Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
- Discipline
-
- Religion (15)
- Buddhist Studies (10)
- Social and Behavioral Sciences (6)
- Anthropology (4)
- History of Religions of Eastern Origins (4)
-
- Social and Cultural Anthropology (4)
- Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (2)
- South and Southeast Asian Languages and Societies (2)
- Animal Studies (1)
- Asian Studies (1)
- Chinese Studies (1)
- Classical Literature and Philology (1)
- Classics (1)
- East Asian Languages and Societies (1)
- Environmental Education (1)
- Environmental Sciences (1)
- Human Rights Law (1)
- International and Area Studies (1)
- Law (1)
- Physical Sciences and Mathematics (1)
- Practical Theology (1)
- Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion (1)
- Women's Studies (1)
- Institution
Articles 1 - 16 of 16
Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
"Trading Western Suits For Monastic Robes" : Remaking Tibetan Buddhism In The Chinese Religious Revival, Jue Liang
Faculty Publications
No abstract provided.
Becoming Animal: Karma And The Animal Realm Envisioned Through An Early Yogācāra Lens, Daniel M. Stuart
Becoming Animal: Karma And The Animal Realm Envisioned Through An Early Yogācāra Lens, Daniel M. Stuart
Faculty Publications
In an early discourse from the Sam. yuttanikaya ¯ , the Buddha states: “I do not see any other order of living beings so diversified as those in the animal realm. Even those beings in the animal realm have been diversified by the mind, yet the mind is even more diverse than those beings in the animal realm.” This paper explores how this key early Buddhist idea gets elaborated in various layers of Buddhist discourse during a millennium of historical development. I focus in particular on a middle period Buddhist sutra ¯ , the Saddharmasmr. tyupasthanas ¯ utra ¯ , …
Becoming Animal: Karma And The Animal Realm Envisioned Through An Early Yogacara Lens, Daniel Malinowski Stuart
Becoming Animal: Karma And The Animal Realm Envisioned Through An Early Yogacara Lens, Daniel Malinowski Stuart
Faculty Publications
In an early discourse from the Saṃyuttanikāya, the Buddha states: “I do not see any other order of living beings so diversified as those in the animal realm. Even those beings in the animal realm have been diversified by the mind, yet the mind is even more diverse than those beings in the animal realm.” This paper explores how this key early Buddhist idea gets elaborated in various layers of Buddhist discourse during a millennium of historical development. I focus in particular on a middle period Buddhist sūtra, the Saddharmasmṛtyupasthānasūtra, which serves as a bridge between early Buddhist theories of …
Defining Choices Redefined: Heroic Life Narratives Of Taiwanese Buddhist Monastics, Hillary Crane
Defining Choices Redefined: Heroic Life Narratives Of Taiwanese Buddhist Monastics, Hillary Crane
Faculty Publications
The Taiwanese Buddhist monastics in this study confront negative stereotypes that dominate within their wider societal context, and they challenge these stereotypes by positing counter-narratives. After exploring the monastics’ interest in proselytizing both to me and to a wider audience as a context that influences the interview encounter, this chapter focuses on the monastics’ response to negative stereotypes and their endeavors to craft a new, positive image of monastics. I argue that they employ the heroic trope of the da zhangfu (大丈夫, ‘great man’) to reconceive as heroic the life choices they have made that wider Taiwanese society characterizes as …
The Blind Arhat And The Old Baby: Liberation By Wisdom, The Dry-Insight Practitioner, And The Pairing Of Calm And Insight, David V. Fiordalis
The Blind Arhat And The Old Baby: Liberation By Wisdom, The Dry-Insight Practitioner, And The Pairing Of Calm And Insight, David V. Fiordalis
Faculty Publications
The distinction between “calm” (Pāli: samatha; Sanskrit: śamatha) and “insight” (P: vipassanā; Skt: vipaśyanā) is one of several ostensibly related dichotomies that have exerted a significant influence on classical and contemporary understandings of Buddhist practices, institutions, and history, as well as of the Buddhist path(s) to and conception(s) of awakening. However, scholars continue to debate whether Buddhists ever conceptualized two (or more) different paths or conceptions of this goal. Much of the debate has been based on the interpretation of doctrinal and theoretical materials. This essay takes as its starting point the concept of “liberation by …
Review Of John Whalen-Bridge, Tibet On Fire: Buddhism, Protest, And The Rhetoric Of Self-Immolation, Daniel S. Capper
Review Of John Whalen-Bridge, Tibet On Fire: Buddhism, Protest, And The Rhetoric Of Self-Immolation, Daniel S. Capper
Faculty Publications
Review of John Whalen-Bridge, Tibet on Fire: Buddhism, Protest, and the Rhetoric of Self-Immolation, in Journal of Contemporary Religion
Animism Among Western Buddhists, Daniel S. Capper
Animism Among Western Buddhists, Daniel S. Capper
Faculty Publications
Myriad instances of animist phenomena abound in the Buddhist world, but due to the outdated concepts of thinkers such as Edward Tylor, James George Frazer, and Melford Spiro, commonly scholars perceive this animism merely as the work of local religions, not as deriving from Buddhism itself. However, when one follows a number of contemporary scholars and employs a new, relational concept of animism that is based on respectful recognition of nonhuman personhoods, a different picture emerges. The works of Western Buddhists such as Stephanie Kaza, Philip Kapleau Roshi, and Gary Snyder express powerful senses of relational animism that arise specifically …
On Buddhism, Divination And The Worldly Arts: Textual Evidence From The Theravāda Tradition, David Fiordalis
On Buddhism, Divination And The Worldly Arts: Textual Evidence From The Theravāda Tradition, David Fiordalis
Faculty Publications
This essay attends to the sticky web of indigenous terminology concerning divination and other so-called “mundane” or “worldly” arts, focusing primarily upon Buddhist canonical texts preserved in Pāli, augmented by references to commentarial and exegetical literature. It asks: How have some Buddhists, as evinced in this canonical and exegetical literature, understood the broader category of “worldly arts,” which includes techniques we call divinatory? Are Buddhists discouraged from engaging with such practices, as has been commonly asserted? If so, then for whom, specifically, are such words of discouragement primarily meant? And why, specifically, are such practices discouraged? Are the penalties for …
The Friendly Yeti, Daniel S. Capper
The Friendly Yeti, Daniel S. Capper
Faculty Publications
Most images of yetis in Western popular culture and scholarly literature portray them as secular, predatory monsters. These representations overlook important religious dimensions of yetis that are hidden in the current literature, so I take a new look at yetis in Tibetan religions in order to clarify our understanding of these legendary creatures. Following a phenomenological approach that sets aside the issue of the ontological existence of yetis, I examine texts, art, ritual, and folklore in order to propose four yeti personal ideal types: the Buddhist practitioner, the human religious ally, the friendly yeti, and the mountain deity yeti. These …
Resistance Through Transformation? The Meanings Of Gender Reversals In A Taiwanese Buddhist Monastery, Hillary Crane
Resistance Through Transformation? The Meanings Of Gender Reversals In A Taiwanese Buddhist Monastery, Hillary Crane
Faculty Publications
This chapter demonstrates that Taiwanese Buddhist nuns resist the limitations of traditional Han gender ideologies by drawing on opportunities offered within those traditional gender constructions—opportunities that allow them to define themselves in opposition to the limited female gender characteristics and roles they reject. Crane argues that we should not interpret these nuns' masculine identification simply as resisting dominant Han gender ideologies. Instead, the nuns embrace the traditional, sexist Han ideologies, even to the point of exaggeration—portraying women not only as dangerous to the spiritual cultivation of others, but also of limited spiritual ability. They define the negative characteristics of women …
Miracles In Indian Buddhist Narratives And Doctrine, David V. Fiordalis
Miracles In Indian Buddhist Narratives And Doctrine, David V. Fiordalis
Faculty Publications
Despite the fact that scholars have recognized for a long time that Buddhist literature contains numerous marvelous and fantastic events, there have been reservations about the use of the word “miracle” in the context of Buddhism. This article addresses the notion of wonder and wonderment, and specifically miracles, in South and Southeast Asian Buddhist literature and traditions.
Buddhism, Apophasis, Truth, Mario D'Amato
Buddhism, Apophasis, Truth, Mario D'Amato
Faculty Publications
In this paper I will offer some reflections on one instance of apophasis in a specific Mahāyāna Buddhist doctrinal treatise, known as the Madhyāntavibhāga (“Distinguishing the Middle from the Extremes,” ca. fourth century CE). I will attempt to formally distinguish such apophatic doctrines from doctrines of ineffability, and consider what apophatic doctrines might contribute to the impasse regarding “truth” which characterizes certain approaches to the comparative philosophy of religion. Since this paper is intended as a contribution to the comparative philosophy of religion, I will begin with a few remarks on the nature of that enterprise.
Becoming A Nun, Becoming A Man: Taiwanese Buddhist Nuns’ Gender Transformation, Hillary Crane
Becoming A Nun, Becoming A Man: Taiwanese Buddhist Nuns’ Gender Transformation, Hillary Crane
Faculty Publications
This paper explores apparent contradictions in the gender identifications of Taiwanese Buddhist nuns. Because the texts and teachings of their tradition provide conflicting messages about women's spiritual abilities, the nuns create a complex gender cosmology as a means to accommodate textual contradictions without rejecting any textual statements. This strategy allows the nuns to assert that they have spiritual abilities equal to those of men without rejecting or contradicting textual statements that they do not. Without denying that they are women (and that they are therefore threatening to men) the nuns primarily identify with the male gender. Compartmentalizing and contextualizing gender …
World Religions And The Vegetarian Diet, Jo Ann Davidson
World Religions And The Vegetarian Diet, Jo Ann Davidson
Faculty Publications
No abstract provided.
Can All Beings Potentially Attain Awakening? Gotra-Theory In The Mahāyānasūtrālaṃkāra, Mario D'Amato
Can All Beings Potentially Attain Awakening? Gotra-Theory In The Mahāyānasūtrālaṃkāra, Mario D'Amato
Faculty Publications
Given that for the MSA/Bh gotra is indicative of a sentient being’s soteriological potentiality, an important issue is whether gotra is able to be acquired by every sentient being or whether there are some beings who are excluded from ever acquiring a gotra; and furthermore if some beings are excluded, in what sense they are excluded . It will be necessary to understand these issues in order to address the question of whether, from the perspective of the MSA/Bh, all sentient beings can potentially attain awakening. And so I will begin by discussing the meanings of the term gotra in …
The Semiotics Of Signlessness: A Buddhist Doctrine Of Signs, Mario D'Amato
The Semiotics Of Signlessness: A Buddhist Doctrine Of Signs, Mario D'Amato
Faculty Publications
In this paper, I consider a Buddhist response to the issue of unlimited semiosis: In other words, I offer a Buddhist account of how unlimited semiosis should be understood. I do this by following the doctrine of signs offered in an Indian Buddhist text of the Mahamyamna from circa the fourth century CE, a text known as the Mahamyamnasutra m mlamD kamra (Ornament to the Scriptures of the Great Vehicle; hereafter, ‘the Ornament’). Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Buddhist semiotics, from both a historical and a philosophical point of view, is that in its theorizing of the semiotic process, …