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Ozu, Yasujirō (1903–1963), James Mark Shields

Other Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Miyazaki, Hayao (1941–), James Mark Shields

Other Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Mizoguchi, Kenji (1898-1956), James Mark Shields

Other Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

The Lotus Sutra, James Mark Shields

Other Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Bhutan, Megan Adamson Sijapati

Religious Studies Faculty Publications

Bhutan (formally the Kingdom of Bhutan) is a small, landlocked Buddhist constitutional monarchy in the eastern Himalayas, located between China's Tibetan autonomous region and India. Its terrain is largely mountainous, and its economy is based on agriculture and forestry. Bhutan's official national language is Dzongkha, and its multiethnic population, reported in the 2005 govrnment census to be approximately 681,000, is 75% Buddhist and 25% Hindu.

Nepal, Megan Adamson Sijapati

Religious Studies Faculty Publications

Nepal is a democratic republic located along the southern region of the Himalayan range, bordering India to the south, west, and east and the Tibetan autonomous region of China to the north. Though a small country in geographic terms (approximately 54,362 square miles [1 mile = 1.6093 kilometers]), its population of approximately 29.5 million people is a complex and heterogeneous mix of both Indo-European and Tibeto-Burman ethnic groups and castes, each with distinct languages and religious and cultural traditions. [excerpt]

The Specter Of Nihilism: On Hegel On Buddhism, Mario D'Amato, Robert T. Moore

Student-Faculty Collaborative Research Publications

No abstract provided.

Divergent Responses To The Human Predicament: A Case Study In New Comparativism, Mark Toole

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The enterprise of comparison has been regarded by some as one of the most vital characteristics of a healthy academic study of religion. However, the failed legacy of Eliadian Comparativism has caused others to suggest that the art of comparison has not yet lived up to its promise. This study brings together the best tools of what the author calls "Smithian New Comparativism." In order to demonstrate concretely a rigorous and responsible critical comparative analysis, and to chart a course for future academically beneficial cross-cultural comparisons, this project presents a case study that compares two religious traditions' doctrinal responses to …

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.

Review Of 1918 Shikoku Pilgrimage Of Takamure Itsue Translated By Susan Tennant, Ronald S. Green

Philosophy and Religious Studies

This book is a collection of 105 short reflections and poems by Takamure Itsue (1894–1964) on her travels to and around Shikoku in 1918, when she was twenty-three years old. Each piece was published individually during her pilgrimage as a serial column in a Kyushu newspaper. They were compiled after her death and published as Musume Junreiki (1979). Although best known as a historian and feminist concerned with the education of women, she also wrote Gohenro (1938) and Henro to jinsei (1939), two additional books about her 1918 Shikoku pilgrimage.

Tweeting The Dalai Lama, Are Cell Phones Becoming The New Vajras?, Ronald S. Green

Philosophy and Religious Studies

On February 22, 2010 the Office of the 14th Dalai Lama joined the online microblogging site Twitter. Twitter is an internet based community, ranked the world’s third most used online social network by Compete.com. Members post messages called “tweets” that are displayed on to their profile pages and delivered to their subscribers, known as followers. The Dalai Lama reportedly joined Twitter after meeting the site’s founder, Evan Williams, although Mr. Williams posted on his own Twitter page that the Dalai Lama had laughed when he suggested the idea to him.1 However, the account may have been set up one week …

Sexuality, Exoticism, And Iconoclasm In The Media Age: The Strange Case Of The Buddha Bikini, James Mark Shields

Faculty Contributions to Books

No abstract provided.

Lao Buddhist Women: Quietly Negotiating Religious Authority, Karma Lekshe Tsomo Phd

Theology and Religious Studies: Faculty Scholarship

Throughout years of war and political upheaval, Buddhist women in Laos have devotedly upheld traditional values and maintained the practice of offering alms and other necessities to monks as an act of merit. In a religious landscape overwhelmingly dominated by bhikkhus (fully ordained monks), a small number have renounced household life and become maekhaos, celibate women who live as nuns and pursue contemplative practices on the periphery of the religious mainstream. Patriarchal ecclesiastical structures and the absence of a lineage of full ordination for women have combined to render the religious roles of Buddhist nuns and laywomen virtually invisible throughout …

Taking Conventional Truth Seriously: Authority Regarding Deceptive Reality, Jay L. Garfield

Philosophy: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Seeing The Buddha In The Book Of Job Through Maimonides's Theory Of Providence And Eliade's Theory Of Hierophany, Hoi Shan Chong

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The current study is an unusual reading of the book of Job with a focus on the intellectual transformation of Job. The reading is stimulated by Maimonides' theory of divine providence and facilitated by Eliade's theory of hierophany. The sequence of reading follows a reorganized order and is divided into three parts: the speeches of Job and his friends, the Lord's speech, and the comparison of Job before and after the Lord's speech. The study ends with a suggestion that the experience of Job's intellectual transformation corresponds to the experience of the Buddha's enlightenment. The reading ignores the enigmatic issues …

Ciis Today, Spring 2010 Issue, Ciis

CIIS Today

This volume is the Spring 2010 issue of CIIS Today, the Magazine of the California Institute of Integral Studies.

Comment And Discussion: Pramāņa Are Factive - A Response To Jonardon Ganeri, Matthew Dasti, Stephen H. Phillips

Philosophy Faculty Publications

In this article, the author discusses aspects of the review made by Jonardan Ganeri on the collaborative translation of the first chapter of “Epistemology of Perception: Ga·ngeśa’s Tattvacintāma·ni, Jewel of Reflection on the Truth (About Epistemology): The Perception Chapter (Pratyak·sa-Kha·n·da),” by Stephen Phillips and N. S. Ramanuja Tatacharya. The author says that Ganeri argues in opposition of Phillips’ and Ramanuja Tatacharya’ interpretation on the nature of pramā·na

A Dharma School Lesson, Alice Murata

Counselor Education Emeritus Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Gender Equity And Human Rights, Karma Lekshe Tsomo Phd

Theology and Religious Studies: Faculty Scholarship

The religious traditions that help shape society’s attitudes toward women and also women’s attitudes toward themselves often send mixed messages. The world’s major religions—Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam—assert that women and men have equal potential, whether for liberation or in the sight of a higher being, but social realities reveal a stark contradiction between rhetoric and reality. Women continue to lack equal representation in social, political, and religious institutions. For many, the failure of the world’s religions to live up to their professed ideals not only exposes their lack of social responsiveness to the needs of human society but …

Beyond Belief: Japanese Approaches To The Meaning Of Religion, James Mark Shields

Faculty Journal Articles

For several centuries, Japanese scholars have argued that their nation’s culture—including its language, religion and ways of thinking—is somehow unique. The darker side of this rhetoric, sometimes known by the English term “Japanism” (nihon-jinron), played no small role in the nationalist fervor of the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. While much of the so-called “ideology of Japanese uniqueness” can be dismissed, in terms of the Japanese approach to “religion,” there may be something to it. This paper highlights some distinctive—if not entirely unique—features of the way religion has been categorized and understood in Japanese tradition, contrasting these with Western (i.e., …

Adventism Among The World Religions, Gary Krause

Journal of Adventist Mission Studies

No abstract provided.

Dhamma Education: The Transmission And Reconfiguration Of The Sri Lankan Buddhist Tradition In Toronto, Deba Mitra Bhikkhu

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This research documents the transition of a religious tradition from a foreign-born generation to a new generation who call Canada home. It examines how first-generation Sri Lankan Buddhists in Toronto transmit their Buddhist tradition to their Canadian children, how the latter receive what is passed on to them, and what happens within the tradition through the process of transmission and reception. These issues are of paramount concern not only for Buddhist communities in North America but also for other immigrant and refugee groups undergoing the process of resettlement. Working with two Sri Lankan temples in Toronto, the Toronto Mahavihara and …

Women As Leaders In Buddhism, Karma Lekshe Tsomo Phd

Theology and Religious Studies: Faculty Scholarship

For Buddhists, the epitome of enlightened leadership is the Buddha himself. The Buddha, the “awakened one,” led by teaching a path to awakening that is open to all. The path to awakening – a process of purifying the mind of afflictions, such as greed, hatred, and ignorance – can be followed by women and men alike. Traditionally, however, the fact that the Buddha, the model of human perfection, was male seemed to imply to future generations that men were more somehow more capable of awakening than women. This impression was bolstered by the eight special rules attributed to the Buddha …

The Art Of Aidagara: Ethics, Aesthetics, And The Quest For An Ontology Of Social Existence In Watsuji Tetsurō’S Rinrigaku, James Mark Shields

Faculty Journal Articles

This paper provides an analysis of the key term aidagara (“betweenness”) in the philosophical ethics of Watsuji Tetsurō (1889-1960), in response to and in light of the recent movement in Japanese Buddhist studies known as “Critical Buddhism.” The Critical Buddhist call for a turn away from “topical” or intuitionist thinking and towards (properly Buddhist) “critical” thinking, while problematic in its bipolarity, raises the important issue of the place of “reason” versus “intuition” in Japanese Buddhist ethics. In this paper, a comparison of Watsuji’s “ontological quest” with that of Martin Heidegger (1889-1976), Watsuji’s primary Western source and foil, is followed by …

Santa Clara Magazine, Volume 51 Number 2, Fall 2009, Santa Clara University

Santa Clara Magazine

16 - POLITICS AND RELIGION: STILL ON A COLLISION COURSE? An interview with Avraham Burg, former speaker of the Israeli Knesset. Plus excerpts from talks by E.J. Dionne Jr., Lisa Sowle Cahill '70, and Michael Eric Dyson.

20 - THE GULF OF WONDER By Emily Elrod '05. With a movie, Patrick McVeigh '78 offers investors a unique opportunity: Wake up the citizens of America and help them save one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World. Plus, a 30 percent return.

24 - SEASON PREMIERE: "RESURRECTION" By Karen Crocker Snell. Forensic investigator Horatio Caine lies facedown in a pool …

The Lotus Sutra As Rhetorical Doctrine: Toward A Spiritual Paradigm Shift In Academia, Erec Smith

Journal of South Texas English Studies

The article explores a new approach on the relationship between religion and academia. It highlights the application of St. Augustine's "On Christian Doctrine" on Ciceronian tactics to teaching, praising and motivating based on scripture. It mentions that the Buddhist text entitled "The Lotus Sutra" manifests how Buddhism extends in the rhetorical canon and delivers a spiritual renewal in the academia. An overview of the symbiosis between Buddhism and rhetoric that effectively connects religion and secular liberalism is also presented.

Creating Religious Identity, Karma Lekshe Tsomo Phd

Theology and Religious Studies: Faculty Scholarship

The author, a Buddhist monastic and scholar, explores the varieties of religious identity, their sources, and their effects on society. She discusses the fluidity of religious identities in the modern world and, in particular, the various challenges to women in confronting the stubborn persistence of gender-based exclusionary practices in religious traditions.

Buddhist Thoughts On The Battle For God: Is Fundamentalism A Good Reason To Ditch Religion?, Philip Novak

Collected Faculty Scholarship

"Not long ago I taught a seminar on science and religion that required three fo the most widely read gospels of the so-called new atheism: Richard Dawkin's The God Delusion, Daniel Dennett's Breaking the Spell, and Sam Harris's The End of Faith. As I read along, I found the Buddhist in myself in large agreement. after all, Gotama himself had been highly skeptical of the God-idea, involving as it often did an onmipotence he could not square with either the world's suffering or his belief in human freedom." ~ from the article

Sand Mandala: Over Seven Days Of Careful Construction, Northern Iowa Today, Spring 2009

Art on Campus Documents

Various articles on art at the University of Northern Iowa (also formerly known as Iowa State Teachers College).

Shōnen Nyorai: How Tezuka Osamu Reimaged Buddha For Shōnen Manga, Ronald S. Green

Philosophy and Religious Studies

This paper examines Tezuka Osamu’s (1928-89) retelling of the biography of the Buddha to appeal to readers of the shōnen genre of manga. Tezuka is a well-known Japanese manga writer and artist, cartoonist, animator, film producer, and activist. In 1972, he began a series of manga adventures in Japan titled Buddha (ブッダ). The series ran to 14 editions in that country, ending in 1983. Subsequently, it was translated and reproduced in eight editions worldwide. This critically acclaimed series, which won the Eisner Award in 2004 and 2005 and Harvey Awards the same years, is considered the last great work in …