A major New York Jewish organization co-hosted an event in New York this week to debate a subject that most in the city assume has long been settled — whether the swastika is good or bad.

While the notorious hooked-cross symbol has long been associated with the evil of Nazism and hate, it has for even longer been revered by Hindus and Buddhists, who argued Monday that swastika was misused by Hitler and its image should be rehabilitated.

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(RNS) — When the pandemic hit the U.S. in March, Heather Hopkins suddenly had fewer things to do and nowhere to go. Dealing with feelings of stress and uncertainty, she began to reflect on her life.

“It gave me the time and space to think about what’s important in my life, what do I want out of life, what do I want my routine to be like, how do I want to spend my time,” said Hopkins, 37, who lives in San Diego. 

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Lord Ganesha greets visitors to the home of Jagdish and Shobha Patel in Holland.

A figurine of the deity is positioned prominently in an altar set into a wall just off the kitchen, depicted as is traditional with the body of a man and the head of an elephant. One of several such depictions that the couple displays in their home, this one in porcelain and in the characteristic style of Lladró, it serves a purpose both spiritual and artistic.

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Earlier this month, the North Texas Thai community gathered in unity, many wearing traditional national costumes but all wearing protective masks, at Wat Dallas for an annual fundraising event that had special significance this year. Despite changes forced by COVID-19, including fewer people (around 100 instead of the usual 500-plus), the ceremony generated more donations for the Buddhist Temple of Dallas than in years past.

“The Royal Kathina is the highest honor one can get to present the...

A lot of people turn to their religious communities for support through tough times. That sense of connection is different as people are navigating through the unprecedented time of 2020, but it’s not lost.

Emily Garforth, president of the Association of Jewish Students at Hillel, has felt the challenges of getting students involved in the organization this semester. She mentioned that less people are showing up to weekly Shabbat services because the dinner portion was pulled. 

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The Shambhala Mountain Center (SMC), a Buddhist retreat center and pilgrimage site in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, was overrun by the Cameron Peak wildfire last week. The center lost some buildings but the Great Stupa and items enshrined inside it survived.

According to reports from SMC director Michael Gayner, the fire reached the center on 26 September. It was not immediately clear what damage the fire had caused, but over the days that followed Gayner and others were able to visit and assess the extent of the loss. 

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Since nationwide protests erupted after the police killing of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, in Minneapolis, Black religious leaders have reminded their flocks that racial injustice is nothing new. “The foot on the neck of George Floyd has been a foot that’s been there ever since Black people came to the U.S.,” said Arisika Razak in a recent talk in Oakland, California, as she urged her listeners to find common cause with other oppressed racial and ethnic groups. 

What makes Razak's graphic image surprising is that she is a teacher of Buddhism, a faith more often...

As Eric Weinberg watched the Columbus Karma Thegsum Choling temple being destroyed by fire more than four years ago, all he could think was that the flames were releasing blessings into the air and out to the people of Columbus.

“That’s sort of what has turned out to be the case over the last few years,” said Weinberg, a board member of the Tibetan Buddhist congregation.

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When the Rev. Tenku Ruff, a Soto Zen Buddhist priest, took over as the pastoral care director at Phelps Hospital Northwell Health in Sleepy Hollow in June, she knew she was entering uncharted territory: She was taking on the hospital-based position in the middle of a pandemic.

As she spoke to doctors and other staff, she heard about Chaplain Cyril Owambo, who early in the pandemic, was asked to counsel a family whose loved one had just died of COVID-19.

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Buddhists from the Honpa Hongwanji Mission of Hawai‘i led a virtual global bell-ringing yesterday in celebration of Peace Day, a state holiday in Hawai‘i that coincides each year with the United Nations International Day of Peace.

Described as the first-ever International “Ring Your Bell for Peace” event, the occasion was live-streamed on the KTUH Honolulu Facebook page. The broadcast, coordinated through Zoom, featured bell-ringing from Buddhists, Christians, and people of other faith backgrounds. Most of those taking part were from Hawai‘i, but...

A saffron-robed monk, seated cross-legged at the front of a hall at Dhamagosnaram Buddhist Temple, chanted in Pali — a Buddhist liturgical language — as Ananda Neou and Yindy Duong, placed plates of food and money before him Sunday morning.

The couple clasped their hands together as the monk blessed the food for Pchum Ben — a 15-day celebration in honor of a person’s deceased antecedents held annually by Cambodians.

But with the novel coronavirus on the loose, the holiday took on a new urgency for the living at area wats (Buddhist temples).

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Residents of Evergreen are raising new concerns over a proposed Buddhist temple in their San Jose neighborhood which now seeks to change zoning of the site.

Wat Khmer Kampuchea Krom wants to rezone the lot from a residential zone to a Public-Quasi-Public (PQP) zone, which residents fear will lead to a more “intense” use of the property.

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Biloxi’s Buddhist temple, Chua Van Duc, was crowded for the first time in months on Sunday.

Dozens of people from as far away as Pensacola gathered to celebrate Le Vu Lan, a festival that honors parents and ancestors, especially mothers, and is sometimes called Vietnamese Mother’s Day.

Tanya Kennedy, the temple’s president, smiled after the ceremony as she surveyed the room where 60 or 70 masked people had gathered to pray and honor their parents. On recent Sunday mornings, only about 10 people had come to the temple for regular services, kept away by fears of the...

Tshelthrim Dorji, a 36-year-old from Bhutan, had been used to waking up every day at 5 a.m. to start his 12-hour-shift as an Uber driver in New York City. He stopped going out during the prolonged pandemic-related lockdown, and as he slowly returned to work as the city reopened this summer he found his already taxing job increasingly stressful.

So to unwind on Saturdays he still wakes at dawn, but drives instead to another destination: a serene expanse of woods at the end of a dirt road in Shamong, New Jersey, around two hours from his home in Queens. There, he and a group of...

Out of the corner of your eye as you round a curve on Yelm Highway S.E. just after it splits with State Route 510, you might notice what appear to be a pair of pink lotus-flower statues on either side of a concrete-block wall adjoined by a black, wrought-iron gate.

If you turn your head quickly enough, you’ll see through the fence several bright yellow wooden buildings that resemble typical single-family Yelm homes. You might also notice a legion of statues standing erect throughout the property and a glass-and-wood enclosed shrine a bit further back called a “stupa,” which...