, acting from ignorance or selfishness leads to suffering for oneself and others. Acting from wisdom and a love for the common good can lead to sense of inner freedom, even in difficult circumstances.

In our interconnected world, everyday actions can have far-reaching consequences. Moreover, as the Bhagavad Gita and the Guide remind us, we are deeply interwoven with one another and the natural world.

Wise freedom is to be found in the midst of this interconnectedness, by the grocery worker keeping people fed, the organizer serving his community, or the doctor treating her patients. Classical texts cannot teach us virology or epidemiology, but they can help us to see our deep interdependence and how to act more wisely and compassionately in light of it.

[Youre smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversations authors and editors. You can get our highlights each weekend.]

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SALT LAKE CITY In April, a Virginia pastor died from the coronavirus after telling his congregation to ignore physical distancing rules. Even after the story made national news, some religious leaders continued to defy public health orders and hold services, including a Louisiana pastor who told his church members, God gave you an immune system to kill that virus.

The next month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned the virus can spread easily at large religious gatherings, citing a case where two people with COVID-19 infected 35 others in March at church events in Arkansas.

Stories like these show the potential danger of holding large meetings while the coronavirus continues to claim U.S. lives and could cast religious leaders who insist on public worship in a negative light. But Harold G. Koenig, professor of psychiatry and director of the Center for Spirituality, Theology and Health at Duke University Medical Center, has some positive news for people of faith. He argues that religiousness may actually reduce a persons risk of contracting and dying from COVID-19.

According to Koenig, people who participate in organized religion or have their own spiritual practices are less likely to engage in unhealthy behaviors like smoking and drinking and more likely to have good habits like eating well and exercising. Not only can religious and spiritual involvement impact peoples physical health via their lifestyle choices, but it can also have a significant effect on their emotional well-being, said Koenig. All these factors combined can give a persons immune system a leg-up in fighting off viruses of any kind, he said.

Theres no question religion has an impact on both susceptibility to viral infections and recovery from it once youre infected, said Koenig, who was raised Catholic and now practices in a Protestant church. This just makes sense when you think about it.

However, Nicole Fisher, president of Health & Human Rights Strategies, a health care and human rights-focused advising firm in Washington, D.C., warns that religion and spirituality are not protective measures against COVID-19 on their own.

Viruses dont have any respect for religion, race, gender, politics or anything else. They look for a suitable host, and that can be anyone not taking proper precautions, said Fisher, who is spiritual but does not associate with a particular religion.

Still, there are clear links between beliefs, emotions and the body, Fisher said.

Prayer alone cannot cure you, Fisher said. But, with medical attention appropriate for how bad your illness is, prayer, meditation and faith can certainly bring a person peace of mind which can undoubtedly improve mental and emotional health, which is oftentimes linked to physical health.

More than a hundred studies have found that religious people are less likely to smoke, a habit which has a large impact on coronavirus outcomes.

According to Stanton Glantz, a professor of medicine and director of the University of California, San Franciscos Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education, research shows smoking nearly doubles a persons risk of COVID-19 disease progression, which could involve the need for critical care or death.

Glantz explained that the respiratory system has a very strong natural immune function, starting with microscopic hairs called cilia in the nose that trap viruses, bacteria and toxins. Deeper inside the lungs, cells called macrophages gobble up those things that can harm the body.

Smoking disables a lot of that immune function and makes you more susceptible to getting infected. Then if you get infected, the infections are worse, said Glantz, who added that vaping has a lot of the same effects as smoking.

According to Koenig, most research involving religion and health looks at Christianity, which promotes healthy behaviors by teaching that the body is a temple. But there are a number of studies that also examine Islam, Judaism, Buddhism and Hinduism, which all espouse similar beliefs about the sanctity of the body. Vegetarianism and yoga practices associated with Hinduism and mindfulness and breathing practices associated with Buddhism can also have direct health benefits, Koenig said.

A 2017 study by researchers from the Emory Rollins School of Public Health categorized subjects as Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, other religion or no religion. The study demonstrated a link between regular attendance at religious services with improved health and lowered mortality. They found that people who attended services frequently had a 40% lower hazard of mortality compared with those who never attended. Even those who attended services less frequently had a greater protection against mortality than those who didnt attend at all, but there were no differences by religious affiliation.

Stress increases susceptibility to viral infections, said Koenig, but individual spiritual practices and the support networks that come with organized religion can promote emotional well-being.

A big part of going to church is the social support in the community that one receives, said Carolyn Aldwin, director of the Center for Healthy Aging Research at Oregon State University. Social integration has a big effect on health outcomes.

Aldwin was raised Catholic and now attends an Episcopal church. To protect against the coronavirus, religious communities can support people who are older or immunocompromised by calling and checking in on them, or providing services like grocery shopping so they can avoid going out, Aldwin said.

The benefits of emotional self-regulation are also significant, said Aldwin, who has studied the effects of religion and spirituality on people with congestive heart failure.

When you have something like congestive heart failure, which is very hard to regulate and difficult to live with, being calmer and happier, and maybe feeling supported may allow you to experience less distress and even live longer, Aldwin said.

According to Koenig, positive emotions have the opposite effect on the immune system that negative emotions and stress have.

If you have meaning and purpose, if you have joy and satisfaction with life, if you experience a sense of peace, all of that has a positive impact on the immune system in the exact opposite way seen with chronic stress, anxiety and depression, Koenig said.

Cardiologist Dhanunjaya Lakkireddy, medical director of the Kansas City Heart Rhythm Institute, has set out to test the health impacts of one particular spiritual practice: prayer.

Lakkireddys COVID prayer study is set up as a double-blind randomized control trial, where coronavirus patients who voluntarily enroll on the website will be assigned into either a control group, or a group that will be prayed for by various volunteer religious groups representing the Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and Buddhist traditions. Lakkireddy and his colleagues plan to measure whether this remote intercessory prayer affects coronavirus outcomes like mortality, number of days in the ICU and days on a ventilator.

Lakkireddy was born into Hinduism and went to a Catholic school, but doesnt consider himself to belong to one religion in particular. He said the study required hardly any funding from the institute because he and others have all volunteered their time.

I was always intrigued by this idea of a supernatural divine power that can impact what we do as human beings on this earth, said Lakkireddy. As scientific and critical as I want to be in my thinking, the question about this divine force interested me.

But Aldwin is skeptical that any one aspect of spirituality, like prayer will prove to have a large impact on health with the coronavirus.

People who are sincerely religious have multiple things going for them, its the community which provides support, almost like a social safety net. Theres the better health behaviors, the calmness and acceptance in the face of adversity, said Aldwin. Its the whole package.

While some religious practices and belief systems may be correlated with healthy behaviors, the benefits could be instantly negated if people of faith are gathering to worship in large groups without the proper precautions, like social distancing and wearing masks. Multiple coronavirus outbreaks have been traced to religious groups, like Orthodox Jewish communities in New York or the Shincheonji religion in South Korea.

Religiousness, spirituality or faith, as in all facets of life and current health challenges, can be part of the problem or part of the solution, said Jeff Levin, University Professor of epidemiology and population health and director of the program on religion and population health at Baylor University. Where there are messages coming from the pulpit, or coming from religious leaders, telling people to ignore public health messages, I just think its incredibly foolish.

With coronavirus fatalities decreasing by the week across the country, U.S. churches are beginning to open back up. But most are trying to discourage the hugging and hand-shaking that typically accompanies fellowshipping. Some are implementing rules regarding how close people can sit in the pews, or eliminating the tradition of singing hymns because exhaling air with increased force can spread the virus farther.

Levin, who is Jewish, said he thinks these precautions are reasonable and wise.

Churches and pastors and religious organizations shouldnt be a source of anxiety for people, or discouragement, they should be supporting people and letting people know we will get through this, just a little longer, said Levin. We dont want to undo the good that weve done. There is still so much we dont know about the virus, and we are still learning that things could go south at any moment. Its not time for a victory lap at all.

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COVID-19 and the link between religious practices and personal health - Deseret News

Japanese art and rinpa: Buddhism, Maple trees, and a lovely stone lantern

Lee Jay Walker

Modern Tokyo Times

The delightful school of rinpa (rimpa) art covers a notable art form that hails from Japan. Rinpa spans many centuries and in modern times this art form continues to represent Japanese high culture. Therefore, international and internal exhibitions continue to inspire.

Nichiren Buddhism played an instrumental role in rinpa art. This applies to wealthy Nichiren Buddhist merchants from Kyoto, who financed the artistic endeavors of Honami Ketsu (1558-1637). Hence, Ketsu and Tawaraya Statsu became the founding fathers of rinpa art.

One can imagine how wealthy Buddhist merchants found inner peace in art, calligraphy, ceramics, lacquerware, literature, Japanese gardens, the tea ceremony, and other areas related to Japanese high culture. Indeed, the architecture of Kyoto and famous Buddhist temples meant a form of heaven on earth fused with continuity.

In the book by Momo Miyazaki, titled Elegance in Japanese Art, it is stated, Sakai Hitsu (1761-1829) took the Rinpa style that was developed in Kyoto and expanded it in Edo (modern day Tokyo), while combining it with a fresh painting style to match Edo tastes. For this reason, Hitsu is considered the founder of Edo Rinpa.

The spiritual footprints of Buddhism can be felt when viewing based on serenity. Equally, the imagination can feel the richness of Japanese high culture and continuity where the ego is negated. Therefore, this delightful art form still astonishes today just like yesterday!

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Japanese art and rinpa: Buddhism, Maple trees, and a lovely stone lantern - Modern Tokyo Times

Australias Eurovision 2021 representative Montaigne is set to collaborate with the Art Gallery of New South Wales as part of the Gallerys #TogetherInArt project jointly celebrating Make Music Day 2020 on June 21.

Montaigne will perform stripped down versions of her songs in front of an art piece called Cosmos - a life of fire by Lindy Lee where it will be broadcast on Facebook Live. The event is described by the Gallery an exploration of the unique power of art and music to bring people together as we look to the future in a post-pandemic world.

The bronze sculpture was created in 2014 and is describe by the Art Gallery with the following:

Lindy Lees flung bronze wall pieces stem from her deep exploration of Chan, or Zen, Buddhism. When Lee ladies pools of molten bronze onto foundry floor, she is employing forces and energies that recall beliefs about the origins of the universe that are central to Buddhism. Lees spiritual belief is that the organic bronze shapes are formed not by chance, but from the interconnection of all conditions that exist in the universe at that moment to embody its energy and totality. Lee and Gulumbu Yunupiu, whose works are adjacent, have spoken together about their cultures shared understanding of deep time and cosmos.

You can read more about the artwork here.

Make Music Day was launched in 1982 in France as the Fte de la Musique, the event is now held on the same day in more than 1000 cities in 120 countries and celebrates the joy of music-making and the ability of music to bring people together.

The performance is free to watch online and the link will be published via the Art Gallery of NSW Facebook page at 7:25pm five minutes before the broadcast. at 7:30pm (AEST) June 21.

You can find a link to the Facebook event here.

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Montaigne to perform at the Art Gallery of New South Wales for Make Music Day - Aussievision

The Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS) has been a gem over the years. The company has a seemingly unstoppable ability to dominate every facet of the entertainment industry. Walt Disney would probably be astounded at the technological leaps that have provided Disney with new areas of growth these days. Even in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic that shut down its theme parks and shuttered movie theaters, Disney stock carries appeal. Now swinging big in the streaming industry, Disney is pressing into the newest area of consumer entertainment.

So if you had been able to invest in this timeless enterprise back when Disney took it public, just how much would you have today? The answer is pretty staggering.

Image source: Getty Images.

Disney's IPO pricing for the original OTC stock was $5 per share back in 1946. Investing $5,000 would have netted you 1,000 shares of the company. The important thing to take into account here is that the stock has split multiple times through its existence. With seven splits in total from that initial offering, an initial purchase of 1,000 shares would have become 768,000 shares today.

Going off of a June 11 price of $116.59 per share, that initial $5,000 investment is now worth a whopping $89,541,120. That's a 17,907% return.

Keep in mind, however, that this was based on Disney's original OTC stock. Its IPO for the NYSE occurred on Nov. 12, 1957, with an initial price of $13.88. That IPO was led by Goldman Sachs.

It was far more likely that the average person invested in this offering. A $5,000 investment at $13.88 a share would have gotten you 360 shares. Factoring in all the stock splits would have turned those 360 shares into 141,312 today. At a price of $116.59 per share, the $5,000 investment in the IPO would be worth $16,475,566 today.

Since that debut in 1957, Disney has been one of the best investments around. Over the last 20 years, the stock has gained 203.9%. That outpaces the S&P 500 by roughly 119.3%.

These days, we're watching the major entertainment names like Disney try their hands at producing increasingly popular streaming content. Disney's acquisitions of Twenty-First Century Fox, along with Hulu, have positioned it to be very competitive in that market. With Disney+ bringing in more than 50 million subscribers in just the first five months, streaming has also been a key lever for Disney at a time when its traditional businesses, such as theme parks, have been severely threatened by the COVID-19 outbreak.

Even after a rally, the stock is down around 20% for the year. Theme parks are scheduled to cautiously reopen in July, but investors are going to be watching closely for signs of a second wave of COVID-19 before Disney can really find its footing. Any setbacks in the reopening of the economy could create a big headache for the physical side of the company's business. Unemployment will play a factor here as well, as the propensity for people to spend on things like theme park visits will likely be low when people aren't working.

With Disney, it pays to look at the big picture through time. Yes, 2020 is not a year for the record books -- at least not in a good way. For the next decade, though, Disney still seems well-positioned. Online content is going to be the battleground in the entertainment industry; there's no getting around that. Disney has prepared itself well through acquiring strong assets and building out its own Disney+ service. Once theme park gates reopen and the company can get back to the box office, the puzzle should all fit together nicely for this blue-chip stock.

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If You Had Invested $5,000 in Disney's IPO, This Is How Much Money You'd Have Now - Motley Fool