Digital Commons Network^™

Buddhism, Daoism, And Jeet Kune Do: A Contemporary Analysis Of Nondual Traditions In A New Age Martial Art, James H. Sutton

Journal of Conscious Evolution

Traditional martial arts are known for their focus on spiritual cultivation through a combination of self-defense training and contemplative practices like meditation. Traditional martial art systems tend to utilize nondual traditions commonly associated with Buddhism and Daoism; however, modern martial art practices, particularly those of MMA, no longer place a strong emphasis on such traditions. In turn, this has led to the development of high-performance sport athletes who emphasize self-defense efficiency in combat (usually combat sports) over all other attributes while also mixing “arts” or “styles” as necessary for the individual’s own self growth. I dub these as “new age” …

Understanding And Accessing North Korean Religion, Byun Jin Heung

Asia Pacific Mission Studies

Questions about North Korean religion always come with a question mark, and the general level of understanding about North Korean society is very low. This stems from doubts about North Korean communism. However, North Korea is a human society in which people live. As the society of North Korea has changed, so has the religion of North Korea. North Korea, especially after the collapse of the Cold War between East and West, has sought to change to survive and has used religion to gain recognition and acceptance from the international community. Religion has always been a tool to be used. …

Anātman & Lack: Between Nāgārjuna And Lacan, Carter Morris

The Confluence

The notion of the Self lies at the heart of subjectivity. This paper aims to analyze and compare two intellectual traditions that have their own subversive philosophies of the Self and subjectivity—these two traditions being Mādhyamaka Buddhism and Lacanian psychoanalysis. Beginning with primers on both Nāgārjuna’s philosophy and Jacques Lacan’s psychoanalytic theory, this paper will discuss the comparative psychologies and philosophies of subjectivity presented by the ideas of non-Self and Lack, respectively. Also briefly compared are the implied metaphysics of both Śūnyatā and Lacanian Lack. An examination of these comparisons’ weaknesses follows along with some closing remarks.

Synesthetic Symbolism: Community Engagement With The Sacred At The Boudhanath Stupa, Madeleine E. Tevonian

Lawrence University Honors Projects

This paper is a discussion of the complex relationship between the Great Boudhanath Stupa in the Kathmandu Valley, and the diverse Buddhist community that surrounds it. I argue that liberative sense experience and movement-encoded cultural knowledge make the community of practitioners a part of the stupa—and thus necessary to any examination of it. My argument is contextualized by a background on stupas and etymology of several Sanskrit and Tibetan terms, and I utilize a framework of religious studies concepts of sacred space and pilgrimage as well as on-site anthropological fieldwork focusing on practitioners’ daily lives. I investigate how the stupa …

Houses Built For Gods: Articulations Of Urban Hokora In Kyoto, Steele Engelmann

Anthropology Undergraduate Honors Theses

Amidst the urban landscape of Kyoto, Japan, there are thousands of hokora, small neighborhood shrines. This study uses social theories of pilgrimage and space to examine the articulation of hokora, community, and personal desire. As sites of local pilgrimage, hokora form networks of communal, but also individual, aspirations across the urban spiritual landscape of the city. This thesis argues that communities are connected to the larger social structures of Kyoto through hokora. As such, neighborhoods are reproduced and displayed through their hokora’s entanglements with the urban, social, and religious landscapes of Kyoto. Therefore, this study deploys an ethnographic approach to …

Buddhist Monasteries, Bella Rushing

Scholars Day Conference

Buddhist monasteries are a foundational piece of the Buddhist tradition. These monasteries play an important role in shaping the lives of monks and laypeople alike. Purposefully designed to be both unique, as well as containing some of the same architectural and social aspects, these monasteries are the hub of cultural significance in Buddhism.

Monasteries serve as a home to monks, as well as a place of worship, education, and religious practice for Buddhists. Within each monastery is a hierarchy of monks, who collectively work to propagate the teachings of the Buddha. Because of their interdependent relationship with laypeople, the monastery …

Dispelling Delusion And Seeing Nature: A Comparative Analysis Of Lucretius’ _De Rerum Natura_ And Hui-Neng’S _Platform Sutra_, Isaac Raymond

Honors Theses

Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura and Hui-neng’s Platform Sutra have never been compared in a scholarly context; as such, this paper builds a new bridge between Western and Eastern philosophical literature, examining language, narrative, ethics, teleology, theology, and departures from orthodox philosophies in order to synthesize a clear and complete view of the two works in dialogue. De Rerum Natura, or On the Nature of Things, is a first-century BC epic poem composed in Latin by Titus Lucretius Carus which explains Epicurean philosophy in great detail through verse. The Platform Sutra is an eighth-century AD Chinese Zen (Ch’an) Buddhist sermon, …

Agent Of Happiness, John C. Lyden

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Agent of Happiness (2024), directed by Arun Bhattarai and Dorottya Zurbó.

Associating Academic Identity With Language Socialization In Virtual Community: A Case Study Of A Chinese Graduate Student’S Learning Experiences In Religion Studies, Xiaolong Lu

The Qualitative Report

This longitudinal case study explored the academic identity and language socialization of a Chinese graduate student enrolled in an online religion course at a U.S. university during the COVID-19 pandemic. Data were collected via online classroom observations, oral interviews, and artifacts. The theoretical framework was taken from language socialization and identity, together with positioning theory. The study differs from previous research, arguing that instead of language competence, the constructed academic identity is occasionally crucial for the successful academic discourse socialization of international students in bilingual and virtual settings. Moreover, the inclination toward interactive positioning between students and instructors can arise …

Hungry For Mcmindfulness? The Effect Of Linguistic Framing On Perceptions Of Vipassana (Insight Meditation), Sarah J. Eckert

Senior Projects Spring 2024

Linguistic framing shapes the way we conceptualize social matters, moral and causal reasoning, and influences the way we perceive the world by constraining how we gather evidence about people, events and situations. There is a robust history behind the dichotomization of religion and the secular, which manifests in present day linguistic framing of meditation practices as “secular,” despite their ties to Buddhism or other religious traditions. This secularization has been criticized for its dilution or total erasure of Buddhist ideals, and conversely, as a form of “stealth Buddhism,” a tactic for recruitment of otherwise uninterested parties. The present study aims …

Buddhist Music As A Contested Site: The Transmission Of Teochew Buddhist Music Between China And Singapore, Jie Zhang

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

In the Chaozhou City Gazetteer of Buddhism & Chaozhou Kaiyuan Monastery Gazetteer published in 1992, the then Abbot of the Kaiyuan Monastery, Shi Huiyuan 释慧原 heavily condemned the Qing Dynasty (1644–1911) monk Shi Kesheng 释可声 (date unknown) for "starting the sins among laities in the Chaozhou region who dared transgressing (the Buddhist doctrines) and became chant leaders in a flaming mouth ceremony.” Why was the Abbot so upset with a fellow monk back in history? What did Kesheng do, and what were the implications of him starting this "transgression"? This article investigates the history of the international traffic of Buddhist …

After Great Pain: The Uses Of Religious Folklore In Kenji Mizoguchi’S Sansho The Bailiff (Jp 1954) And Kaneto Shindo’S Onibaba (Jp 1964), Teng-Kuan Ng

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

This article studies the adaptations and applications of religious folklore in two mas-terworks of Japanese cinema: Kenji Mizoguchi’s Sansho Dayu (Sansho the Bailiff, JP 1954) and Kaneto Shindo’s Onibaba (JP 1964). While academic approaches will often draw a strict line between narrative genres and discursive forms, these films, I argue, draw creatively from Japanese tradition for both critical and constructive purposes in the postwar context. Besides mounting trenchant criticisms of Japan’s erstwhile militaristic violence and imperial ambitions, both filmmakers present their respective female protagonists as models for spiritual and sociocultural transformation in the face of anomie. Embodying humanistic compassion on …

Depaul Digest

DePaul Magazine

College of Education Professor Jason Goulah fosters hope, happiness and global citizenship through DePaul’s Institute for Daisaku Ikeda Studies in Education. Associate Journalism Professor Jill Hopke shares how to talk about climate change. News briefs from DePaul’s 10 colleges and schools: Occupational Therapy Standardized Patient Program, Financial Planning Certificate program, Business Education in Technology and Analytics Hub, Racial Justice Initiative, Teacher Quality Partnership grant, Intimate Partner Violence and Brain Injury collaboration, School of Music Career Closet, Sports Photojournalism course, DePaul Migration Collaborative’s Solutions Lab, Inclusive Screenwriting courses. New appointments: School of Music Dean John Milbauer, College of Education Dean Jennifer …

The Appropriation Of Buddhism In New Age Music: New Age Musicians Can Do Better At Representing Buddhist Cultures, Jack T. Robinett

Access*: Interdisciplinary Journal of Student Research and Scholarship

This paper explores the appropriation of Buddhism in new age music and argues that New Age musicians should do better at representing Buddhist cultures. Beginning by discussing the popularity of mindfulness and its incorporation into secular settings, this paper highlights the historical connection between sounds, meditation, and spirituality, emphasizing the significance of music in religious expression. This paper then delves into the origins and essential teachings of Buddhism, and an overview of new age music, which uses ambient sounds to create a relaxing atmosphere. New age music also includes various elements of Buddhist practice, like chants, mantras, and ritual instruments …

Lha, Lu, And Shipda: Religious Landscape In A Conservation Area, Luke Stumpfl

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Living in a political, cultural, and geographic border region between Nepal and Tibet (People’s Republic of China), the families of Tsum Valley face many demands from their sociopolitical, religious, and economic climate. Practicing Tibetan Buddhism, the people uphold a set of rules implemented by the community with leadership from Serap Dorje Drukpa Rinpoche over 100 years ago that prohibits the intentional murder of all animals. Hailed by leaders and scholars as a haven of biodiversity conservation due to this customary-turned- municipal law, Tsum Valley also exists within Manaslu Conservation Area governed by an entity of the federal government of Nepal …

Making Mindfulness More Accessible: A Practical Guide To Trauma-Informed Mindfulness, Leslie Formby

Mindfulness Studies Theses

Mindfulness is currently embedded in a growing understanding of how trauma permeates and adversely impacts peoples’ physical and psychological well-being. Increased awareness of the prevalence of trauma and its harmful effects has led to renewed interest in mindfulness to help manage the challenges generated by the detrimental effects of trauma.

These effects may draw people to mindfulness and, in turn, may make the benefits of mindfulness out of reach. Mindfulness methods and practice adaptations have been found to help trauma survivors experience the benefits of what the Buddha taught. As a support for those engaging in mindfulness and meditation, this …

The Jewel In The Lotus: Humane Education, Engaged Buddhism, And Farming Compassion, Francy Jenko

Mindfulness Studies Theses

This thesis explores the relationship and intersectionality of Engaged Buddhism and Humane Education and demonstrates how they support the development of a farm sanctuary to cultivate compassion. It is supported by peer-reviewed literature, which reflects the importance of understanding why compassion is necessary to decrease suffering and how these disciplines complement one another, facilitating compassion and action. The research component of this thesis encourages the ongoing exploration of Engaged Buddhism and Humane Education. Further, it contributes to the scholarly literature on their intersection, highlighting farm sanctuary work as an avenue of engagement and offering implications for future study. The creative …

Merit Transference And The Paradox Of Merit Inflation, Matthew Hammerton

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Many religious traditions and ethical systems hold that individuals accrue merit through their good intentions, acts, and character, and demerit through their bad intentions, acts, and character. This merit and demerit, accumulated by individuals throughout their lives, gives each person a kind of ethical “score” that can determine what they deserve, and influence whether good or bad things happen to them (e.g., divine punishments and rewards, a favourable or unfavourable rebirth, etc.). In some traditions (most notably Buddhism, but also to a limited extent in Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity), “merit transference” is a feature of these merit-based ethical systems. This …

Causality, Agency, And Moral Responsibility In Nikaya Buddhism, Soo Lam Wong

Comparative Philosophy

In this paper, I aim to examine the relationship between the Buddhist notions of causality and agency, the questions of whether the Buddhist notion of causality affirms causal determinism and whether the Buddhist notion of agency affirms libertarian free will, the implications of the Buddhist notions of causality and agency for moral responsibility, and the implications of the Buddhist rejection of the metaphysical self for agency and moral responsibility. My claim is that although the question of whether the early Buddhist notions of causality and agency affirm causal determinism and libertarian free will respectively remains open, they are compatible with …

Dualism And Psychosemantics: Holography And Pansematism In Early Buddhist Philosophy, Federico Divino

Comparative Philosophy

In the Indian philosophical debate, the relationship between the structure of knowledge and external reality has been a persistent issue. This debate has been particularly prominent in Buddhism, as evidenced by the earliest Buddhist attestations in the Pāli canon, where reality is described as a perceptual defection. The world (loka) is perceived through cognition (citta), and the theme of designation (paññatti) is central to the analysis of the Abhidhamma. Buddhism can be viewed as navigating between nominalism and cognitive normativism, as it deconstructs language, which is seen as an obfuscating element that separates the subject from the world. In this …

Brief Note About The Heart Sutra And Its Composition, Charles Willemen

The Indian International Journal of Buddhist Studies

no abstract

The Shape Of Victory: The Earth-Touching Gesture In Context, Douglass Smith

The Indian International Journal of Buddhist Studies

This paper will attempt to unearth some of the historical roots of the earth-touching gesture by considering eight different textual accounts of it from the Buddhist traditions of the early centuries CE. Maria Spagnoli has recently argued that the gesture stems from Greek antecedents in oath-making that were transferred to ancient India, perhaps through Gandhara. While this may indeed be so, more remains to be said about possible Indian roots of the gesture. To that end, this paper will explore resonances the gesture has with material in several important Vedic tropes. It will also consider the problem of early Buddhist …

Kāliṅgaraṭṭha And Its Buddhist Connections, Karam Tej Sarao, Jyoti Dwivedi

The Indian International Journal of Buddhist Studies

Invasion of the kingdom of Kāliṅga (Kāliṅgaraṭṭha) by King Aśoka and his consequent Dhamma policy is a recurrent theme in the Buddhist folk lore. In fact, the Kāliṅga event is often cited as an example in Buddhism of a cruel king becoming a righteous king by taking shelter in Buddhism. The long term consequences of the Kāliṅga War as well as the motive of Aśoka behind the war and its subsequent justificatory politics have been debated by historians. In this paper an attempt has been made to understand Aśoka’s reason for invading Kāliṅga as well as Kāliṅga’s importance in the …

Buddhas’ Respect For The Dhamma – A Commentarial Exposition, Bhikkhu Gyanabodhi (Sajal Barua)

The Indian International Journal of Buddhist Studies

This essay points out that even though due to the development of perfect human qualities a Buddha is regarded as the supreme person (purisottama) and highly respected by the followers in the tradition, a Pāli commentarial exposition depicts that the Gotama Buddha placed the Dhamma above him and paid his due respect to the Dhamma. This essay explores what kind of dhamma a Buddha pays respect to? Why and how? It also contains an original annotated English translation of a commentarial and a sub-commentarial texts dealing with the subject. The study is carried out following a critical and …

From Nothing To No-Thing-Ness To Emptiness: The Buddhist Recycling Of An Old Jain Saying, Dhivan Thomas Jones

The Indian International Journal of Buddhist Studies

In this article I investigate a difficult saying of the Buddha, preserved in three places in Pāli canonical discourses: n’ āhaṃ kvacani kassaci kiñcanatasmiṃ, na ca mama kvacani kismiñci kiñcanat’ atthi (‘There is no I anywhere in anyone’s property, and neither is there anywhere in anything property which is mine’). At A 3: 70, this saying is attributed to the Jains, while at A 4: 185, the Buddha teaches it as a ‘brahman truth’ acceptable to paribbājakas, and at M 106, the Buddha teaches it as a means of attaining the experiential dimension of no-thing-ness (ākiñcaññāyatana). I …

The Spiritual Migrants Of Sogenji: Notes Of Participant Observation In A Rinzai Zen Temple, Andrei-Razvan Coltea

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

Anomie is a cultural pathology that is becoming chronic in the West, characterized by the erosion of values, disintegration and deregulation. Amongst its symptoms we find anxiety, isolation, depression, tribalism, incoherence and loss of meaning. Individuo-globalism is a new ideology that permeates the religious market created by globalisation, encouraging individuals to discover, nurture and express their ‘true self’. This new spirituality forms the background for a journey that our ‘heroes’, a handful of non-Japanese inhabitants of a Japanese Rinzai Zen monastery, have been undertaking for years in search of the philosopher’s stone that could cure anomie and its symptoms. At …

Artificial Intelligence: Its Impact On Christian Education, Youssry Guirguis

Adventist Human-Subject Researchers Association

In recent years, the world has witnessed a resounding revolution in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI), and today there is no field where AI is not employed. These institutions have a major role in developing policies, curricula, and strategies to keep pace with the modern artificial revolution. The aim of this research is to find out how current developments in this ��eld are likely to impact education in the future, and how such developments in Edtech might impact on future graduates, colleges, universities, societies, and cultures.

On The Roads: Catholic And Buddhist Pilgrimage, Madera Allan, Constance Kassor

Convocations

Madera Allan, associate professor of Spanish, called her visit last summer to the Kathmandu Valley of Nepal stunning and beautiful, a glimpse into a way of life “infused with a frenetic, spiritual energy.”

Constance Kassor, associate professor of religious studies, called her visit to Camino de Santiago in northwestern Spain last summer an incredible journey—a 100-kilometer pilgrimage leading to the awe-inspiring cathedral of Santiago de Compostela.

The two Lawrence University professors made those journeys together, and on Friday afternoon they shared the experience in Memorial Chapel at Lawrence’s Honors Convocation, the third and final Convocation of the 2022-23 academic year. …

Re-Membering The Living Earth: A Year In Rural Sri Lanka, Samuel C. King

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

The following thesis tells the story of my year in rural Sri Lanka. After college, I traveled from suburban New York to the highlands of the island country with the hopes of writing an ethnography on agrarian Buddhism. I soon realized, however, that I was not just embarking on an academic project, but an inner journey to explore ways of being that had been lost in the modern culture I had known. My narrative recounts how immersion in a rice cultivating village deepened my sense for what it means to live in reciprocity with the more-than-human world—a world of plants, …

Buddhist Nationalism: Rising Religious Violence In South Asia, Eva Chappus, Benjamin Nourse

DU Undergraduate Research Journal Archive

Buddhist nationalism has contributed to expanding religious violence in many South Asian countries. The roots of this violent form of nationalism are complex and multi-faceted, making a clear solution difficult to achieve. Thailand, Sri Lanka, and Burma are some of the most pressing and violent case studies in South Asia today and can illustrate the reliance of Buddhist nationalists on ethnoreligious identities to relegate non-Buddhists to second-class status, to the point of massive acts of violence and aggression. This paper seeks to illuminate the complex social history driving the rise of Buddhist nationalism in these countries, particularly strong military-religion relationships, …