"I find that starting the day with a little bit of quiet time changes the whole complexion of the rest of the day. It’s almost like warming up before you go into an athletic event. But the key is that you can do it anywhere," says Congressman Tim Ryan, author of A Mindful Nation.

We ask attendees at the opening night of the BuddhaFest film festival to talk about their attraction to Buddhism. Watch an audio slideshow of the interviews and listen to a Buddhist chant performed during the opening ceremony.

"I am a human being, I'm a Buddhist monk, I am a Westerner," says Nicholas Vreeland, who is also a successful and sophisticated photographer. Recently, the Dalai Lama asked him to lead one of Tibetan Buddhism's most important monasteries.

Using ancient Chinese spiritual principles, says Raymond Lo, a feng shui grand master in Hong Kong, “we can establish where is the good energy and where is the bad energy.”

"It is our love that brings us into communion with God, not our knowledge about God," he says. "It’s the difference between looking at a photograph of somebody you love and looking into the eyes of someone you love."

“It’s a spectacular opportunity for cross-cultural associations that are peace-based, that are based in the holiness of this land,” says Steve Lozar, a council leader of the Salish Tribe in Montana.

"That old Lutheran concept of the priesthood of all believers—Stephen Ministry helps you live that out,” says Rev. David Sloop of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Read four poems by Brother Paul Quenon, who entered the Abbey of Gethsemani, a Trappist monastery in Kentucky, in 1958.

At the central jail in Bhopal, India, the prison superintendent says a yoga program calms the jail’s atmosphere and speeds the release of inmates.

"Does the public really understand in a deep way what the moral burdens of war are? I don't think so," says philosopher, ethicist, and psychoanalyst Nancy Sherman.