I found myself standing outside the retreat center near Worcester, Mass., on a snowy evening in January. Every year, two or three mindfulness meditation retreats are offered by Harvard, funded nearly entirely by an anonymous donor. The retreat would last five days with daily practice that mostly entailed sitting silently on cushions in an empty conference room. I’d have no one but myself for company.

Harvard runs on ego. Admittance is treated as a character trait, or at least an important marker of talent and status. The academic culture demands blind self-...

People from all over the tri-state area braved Saturday’s rainy weather to descend upon the grounds of the newly purchased monastery at 29 Ridgeway Avenue in West Orange.

Many said they were curious and wanted to learn about the religion and meet the Buddhist monks who currently reside there: Bhante Suddhāso, who grew up in the United States and has been a monk for 10 years; Ayya Soma, who grew up in Italy and has been a monk for two years; and Ayya Sucitta, a visiting monk, who is originally from Korea and has been a monk for 25 years.

What do feeding monks, fighting a crowd to reach the front row of a rock concert, and celebrating the first day of summer have in common? They can all take place at a festival. Whether it’s a religious ceremony or an event in the name of art or music, festivals have a certain allure that brings together diverse crowds of people to share a cultural experience.

The anticipation of a major festival instills a certain type of feeling. There’s a welling of excitement in one’s chest, knowing that it is a “special day.” I have always been attracted to the type of...

You might imagine a Buddhist monastery in the mountains of Korea, surrounded by nature and silence.

But located near the heart of Hamtramck, a working-class neighborhood home to more than 30 ethnic groups, an east-meets-west Buddhist monastery stands proudly as an essential piece of the city.

The Detroit Zen Center was founded in 1990 as a spiritual organization with a mission to teach...

In today’s stressful world, mindfulness – a type of popular spirituality that strives to focus on the present moment – promises to soothe away the anxiety and stress of modern life. The Internet is full of popular cure-all mindfulness apps targeting everyone from busy urban professionals to dieters, those suffering from insomnia and even children.

While plant-based meat may seem new and buzzy, China began concocting it way before the Impossible Burger and Beyond Meat burst onto the scene, CNN reports. What’s more, its creations have approximated a far richer array of fake meats, beyond the “burgers” trending in the West, emerging from a food culture that has long celebrated ingenuity.