Wisdom Quarterly: American Buddhist Journal

Thursday, August 6, 2026

Ekaterina Sky's Sunrise; Plant Trees

What can one person do save world?

This painting holds one of my favorite lines from the prayer beneath the collection: "Help us restore what has been harmed and create a future of harmony and respect."

I painted it as a sunrise, a center of gold opening into rays of red and orange, the first light after a long, dark night.

I wanted to make something in color that remembered that the morning still comes no matter how hard the dark period.

How will we save the planet? Forests!

Life Force Trees | 165 trees per person (ourlifeforce.org)

The best way to see a sunrise is through an old growth forest of vibrant trees

What we compose shows, so do it with care

The original is now ready to find its home. Inquire on Cohart. People sometimes ask how long a painting like this takes me to compose. The painting itself is a matter of days, but the more complete answer is that it takes much longer. This is because the gold comes in layers that each needs its own time and cannot be hurried.

Gold teaches me patience. It will lift, crack, or refuse if it is rushed. So I stopped counting in days and started counting in layers.

I want to save our world's forests!

A future is built the same way: not in one grand gesture, but in patient layers, small daily choices and acts, the things we plant (sow) and tend (cultivate) and refuse to give up on. What we care for grows. What we show up for shows. Everyone can see what shows from our care in its composition.

As of today, "A Future of Harmony and Respect" is available to view on Cohart, to acquire by inquiry. If someone is standing at the start of something, this is a sunrise for that wall. It is a one-of-a-kind, watercolor with 24 karat sustainable gold leaf, with a prayer sealed inside that can be accessed through a chip that allows it to be heard aloud. And it arrives with a certificate of authenticity and earth conscious packaging.

See the sunrise to inquire about bringing it home at: A Future of Harmony and Respect on Cohart.

And I would love to hear: What part of the living world do you most want to see restored?
(Maybe it's forests, human communities, vegan kitchens, wild grasslands, fish oceans, bird skies, tunnel systems, space belts full of debris... Tell us in the comment section below)

With love,

Ekaterina Sky

P.S. Feeling moved beyond wall art and mural painting? PLANT TREES through a new movement at ourlifeforce.org. Also, see my art on Instagram: @ekaterina.sky.art

City Plants is a program funded by the LADWP, which is exploring opportunities to expand offerings beyond the City of Los Angeles and into surrounding communities. Send request

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City is getting hotter. We can be part of the solution. Donations plant shade trees that combat climate change, cool neighborhoods, and improve health. Help grow a cooler, greener LA.

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Ekaterina Sky; OurLifeForce.org; CityPlants.org; Dhr. Seven, Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation), Jen B. (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Girl Fight: Japanese beauty beats all

(Behind the Knockout) Mona Kimura, Dakota Ditcheva: finishes that put opponents in hospitals

Who, me, a pretty girlie "doll"? We'll see when we get in the ring.

Yi Long does it again using his kung fu skills

(Boxing Game) Buddhism in Japan is covered below. But holy cow, it's the animated Chun-Li in real life! Doll Mona Kimura knocks out everyone because she kicks when she does her martial arts in the ring against opponents who walk right into her foot again and again.

Mona Kimura (Japanese 木村萌那, Kimura Mona, born April 12, 2001) is a Japanese kickboxer and former amateur boxer who is currently signed to K-1. She represented Japan at 2022 IBA Women's World Boxing Championships [2, 3, 4].

Early career

Japanese Buddhist flag flys over Japan

Kimura started training in karate at age 4 and won seven consecutive JKJO All Japan Junior Karate Championships then started boxing in 4th grade [5, 6, 7]. In 2019 she won the JBC Junior Featherweight Championship... Does she love Bruce Lee or even know who he was? Is she into kung fu like the great [not an actual monastery-trained] Shaolin master Yi Long? She must at least know the who the great martial artists who preceded her are. More

Buddhism in Japan

(Chloe VS History) I time traveled to Edo Japan in 1657! (Vlog)

Beautiful Buddhist Tokyo, Japan (Mt. Fuji)
Edo (江戸, lit. "Bay-entrance," Romanized as Jedo, Yedo, Yeddo) is the former name of Tokyo. Under the Tokugawa shogunate, Edo developed into a major early-modern urban center with a population that is believed to have exceeded 1 million by the early 18th century — making it, by many estimates, the largest city in the world at the time. More: Edo (Edo period)
Japanese Zen meditation with Chloe in Edo (1657)

Panoramic view of Tokyo (Bay Entrance), Japan, from the top of the SkyTree (Wiki)

The Great Buddha (Amida, Amitabha) (Daibutsu) at Kōtoku-in, Kamakura, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan (National Treasure) Le Grand Bouddha du Kotoku-in (Kamakura, Japon)

Daruma doll Indian Bodhidharma

Buddhism was first established in Japan in the 6th century CE [3, 4, 5]. Most of Japanese Buddhists belong to new schools of Buddhism that were established in the Kamakura period (1185–1333) [6]. During the Edo period (1603–1868), Buddhism was controlled by the feudal Shogunate.

The Meiji period (1868–1912) saw a strong response against Buddhism, with persecution and a forced separation between Buddhism and the indigenous shapeshifter (kami) tradition called Shinto (Shinbutsu bunri).

Vowz Band 坊主バンド rock to spread Zen

The largest sects of Japanese Buddhism are Pure Land Buddhism with 22 million followers, followed by Nichiren Buddhism with 10 million believers, Shingon Buddhism with 5.4 million, Zen Buddhism with 5.3 million, Tendai Buddhism with 2.8 million, and about 700,000 for the six old schools established in the Nara period (710–794) [6]. More:

Buddhism in Japan

Japan at a Crossroads | BBC

(BBC World Service) Crossroads: immigration, identity | Global Eye

Nude Poetry with Füde, NY to LA (8/7)

Now I'd like to bring out Leehee Bee, a hot piece of asymptote on our stage for the first time.

Reading my poetry is a new kind of "naked"

What performing poetry reveals about language, vulnerability, the fear of being (mis)understood

Could I stand in front of people fully nude?

A few months ago, I [Lihi Be] stood on a stage in New York City and performed slam poetry for the first time. The scene was hosted by Nuyorican Poets' Cafe at the Bowery Poetry Club, a small, legendary room where decades of poets have stepped up to a microphone and turned their inner worlds into sound.

It's the kind of place where language has history, where words have weight, where the air feels charged from voices that came before.

Enough with old white male writers! Sit down!

Gigi luxury nightwear (Schweitzer Linen)

lihi be, the i in mi, this breath and body
I remember standing there, waiting my turn, feeling my heart beating in my throat, which surprised me. I’ve spoken in front of rooms before. I’ve guided workshops, taught movement, led breathwork journeys where people open parts of themselves that are tender and alive.

Holding space for others doesn’t scare me. But this was different. This time, I wasn’t holding material space; I was the material. A poem I wrote alone earlier that morning was about to leave the page and hit the stage, entering a room full of strangers, not through dead ink, but through my living breath, my voice, my body.

New York City as seen from high above Central Park, a kind of Griffith Park, Los Angeles

New York City's famous spoken word space at the Bowery Poetry Club (wiki)

(Married with Children) American skin: Al Bundy's high school girlfriend shows up at the beach

White men can't dance, but women can (KP)

And now for our first nude, I mean POET of the evening, Russian Pole Heaven

What is The Füde Experience? Naked eating, social bonding, courageous self-inquiry together

The Füde Experience: naked eating with Lihi Be at FÜDE LA (thefudeexperience.com)

Does anyone here need a bath to wash away dirty thoughts of body image negativity?

Holiday hosting: rosemary ritual cleanse (The Füde Experience)

We said nobody wants to see it, Shake Spear! OK, a quick flash then sit down and shut it!

Lihi Benisty poetry: Self

Until that moment, "poetry" was something I wrote, never something I performed. When I published my book, The Self, Reframed, it felt like a big step outward. Suddenly the poems were technically "public." Someone, anyone, could order the book, underline a passage, carry a piece of it into her own life.

Butt even then, there was still distance. The page protected me. Readers meet a poem alone. They can pause, reread, close the book, throw it in the garbage disposal, flip the switch, make acid-free wood pulp that washes out to sea... That meeting happens quietly, inside their own interior worlds.

Shame? We refuse to limit ourselves

Slam poetry is different: Spoken word removes the distance. When one performs a poem, there is no safe distance, no page between the room and the I performing. My breath carries my language. My nervous system becomes part of the delivery. My voice, my pauses, my trembling chest -- all of it becomes part of my poem.

In some ways, it feels easier to be naked than to perform one's own poem, in the woods, with someone you love, in front of Mother Nature, playing pretend it's Adam and Eve in a Sumerian garden.

Holy Adam and Eve had no shame

Look, it's the real me!

I was in New York for a series of gatherings -- one of them a nude experience I was hosting with the Füde Experience: a roomful of naked people exploring embodiment, mindful presence, the simplicity of being in our bodies without the usual layers of social armor.

Standing naked in a room with others didn’t feel nearly as vulnerable as standing on this stage. In fact, being naked felt surprisingly simple. Source: a poem is a different kind of naked (seeds of the self)

We're bringing it to Los Angeles

Have the experience in Los Angeles with Dharma Buddhist Meditation (Aug. 7, 2026)
RSVP: Naked Vegan Food Experience, Meditation, Poetry, Healing, Friday, Aug. 7, 2026, 7:00 PM | Meetup

"No bikinis! Cover up those shameful bodies...or you are headed for hell!" - Loving Christian

Lihi Be (Benisty)

AUTHOR: Lihi Be (Benisty), teacher of somatic self-inquiry, breathwork, movement, teacher, mentorship, poetry, summer retreat leader, author of The Self, Reframed. She leads a dynamic blend of somatic practices to navigate emotional landscapes. She is profoundly committed to the poetic art of self-inquiry through breathwork and movement. Her teaching is distinguished by her ability to weave these elements into a cohesive practice that respects the complexity of the human experience. Her poetry serves as a reflective mirror, deepening the themes she navigates in her somatic work and offering an additional avenue for connection and self-discovery. She lives in Los Angeles, California. (Substack, Instagram, FÜDE in LA, Amazon, Facebook, Omega Institute, lihibe.com)

Put yer clothes on 'n get the Hades outta here!
Building community through resonance: The Füde Experience is a reader-supported publication for free and paid subscribers; to receive new posts and support, see: fudeexperience.substack.com (Website: thefudeexperience.com)

Nuyorican Poets' Cafe Poetry Slam at the Bowery Poetry Club Mondays (@bowerypoetry

We'd ride our bikes in the nude to see someone get on stage and really get naked with poetry.

Lihi Bi (seeds of the self), March 4th, 2026; Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation), Dhr. Seven, Ashley Wells, Jen B. (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Sutra Study with Bhikkhu Bodhi (8/8)

Teacher: American scholar monk Bhikkhu Bodhi

Dharma students, on Saturday, August 8th, 2026, Bhante (Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi) will be holding his Sutta Study class in two modes, in-person (in NY) and online (on Zoom).

We will study The Book of Eights. See a PDF of this chapter here. To participate through Zoom, interested parties must register on the BAUS website here.

Class begins at 9:30 am ET with a 40-minute meditation: 30 minutes of mindfulness-of-breathing (ana-pana-sati) and 10 minutes of cultivating loving-kindness (metta bhavana).

Meditation is followed by sutta (discourse) discussion, starting at 10:10 am and running until 11:20 am ET. To determine the time in your own time zone from anywhere in the world, use The World Clock. (Zoom link below).

An Online Course on the Anguttara Nikaya
Numerical Discourses, The Book of Eights, Sutta Nos. 36-39
We continue our exploration of this bundle of suttas dealing with giving (dana) and other aspects of a layperson's Buddhist practice.
Monk Mode vs. 'Sicko Mode' Challenge

The schedule will be as follows:

9:30 to 10:10 am: Meditation
10:10 to 11:20 am: Sutta Study
The Sutta Study class will be conducted over Zoom at the link given here:

Zoom link for Sutta Class

Passcode: Sambodhi
Meeting ID: 812 2960 9505
Passcode: Sambodhi

One tap mobile

+16468769923,,81229609505#,,,,*26115386# US (New York)

+13126266799,,81229609505#,,,,*26115386# US (Chicago)

Dial by location

+1 646 876 9923 US (New York)

+1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)

+1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC)

+1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)

+1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose)

+1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma)

Meeting ID: 812 2960 9505
Passcode: 26115386
Find local number: us02web.zoom.us/u/kIeabgixD

Virtual meditation over Zoom

Wednesdays 7:00–8:00 pm (ET) with Bhikkhu Bodhi

Dharma students are invited to join Bhante at 7:00 pm (ET) for a Buddhist meditation session over Zoom by clicking here.

Each Wednesday evening, from 7:00 to 8:00 pm, Bhikkhu Bodhi leads a meditation session on Zoom. The session consists of a 15-minute vandana (chanting verses of homage as Buddhist music), followed by a 45-minute guided meditation. All are welcome to join in. The sacred Pali texts for recitation are attached separately. Please see class page on website for chanting text.

With metta,

Bhikkhu Bodhi, Chuang Yen Monastery (BAUS.org)