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Secular Ethics, Embodied Cognitive Logics, And Education, Brendan R. Ozawa-De Silva

Journal of Contemplative Inquiry

The Dalai Lama’s model of secular ethics not only makes possible an understanding of contemplative practices within a wider ethical framework, but also helps to illuminate the important question of the relationship between contemplative practices and the religions within which they developed. This article explores that question and proposes an approach to the study of contemplative practices that examines the diachronic and synchronic relationships among embodied cognitive states and the “embodied cognitive logics” inherent in the theories and practices of contemplative traditions. Since secular ethics looks to common experience, common sense, and scientific findings, rather than metaphysics or religion, to …

Rahul Sankrityayan, Tsetan Phuntsog And Tibetan Textbooks For Ladakh In 1933, John Bray, Martijn Van Beek, Tsering Gonkatsang, Phuntsok Wangchuk

HIMALAYA, the Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies

In 1933 the Indian scholar and social activist Rahul Sankrityayan (1893-1963) compiled a set of four Tibetan-language readers and a grammar for use in Ladakhi schools, together with his Ladakhi colleague Tsetan Phuntsog. The readers contain a mix of material from Western, Indian, Ladakhi and Tibetan sources. This includes simple essays about ‘air’ and ‘water’, selections from Aesop’s fables, Indian folk stories, biographies of famous people in Ladakhi and Tibetan history, poems by Ladakhi authors, and extracts from the Treasury of Elegant Sayings by Sakya Pandita Kunga Gyaltsen (1182-1251). This essay begins with a review of earlier Tibetan-language schoolbooks published …

Toward Eco -Citizenship: A Praxis For Empowerment, Penelope S. Morrow

Doctoral Dissertations

My teaching practice and research is about holistic education which assumes that, at some fundamental level, everything is connected. Holistic education is a philosophy, a worldview, that challenges the fragmented, reductionist, mechanistic and nationalistic assumptions of mainstream culture and education. The ultimate goal is to transform the way people look at themselves and their relationships in/to the world from a fragmented to an integrative perspective. This emerging paradigm can also be called ecological, evolutionary, spiritual and global. There is a growing belief that such education is fundamentally spiritual, in its search for wholeness.

Western civilization has been dominated from its …

Religious Schools: For Spirit, (F)Or Nation, Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In this paper I draw attention to the study of 'unofficially sacred' sites in geographies of religion, which provide significant insights into the construction of religious identity and community, and the intersections of sacred and secular. I show that such sites deserve as much attention as places of worship (the more conventional focus in the geographical study of religion) in our understanding of the place of religion in contemporary urban society. In particular, using the case of Islamic religious schools in Singapore, I examine how Muslim identities and community are negotiated within multicultural and multireligious contexts, and particularly within one …

Learning To Persevere: The Popular Teachings Of Tendai Ascetics, Stephen G. Covell

Comparative Religion Publications

This paper introduces the teachings of three contemporary practitioners of Tendai Buddhism. I argue that the study of Japanese Buddhism has focused on doctrine and the past to the detriment of our understanding of contemporary teaching. Through an examination of the teachings of contemporary practitioners of austerities, I show that practice is drawn on as a source more than classical doctrine, that conservative values are prized, and that the teachings show strong similarities to the teachings of the new religions, suggesting a broad-based shared worldview.

The Wooster Voice (Wooster, Oh), 2000-02-10, Wooster Voice Editors

The Voice: 1991-2000

On the front page of this edition of the Wooster Voice, there is an article discussing the vandalism of Kauke Arch. In typical Wooster tradition, students attempted to fill the arch with snow in the hopes of having classes cancelled for their efforts. However, some students took it too far and caused $12,000 worth of damage. In the heat of the moment, a group of students decided to leave some "surprises" for the plows, which included ripped up benches from around campus. In the pages that follow, there is an article about the Bissman Wrestling Federation's making it's debut in …

Citizenship Education: Australian And Singaporean Perspectives, Richard Berlach

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

The issue of what it means to be a citizen of a country is currently on the educational agenda in both Australia and Singapore. It seems that over the years, both nations have realised that the schooling system is a powerful and effective vehicle through which a country’s united vision can be disseminated, and through which individuals can be encouraged to make a valuable contribution to the national good. For a variety of reasons, however, the nature of a united vision appears to be problematic for both Australia as well as Singapore. With both countries being considered, this paper presents …