Buddhist Studies Forum
Dan Arnold – Personalism and the Mādhyamika Recuperation of Conventional Truth: Some Heretical Thoughts
Speaker: Dan Arnold, University of Chicago Over the years, I have advanced an interpretation of Madhyamaka that frames Nāgārjuna’s arguments in terms suggested by some contemporary debates in philosophy of mind. Nāgārjuna can thus be understood to reject the reductionist elaboration of anātmavāda that was epitomized for him by Ābhidharmika philosophy, and as doing so […]
Eric Greene – Repentance in the Formation of Chinese Buddhism
Speaker: Eric Greene, Yale University The ritual activity that in China was known as chanhui 懺悔 – often understood to mean “confession” or “repentance” – was without doubt one the central forms of Buddhist practice in medieval China. Despite this, scholars have often disagreed concerning, firstly, what “repentance” even means in the Chinese or Buddhist contexts, as […]
Paul Harrison – Mañjuśrī’s Residence on China’s Wutai Shan: The View from Distant India
Plimpton Room (133), Barker Center 12 Quincy St., Cambridge, MA, United StatesSpeaker: Paul Harrison, George Edwin Burnell Professor of Religious Studies, Stanford University The Buddhist practice of replicating sacred sites in multiple locations is a well-known feature of the history of the religion, as is the readiness of Buddhists to keep finding new places blessed by the presence of Buddhas, bodhisattvas and other such beings. Thus in China, […]
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 preservation of all human and animal life. When these vinaya texts were translated into Chinese, they formed the core of Buddhist behavioural codes, influencing both monastic […]
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 this way, but nevertheless taking these texts as a clear category of authorized Buddhist speech, which scholars then ask to what degree they return to […]
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 than what appeared on paper. I propose a new understanding of the Vinaya which sees it as vital device and site for the formation of […]
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 have been the site of reoccurring cases of sexual abuse and misconduct. This two-part presentation will reflect on how some contemporary practitioners have responded, in […]
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 […]
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 monks in the Mongolian frontiers of the Soviet Union and Republican China faced a chaotic and increasingly uncertain world. In this book, Matthew W. King […]
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 […]