Beth McKillop - Picturing the Buddha

The British Library has an exhibition Buddhism, curated by Jana Igunma (Henry Ginsburg Curator of Thai, Lao and Cambodian) and San San May (Curator of Burmese) which runs until the 23rd of February, 2020. It is a truly wonderful exhibition with a range of striking items, from illuminated manuscripts and palm leaf manuscripts to sutra incised in silver and gold, covering the whole development of Buddhism across Asia and the three main traditions of Buddhism, alongside items related to Buddhist practices, contemporary productions and evocative soundscapes.

Beth McKillop, senior research fellow at the Victoria and Albert Museum and President of the Oriental Ceramic Society, gave an illustrated talk on 'Picturing the Buddha' at St Martin-in-the-Fields last Thursday, which was a marvellous introduction to the British Library's Buddhism exhibition. The talk discussed depictions of the Buddha included in the exhibition and, more generally, within Chinese Art.

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Leonard Cohen - Listen To The Hummingbird. 

Chinese Art Talk 5: 'Picturing the Buddha'

'Picturing the Buddha' is the fifth lecture in an occasional series at St Martin-in-the-Fields focusing on aspects of Chinese Art will discuss depictions of the Buddha in Chinese Art.

The talk will include discussion of depictions of the Buddha in the British Library, where an exhibition ‘Buddhism’ is running until 23 February 2020.

Beth McKillop is a senior research fellow at the Victoria and Albert Museum. She has specialised in Chinese and Korean collections, and has published on the history of publishing in East Asia. Beth teaches book history at the Rare Book School, University of Virginia, and at SOAS, University of London.

Thursday 16 January, 6.30pm, St Martin's Hall. Free tickets from https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/picturing-the-buddha-tickets-80587219543.

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Bill Fay - Salt Of The Earth.

Chinese Art Talk: Picturing the Buddha

The Chinese and English speaking congregations of St Martin-in-the-Fields jointly organise an occasional series of art talks focusing on aspects of Chinese Art.

The fifth lecture in this series focusing discuss depictions of the Buddha in the British Library, where an exhibition ‘Buddhism’ is running from 25 October 2019 until 23 February 2020. The lecture will be given by Beth McKillop on Thursday 16 January 2020, 6.30pm in St Martin’s Hall, St Martin-in-the-Fields. This will be an illustrated talk (in English).

Beth McKillop is a senior research fellow at the Victoria and Albert Museum. She has specialised in Chinese and Korean collections, and has published on the history of publishing in East Asia. Beth teaches book history at the Rare Book School, University of Virginia, and at SOAS, University of London.

The talk will be held in St Martin's Hall, within the Crypt of St Martin's, and will begin at 6.30pm for one hour. The talk will be followed by a drinks reception in the Bishop Ho Ming Wah Association and Community Centre.

All are very welcome – for further information contact Jonathan Evens – t: 020 7766 1127, e: jonathan.evens@smitf.org. There will be a retiring collection for St Martin-in-the-Fields.

Tickets for the event are free by registering at the Eventbrite page for this talk: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/picturing-the-buddha-tickets-80587219543.

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The Search Party - All But This.

Not simply followers of Christ but bearers of his life

The author Frederick Buechner has shared a Christmas article, entitled “Emmanuel,” which was originally solicited then turned down by The New York Times Magazine for being “too theological.” The article was originally published in A Room Called Remember and later in Secrets in the Dark:

'More than anything else perhaps, to dismiss this particular birth as no different in kind from the birth of Socrates, say, or Moses or Gautama Buddha would be to dismiss the quality of life that it has given birth to in an astonishing variety of people over an astonishing period of time. There have been wise ones and simple ones, sophisticated ones and crude ones, respectable ones and disreputable ones. There have been medieval peasants and eighteenth-century aristocrats, nineteenth-century spinsters and twentieth-century dropouts. They need not be mystics or saints or even unusually religious in any formal, institutional sense, and there may never have been any one dramatic moment of conversion in the past that they would point to. But somewhere along the line something deep in them split starwise and they became not simply followers of Christ but bearers of his life. A birth of grace and truth took place within them scarcely less miraculous in its way than the one the Magi traveled all those miles to kneel before.'

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Moving Mountains - Sol Solis.