Buddhist Studies Forum
Ann Heirman – Protecting Insects in Medieval Chinese Buddhism: Daoxuan’s Vinaya Commentaries
Speaker: Ann Heirman, Ghent University Buddhist texts generally prohibit the killing of all sentient beings. This is certainly the case in vinaya (disciplinary) texts, which contain strict guidelines on the […]
Sonam Kachru – The Questions of Milinda: How To Use a Philosophical Classic and (perhaps) find a Literary Gem.
Speaker: Sonam Kachru, University of Virginia My goal is practical—How shall an intelligent reader make use of the remarkable though forbidding work, The Questions of Milinda (Milindapañha)? The Pāli work can seem discouragingly heterogenous. My guide is intended to overcome that, seeking to facilitate productive (and even potentially transformative) encounters with the text. It is […]
Eviatar Shulman – What is a Discourse (Sutta)? Reconsidering the Nature of Early Buddhist Scripture
Speaker: Eviatar Shulman, Hebrew University of Jerusalem We commonly speak of the Buddha’s “discourses” – sutta, sūtra – knowing that they were not just spoken by him (or “him”) in […]
Xingyi Wang – Boundary of the Body: The Monastic Robe and Revival of the Vinaya in Medieval China and Japan
Speaker: Xingyi Wang, PhD Candidate, Harvard University Modern scholarship often compares Buddhist monastic rules to legal codes or treats them mainly as nominal prescriptions. The reality, however, was more complex […]
Amy Langenberg and Ann Gleig – From Sudinna to the Sangha Sutra: Classical and Contemporary Buddhist Responses to Sexual Misconduct
Speakers: Amy Langenberg, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Eckerd College Ann Gleig, Associate Professor of Religion and Cultural Studies, University of Central Florida Since the 1980s, American Buddhist convert communities […]
Harvard Buddhist Studies Forum featuring James Benn – Meditation in the Surangama Sutra
Speaker: James Benn, Professor and Director of the Centre for Buddhist Studies, McMaster University Please note earlier start time. In the later Chinese Buddhist tradition one text above all others has been extolled for the profundity of its ideas, the beauty of its language, and its insight into the practice of meditation—this is the scripture popularly […]
Trent Walker – The Scattering of the Thirty-Two Minds: A Southeast Asian Buddhist Doctrine of Rebirth
Speaker: Trent Walker, Lecturer, Department of Religious Studies; Postdoctoral Fellow, The Ho Center for Buddhist Studies, Stanford University Presented via Zoom Registration Required Register at: https://harvard.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJ0ucuCrqjIvGdHcV9R5NW15u5jLGwLD4M7j
Buddhist Studies Forum Featuring Matthew King – Ocean of Milk, Ocean of Blood: A Mongolian Monk in the Ruins of the Qing Empire
Speaker: Matthew King, Associate Professor of Transnational Buddhism and Director, Asian Studies Program, University of California, Riverside After the fall of the Qing empire, amid nationalist and socialist upheaval, Buddhist […]
Elizabeth Angowski – A Clash of Clawed Significations: Reading and Rereading the Life of Yeshé Tsogyal and the Story of the Starving Tigress
Speaker: Elizabeth Angowski, Assistant Professor of Religion, Earlham College For an eager bodhisattva intent on honing the virtue of generosity, there would appear to be no shortage of starving tigresses […]
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 […]
Norihisa Baba – Sanskrit vs Pāli: Buddhaghosa’s Linguistic Turn and its Impacts on Mainland Southeast Asia
Presented via ZoomTopics: Speakers Venue