Mullah Nasruddin – Islamic Stories

By Karen Carr|2018-04-23T15:30:20+00:00July 25th, 2017|Islam, Literature|

Grapes on a Seljuk period plate Nasruddin lived in the time of the Seljuk Sultans. One day Nasruddin was coming from the vineyard with baskets of grapes on his donkey. The children crowded around Nasruddin. "Give us some grapes!" they cried. "Let us taste them!" Nasruddin picked up a bunch of grapes and pulled one grape - [...]

Zen Koans – Medieval Buddhism in China

By Karen Carr|2018-04-18T09:53:41+00:00June 6th, 2017|History|

Song Dynasty painting (now in Kyoto Museum) In the 1200s AD, under the Song Dynasty, the Chinese Buddhist monk Wumen collected a bunch of Zen koans, or stories, in a book we call The Gateless Gate. These are a few of those stories: Blow Out the Candle Ryutan was Tokusan's Zen teacher. One [...]