Buddhist Studies Forum
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Harvard Buddhist Studies Forum Featuring Aaron Proffitt – Buddha’s Name as Mantra in Medieval Japan
Speaker: Aaron Proffitt, Assistant Professor of Japanese Studies, University at Albany-SUNY The recitation of the name of a buddha (nenbutsu) is often associated with deathbed practices and traditions commonly grouped under the rubric Pure Land Buddhism. In this talk, Professor Aaron Proffitt will consider this widely popular practice as understood by practitioners of mantra, focusing
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Norihisa Baba – Sanskrit vs Pāli: Buddhaghosa’s Linguistic Turn and its Impacts on Mainland Southeast Asia
Presented via ZoomTopics: Speakers Venue
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Buddhist Studies Forum Featuring Julia Cross – Relic Transfers and Statue-Reliquaries in Medieval Japan
Presented via ZoomTopics: Speaker: Julia Cross, Postdoctoral Associate in East Asian Studies and Lecturer in Religious Studies, Yale University Prior to the medieval period, Buddha relics (Sk. śarīra; dhātu) in Japan were typically under the domain of the court or court-related temples. In the Kamakura era (1185–1333), this shifted, however, as relic worship became increasingly accessible to temples
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Buddhist Studies Forum featuring Halvor Eifring – Let the mind wander towards the Pure Land: Two 19th-Century Chinese Monks on How to Treat Spontaneous Thought
Presented via ZoomTopics: Speaker: Halvor Eifring, University of Oslo Mind wandering has been an issue within contemplative traditions for more than two thousand years. How to go about your meditation or prayer when spontaneous thoughts constantly pull your mind in other directions? This talk will focus on the answers of two 19th-century Chinese Pure Land Buddhist monks,
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Victor Fan – The Insight-Image: Illuminating the Reality of Deleuze’s Time-Image
Barker Center, Thompson Room 12 Quincy St, Cambridge, MASpeaker: Victor Fan, King's College London In Zen Buddhism, the notion of here and now is the key to attain––or return to––paññā/prajñā (insight). On a day-to-day basis, we live each moment with a preoccupation of the past and an anticipation for the future. Our retrospection and expectation produce afflictions such as avarice, anger and frustration, as
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Annabelle Pitkin – Renunciation and the Practice of Care: Himalayan Buddhist Embodiments of Longing and Devotion
Barker Center, Thompson Room 12 Quincy St, Cambridge, MASpeaker: Annabella Pitkin, Assistant Professor of Buddhism and East Asian Religions, Lehigh UniversityDevotion plays a central role in Tibetan and Himalayan Buddhist accounts of guru-disciple relationship, part of an ideal of indivisible connection between gurus and disciples. This theme of devotional connection intersects in complex ways with another influential Buddhist ideal, that of renunciation. Tibetan narratives
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Brandon Dotson – Marginal Comedy and the Production of Sutras in 9th-Century Dunhuang
Barker Center, Thompson Room 12 Quincy St, Cambridge, MASpeaker: Brandon Dotson, Associate Professor and Thomas P. McKenna Chair of Buddhist Studies, Georgetown University There is something delightful about jottings and doodles in the margins of religious books. Perhaps it is the counterpoint that they offer to the generally serious and devout contents of the texts they abut. Perhaps it is also that marginalia
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Wei-Cheng Lin – House of the Buddha in Scale: China’s “Small” Architecture
Plimpton Room (133), Barker Center 12 Quincy St., Cambridge, MA, United StatesSpeaker: Wei-Cheng Lin, University of Chicago Venue
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Alexis Brown – Time and Narrative in the Rasavāhinī: A Literary Theoretical Approach to Reading a Theravada Buddhist Text
Barker Center, Thompson Room 12 Quincy St, Cambridge, MASpeaker: Alexis Brown, Harvard University Venue
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Mikael Bauer – Under the Gaze of Jion: Kōfukuji’s Heian Period Internal Ritual Network
Barker Center, Thompson Room 12 Quincy St, Cambridge, MASpeaker: Mikael Bauer, McGill University Venue
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Xiaotian Yin – Mantra and Icon: Verbalizing and Visualizing Sitatapatrā in Buddhist Art of Inner Asia and China
Barker Center, Thompson Room 12 Quincy St, Cambridge, MASpeaker: Xiaotian Yin, Harvard University Venue