About The Paperbark Journal

The Paperbark Journal is an independent online magazine about Theravada Buddhist life and Thai Buddhist culture in Australia. It publishes plain-language guides for readers who are curious about meditation, who plan to visit a temple, or who live alongside the country's Thai, Lao, Cambodian, Burmese and Sri Lankan Buddhist communities and want to understand what happens inside the gates.

What the magazine covers

The site is organised in four sections. Meditation and Practice takes a reader from a first ten-minute sit to a first retreat. Teachings and Ideas explains the tradition's core frame: the precepts, dana, ordination and what Theravada itself is. Festivals and Thai Culture maps the calendar from Songkran to Kathina. Temples and Visiting covers etiquette and the communities of Queensland, where this magazine is based.

How the guides are written

Each guide is written to be checked. Facts are drawn from published sources, named in the text, and the magazine describes what practitioners do rather than arguing for what readers should believe. The magazine sells nothing, runs no programs, and is not affiliated with any temple, council or order. When it refers to a real institution, such as the temples listed in the Queensland guide, it does so in the third person, as a subject and not as a voice.

About this domain

The Paperbark Journal is published on a domain that previously carried the website of Wat Thai Buddharam, the Thai temple at Forestdale in Logan City. The temple is a living institution with its own website and programs, and this magazine is not it. The subject the domain has always carried, Thai Buddhism in Brisbane, is a public one, and it is the subject this magazine continues to cover.

Contact

Corrections, suggestions and questions are welcome by email at [email protected], and the contact page explains what to include. Publication details are on the legal notice.