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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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

Buddhist Roles In Peacemaking : How Buddhism Can Contribute To Sustainable Peace, Ronald S. Green, Chanju Mun

Philosophy and Religious Studies

This volume is the fifth in a series about socially engaged Buddhism published by Blue Pine Books. The publisher adheres to high academic standards, requiring strict documentation of sources and coherence of ideas. Readers will find in these articles some of the best resources available for understanding socially engaged Buddhism and peacemaking. We live in a world of conflict. Even though theorists had believed scientific and technological advancement would end suffering, the applications of these developments had just as often perpetuated the problem. In contrast, Buddhism is widely thought of as a way of peace and tranquilly for individual practitioners. …

Socially Engaged Buddhist Nuns: Activism In Taiwan And North America, Karma Lekshe Tsomo Phd

Theology and Religious Studies: Faculty Scholarship

The last decades of the twentieth century have been a time of new visibility and social activism for Buddhists in Taiwan and around the world. This paper compares the social engagement of nuns in the Chinese Buddhist tradition in Taiwan and North America. I would like to argue that whereas nuns in Taiwan have developed a variety of approaches to social involvement, their counterparts in the Chinese diaspora in North America have had to face a set of challenges specific to overseas Chinese communities in addition to Chinese Buddhist tradition. The article concludes with reflections on the prospects for nuns' …

Being Buddhist, Karma Lekshe Tsomo Phd

Theology and Religious Studies: Faculty Scholarship

When I first encountered the Buddhist teachings, they vastly expanded my evolving ideas about life and helped me to recognize the limitations of my own perceptions. As a child, I suspected that perception was an individual process and that misunderstandings between people were based on different perspectives. Human beings' backgrounds and experiences seemed so diverse; it came as no surprise that they saw the world differently. Buddhist views on perception not only confirmed my suspicions, but also explained in depth the processes involved in human cognition and the ways in which our personal biases and preferences colour our images of …

A Qualitative Study Of Buddhist Informed Psychotherapists, Michael Sean Harris

Dissertations

The field of psychology has a history of distancing itself, if not outright dismissing, both religion and spirituality. In recent years, however, psychology has come to move more toward an embrace of religious and spiritual experience. Buddhism, often expressed as a philosophical system without regard to theistic or nontheistic underpinnings, has been integrated with psychological theory in recent scholarly literature. This dissertation is an exploratory study regarding howBuddhist psychological perspectives are applied in actual psychotherapeutic practice. A participant pool of ten psychotherapists who self-identified as utilizing Buddhism in their work was studied along a variety of dimensions. Demographic questionnaires, audiotaped …

Art, Ritual, And Representation: An Exploration Of The Roles Of Tsam Dance In Contemporary Mongolian Culture, Mikaela Mroczynski

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Tsam, the sacred and complex Buddhist ritual dance, although only introduced to Mongolia in the 19th century, established itself as a significant ceremony before being halted by the purges and destruction the communist era. The 18 years of religious freedom that democracy has heralded have resulted in tsam’s successful reestablishment as a religious ritual in a growing number of monasteries across the country. Tsam has also taken its place as an icon of Mongolian culture for foreigners, a cornerstone of many performance groups’ representation of Mongolian cultural heritage. As based on interviews with performers, administrators, designers, and audiences of performance …

Love, Nancy M. Martin, Joseph Runzo

Religious Studies Faculty Books and Book Chapters

No abstract provided.

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.

The Buddhist Notion Of Emptiness And Its Potential Contribution To Psychology And Psychotherapy, José M. Tirado

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

A growing number of psychologists now have their practices and theories informed by Buddhist

meditation practices. Th ese practices, however, are themselves deeply informed by the

Buddhist notion of emptiness (śūnyatā). Th is Buddhist concept off ers a rich vein of possibilities

in informing psychology and psychotherapy. Th e present paper examines the development

and potential of this concept for infl uencing these and other areas.

Review Of Making Pilgrimages, Meaning And Practice In Shikoku By Ian Reader, Ronald S. Green

Philosophy and Religious Studies

Ian Reader offers a unique and valuable contribution to the academic study of the Shikoku hachijūhakkasho, a pilgrimage to eighty-eight sacred places of Shikoku in honor of the Japanese Buddhist saint Kōbō Daishi (774-835).

Buddhist Women In A Global Multicultural Community, Karma Lekshe Tsomo Phd

Theology and Religious Studies: Faculty Scholarship

This book is the result of years of collaboration among hundreds of women from many different cultural backgrounds, speaking from their own first-hand experience of living, working, practicing, and communicating across cultures. The essays included here touch on many aspects of Buddhist culture and Buddhist women’s pioneering efforts to expand their cultural horizons through travel, education, meditation, and social activism. The essays document the achievements of women and the contributions they have made, not only to their own families, temples, and communities, but also to multicultural dialogue internationally.