Buddhist Studies Commons^™

Creolizing Modern Buddhism: A Reply To Yarran Hominh & A. Minh Nguyen, Evan Thompson

Comparative Philosophy

In reply to Hominh and Nguyen, I argue that “creolizing” methods in the study and practice of Buddhism should not be opposed to historicist and contextualist modes of investigation and understanding. Rather, historicism and contextualism can and should inform creolizing approaches.

Cosmopolitanism, Creolization, And Non-Exceptionalist Buddhist Modernisms: On Evan Thompson’S Why I Am Not A Buddhist, Yarran Hominh, A. Minh Nguyen

Comparative Philosophy

In his recent book, Why I Am Not a Buddhist, Evan Thompson argues that inter-tradition or cross-cultural philosophical dialogue ought to be governed by cosmopolitan conversational norms that do not subsume any one tradition’s deep commitments under those of any other tradition, but rather bring those commitments into the discussion so that they can be challenged and defended. He argues on this basis for the application of a deeply contextualist and historicist interpretive methodology to Buddhist texts, concepts, and theories in dialogue with philosophy and contemporary cognitive sciences. Buddhist modernism, in eschewing that deeply contextualist and historicist methodology, falls …

Fast Fashion From A Buddhist Perspective, Elizabeth Mclaughlin

HON499 projects

The connection between Buddhism and fast fashion is not immediately apparent, nor is it a particularly well-researched area. However, the topic of consumption underlies both topics, relating to each in markedly different ways. Buddhist precepts outline practices of mindful and sustainable consumption within limited means; fast fashion fosters consumption on a massive, global scale. The work of Ernst Friedrich Schumacher, a man with a career in economics that was aided by great concern for the survival and success of humankind, offers clarity to the conversation about Buddhism and fast fashion. He pioneered the field of Buddhist economics, which seeks to …

Neither Buddhist Nor Taoist, But Both (And Even More): Exploring The ‘Hall Of Infinite Principle’ (Guangli Fotang): A Chinese Temple In The Romanian Capital, Serban Toader

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

This ethnography regards the sole Chinese temple in the Romanian capital Bucharest, its people and activity, as well as the thinking that supports this new religious movement (Maitreya Great Tao,Mile Dadao 彌勒大道). It is common knowledge that Taoism, Budhism, and Confucianism appear, at least in the official discourse, as a braided rope of unified Chinese tradition, each of the three at the same time preserving their particular features. Nevertheless, Mile Dadao not only seems to implicitly unite the three traditions in one (to which other foreign or popular traditions may be added as well), but also aims to act as …

One Or None? Truth And Self-Transformation For Śaṅkara And Kamalaśīla, David Fiordalis

Faculty Publications

This article explores how two influential 8th-century Indian philosophers, Śaṅkara and Kamalaśīla, treat the threefold scheme of learning, reasoning, and meditation in their spiritual path philosophies. They have differing institutional and ontological commitments: the former, who helped establish Advaita Vedānta as the religious philosophy of an elite Hindu monastic tradition, affirms an unchanging “self” (ātman) identical to the “world-essence” (brahman); the latter, who played a significant role in the development of Buddhist monasticism in Tibet, denies both self and essence. Yet, they share a concern with questions of truth and the means by which someone could gain access to it, …

Sankyoku Magazine And The Invention Of The Shakuhachi As Religious Instrument In Early 20th-Century Japan, Matt Gillan

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

The early 20^th century was a period in which understandings of music, religion, and the nation-state underwent rapid change in Japan. In this article I examine Japanese cultural discourse from the first decades of the 20^th century in which the shakuhachi, a Japanese bamboo flute, was frequently portrayed as a religious instrument. In some cases, this discourse referenced pre-20^th century historical affiliations of the shakuhachi with the Fuke-sect, an organization that was loosely affiliated to Rinzai Zen Buddhism. But the article also explores how religio-musical discourse surrounding the shakuhachi intersected with developments in modern Japanese religious life, …

Understanding Religious Tolerance In Yongchang, China, Liming Gao

Honors Theses

The formation of China is a process of national integration and a fusion of different beliefs. However, under Chairman Mao (1949-1976) and specifically during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), people were reeducated to focus on Communism and expel remnants of traditional Chinese culture including the various religions. Although, after the Cultural Revolution, China reinstated its policy of religious freedom, there were still strict laws against religion. Despite such circumstances, Chinese people still practice their religious beliefs. The Yongchang area, located in Gansu Province in the northwest of China is a typical region of Chinese culture. At the same time, compared to …

Boundary Crossing By A Community Of Practice: Tibetan Buddhist Monasteries Engage Science Education, Carol M. Worthman, Ann Cale Kruger, Cindy Achat-Mendes, Tashi Lhamo, Rinchen Wangyal, Gelek Gyatso, Kelsey M. Gray

Biology, Chemistry, and Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles and Research

As a globalized world struggles with division and disinformation, engaging across difference has emerged as a major challenge to communication and collaborative action needed to address growing global challenges. As such, the initiative by Tibetan Buddhist leaders to incorporate western science in curricula for monastic education may serve as an important case study that illuminates the conditions and processes at work in genuine cultural outreach and exchange. That project, spearheaded in the Emory-Tibet Science Initiative (ETSI), involves reaching out across two quite different communities of practice, Tibetan Buddhism and science, and the willingness and ability of individuals to cross the …

Delusional Mitigation In Religious And Psychological Forms Of Self-Cultivation: Buddhist And Clinical Insight On Delusional Symptomatology, Austin J. Avison

The Hilltop Review

This essay examines Buddhist forms of self-cultivation and development that enable a psychosocial capacity for emotional, cognitive, and behavioral adjustment by improving an individual's characteristic mode of interaction within the world. First, we will consider the religious form of self-cultivation seen in the context of Buddhism and its desire to remove delusional perspectives through developmental practices. In this, we will consider the cultivating function of clinical psychology through the therapeutic application of cognitive restructuring techniques as a form of cultivation. Next, considering psychological self-cultivation, training, development, and education concerning the treatment of schizophrenia and its characteristic criterion of delusions. Further, …

The Fall Of The Ikko Ikki: The Demise Of The Honganji In The Late Sengoku Period, Alexander M. Remington

Student Publications

During the late Sengoku Period Japan witnessed the fall of the Honganji, a sect of Pure Land Buddhism. The Honganji was a significant military, political, and economic power and commanded armies of commoners known as Ikko Ikki. The Honganji fell because it challenged the traditional social order of Japan, lacked unity, and stood against warlord Oda Nobunaga during his bid for hegemony. The fall of the Honganji resulted in consequential policies and impacted Japanese society going into the Tokugawa period.

Reviews Of Rajesh Singh, _Periodisation Of Rock-Cut Monuments Of India_ And _Khīṅgīla Vs. Buddhist Caves_, Charles Willemen

The Indian International Journal of Buddhist Studies

No Abstract.

Review Of Shohei Ichimura, _The Canonical Book Of The Buddha's Lengthy Discourses_, Bhikkhu Analayo

The Indian International Journal of Buddhist Studies

no abstract

Note About Early Buddhist Schools, Charles Willemen

The Indian International Journal of Buddhist Studies

No abstract

Tsongkhapa As Dzokchenpa: Nyingma Discourses And Geluk Sources, Roger R. Jackson

The Indian International Journal of Buddhist Studies

Tsongkhapa as Dzokchenpa: Nyingma Discourses and Geluk Sources

Despite their frequent depiction as polar opposites, the Nyingma and Geluk tradiitons of Tibetan Buddhism have important and sometimes surprising points of connection. The focus of this article is the Geluk founder Tsongkhapa’s (1357–1419) relation to Nyingma teachers, doctrines, and practices. My more specific concern is to examine a particular, relatively long-standing Nyingma discourse suggesting that Tsongkhapa was a crypto-Dzokchenpa. The main “proof-text” for this claim is The Garland of Supreme Medicinal Nectar, which records questions about Dzokchen posed by Tsongkhapa to the buddha/bodhisattva Vajrapāṇi through the medium of his Nyingma …

The Vessantara Jātaka In The Maṇi Bka’ ’Bum And The Fifth Dalai Lama’S ’Khrung Rab, Tomoko Makidono

The Indian International Journal of Buddhist Studies

The Maṇi bka’ ’bum is a ‘‘revealed scripture’’ (gter ma) that claims to be a testament of the ancient Tibetan king Srong btsan sgam po, traditionally believed to have been an incarnation of the Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara, the tutelary deity of Tibet. The Maṇi bka’ ’bum includes two narratives that resemble the Vessantara Jātaka, which has spread widely in Asia as a Buddhist tale about a former birth of the Śākyamuni Buddha as a generous prince called Vessantara, who gives away even his wife and children. The Maṇi bka’ ’bum contains stories of King Srong bstan sgam po’s …

Compassion And Merit In Early Buddhism With The Focus On The Aṅguttara Nikāya And The Ekottarika Āgama, Tse-Fu Kuan

The Indian International Journal of Buddhist Studies

Of the four Nikāyas in Pali and the four Āgamas in Chinese, the numerical collections, i.e. the Aṅguttara Nikāya and the Ekottarika Āgama, are the most adaptable and considerate of individual needs according to ancient Indian/Chinese and modern American monks. Therefore, these two collections contain a considerable proportion of suttas/sūtras that are closely connected with the notion of compassion (karuṇā/anukampā). These two collections include many suttas addressed to Buddhists dealing with the ethical and spiritual concerns of life within the world, and thus involves the issues of merit (puñña). In this study …

Bhikṣuṇī Śailā’S Rebuttal Of Māra’S Substantialist View: The Chariot Simile In A Sūtra Quotation In The Abhidharmakośopāyikā-Ṭīkā, Bhikkhunī Dhammadinnā

The Indian International Journal of Buddhist Studies

This study takes up the first occurrence in Buddhist literature of an illustrative simile comparing the five aggregates (Sanskrit skandhas/Pali khandhas) to a chariot (ratha), found in an early discourse attested in different parallel versions (SN 5.10, SĀ 1202, SĀ2 218, Up 9014). It introduces and translates the version extant in the Abhidharmakośopāyikā-ṭīkā (Up 9014), and then comments on this initial formulation of the chariot simile in light of the ancient Indian background against which the early Buddhist texts and teachings emerged. The implications of the distinctive Buddhist use of the chariot imagery in this context appears to be less …

Three Buddhist Distinctions Of Great Consequence For Cross-Cultural Philosophy Of Personal Identity, Antoine Panaïoti

Comparative Philosophy

This paper seeks to lay down the theoretical groundwork for the emergence of holistic cross-cultural philosophical investigations of personal identity ¾ investigations that approach the theoretical, phenomenological, psychological, and practical-ethical dimensions of selfhood as indissociable. My strategy is to discuss three closely connected conceptual distinctions that the Buddhist approach to personal identity urges us to draw, and a lucid understanding of which is essential for the emergence of appropriately comprehensive and thus genuinely cosmopolitan discussions at the cross-road between Western and Buddhist philosophical traditions. The first, primary distinction is that between the “visceral sense of self” (VSS) and the “substance …

In Search Of Buddhist Virtue: A Case For A Pluralist-Gradualist Moral Philosophy, Oren Hanner

Comparative Philosophy

Classical presentations of the Buddhist path prescribe the cultivation of various good qualities that are necessary for spiritual progress, from mindfulness (sati) and loving-kindness (metta) to faith (saddhā) and wisdom (paññā). Examining the way in which such qualities are described and classified in early Buddhism—with special reference to their treatment in the Visuddhimagga (Path of Purification) by the fifth-century Buddhist thinker Buddhaghosa—the present article employs a comparative method in order to identify the Buddhist catalog of virtues. The first part sketches the characteristics of virtue as analyzed by neo-Aristotelian theories. …

The Role Of Aesthetics In Classroom Design: Implications For Engagement And Equity, Giuliana Barraza

Master's Theses

The desire for achieving greater equity in education has been a prevalent topic of research, with many studies indicating that the current education system in this country is designed in a way that exacerbates initial inequities and has a negative impact on student motivation and engagement (EOCD, 2012). While existing scholarship mostly discusses equity and engagement through the lens of curriculum and instruction, the power of physical classroom environments and aesthetic elements present in those environments is less explored. With student populations becoming more diverse, there is a greater need for new tools for teachers to utilize in pursuit of …

Sattha, Money And Idols: Intersections Between Capitalist Commodification Of Thai K-Pop And Buddhist Fandoms, Pornpailin Meklalit

Master's Projects and Capstones

This study investigates the cultural, economic, and spiritual meanings, as well as the goals of activities carried out by both the K-pop fandom (specifically fans of EXO and NCT) and Buddhist devotees in Thailand—and their considerable degree of overlap. While Thai Buddhism is revered, K-pop fandom is stigmatized as an extreme, problematic form of behavior. This research builds parallels between these activities as forms of faith, which are mostly shaped by the same economic structures, with money as a medium that allows spiritual connection and comfort for fans. Moreover, travel and pilgrimages are physical and spiritual journeys that exist for …

Placing God: Defining “Post-Christianity” For Contemporary Japanese Christians, Leryan Anthony Burrey

Master's Projects and Capstones

This work suggests that we consider a new, working definition of post-Christianity. This new paradigm is in response to Western Christian thought being too dominant a force that fails to take into enough account other global experiences— like those of Japanese Christians. These reflections are based on scholarly opinions claiming that Christianity is a “global culture,” and ultimately argues for more international inclusivity in Western Christian thought and institutions, especially regarding the Asia-Pacific. Moreover, this paper illuminates how iitoko dori allows Christian thought to peacefully coexist in Japan’s greater society. The research also explores specific Japanese cultural practices that make …

A Literary Analysis Of The Origin Of Human Embryonic Stem Cells, Its Advancements, Philosophical, Ethical, Sociocultural, And Political Aspects; An Investigation Of The Underlying Attributes That Affect One’S Views On Hesc Research To Resolve Turkey And Brazil’S Hesc Policy, Religious, And Cultural Conflicts, Haleema Shamsuddin

Honors Scholars Collaborative Projects

Human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) are cells derived from 5-day human embryos and are self-renewing cell lines that change into any type of cell in the body, a trait called pluripotency. hESCs have almost unlimited clinical and medical research potential. Despite the great therapeutic promise of hESC research, it comes with a controversial ethical debate due to its involvement with the destruction of the human embryo. The central argument revolves around the question of whether or not these human embryos should be ascribed equal moral status to fully developed humans. This thesis aims to analyze the origin and advancements of …

Buddhist Environmentalism: How Buddhist Values And Practices Offer Hope For Escaping The Climate Crisis, Alexa Rae Rohrkasse

Honors Theses

The 2015 United Nations' Paris Climate Agreement signed by 191 parties and the 1997

The Kyoto Protocol currently agreed to by 192 international parties, state that the fate of

humanity depends on its ability to recognize its self-destructive actions and act rapidly to reverse

their effects (UNFCC, 1). Throughout our time on earth, the same internal struggles and external

battles have persisted and continue to repeat. It is only recently that these battles have begun

impacting everyone and everything on earth in way that must be urgently addressed for survival.

These events have always been detrimental to our internal struggles …

Case Study: Religion, Socialism And Secularization In Modern Japan: The New Buddhist Fellowship, James Mark Shields

Faculty Contributions to Books

No abstract provided.

Skanda, The Multifaceted God: Skanda In Korean Buddhism And Beyond, Su Jung Kim

Religious Studies Faculty publications

This article focuses on the worship of Skanda in Korean Buddhism, particularly Skanda depicted in Sinjung t’aenghwa (the Paintings of the Guardian Deities). In order to contextualize this complex pan-Asian god, the article tackles two different and yet related issues: while it chronologically presents Skanda’s transformation in Korean Buddhsm, the discussion also weaves Skanda with other Asian traditions to explain the functional aspects of Skanda worship that are cross-culturally found across time. The article demonstrates that even though a sinified version of Skanda worship dominated in Korean Buddhism, Korean interpretations of Skanda made significant connections with the Indian leitmotif of …

A Buddhist-Informed Conceptual Framework For Compassion Fatigue Prevention, Andrei A. Agapi

University Honors Theses

The purpose of this thesis is to present Buddhist meditation practices and modes of investigation that can mitigate compassion fatigue, some of which have not yet been acknowledged in this research field. Conducting a literature review, I found multiple frameworks for compassion fatigue that have different and sometimes contradictory causes, and a lack of clear differentiation between sympathy, empathy and compassion. Both of these aspects are explored. I explain the Buddhist approach to compassion, and the cause of fatigue from a Yogachara philosophical perspective. Then, I write about a bodhisattva’s training in no-self, the five-aggregate model of mind, Chenrezig practice, …

The Passing Show, Kathryn Fanelli

Masters Theses

The Passing Show, examines the interface between contemplative practices and the destabilizing effect of the carnivalesque. A repurposed early 20th century merry-go- round is reconfigured as a conceptual vehicle for renewing our attention to removing hindrances. The site-specific installation, titled Vimoksha, is viewed through the lens of the radical imaginary, investigating notions of karmic inheritance through a heuristic approach to material processes, personal history, kinetics and sound.

Using Mathematical Equations To Communicate And Think About Karma, Kien H. Lim, Christopher Yakes

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

Two equations are presented in this article to communicate a particular understanding of karma. The first equation relates future experiences to past and present actions. Although the equation uses variables and mathematical symbols such as the integral sign and summation symbol, it reads more like a literal translation of an English sentence. Based on the key idea in the first equation, a second equation is then created to highlight the viability of using math to communicate concepts that are not readily quantifiable. Analyzing such equations can stimulate thinking, enhance understanding of spiritual concepts, raise issues, and uncover tensions between our …

Reflections On “To Study The Self Is To Forget The Self’: Zen Lessons On Ego And Leadership In Higher Education”, Jody Condit Fagan

Libraries

Stuart Lachs kindly wrote a response to my conference paper, “To study the self is to forget the self’: Zen lessons on ego and leadership in higher education” (Fagan, 2020), which led to a highly fruitful correspondence and an expansion on my thinking related to Zen, ego, and Zen practice in America today. Conversations with fellow practitioners and follow-up readings have also continued to shape my thinking. This response paper summarizes my reflections.