Buddhist Travel

Growing up a 90-pound weakling tormented by bullies in the schoolyards of Kansas, young Matthew Polly dreamed of one day journeying to the Shaolin Temple in China to become the toughest fighter in the world, like Caine in his favorite 1970s TV series, Kung Fu. While in college, Matthew decided the time had come to pursue this quixotic dream before it was too late. Much to the dismay of his parents, he dropped out of Princeton to spend two years training with the legendary sect of monks who invented kung fu and Zen Buddhism.

Shakyamuni Buddha founded the path of the successive 52 Soto Zen Ancestors when he awakened to the Way. The transmissions of the teachings to the 52 Ancestors in Zen Buddhist Tradition were never meant to reach the eyes of laymen. The Denkoroku: The Record of the Transmission of Light was originally written only for the eyes of Zen monks. Shasta Abbey's late Abbess, Jiyu Kennett, translated the text into English.

Age 28 and fed up with the office job he settled for, Paul Barach decided to travel to Japan to follow a vision he had in college: to walk the ancient 750-mile Shikoku pilgrimage trail. Here are some things he did not decide to do: learn Japanese, do any research, road test his hiking shoes, or check if it's the hottest summer in history. And he went anyway, hoping to change his life.

This is the story of what happens when the author's plans to ordain as a Buddhist monk in Thailand are derailed after he has arrived in the country. Next Life in the Afternoon is spiritual, funny, at times irreverent, and full of personal lessons learned along the way. From Next Life in the Afternoon: "I’m squatting naked on a concrete floor in the predawn coolness of Udon Thani, pouring water from a washbasin onto my head to rinse off the bar soap I used as shampoo. My hair is long and stringy. I had counted on it being shaved off by now, so I had let it grow out a bit leading up to the ...

Borobudur in Central Java has been described as the eighth wonder of the world. It is the world's largest Buddhist temple, built out of 1.6 million blocks of worked volcanic stone and containing three miles of relief carvings and 504 statues of Buddha. Yet for 1,000 years it lay deserted in the jungle until it was rediscovered by none other than the famous Englishman Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles.

Out-of-Body Travel Magazine: Comparing the Buddhist Avalokiteswara's Descent into Hell with that of Jesus Christ.

Out-of-Body Travel Magazine: Acvaghosha - Forgotten Buddhist Mystic of the Mahayana Path (For more info - www.outofbodytravel.org)

Buddhist Mystical Theology - A Conversation with Charaka and Acvagosha.