Happy holidays from the Open Buddhist University! As the year comes to an end, we’re happy to offer you four new sections of our free library on the Mahāyāna and the human world.

Mahāyāna Buddhism’s National Forms

This month we’ve added three new bibliographies on:

Together, they contain hundreds of free items on Mahāyāna Buddhism from books to films, so check those links out if you’re interested in learning more about Buddhism in those countries.

And even if (especially if!) you’re not interested, I’d still recommend you listen to this podcast by a Japanese priest explaining why we value Buddhism’s religious forms.

And even if you’re not especially interested in Tibetan Buddhism, you may still want to listen to this 4-minute audio cut summarizing one scholar’s take on the Tibetan “Tulkus” (reincarnated lamas).

And even if don’t care about Korean Buddhism per se, the history of Korea’s distrust of renunciants demonstrates for us all how even modern, “secular” forms of Buddhism depend upon a healthy monastic sangha.

The Material World

In addition to our sections on Buddhist topics, OBU is also striving to advance understanding of our shared world by sharing links to free, secular material as well. To that end, this month I am also proud to announce a new section of our library on the history of

Yes. Just “things”: how humans use the material of the environment for our own ends and about the impacts that has and how to think about sustainability.

To highlight just one striking example I learned while putting together this bibliography:

Did you know that burning fossil fuels creates 100000x times more heat from its greenhouse gas effects than it does from the immediate fire? I can never burn a paraffin wax candle again without imagining its heat multiplied a hundred-thousand times!

To learn lots more about the stuff of our world, check out the whole bibliography at the link above!

Chinese Buddhism

The eagle-eyed among you will no doubt be wondering…

Wait. Where was the section on Chinese Mahāyāna?

Good question hypothetical reader!

As Chinese Buddhism is such a large topic, we’ve decided to split it up into multiple (oo!) new library sections… which we will be adding sometime next year. So, stay tuned for that!

But, to hold over all you sinophiles until then, here is a moving documentary about the hermits of the Zhongnan Mountains which is well worth a (re)watch this holiday season!

Wishing you a new year filled with hope,
Khemarato Bhikkhu
Chief Librarian at the Open Buddhist University