Josefine Cole

Within the four Gospels of the New Testament-Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John-Jesus demonstrates powerfully in word and deed his divinity with a lucidity we can use to appreciate the stalwart presence Christianity has maintained throughout history.

The Buddhist practice of Tonglen is based on the revolutionary calculus that not only are humans capable of healing the suffering of the world, but that by exercising this capacity we may strengthen limitlessly our ability to feel compassion.

There may be as many definitions of Kabbalah as there are Kabbalists and detractors. One might define it as a holy science, begun with Abraham or Adam in the Garden of Eden. Another sees it as a fantastic, Medieval corruption of Judaism.

Striking parallels between the teachings of Jesus and the Buddha have long perplexed scholars and inspired devotees.

The Karmapa is a title given to a lineage of Buddhist masters who head the Karma Kagyu subsect of one of four main schools of Tibetan Buddhism. The current Karmapa made his historic first visit to the US in May of 2008.

There is a clear dichotomy of social roles dividing whites and blacks (always somewhat arbitrary categories), and the post facto legitimization of these roles on both sides via Biblical exegesis.

Plato's allegory of imprisonment and liberation offers the spiritual seeker rich ground for modern and mystical interpretations.

The World Trade Organization (WTO), International Monetary Fund (IMF), and World Bank purport to regulate trade and support Third World investment for the benefit of all. The record speaks otherwise.

After coming under the rule of Alexander the Great's successors in 323 BCE, Palestine was infiltrated with all the paraphernalia of "enlightened" Greek culture. Yet as appealing as an inter-cultural synthesis is, Greek insults to Jewish religion doomed their imperial rule.

In 1665 a charismatic Messiah-claimant surfaced in Europe. While the Jewish world awaited proof, Shabbetai Zevi prepared to gather the lost tribes of Israel and marry Moses' resurrected 13-year-old daughter.

The story of Jewish immigrants in America is an archetype of the American Dream: Jews rose from poor garment-factory workers to moguls of industry and publishing, German-accented and uneducated to intellectual and impeccably educated.

Under Lenin and Stalin, it was commonly believed in both eastern Europe and the Western world that Jews were at the wheel of the revolution. This persistent anti-Semitism ultimately dismantled Russian Jewish culture.

As Catholicism came to claim religious heterodoxy in Europe beginning in the fourth century C.E., dissenting groups posed a tenacious and ostensibly insidious threat to full continental domination.

While most modern people assume the original Hebrew laws to be essentially primitive and brutal, the by then well-developed Hebrew ideology of 3000 years ago fostered a code more humanistic than that of any contemporary culture.

The Shimabara Rebellion of 1637-8 was epic and almost cinematic in nature: led by a 16-year-old boy, this clash of religions and castes led to the deaths of tens of thousands of peasants after months of struggle.

The black-and-white The Pornagraphers is Kubrick-esque in style and almost defies description, but attempts must be made if only to increase the viewership of this singular film.

Ishikawa Kon defied his pragmatic patrons with his heartfelt and hypnotic coverage of the 1964 Olympics.

Ozu's magic is the ability to take mundane material, as here with the story of parents visiting their children in Tokyo, and shape the experience into one of exquisite poignance.

Kumonosujo, or Spider Castle, is the setting of this atmospheric Japanese adaptation of Shakespeare's Macbeth.

A silent yet entrancing film, and a window into rural pre-WWII Japan.

A characteristically touching domestic drama.

Japan's national sport, sumo wrestling, is inextricably linked to its animistic religion. Foreign wrestlers entering the sport en masse since WWII, therefore, have faced considerable cultural hurdles.

While more and more Japanese women choose or are forced to enter the workforce, discriminatory laws and practices and the glass ceiling persist.

Japan conducted horrific and inhumane experiments in Manchuria during World War II, but what shocks most of all is America's granting of immunity to the perpetrators in return for test data.

Death by overwork, or karoshi, claims thousands of lives every year in Japan, yet only a few dozen families are awarded compensation.

Japan is currently fighting on the world's diplomatic stage to acquire stockpiles of plutonium greater than those of the US and Russia combined to produce energy.

An exploration of the many cultural and religious hurdles experienced by the Portuguese Jesuits in Japan, who in the 16th century became the first non-Asians to establish prolonged contact with the then deeply insular and rigidly autocratic Japan.

An introduction to the history and nature of this recently developed addition to the Eastern medical tradition.

The world's religious traditions speak of breath that brings forth life. Likewise, in Zen Buddhism, breath is seen as an integral part of spiritual development and art.

A short analysis of the meditative Chinese and Japanese painting style (also known as sumi-e), and my attempt to produce such a painting.