Buddhists across the globe have gathered to mark the Lunar New Year in recent days, from Hong Kong to Houston, and Sydney to Singapore, festivities and Buddhist rituals were observed and shared across Chinese, Korean, Tibetan, and Vietnamese communities, and more.

A team of archaeologists from China and Bangladesh have announced the results of a joint four-year excavation of the Vikrampur Ruins, an archeological dig near the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka. Historians believe the ruins to be the remains of the ancient city of Vikrampur, formerly a major Buddhist center with strong ties to the renowned Bengali Buddhist master Atisha.

The combination of black sumi ink and white paper has been an artistic staple of Zen Buddhism for centuries. Whether working in the realm of painting or calligraphy, artists throughout East Asia have brushed ink onto paper, varying the amount of water mixed into the ink to create tonal gradations of black and grey, and producing monochrome text and images that balance light and dark, and harmonize the material and the void. The effect is not simply aesthetic, but also deeply spiritual, since the philosophy of Zen—or meditational—Buddhism emphasizes emptiness and impermanence, concepts expressed in Japanese as ku (空), meaning “sky” or “void,” or shogyou mujo (諸行無常); “everything is transient and nothing remains the same.” These concepts lie at the heart of the paintings and sculptures of Yoshio Ikezaki, an artist who has lived and worked in both Japan and the United States for several decades. Trained as a traditional Japanese paper maker and able to grind his own ink, Ikezaki has such a profound understanding of his artistic materials, and their relationship with the natural world and its energetic forces, that they have become visual expressions of the most complex paradoxes of Japanese spirituality.

The Antiquities Advisory Board (AAB) of Hong Kong has designated two Buddhist temples—Tung Lin Kok Yuen (TLKY) Temple on Hong Kong Island and Yeung Hau Temple on Lantau Island—as monuments under the Antiquities and Monuments Ordinance, along with a Christian landmark—Kowloon Union Church.

A newly built Buddhist shrine in the city of Tangshan in China’s Hebei Province uses modern architecture and a combination of concrete and natural materials to merge the building with its surroundings. Built inside a hill and hardly visible from the outside, the shrine evokes a sense of calm and serenity.

After seven years of CT scans and in-depth investigation and analysis, one of the most famous works of Buddhist art in Japan, a three-faced, six-armed statue of Ashura, which has been dated to the 8th century, has revealed some of the secrets to its history and original appearance that have for years been the subject of debate among art historians.

The Museum of Fine Art Boston (MFA) in Massachusetts is offering visitors a unique opportunity to observe the ongoing conservation of an iconic 18th century Japanese scroll painting—Nehan zu (The Death of the Historical Buddha) by Hanabusa Itchō. The live exhibition, titled “Conservation in Action: Preserving Nirvana,” features a team a team of two to six conservators from the MFA’s Asian Conservation Studio and the Smithsonian’s Freer Gallery of Art, who will work on the masterpiece in full view of visitors, with scheduled periods for interaction with the public.

For the first time ever, the Indian Museum, Kolkata is making its extensive holdings of Buddhist art available online. The project, which includes the museum’s famed Gandharan sculptures, the largest collection in India, is being developed in collaboration with the Google Cultural Institute. So far, three exhibitions are on virtual display: The Life of the Buddha in Indian Art, Indian Buddhist Art, and a 360-degree panoramic Museum View.

As our pilgrimage through central Tibet proceeded towards Samye prior to our long journey across the Western Tibetan plateau to Mount Kailash, I noticed a palpable excitement building—a sublime, devotional version of boyish glee. As if the two epic days visiting Drak Yerpa and Gangri Tokar (documented in the first part of this series)* were not vast enough, we were now approaching the sacred site of the primary transmission of realization to the early Tibetan masters who established the authentic Buddha Dharma in Tibet. This was the site of the nexus, the initial gateway for the profound teachings that Vajrayana practitioners the world over are receiving and practicing today.