Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama prayed for world peace here on Tuesday.

Hundreds of Buddhists and followers of the Dalai Lama converged at the Kaal Chakra Maidan (Wheel of Time Ground) in Bodh Gaya, the place where Buddha attained enlightenment, as the five-day-long ‘Geluk Monlam puja (prayers)’ began.

“He (Dalai Lama) has given a lot of practical advise on being nice to the people and being transparent to yourself in your life so that you don’t have to hide things from people because you’ll have better relations with them and being open to them you’ll have more friends,” said James, a devotee from London.

Around 50,000 people from across the world are expected to assemble in Bodh Gaya over the five days to hear the Dalai Lama’s discourses.uring his stay the Dalai Lama would inaugurate a multimedia museum and visit new stone carvings on Buddha’s life erected in the Mahabodhi Mahavihara premises.

The 1,500-year-old holiest Buddhist shrine Mahabodhi temple at Bodh Gaya is where the Buddha attained enlightenment 2,550 years ago.

Related articles by about Buddhism

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• Apple ejects Dalai Lama from Chinese iTunes (theregister.co.uk)
• ArtsBeat: In Protest, Chinese Films Pulled From Palm Springs Festival (artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com)

Whatever a hater may do to a hater or an enemy to an enemy, a wrongly directed mind will do us greater mischief.

-  Buddha

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Below is an excerpt from  Barbra O’ Brien’s Blog on Buddhism – Barb’s words were a bit twisted by the Family Research Council to defend Brit “If It Ain’t Christian…It’s Crap” Hume.  It’s a good read.

Today I was disappointed to learn that the Family Research Council, a conservative Christian organization, has quoted from my “Let’s Forgive Brit Hume” post to “prove” the superior forgiveness/redemption power of Christianity over Buddhism.  Peter Sprigg of the FRC writes,

Has Brit Hume slandered Buddhists by mischaracterizing their theology? Not really. Barbara O’Brien, author of “Barbara’s Buddhism Blog,” admits, “Mr. Hume is right, in a sense, that Buddhism doesn’t offer redemption and forgiveness in the same way Christianity does. Buddhism has no concept of sin; therefore, redemption and forgiveness in the Christian sense are meaningless in Buddhism.”

From here, Mr. Sprigg proceeds to slander Buddhism by mischaracterizing our “theology.”

Read the rest of this entry