After Kusinagar and Kesaria, our pilgrimage took us the great University of Nalanda, about 90 kms south east of Patna and a few kms away from Rajgir. Nalanda was one of the world’s first universities and the largest Buddhist University in history. It was established during the reign of the Gupta emperor Kumaragupta. The complex… Read more »

Vaishali was the capital city of the Lichavis, one of world’s first democracies. The Buddha visited Vaishali on many occasions. It is also the area where Mahavira was born—the founder of Jainism and a contemporary of the Buddha. It was during a stay in Vaishali the Buddha’ foster mother, Mahapajapati Gotami, who had followed the… Read more »

On the way between Kusinagar and Vaishali, we paid homage to the monumental ruins of Kesaria Stupa, (10 KM from Rampur Khajuria on National Highway 28, about three hours drive from Kusinagar, 120kms from Patna). According to some scholars, this is the place where Prince Gautama cut his hair to renounce the world, after leaving… Read more »

Kushinagar is the place where Buddha Shakyamuni entered ‟Mahaparinirvana”, the ‟great transcendence of suffering”. When he reached his eighty-first year, the Buddha gave teaching at the Vulture’s Peak of Rajgir, and went north with his nephew to Nalanda and then Vaishali, a place where he often stayed and where he had given teachings on the… Read more »

On the occasion of then Indian pilgrimage accomplished by Yangsi Khyentse Rinpoche, Shechen Rabjam Rinpoche and a group of monks, nuns and disciples, after visiting Sarnath, the place where the Buddha gave his first Teaching, the group went early morning on a boat to witness the sunrise upon the Ganges, on the banks of the… Read more »

Sarnath is located in a dozen of kilometers of Varanaresi. It is there, in the Deer Park, that the Buddha delivered his first conferred his first teaching on the Four Noble Truths: the truth of the suffering, the truths of the causes of the suffering (the afflictive mental states and the fundamental ignorance), the truth… Read more »

From Shravasti, our pilgrimage proceeded to the long journey to Sankisya (called Sankassa in the scriptures, or Sankasya) the place where the Buddha is said to have returned to earth, after preaching the Abhidhamma in Tushita Heaven and teaching his deceased mother. Until recently, Sankisya was rarely visited, since it lies in very remote area… Read more »

Over the past thirty years more and more scientists have been showing genuine interest in the Buddhist views of the mind and of its relation to the body. As a result some scientific institutions, in America and in Europe, have undertaken some research. This collaboration has two purposes: First, simply to expand our knowledge, not… Read more »

From November 20 to 23, at New Delhi in India, the XXIII meeting of the Mind and Life Institute gathering a remarkable array of contemplatives of the ancients Indian traditions (Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism) together with Indian and Western scientists, in the presence of His Holiness the Dalai-Lama, who had long aspired for such a… Read more »

Shravasti, located approximately 175 kilometers from Lucknow, is the place where the Buddha spend the longest period of his life, including twenty-five rainy seasons retreats. It is said that this is also the place where he began to perform a series of miracles. The merchant Anathapindika, who was very devoted to the Buddha, as well… Read more »