In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:DHARMA AND DESTRUCTION: BUDDHIST INSTITUTIONS AND VIOLENCE Christopher Ives Stonehill College Photographs ofgentle monks in saffron, the cottageindustry ofbooks on mindfulness, and the Dalai Lama's response to the Chinese invasion of Tibet have all helped portray Buddhism as the "religion of nonviolence." This representation ofBuddhism finds support in Buddhist texts, doctrines, and ritual practices, which often advocate ahimsa, nonharming or non-violence. The historical record, however, belies (...) the portrayal of Buddhism as a "religion of nonviolence." By reinterpreting early doctrines of ahimsa, Buddhist thinkers have legitimated violence in particular situations, practitioners have committed acts of violence, and Buddhist institutions have lent support to other institutions—social, political, and governmental —engaged in violence. In this paper I will examine Buddhist perpetration andjustifications ofviolence,1 with particularfocus on Japan, arguing that, historically, Buddhists' desire for institutional security has taken precedence over total rejection of violence. 1 I have restricted my discussion to the killing of other human beings. I do not consider suicide andthe killing ofnon-human animals. For a discussion ofBuddhism, (self-)sacrifice, and suicide in relation to Girard's theory, see Charles D. Orzech, '"Provoked Suicide' and the Victim's Behavior." 152Christopher Ives Non-violence The doctrine of ahimsa figures prominently in early and Theravadan Buddhism. The first ofthe five moral precepts (panca silani) in Buddhism is ahimsa, and in the Dhammapada the historical Buddha purportedly states, All are afraid of the rod. Of death all are afraid. Having made oneself the example, One should neither slay nor cause to slay. (Ross 202) The Buddhaalso sketches the consequences ofhurting orharming (himsa): Who with a rod does hurt Beings who desire ease [of nibbana], While himself looking for ease— He, having departed, ease does not get. Theravadan monastic codes and practices, such as the uposatha biweekly confession of moral transgressions and recitation of the 227 rules in the Patimokkha (Skt. Pratimoksa), are closely tiedto ahimsa. One ofthe Patimokkha's four "offenses of defeat" (parajika dharmas), for which the punishment is immediate expulsion of the monk or nun from the order, is killing another human being (Prebish 11). Mahayana texts continue this exhortation against violence. For example, in the Dasabhimika-sutra we read that a Buddhist "must not hate any being and cannot kill a living creature even in thought."2 Early Buddhist texts include depictions ofthe ideal Buddhist king, the cakravartin-raja or "monarch who turns the wheel [of the Dharma],"3 as an exemplar of nonviolence. Contemporary Buddhist activist Sulak Sivaraksa expresses it, this king is a "an ideal ruler, a world-conquering monarch, who subdued the earth through righteousness rather than war" (Sulak 129), and whose ten main duties include striving for peace and ruling with nonviolent benevolence (129). For well over 2000 years 2 Cited in Har Dayal, The Bodhisattva Doctrine, p. 199; quoted by Kraft, 5. In much ofthe first section of this paper I am indebted to Ken Kraft's introduction to his volume. 3 The metaphor ofturning the wheel refers to the historical Buddha's teaching ofthe Dharma and the later propagation of it by others. Dharma and Deconstruction153 Buddhists have lifted up Indian king Ashoka (c. 272-236) as an instantiation of this ideal. The early Buddhist doctrine of ahimsa should not, however, be construed as compassionate altruism. Luis Gómez and other scholars have delineated how ahimsa at first did not express some sort of underlying altruistic concern for the well-being of others. Vegetarianism and other ways of avoiding himsa, harming or violence, derived from ancient Indian ritual taboos againstblood and otherbodily liquids (Gómez 36). Buddhists ethicized and psychologized earlier notions of physical pollution, and advocated abstention fromviolenceprimarily as ameans ofself-cultivation, as a way to keep the mind pure, like an unstained cloth (36). (Scholars have even argued that the positive expression oíahimsa, the practice ofdirecting metta (loving-kindness) to others, originally had as much or more to do with the spiritual benefits accrued by the person directing the metta as it did with the well-being of the person receiving it. Only later was ahimsa furtherreinterpreted as positive regard forothers, as seen in the bodhisattva ideal of Mahayana Buddhism. Violence in Buddhist History At numerous times over... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Books ReceivedAt the Eleventh Hour: The Biography of Swami Rama. By Pandit Rajmani Tigunait, Ph.D. Honesdale, Pennsylvania: Himalayan Institute Press, 2002. Pp. 427. Hardcover $18.95.Awakening and Insight: Zen Buddhism and Psychotherapy. Edited by Polly Young Eisendrath and Shoji Muramoto. Hove, England: Brunner-Routledge, 2002. Pp. xii + 275. Paper $24.95.Beyond Metaphysics Revisited: Krishnamurti and Western Philosophy. By J. Richard Wingerter. Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America, 2002. Pp. vii + (...) 391. Hardcover $71.00.Bhāmatī and Vivaraṇa Schools of Advaita Vedānta: A Critical Approach. By Pulasth Soobah Roodurmun, foreword by V. N. Jha, and edited by Kanshi Ram. New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, 2002. Pp. xv + 297. Price not given.A Bibliography of Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy. By James S. Crouch. New Delhi: Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts and Manohar Publishers and Distributors, 2002. Pp. 430. Price not given.Crisis Theory and World Order: Heideggerian Reflections. By Norman K. Swazo. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002. Pp. x + 289. Hardcover $78.50. Paper $26.95.Devotional Literature in South Asia: Current Research 1997-2000: Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Early Literature in New Indo-Aryan Languages, Leuven, 23-26 August 2000. Edited by Winand M. Callewaert and Dieter Taillieu. New Delhi: Manohar Publishers and Distributors, 2002. Pp. xxii + 324. Price not given.Dharma Bell and Dhāraṇī Pillar: Li Po's Buddhist Inscriptions. By Paul W. Kroll. Kyoto: Italian School of East Asian Studies, 2001. Pp. viii + 95. Price not given.Essays on the Moral Philosophy of Mengzi. Edited, with introduction, by Xiusheng Liu and Philip J. Ivanhoe. Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, 2002. Pp. xiv + 249. Hardcover $39.95. Paper $16.95. Professional price $12.95.Ethical Questions: East and West. Edited by Bina Gupta. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2002. Pp. vi + 279. Hardcover $70.00. Paper $26.95.Ethical Relativism and Universalism. By Saral Jhingran. New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, 2001. Pp. xiv + 385. Price not given.Genius-In Their Own Words: The Intellectual Journeys of Seven Great 20th Century [End Page 431] Thinkers. Edited and with introduction by David Ramsay Steele, foreword by Arthur C. Danto. Chicago and La Salle: Open Court, 2002. Pp. xxii + 366. Paper $24.95.The Hatha Yoga Pradipika. The original Sanskrit by Svatmarama, an English translation by Brian Dana Akers. Woodstock, New York: YogaVidya.com, 2002. Pp. xii + 115. Hardcover $19.95. Paper $11.95.Human Rights and Chinese Thought: A Cross-Cultural Inquiry. By Stephen C. Angle. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Pp. xviii + 285. Hardcover $65.00. Paper $23.00.Indestructible Truth: The Living Spirituality of Tibetan Buddhism. By Reginald A. Ray. Boston and London: Shambhala Publications, 2002. Pp. x + 495. Paper $17.95.Introduction to Eastern Thought. By Marietta Stepaniants. Edited by James Behuniak and translated by Rommela Kohanovskaya. Lanham, Maryland: AltaMira Press, a division of Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2002. Pp. xiv + 293. Hardcover $69.00. Paper $24.95.Jainism and Ecology: Nonviolence in the Web of Life. Edited by Christopher Key Chapple. Cambridge: Harvard University Press for the Center for the Study of World Religions, 2002. Pp. xliv + 252. Hardcover $32.95. Paper $22.95.Mediating the Power of Buddhas: Ritual in the Mañjuśrīmūlakalpa. By Glenn Wallis. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002. Pp. xiii + 263. Hardcover $86.50. Paper $29.95.Methodology in Religious Studies: The Interface with Women's Studies. Edited by Arvind Sharma. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002. Pp. xi + 253. Hardcover $78.50. Paper $26.95.Persons and Valuable Worlds: A Global Philosophy. By Eliot Deutsch. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2002. Pp. x + 309. Hardcover $80.00. Paper $34.95.Philosophy and Art in Gurdjieff's Beelzebub: A Modern Sufi Odyssey. By Anna T. Challenger. Amsterdam and New York: Editions Rodopi B.V., 2002. Pp. xi + 145. Paper EUR 27,00, U.S. $25.00.The Pratyabhijñā Philosophy. By G. V. Tagare. New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, 2002. Pp. xii + 165. Price not given.Reflections on Reality: The Three Natures and Non-Natures in the Mind-Only School: Dynamic Responses to ong-ka-a's The... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Books ReceivedThe Ahmadis: Community, Gender, and Politics in a Muslim Society. By Antonio Gualtieri. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2004. Pp. xvi + 192. Hardcover $65.00. Paper Cdn $24.95 / U.S. $19.95.American Knees. By Shawn Wong. Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 2005. Pp. xxi + 229. Paper $14.95.The Art of Worldly Wisdom. By Baltasar Gracian and translated by Joseph Jacobs. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2005. Pp. (...) xiii + 114. Paper $5.95.Bashō's Journey: The Literary Prose of Matsuo Bashō. Translated by David Landis Barnhill. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005. Pp. xvii + 191. Hardcover $59.50. Paper $17.95.Bringing the Gods to Mind: Mantra and Ritual in Early Indian Sacrifice. By Laurie L. Patton. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005. Pp. xv + 289. Hardcover $49.95/£32.50.Buddhist Inclusivism: Attitudes Towards Religious Others. By Kristin Beise Kiblinger. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2005. Pp. viii + 145. Hardcover $89.95.A Chinese Ethics for the New Century: The Ch'ien Mu Lectures in History and Culture, and Other Essays on Science and Confucian Ethics. By Donald J. Munro. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 2005. Pp. xlv + 158. Hardcover $33.00.Chinese Theories of Reading and Writing: A Route to Hermeneutics and Open Poetics. By Ming Dong Gu. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005. Pp. xiv + 334. Hardcover $85.00.A Dictionary of Cantonese Slang: The Language of Hong Kong Movies, Street Gangs, and City Life. By Christopher Hutton and Kingsley Bolton. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2005. Pp. xxiv + 492. Paper $28.00.Ghazālī and the Poetics of Imagination. By Ebrahim Moosa. Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 2005. Pp. xiii + 349. Hardcover $59.95. Paper $22.50.Going Forth: Visions of Buddhist Vinaya. Edited by William M. Bodiford. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2005. Pp. x + 317. Hardcover $48.00.The Harem: Inside the Grand Seraglio of the Turkish Sultans. By N. M. Penzer. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2005. Pp. 277. Paper $14.95.Ideals of the East: The Spirit of Japanese Art. By Kakuzo Okakura. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2005. Pp. xiv + 106. Paper $5.95. [End Page 365]An Illustrated Chinese Materia Medica. By Jing-Nuan Wu. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Pp. 706. Price not given.Jews and Arabs: A Concise History of Their Social and Cultural Relations. By S. D. Goitein. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2005. Pp. xv + 263. Paper $12.95.The Logic of Nothingness: A Study of Nishida Kitarō. By Robert J. J. Wargo. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2005. Pp xi + 241. Paper $25.00.The Moral and Political Thought of Mahatma Gandhi. By Raghavan N. Iyer. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2000. Pp. xiii + 449. Paper Rs 520.00.Nietzsche's Epic of the Soul: Thus Spoke Zarathustra. By T. K. Seung. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2005. Pp. xxviii + 370. Hardcover $83.00. Paper $27.95.Of Guilds, Companies, Corporations, and Governance: A Conceptual Sketch. By Leonardo R. Silos. Makati City, Philippines: Asian Institute of Management, 2005. Pp. xvi + 238. Price not given.The Path to Rome. By Hilaire Belloc. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2005. Pp. ix + 251. Paper $12.95.The Philosophy of the Bhagavadgātā : A Study based on the Evaluation of the Commentaries of Śamkara, Rāmānuja and Madhva. By S. M. Srinivasa Chari. New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers, 2005. Pp. xxvi + 294. Hardcover Rs 575.00.The Philosophy of Rabindranath Tagore. By Kalyan Sen Gupta. Burlington, VT: Ash-gate Publishing Company, 2005. Pp. ix + 103. Hardcover $79.95.The Pristine Dao: Metaphysics in Early Daoist Discourse. By Thomas Michael. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005. Pp. xi + 170. Hardcover $60.00. Paper $21.95.Three Mountains and Seven Rivers: Prof. Musashi Tachikawa's Felicitation Volume. Edited by Shoun Hino and Toshihiro Wada. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers. 2004. Pp. xx + 903. Hardcover Rs. 1800.The Unity of Mystical Traditions: The Transformation of Consciousness in Tibetan and German Mysticism. By Randall Studstill. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2005. Pp. xii + 304. Hardcover @89/$127.00.Writing the World: On Globalization. Edited by David... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Books ReceivedThe Act of Being: The Philosophy of Revelation in Mullā Sadrā. By Christian Jambet. Brooklyn: Zone Books, 2006. Pp. 497. Hardcover $38.95.Analysis in Śaṅkara Vedānta: The Philosophy of Ganeswar Misra. Edited by Bijayananda Kar. New Delhi: Indian Council of Philosophical Research, 2006. Pp. xxv + 190. Hardcover Rs. 240.00.Bhakti and Philosophy. By R. Raj Singh. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2006. Pp. 112. Hardcover $65.00.Brahman and the Ethos of Organization. (...) By Leonard R. Silos. Paseo de Roxas: Asian Institute of Management, 2006. Pp. xix + 344. Price not given.Buddhist Inclusivism: Attitudes Towards Religious Others. By Kristin Beise Kiblinger. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2005. Pp. viii + 145. Hardcover $89.95.Classical Northern Wu Style Tai Ji Quan: The Fighting Art of the Manchurian Palace Guard. By Tina Chunna Zhang and Frank Allen. Berkeley: Blue Snake Books, 2006. Pp. xiii + 203. Paper $21.95.Classical Sāṃkhya and Yoga: An Indian Metaphysics of Experience. By Mikel Burley. London and New York: Routledge, 2007. Pp. xiv + 226. Price not given.Comparative Philosophy and Religion in Times of Terror. Edited by Douglas Allen. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2006. Pp. xiv + 257. Hardcover $62.00. Paper $32.00.Contemplative Science: Where Buddhism and Neuroscience Converge. By B. Alan Wallace. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007. Pp. vii + 211. Hardcover $29.50, £19.00.Contexts and Dialogue: Yogācāra Buddhism and Modern Psychology on the Subliminal Mind. By Tao Jiang. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2006. Pp. xi + 198. Paper $20.00.Dialogue Transcultural. Edited by Yue Diayun et al. Nanjing: Jiangsu Peoples Press, 2006. Pp. 335. Price not given.Dōgen on Meditation and Thinking: A Reflection on His View of Zen. By Hee-Jin Kim. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006. Pp. xiii + 169. Hardcover $65.50. Paper $21.95.The Garden of Loneliness: A Translation of Jayshankar Prasad's Āṅsū, "Tears." By Charles S. J. White. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 2006. Pp. xv + 136. Hardcover Rs. 295. [End Page 608]The Happening of Tradition: Vallabha on Anumāna in Nyāyalīlāvatī. By Anna-Pya Sjödin. Stockholm: Elanders Gotab, 2006. Pp. 195. Price not given.Head, Eyes, Flesh, and Blood: Giving Away the Body in Indian Buddhist Literature. By Reiko Ohnuma. 2006. Pp. xvii + 372. Hardcover $45.00, £29.00.Hwa Yu T'ai Chi Ch'uan: Unlocking the Mysteries of the Five-Word Song. By Glenn D. Newth. Berkeley: Blue Snake Books, 2007. Pp. xiii + 160. U.S. $18.95. Can $24.95.A Jewish Philosopher of Baghdad: 'Izz al-Dawla Ibn Kammūna (d. 683/1284) and His Writings. By Reza Pourjavady and Sabine Schmidtke. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2006. Pp. xii + 274. Hardcover $130.00, €100.Letting Be: Fred Dallmayr's Cosmopolitical Vision. Edited by Stephen F. Schneck. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006. Pp. x + 382. Paper $35.00.Myth and the Existential Quest. By Vassilis Vitsaxis and translated by Deborah Brown Kazazis and Vassilis Vitsaxis. Boston: Somerset Hall Press, 2006. Pp. 301. Hardcover $49.95. Paper $39.95.Nietzsche-Buddha-Zarathustra: Eine West-Ost Konfiguration. By Michael Skowron. Daegu: Kyungpook National University Press, 2006. Pp. 293. Paper $18.00, Won 17,000.Popularizing Buddhism: Preaching as Performance in Sri Lanka. By Mahinda Deegalle. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006. Pp. xiii + 241. Hardcover $65.00. Paper $21.95.Ramana Maharashi: The Sage of Arunachala. By Arvind Sharma. New Delhi: Penquin Group, 2006. Pp. 215. Hardcover Rs. 295.Readings in Han Chinese Thought. Edited and translated by Mark Csikszentmihalyi. Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, 2006. Pp. xxx + 220. Hardcover $39.95. Paper $14.95.Religions of Korea in Practice. Edited by Robert E. Buswell Jr. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2007. Pp. xx + 542. Paper $24.95, £15.95.The Scripture on Great Peace: The Taiping jing and the Beginnings of Daoism. By Barbara Hendrischke. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006. Pp. x + 410. Hardcover $60.00, £38.95.The Self 's Awareness of Itself: Bhaṭṭa Rāmakantha's Arguments against the Buddhist Doctrine of No-Self. By Alex Watson. Vienna: Sammlung de Nobili, 2006. Pp. 433. Price not given... (shrink)

This article examines the issue of the paradoxicality of institution, de-institutionalization, or the counter-institutionalization in classical Chan thought by focusing on the texts of Hongzhou School. It first analyzes the problem of 20th century scholars in characterizing the Chan attitude toward institution as iconoclasts, and the problem of the recent tendency to return to images of the Chan masters as traditionalists, as opposed to iconoclasts. Both problems are examples of imposing an oppositional way of thinking on the Chan masters. The (...) essay then introduces a new paradigm for interpreting the Chan attitude toward institution, the model of de-institutionalization, which borrows certain insights from Derrida’s idea of the counter-institutional. However, the new model is supported by the Chan heritage of Mahayana Buddhist philosophy. This model can more consistently construe the Chan understanding of the paradoxicality of institution, the subtle Chan relationship of being “with and against” institution, and the Chan “middle way” to make institution remain open to its outside and to transformation. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Institutional AuthorityA Buddhist PerspectiveDhammanandā Bhikkhunī (Chatsumarn Kabilsingh)Rules and Authority in the Early Days of the SaṅghaAfter the Buddha gained enlightenment, he addressed the group of five people (pañcavaggīya) with whom he had once practiced austerities. Kondañña became enlightened, and eventually the whole group of five became enlightened, one after another. There was no need then to set any rules for them to follow, as they were all enlightened.In (...) these early days, there was no material gain in the monastic lifestyle. People walked the monastic path out of sheer commitment. They were serious in pursuing their own spiritual path. As time went by, the teaching of the Buddha became more popular and his followers increased. Even then the Buddha did not think it was necessary to lay down any monastic rules (vinaya). This was clear when he turned down a proposal from Sāriputta, his immediate disciple, that he should lay down some rules.Monastic rules came into existence only when specific problems arose in the community for consideration. The very first rule was laid down because Sudinna, a young monk, had sex with his own wife when he visited his parents’ home and was urged toward this by his mother so that she could have a grandchild to continue the family lineage. Sudinna, having met his mother’s request, was disturbed in conscience. As the days went by, he became pale and thin. When his friends asked what was wrong, he told them what was bothering him. The Buddha then laid down the first pārājika (defeat—action that requires expulsion from the Order) for bhikkhus (monks) and bhikkhuṇīs (nuns): that they should not have any sexual relationships. In settings such as this, rules started to come into existence.Even at the First Council, I do not think that the complete pātimokkha,1 as the bhikkhus and bhikkhuṇīs now have it, was in existence. It should be remembered that the Buddha gave permission for the modification of minor rules if the monastic saṅgha (community) should agree.2 At the First Council, however, the five hundred arahats could not agree as to which could be considered major and minor rules. As [End Page 147] a result, Mahā Kassapa, the chief monk, who presided over the council, proposed that all should be kept intact. That has become solidified and is now normative for Theravāda Buddhism.In the Mahā Parinibbāna Sutta, in the chapter on the last journey of the Buddha from Sāvatthi to Kusinagar, it is recorded that Ānanda, the Buddha’s attendant and cousin, asked the Buddha if he was going to choose anyone to lead the saṅgha after his passing away. The Buddha replied very clearly that he had given the dhamma and vinaya as dīpa (an island) for the bhikkhus and bhikkhuṇīs to follow. The sutta makes it very clear that the Buddha did not intend to appoint anyone to hold a position of complete authority.I would venture to say that if the Buddha had not made this point clear, Ānanda would have been given a natural position of authority after the Buddha had gone. After all, Ānanda had followed the Buddha, serving him, learning and absorbing the dhamma from him, continuously for twenty-five years of the Buddha’s life. He was the only one praised for being foremost (etadagga) with many abilities, for instance the ability to remember most of the Buddha’s teaching. He was indeed qualified for the position. We read also that during the three months between the passing away of the Buddha and the First Council, people were already seeking him out as their spiritual guide. The only drawback was that, during the Buddha’s lifetime, he was not enlightened. However, he attained enlightenment just in time for him to participate in the First Council, which five hundred arahats are recorded as attending.During the Buddha’s lifetime, if disagreement arose in the saṅgha, the case was always brought to the Buddha, who, having called both parties together, would settle the case in front of them... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Books ReceivedThe Ambitions of Curiosity: Understanding the World in Ancient Greece and China. By G.E.R. Lloyd. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Pp. xvi + 175. Price not given.The Art of the Han Essay: Wang Fu's Ch'ien-Fu Lun. By Anne Behnke Kinney. Tempe: Center for Asian Studies, Arizona State University, 1990. Pp. xi + 154. Paper $10.00.The Autobiography of Jamgön Kongtrul: A Gem of Many Colors. By Jamgön Kongtrul Lodrön (...) Thayé and translated by Richard Barron (Chökyi Nyima). Ithaca, New York: Snow Lion Publications, 2003. Pp. xxii + 549. Price not given.Awesome Nightfall: The Life, Times, and Poetry of Saigyō. By William R. LaFleur. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2003. Pp. xiii + 173. Paper $14.95.Becoming the Compassion Buddha: Tantric Mahamudra for Everyday Life. By Lama Thubten Yeshe, edited by Robina Courtin, and foreword by Geshe Lhundub Sopa. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2003. Pp. xi + 194. Paper $14.95.Between Two Worlds East and West: An Autobiography. By J. N. Mohanty. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2002. Pp. ix + 134. Hardcover RS 525.00.The Chinese Face of Jesus Christ. Edited by Roman Malek, S.V.D. Sankt Augustin, Germany: Institut Monumenta Serica and China-Zentrum; and Nettetal, Germany: Steyler Verlag, 2002. Pp. 391. EUR 40.00.Chinese Medicine in Contemporary China: Plurality and Synthesis. By Volker Scheid. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2002. Pp. xiv + 407. Hardcover $69.95. Paper $23.95.Confucian Feminist: Memoirs of Zeng Baosun (1893-1978). Translated and adapted by Thomas L. Kennedy. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 2002. Pp. xxi + 170. Price not given.Consciousness Studies: Cross-Cultural Perspectives. By K. Ramakrishna Rao. Jefferson (North Carolina) and London: McFarland and Company, 2002. Pp. 367. Hardcover $65.00.Constituting Communities: Theravāda Buddhism and the Religious Cultures of South and Southeast Asia. Edited by John Clifford Holt, Jacob N. Kinnard, and Jonathan S. Walters. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003. Pp. viii + 224. Hardcover $65.50. Paper $21.95.Developments in Indian Philosophy from Eighteenth Century Onwards: Classical and Western. By Daya Krishna. Volume X Part 1 of History of Science, Philosophy and Culture in Indian Civilization, edited by D. P. Chattopadhyaya. New [End Page 110] Delhi: Centre for Studies in Civilizations, 2001. Pp. xxiii + 417. Hardcover RS 1200.East and West: Identità e dialogo interculturale. By Giangiorgio Pasqualotto. Venezia: Marsilo Editori, 2003. Pp. 210. EUR 16.00.Effortless Action: Wu-wei as Conceptual Metaphor and Spiritual Ideal in Early China. By Edward Slingerland. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Pp. xii + 352. Price not given.Encountering Kā lī: In the Margins, at the Center, in the West. Edited by Rachel Fell McDermott and Jeffrey J. Kripal. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2003. Pp. xviii + 321. Hardcover $55.00, £37.95. Paper $21.95, £15.95.Encyclopedia of Chinese Philosophy. Edited by Antonio S. Cua. New York and London: Routledge, 2003. Pp. xx + 1020. Hardcover $150.00.Essays on Indian Philosophy. By J. N. Mohanty and edited by Purushottama Bilimoria. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2002. Pp. xxxvii + 347. Paper RS 525.00.Faith, Humor, and Paradox. By Ignacio L. Götz. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger Publishers, 2002. Pp. 136. Hardcover $61.95.Four Illusions: Candrakīrti's Advice for Travelers on the Bodhisattva Path. Translated by Karen C. Lang. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Pp. xv + 240. Price not given.The Great Awakening: A Buddhist Social Theory. By David R. Loy. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2003. Pp. 223. Paper $16.95.The Hidden History of The Tibetan Book of the Dead. By Bryan J. Cuevas. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Pp. xi + 328. Price not given.Huang Di nei jing su wen: Nature, Knowledge, Imagery in an Ancient Chinese Medical Text. By Paul U. Unschuld. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2003. Pp. xii + 520. Hardcover $75.00, £52.00.In Dewey's Wake: Unfinished Work of Pragmatic Reconstruction. Edited by William J. Gavin. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003. Pp. vi + 249. Hardcover $71.50. Paper $23.95.Knowledge and Freedom in Indian Philosophy. By Tara Chatterjea. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2002. Pp. xvi + 159. Hardcover... (shrink)

Concerns that established temple Buddhism in Japan is in a state of crisis have been voiced by priests in various sectarian organizations in recent years. This article shows that there is a very real crisis facing Buddhism in modern Japan, with temples closing because of a lack of support and of priests to run them, and with a general turn away from Buddhism among the Japanese population. In rural areas falling populations have led to many temple closures, while in the (...) modern cities people are increasingly turning away from the prime area in which Japanese people have traditionally engaged with Buddhist temples — the processes of death and their aftermath. Partly this is due to competition from new secular funeral industries, but partly also it is because public perceptions of Buddhism — which has become over-reliant on death rituals in Japan — have become highly negative in modern times. Even practices which have often been seen as areas in which Buddhist temples have been able to attract people — such as pilgrimages — are proving less successful than in the past, contributing further to a sense of crisis that threatens to undermine Buddhism’s roots in Japan. (shrink)

Buddhism after Mao: Negotiations, Continuities, and Reinventions, edited by Ji Zhe, Gareth Fisher, and André Laliberté. University of Hawai’i Press, 2019. 355pp. Hb. $84.00, ISBN-13: 9780824877347; Pb. $28.00, ISBN-13: 9780824888343.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 20 (2000) 95-113 [Access article in PDF] Further Buddhist Christian Dialogue: A Review Article of Hee Sung Keel's Understanding Shinran: A Dialogical Approach Alfred BloomUniversity of Hawai'iIt was my original intention to write a review of Professor Keel's book. The exceptional quality of the book itself, however, and the issues it raises concerning Shin Buddhism call for a more detailed exploration and discussion. Therefore, this (...) essay is a review article offered in the interests of promoting the dialogue which Professor Keel has so eloquently and capably initiated.With the appearance of Professor Keel's book the development of Shin studies has reached a major milestone. Aspects of Shinran's (1173-1262) life and thought have occasionally been discussed by scholars in the West and by participants in Buddhist-Christian dialogue conferences. In this work we have a detailed analysis of Shinran's thought and the problems and questions that emerge from his interpretation of Mahayana Buddhism and Pure Land teaching. The breadth of Professor Keel's knowledge of Shinran and the depth of his insight into the teaching will carry Buddhist-Christian dialogue into the relatively unexplored area of Shin Buddhist-Christian dialogue.Professor Keel underscores the fact that the translation of Shinran's writings into English has significantly advanced Shin studies by making the teachings available to a wider range of inquirers. It also demonstrates the great responsibility shouldered by Shin scholars who have produced these texts. They must respond substantively and positively to the issues raised by Professor Keel.Though he is clearly Christian, he offers a lucid, sensitive, and fair summation of Shinran's religious experience and thought. He has opened the door of dialogue by presenting an interpretation of Shinran which requires a response. He does not take the position that he possesses the truth, nor does he attempt to refute Shinran in favor of Christianity. He does not judge Shinran to be in error, so much as to point to the paradoxes and dilemmas that are implied in his thought. We shall focus on these later.His volume addresses features of the study of Shinran. Chapter One, entitled The Easy Path, takes up the social and religious background and context of Pure Land [End Page 95] teaching out of which Shinran emerged. Particularly important is the teaching of Honen (1133-1212) whose interpretation of the sole practice of nembutsu (recitation of Amida Buddha's name) threatened the traditional Buddhist establishment. Honen taught that the nembutsu recitation was fully sufficient to realize birth in the Pure Land and ultimate enlightenment without depending on the elaborate, complex Buddhist institutions which offered arduous, rigorous methods for attaining liberation from the bondage of finitude. The elevation of a single practice as the way to enlightenment characterizes the new forms of Buddhism in the Kamakura period (1185-1332).The emphasis on the sole practice of nembutsu devotion marking Honen's Pure Land teaching, Dogen's dedication to zazen meditation alone, and Nichiren's insistence on the recitation of the title of the Lotus Sutra [Saddharma-pundarika-sutra] all countered the worldliness and decline of the contemporary Buddhist order of the period, as well as responded to the social turbulence and disorder arising from social change and shifts of power in Japan at that time. These developments also provided the background of Shinran's religious search and inspired his interpretation of Pure Land teaching which, while trying to clarify Honen against his critics, went beyond the master in significant areas.In Chapter Two, Shinran the Bonpu, Keel takes up Shinran's religious development and life. Bonpu means a foolish, common mortal, an ordinary person. As Keel points out, religion begins with problems intrinsic to human life. In the case of Shinran, he became deeply aware of the great evils of ignorance, greed, and anger within himself and in his world. Shinran's existential seriousness and honesty led him to draw "the ultimate conclusion from the message of his master [Honen] and [push] it to the extremity of paradoxicality, giving... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Buddhism and Science: Breaking New GroundAmos YongBuddhism and Science: Breaking New Ground. Edited by B. Alan Wallace. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003. 444+ xvi pp.Increasingly, the world's religious traditions are making their presence felt in the science and religion dialogue that has been dominated for a long time by Christian voices. The essays collected in this volume not only provide an introductory overview of Buddhist engagements (...) with the natural sciences during the last century, but also leave no doubts about ways in which Buddhist perspectives will be crucial to the future of the science-religion conversation. Wallace, founder and director of the Santa Barbara Institute for the Study of Consciousness ( ), has astutely pulled together fifteen quality essays (by sixteen authors) under three headings—"Historical Context" (three essays), "Buddhism and the Cognitive Sciences" (six essays), and "Buddhism and the Physical Sciences" (six essays)—and has added his own introductory essay to the volume as a whole and prefatory summaries to each of the articles.As in any collection of essays, reviewers find themselves in a catch-22: either mention each author and essay so as not to leave any out, leaving little space to interact critically with any of the material, or single out a handful of essay(ist)s to engage in more detail, risking the impression that there is a hidden agenda at work censoring the others. I have chosen to divide my impressions under four broad categories [End Page 176] within which I hope to mention all of the contributors and their main ideas, even while apologizing up front for focusing on a few more than the rest. My only excuse is that in a book of this much breadth and depth, my limited expertise cannot hope to engage each of the essays to the same degree. Others more competent than I will need to critically interact with the wide range of issues covered in this volume.My first observation regarding the essays under review is how far the Buddhist relationship with the sciences has come during the last century. The first three essays —by editor Wallace, José Cabezón (a scholar of Tibetan Buddhism with background in physics), and Thupten Jinpa (a scholar-practitioner of the Tibetan Buddhist tradition)—provide both historical overviews of the Buddhist engagement with science and models of the Buddhism-science encounter. While Wallace suggests the way of dialogue and collaboration as best suited to chart a via media between the dogma or ideology of scientistic materialism on the one hand and postmodern relativism on the other, Cabezón observes the history of Buddhist-science relations through three models: that of conflict/ambivalence (where either antagonism reigns or, more often, mutual disregard persists between the two traditions), that of compatibility/identity (where each interprets the other tradition in terms that are culturally and intellectually familiar), and that of complementarity (the idea that Buddhism and the sciences together provide a more complete epistemology for knowing a common subject). The validity of these models is confirmed by Jinpa in his overview of the Tibetan Buddhist case, beginning with the work of Gendūn Chōphel in the 1930s, and continuing in the openness of the present His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama to the findings of modern science.My second observation relates to how most of the essays in the volume demonstrate the various ways in which Buddhist perspectives can and do inform scientific inquiry on the one hand and even challenge scientific assumptions on the other. Four essays in part 2 exemplify this tendency. His Holiness shows how Buddhists can think about the mind in naturalistic and empirical terms even while remaining committed to cultivating the mind in order to accomplish mental transformation. David Galin (a neurophysiologist) brings early Buddhist views of the self into dialogue with contemporary neuropsychology and psychiatry, and suggests a new model for distinguishing between the perennially difficult concepts of person (a dynamic multileveled system constituted by a network of relations), self (the present organization of the person), and I (the self's point of view). The late Francisco Valera (a cognitive scientist) and Natalie Depraz (a specialist on... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Why Buddhism and the Modern World Need Each Other:A Buddhist PerspectiveDavid R. LoyThe mercy of the West has been social revolution. The mercy of the East has been individual insight into the basic self/void. We need both.—Gary Snyder1Another way to make Snyder’s point would be: The highest ideal of the Western tradition has been the concern to restructure our societies so that they are more socially just. The (...) most important goal for Buddhism is to awaken and (to use the Zen phrase) realize one’s true nature, which puts an end to dukkha—especially that associated with the delusion of a separate self. Today it has become more obvious that we need both, not just because these ideals complement each other, but because each project needs the other.As far as I have been able to determine, the Western conception of justice largely originates with the Abrahamic traditions, particularly the Hebrew prophets, who fulminated against oppressive rulers for afflicting the poor and powerless. Describing Old Testament prophecy, Walter Kaufmann writes that “no other sacred scripture contains books that speak out against social injustice as eloquently, unequivocally, and sensitively as the books of Moses and some of the prophets.”2 Is there a Buddhist equivalent? The doctrine of karma understands something like justice as an impersonal moral law built into the fabric of the cosmos, but historically karma has functioned differently. Combined with the doctrine of rebirth (a necessary corollary, since evil people sometimes prosper in this life) and the belief that each of us is now experiencing the consequences of actions in previous lifetimes, the implication seems to be that we do not need to be concerned about pursuing justice, because sooner or later everyone gets what they deserve. In practice, this has often encouraged passivity and acceptance of one’s situation, rather than a commitment to promote social justice.Does the Buddhist emphasis on dukkha (suffering in the broad sense) provide a better parallel with the Western conception of justice? Dukkha is arguably its most important concept: According to the Pali Canon, Sakyamuni Buddha said that what [End Page 39] he had to teach was dukkha and how to end it. Historically, Asian Buddhism has focused on individual dukkha and personal karma, a limitation that may have been necessary in autocratic polities that could and sometimes did repress Buddhist institutions. Today, however, the globalization of democracy, human rights, and freedom of speech opens the door to new ways of responding to social and institutional causes of dukkha.On the other side, the Abrahamic emphasis on justice, in combination with the Greek realization that society can be restructured, has resulted in our modern concern to pursue social justice by reforming political and economic institutions. This has involved, most obviously, various human rights movements (the abolition of slavery, the civil rights movement, feminism, LGBT liberation, etc.), which have not been an important concern of traditional Asian Buddhism. As valuable as these reforms have been, the limitations of such a institutional approach, by itself, are becoming evident. Even the best possible economic and political system cannot be expected to function well if the people within that system are motivated by greed, aggression, and delusion—the “three fires” or “three poisons” that Buddhism identifies as unwholesome motivations that need to be transformed into their more positive counterparts: generosity, loving-kindness, and wisdom.Today, in our globalizing world, the traditional Western focus on social transformation encounters the traditional Buddhist focus on individual awakening. This essay addresses why they need each other in order to actualize their own ideals and uses the example of our present economic situation to explore some of the implications of this interdependence.good versus evilThe difference in focus can be traced back to different paradigms. One way to draw the contrast between the Abrahamic and Buddhist traditions is to consider their dissimilar attitudes toward morality. The Abrahamic religions are (the primary) examples of “ethical monotheism” because they emphasize most of all ethical behavior. God’s main way of relating to us, his creatures, is instructing us how to live by giving us moral commandments. To be a good Jew, Christian, or... (shrink)

A case is made here for a secular interpretation of spirituality to place against more orthodox religious versions which are currently gaining ground in English education as part of the government policy designed to encourage schools to apply for ‘academy’ status independent of local authority control. Given the rise of faith-based ‘free’ schools, it is important to provide a secular alternative as a foundation for morality and spirituality in the interests of maintaining state-funded institutions characterised by rationality and autonomy (...) rather than a commitment to nurturing specific religious beliefs. After considering arguments against faith-based education, I go on to suggest a secular approach to spirituality founded on mindfulness theory and practice originating in Buddhist traditions. (shrink)

Organized by the Mind and Life Institute, this discussion addresses some of the most troublesome questions that have driven a wedge between Western science and religion. Where Buddhism Meets Neuroscience resulted from meetings of the Dalai Lama and a group of eminent neuroscientists and psychiatrists. Is the mind an ephemeral side effect of the brain's physical processes? Are there forms of consciousness so subtle that science has not yet identified them? How does consciousness happen? The Dalai Lama's incisive, open-minded approach (...) both challenges and offers inspiration to Western scientists. The book consists primarily of dialogue and intense, frank conversations between the Dalai Lama and participants. Questions of perception, dualism, categories of consciousness, memory, dreams, the nature of mental illness, and the mind during and after death are all explored. (shrink)

Buddhist Manuscripts from Central Asia: The British Library Sanskrit Fragments, vol. II. Edited by Seishi Karashima and Klaus Wille. Tokyo: International Research Institute for Advanced Buddhology, 2009. Vol. II.1: pp. 668. Vol. II.2: 382 plates.

Huayan Buddhist philosophers and John Dewey share a perspective on emptiness or dependent origination. This article compares Dewey's local, contextual, and relational metaphysics with Huayan thinkers’ use of the metaphor of Indra's jewel net to extend their relational metaphysics to an infinite extent. Huayan thinkers base their ethics of compassion on the recognition of the infinite relatedness of all things. Dewey prefers constructing social institutions that foster experiences that are reliably aesthetically unified. This dispute is significant because pragmatism (...) and Buddhism both provide promising ethical positions based on the understanding of persons as temporally limited and relational. (shrink)

Pali Buddhist Texts-explained to the Beginner. Rune. E. A. Johansson. Scandinavian Institute of Asian Studies Monograph Series No. 14 Curzon Press, London, Second edition, revised and enlarged, 1977 160 pp. £4.00.

_Making Sense of Tantric Buddhism_ fundamentally rethinks the nature of the transgressive theories and practices of the Buddhist Tantric traditions, challenging the notion that the Tantras were "marginal" or primitive and situating them instead--both ideologically and institutionally--within larger trends in mainstream Buddhist and Indian culture. Critically surveying prior scholarship, Wedemeyer exposes the fallacies of attributing Tantric transgression to either the passions of lusty monks, primitive tribal rites, or slavish imitation of Saiva traditions. Through comparative analysis of modern historical (...) narratives--that depict Tantrism as a degenerate form of Buddhism, a primal religious undercurrent, or medieval ritualism--he likewise demonstrates these to be stock patterns in the European historical imagination. Through close analysis of primary sources, Wedemeyer reveals the lived world of Tantric Buddhism as largely continuous with the Indian religious mainstream and deploys contemporary methods of semiotic and structural analysis to make sense of its seemingly repellent and immoral injunctions. Innovative, semiological readings of the influential _Guhyasamaja Tantra_ underscore the text's overriding concern with purity, pollution, and transcendent insight--issues shared by all Indic religions--and a large-scale, quantitative study of Tantric literature shows its radical antinomianism to be a highly managed ritual observance restricted to a sacerdotal elite. These insights into Tantric scripture and ritual clarify the continuities between South Asian Tantrism and broader currents in Indian religion, illustrating how thoroughly these "radical" communities were integrated into the intellectual, institutional, and social structures of South Asian Buddhism. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 23 (2003) 189-193 [Access article in PDF] Buddhist Learning and Textual Practice in Eighteenth-Century Lankan Monastic Culture. By Anne M. Blackburn. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2001. x + 241 pp. Buddhist Learning is an important study of the emergence of the Siyam Nikaya (monastic order) in eighteenth-century Kandy, Sri Lanka's last Buddhist kingdom (which fell to the British only in 1815). Blackburn (...) focuses on educational institutions in her account, but frames it also to address larger issues in the study of Buddhist and non-Buddhist texts and history.An introductory chapter sets forth Blackburn's three central arguments (4): colonial and postcolonial scholarly constructions of Sri Lankan Buddhist "tradition" obscure the eighteenth-century phenomena that she reconstructs; the idea of "textual communities," developed in dialogue with contemporary scholarship on medieval European Christianity, provides a useful tool for analyzing those phenomena; [End Page 189] thus analyzed, the early Siyam Nikaya turns out to represent an innovative "reformulation" of Sri Lankan Buddhism, made possible by the establishment of the order itself, its systematization of monastic education, and the development of a bilingual commentarial genre for use within that system.Chapter 2 provides nonspecialists "at least a glimpse of the larger social context in which the emerging Siyam Nikaya participated" (23), with brief sketches of Sri Lankan Buddhist history, the structure and politics of the Kandyan court, the organization of monasticism prior to the rise of the Siyam Nikaya, and the presence of non-Buddhist religious leaders in Kandyan society. Chapter 3 begins with a discussion of Sri Lankan monastic education prior to 1730, then analyzes three stages in the emergence of distinctive Siyam Nikaya educational institutions (the early career of founder Valivita Saranamkara [1698-1778]; the late 1730s creation of a prototypical educational institution at Niyamakanda; and the 1753 importation of higher ordination [ upasampada ] from Thailand/formal establishment of the Siyam Nikaya, respectively), the history of royal patronage of these institutions, their new curriculum, its implementation and administration, its impact on monastic identity and lay-monastic relations, and the relationship of monastic erudition to prestige and patronage.Chapter 4 surveys Siyam Nikaya histories to argue that the order's rise was attended by "an innovative discourse on monasticism" that bolstered its authority by depicting its education-based interpretation of monastic virtue as "natural and desirable Buddhist practice" (105). Though these histories employed the rhetorical trope of decline and revival, their emphasis on Buddhist learning "signals a moment of profound change in Lankan Buddhism" (76-77), because they provided a charter for the new Nikaya while creating a perception that Siyam Nikaya monks practiced the best form of Buddhist monasticism. When imbibed by members of the royal court, this assured these monks steady patronage and prestige over their rivals, called ganinnanses, whom they directly and indirectly attacked. Chapter 5 zeroes in on Saranamkara and his Sararthadipani, a bilingual (Sinhala and Pali) commentary on the "four recitation sections" (catubhanavara) of protective (paritta) texts in Pali. This monumental work and the genre of bilingual commentaries (called sutra sannayas ) that it inspired, Blackburn maintains, were central to Saranamkara's claim to authority and created a distinctive monastic identity for Siyam Nikaya monks. Through close analysis of selected passages from Sararthadipani, Blackburn reveals the inner workings of bilingual commentary, particularly insofar as it allowed Saranamkara and his disciples to demonstrate their proper command of the classic Pali texts.In chapter 6 Blackburn argues that the sutra sannayas produced "a new Buddhist textual community" united in its reading and/or hearing of them. Exploring the ways in which Sararthadipani and the other sutra sannayas "constrained" readers to accept Saranamkara's vision of proper monasticism (such as direct instructions to readers and rhetorical structures), but recognizing that they also left open (in their use of simile, metaphor, and illustrative stories) the possibility of "less constrained" and "resistant" readings, Blackburn suggests that the genre extended the Siyam Nikaya's program beyond the small circle of Saranamkara's disciples to transform Sri Lankan monasticism [End Page 190] more generally. Moreover, she argues that given... (shrink)

As a transitional economy, Vietnam has undergone tremendous changes over recent decades within a ‘fusion’ context that blends both traditional and modern values from its complex history. However, few studies have explored how contemporary issues in the context of Vietnam have brought both obstacles and skillful initiatives to managerial approaches to doing business. We draw on the concepts of social trust and institutional theory to explore how informal institutions such as religious forces can contribute to the development of individual (...) trust and whether individuals are willing to extend trust beyond familial networks. We contribute to the notion of a moral conception of trust by exploring how Buddhism in particular has initiated distinctive managerial approaches in the context of Vietnam, in response to dilemmas of social trust. Our findings highlight that as an informal institution, engaged Buddhism yields significant impact on the formation of social trust. We carried out in-depth interviews in Vietnam with 33 organizational leaders who were Buddhist practitioners, using thematic analysis to elucidate our findings and arguments. The study reveals how the incorporation of Buddhist principles has fostered context-sensitive, non-extreme, and reflexive managerial approaches to enhance morality as a response to social trust issues. (shrink)

Pali Buddhist Texts explained to the beginner. Rune E. A. Johansson. Scandinavian Institute of Aisan Studies Monograph Series No. 14, Copenhagen. 152 pp. £3.30.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 22 (2002) 222-228 [Access article in PDF] Book Review Buddhism and Ecology: The Interconnection of Dharma and Deeds Buddhism and Ecology: The Interconnection of Dharma and Deeds. Edited by Mary Evelyn Tucker and Duncan Ryuken Williams. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1997. 467 pp. As Mary Evelyn Tucker's foreword explains, this book is part of a series of conferences and publications exploring the relationship between religion (...) and ecology initiated by the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard University. The volume is divided into several sections. In the first section, "Overview: Framing the Issues," Lewis Lancaster provides an excellent overview of the important role of religion in relation to ecology in "Buddhism and Ecology: Collective Cultural Perceptions." In addition, he discusses some of the promise and pitfalls of interpreting Buddhism to ascertain its perspectives on nature, the human/nature relationship, and so forth.The first substantive section, "Theravada Buddhism and Ecology," has a focus on Thailand, with essays by Donald Swearer on Thai Buddhist perspectives on nature, and Leslie Sponsel and Poranee Natadecha-Sponsel, entitled "Theoretical Analysis of the Potential Contribution of the Monastic Community in Promoting a Green Society in Thailand." Swearer describes the approaches of two preeminent Thai Buddhist monk scholars and activists, Bhikkhu Buddhadasa and Phra Prayudh Payutto, concluding that these two offer distinct but similarly proenvironmental interpretations of Buddha dharma.The Sponsels' essay is less persuasive. Their thesis is that "the local monastic communities of Thailand have the potential to serve as working models of a green society and that some actually do" (48). The evidence they offer is that "by drawing on the environmental wisdom of the dharma, by serving as a model of a green society, and through the power afforded by their liminal status, local monastic communities have significant potential to contribute to the environmental awareness, information, and ethics of the populace" (Sponsel and Sponsel 53). Since the monastic environment is comprised predominantly of males, however, what contribution do women make to these goals, and how do they become educated into environmental awareness? The authors do acknowledge the gender discrimination of the sangha and recognize both that "one of the concomitants of a green society is gender equity" as well as that the gender bias of the sangha and society in Thailand need to change if a green society is to be realized in Thailand (56). However, assuming that women are equal contributors to environmental destruction as well as the potential for rehabilitation, it would seem to be important to use vehicles for environmental education that provide access to females as well as males, rather than monastic institutions composed exclusively of males (at least the formally recognized ones).However, the Sponsels see the greatest obstacle to the attainment of a green society in Thailand to be "the disparity between Buddhist ideals and teachings, on the one hand, and the actual practices of Buddhists, on the other" (56). The authors note that in reality, Thailand is increasingly becoming an environmental disaster rather [End Page 222] than an ecotopia. Although the authors contend that Buddhism is one of the most important resources for resolving environmental problems in Thailand because of its ability to "penetrate to the very roots of the problems and to find lasting solutions rather than merely treat superficial symptoms and single issues," they have failed to describe what these principles are in any detail other than the doctrine of interdependent origination and care for all sentient beings, as well as failing to demonstrate specifically how monks actually provide an example of a green society. Thus, their "hypotheses" remain largely unproven and unsupported.The third section of the volume, "Mahayana Buddhism and Ecology," focuses on Japan. Paul O. Ingram's essay, "The Jeweled Net of Nature," supports the thesis that Shingon (esoteric) Buddhism, especially that of the Japanese monk and scholar Kukai, offer resources for resolving the environmental crisis (as Graham Parkes also does in a later essay in this section). Beginning from the premise that the dualistic, hierarchical, atomizing, androcentric, and sexist characteristics of Western monotheistic religion and... (shrink)

Buddhism’s claim to be a universal religion would seem to be severely compromised by its exclusion of certain groups of people from its scheme of salvation. Women, in particular, were treated at one time or another as less than fit vessels for attaining enlightenment. As is well known, even in the days of Gautama the Buddha, the Buddhist order was not entirely free of misogynist sentiments. Female devotees aspiring to follow the Buddha’s teaching often had to overcome discrimination and (...) negative innuendos from their fellow monks and the monastic institutions. This view of women’s “spiritual inferiority” persisted, casting a long shadow over the Buddhism tradition that took root and developed in Japan. Although the idea of sangha—the community of believers made up of monks, nuns, and laymen and laywomen—was duly embraced in Japan, and although women played a vital role in patronizing Buddhism, the misogynistic view became prevalent around the fourteenth century, with the changes in socio-economic environments. It was only in the last century that the iniquitous treatment of women in Japanese Buddhism came to be critically acknowledged by the ecclesiastical authorities, symbolically marking an important first step for a change. Despite the hard-to -eradicate subtle institutional chauvinism and dubious perceptions concerning women’s spiritual ability, an increasing number of socially engaged and articulate Buddhist women are working on improving their image and their social standing in the last decades. What is still needed, however, is the emancipation of androcentric Buddhist ecclesiastical tradition from the yoke of its past. (shrink)

What is the relation between Buddhism and liberal democracy? Are they compatible frameworks for social value that can somehow be joined to one another to gain a consistent whole? Or, are they antagonistic, forcing those who would be Buddhist democrats into an uncomfortable choice between individually attractive but jointly unsatisfiable values? Another possibility is that they operate at entirely different levels of discourse so that questions regarding their relationship simply do not arise. I suggest that not only are Buddhism (...) and liberal democracy compatible, but that they are complementary in a deep sense. Democracy, it is argued here, can be strengthened by values drawn from Buddhist moral and social theory, and Buddhist moral and social theory would gain concrete institutional and procedural specificity when it is articulated through the framework of liberal democratic theory. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhism and the Idea of Human Rights:Resonances and Dissonances1Perry Schmidt-LeukelIn 1991 L.P.N. Perera, Professor of Pāli and Buddhist Studies in Sri Lanka, published a Buddhist commentary on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In this commentary Perera tries to show that, in the Pāli canon, i.e. the canonical scripture of Theravāda Buddhism, for every single article of the Human Rights Declaration a substantial parallel or at least (...) a statement with a similar tendency can be found. Indeed, says Perera, Article 1, which affirms the dignity and rights of all humans, "is in complete accord with Buddhist thought, and may be said to be nothing new to Buddhism in conception" (Perera 1991:21). In contrast, the Buddhist Peter Junger, Professor of Law at the University of Cleveland, Ohio, judged in 1995 that... though followers of Buddhist traditions do value most, if not all, of the interests underlying the rhetoric of human rights, they may not have much use for the label itself, which is, after all, a product of the traditions of Western Europe and the parochial histories of that region.(Junger 1998: 56)Junger goes on to say that "the concept of human rights is not likely to be useful in...following the Buddha Dharma" (Junger 1998: 55).Thus Perera and Junger agree that the content of the various human rights is acceptable for Buddhists. However, they disagree strongly in their evaluation of the idea of human rights in itself. In this respect Damien Keown has rightly argued that the crucial question on 'Buddhism and Human Rights' is not so much whether Buddhism can accept any particular human right but rather whether the idea of human rights as such can find a philosophical justification within the "overall Buddhist vision of individual and social good" (Keown 1998: 24).It is this problem that I would like to pursue in this paper. In the first part I will sketch some basic characteristics of the idea of human rights. In the second part I will point out what resonances this idea finds in Buddhism or by which Buddhist concepts the human rights idea can be justified. And finally, in the third part, I will deal [End Page 33] with the question of potential dissonances between the idea of human rights and Buddhist concepts.On the Nature of Human RightsWith the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 and the various subsequent human rights conventions the rights of individuals were for the first time inscribed into international law, which had previously recognised only collectives as legal subjects. By formulating universal rights as valid for every individual human being regardless of race, colour, sex, religion, birth, etc. the Universal Declaration points to the most important feature of the idea of human rights: the protection of the individual or, to be more precise, the protection of the individual against powerful institutions of the state, society, religion or others. It is individual self-determination and free agency that are protected through human rights. Human rights define the minimum of what is necessary in order to guarantee the freedom of individual agency and the freedom of self-determination. By the definition of inalienable rights,2 the idea of human rights sets limits to those collectives and institutions in which we usually live, limits which for the sake of the basic liberty of the individual are not to be transgressed. Michael Ignatieff summarises this understanding of human rights with the words: "rights exist to protect individuals" (Ignatieff 2001: 67), and "they are worth having only if they can be enforced against institutions like the family, the state, and the church" (Ignatieff 2001: 66f.). Therefore "moral individualism" is "the core of the Universal Declaration" (Ignatieff 2001: 66).It is true that the further development of the human rights debate, particularly within the context of the United Nations, has led to an extension of the idea of human rights to collective rights and collective legal entities by including among human rights, for example, a nations' right to self-determination and the right to peace and the right to development. However, in my opinion it would be highly... (shrink)

History of Indian Buddhism. E. Lamotte, translated from the French by Sara Boin-Webb. Institut Orientaliste, Louvain-la-Neuve 1988. XXVI, 870 pp, plus 30 plates (No. XXIII on p.420), 5 maps and 7 plans. B.Fr 2175 (distrib. by Peeters Press, P.O. Box 41, 3000 Leuven, Belgium).

This paper explores the contemporary encounter between Western cultures and the Buddhist tradition of monasticism. I have investigated attitudes towards this institution in the forms of contemporary Buddhist memoirs, blog websites, interviews, and dharma talks. This article argues that the institution in general is not ideal for some Western Buddhists— it is seen by some as too restricting or anti-modern. Others find value in monasticism; they are aware of those who critique the institution, and offer instead a model (...) that removes anti-modern elements that they see as problematic. As an extension of these attitudes, this article also draws on the issue of female monasticism. Western Buddhists argue that all women should have the choice to be ordained because this shows that Buddhism is modern. I conclude that Western Buddhists are interested in creating a modern, universal tradition, and this can be seen by analyzing conceptions about monastic life. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 21.1 (2001) 57-62 [Access article in PDF] In Contrast to Sentimentality: Buddhist and Christian Sobriety Bardwell Smith Carleton College An invitation to reflect on the spiritual disciplines of another tradition is a welcome but difficult assignment. It is welcome because having studied, taught about, and engaged in various forms of Buddhist practice for forty years, I have learned more about what becoming a Christian (...) means than I had anticipated. So much so that I'm tempted to wonder, in Chuang Tzu style, am I a Buddhist-Christian, a Christian-Buddhist, or just another person for whom labels don't suffice? It is difficult because spiritual practice, by exhuming the most elusive levels of human experience, teaches one that the inner life resists all attempts to define, let alone control--which is a good thing, for the more claims made about one's practice, the more self-deception thrives.The one claim I would make about my experiences of Buddhist spiritual practice, through meditation and pilgrimage, is that they have aroused immense gratitude for the fragile gift of life, plus a healthy respect for Buddhism's "three poisons of anger, greed, and ignorance," for they prod us to realize our essential nature. The same is true about the inner life of a Christian, which is why I said "becoming a Christian," for it is a process of unfoldment, not something static or accomplished. In other words, understanding the obstacles to spiritual growth within oneself, yet keeping one's eye on the potential that already exists in one's makeup (the buddha nature, the interdependence of all reality, or the image of god), helps one to persist without seeming to "progress" toward fulfilling this goal.This essay is a personal reflection; it does not attempt to be academic. The learner-seeker in me seeks to become one with what he is teaching-seeking. While teaching himself, he is always being taught by others in the reciprocity of life. Having "forgotten" his essential nature, he seeks to "remember," to become what he already is, painfully aware that he is often living a contradiction. As one talks about spiritual practice, the reference is typically to some activity set apart from ordinary life. Actually, in such practice one seeks to impart greater candor and depth to one's everyday existence through some sort of spiritual discipline, in particular by the act of attending to life through conscious awareness. And though one's inner life resists all tendencies to impose order upon it, discipline can forge channels through which new life breathes. [End Page 57]Before discussing forms of Buddhist practice that have made an impact upon me, it makes sense to note some influences that came earlier and have remained indelible. Combat experience in the Marine Corps, compounded by exposure in North China in 1945-1946 to kinds of suffering I had never imagined, prompted me to see the world and myself from a very different angle. In succeeding years Augustinian, Kierkegaardian, and Niebuhrian reflections on man's capacity for evil and self-deception taught me to regard claims to virtue or innocence with suspicion, to say the least. These were made especially graphic by portrayals of human brutality embodied in the worlds of a Dostoevsky or a Faulkner.When first exposed to Buddhist worldviews at the age of thirty-five, I found a comparable absence of sentimentality. Here too was a compelling awareness of the roots of suffering within each person and as magnified in social institutions and values. It was an awareness and acceptance of violence, evil, and self-deception as an inextricable part of the human experience; of greed, ignorance, anger, and hatred as threads in the tapestry of the human condition, but that a doorway out of this chamber of suffering also exists.In the varieties of Christianity and Buddhism that fed my imagination, I found sober realism coexisting with profound belief in the human capacity for transformation.While Christians and Buddhists depict this tension in their own ways, I detect no basic disagreement. The disease of ignorance and of... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BUDDHISM AND MIMETIC THEORY: A RESPONSE TO CHRISTOPHER IVES Leo D. Lefebure Fordham University ChristopherIves offers avery clearandthoughtful exploration ofthe relation between Dharma and Destruction. His discussion helps us to understand the historical relation between institutions and violence in various Buddhist traditions. His overview of the historical record is quite compelling, offering us an important counterpoint and corrective to the widespread images of Buddhist peacemakers in (...) the popular media. From the beginning, the Buddhist tradition has had a mixed record in its understanding and practice of the first moral precept, nonviolence. The encounter between Buddhist perspectives and mimetic theory poses interesting challenges for both partners to the discussion. Mimetic theory offers Buddhists an analysis ofthe construction ofdesire and the self that in many ways complements traditional Buddhist perspectives. It also offers a naming ofthe mechanisms of violence in the formation of societies that may be helpful for Buddhists' social analyses. Buddhism for its part offers mimetic theory a centuries-old tradition of reflection on the role of desire in the construction of an illusory self as well as a body of practical wisdom on non-violence that, even if it has not always been put into practice, challenges and instructs the human community today. The popular images of Buddhist peacemakers are, after all, deeply rooted in the early Buddhist tradition and powerfully represented by contemporary figures such as the Dalai Lama, Mahaghosananda (the Patriarch of Cambodian Buddhism and Thich Nhat Hanh (a Vietnamese Zen Buddhist leader who has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize). 176Leo D. Lefebure I approach this discussion not as a professional scholar of Buddhism but as a Christian theologian who has been involved in Buddhist-Christian dialogue and who is interested in both Buddhism and mimetic theory, as well as in the relations between these two trajectories today. One model for further discussion would be to take the historical data that Ives has set forth and then apply mimetic theory, asking to what degree mimetic theory can illumine the dynamics and developments of Buddhist history. Using Bernard Lonergan's image of the scissors, which Charles Heflingmentionedin his discussion inthis conference, this approach would cast Buddhism in the role of providing the lower blade of the scissors, the data to be understood, and mimetic theory would provide the upper blade of the scissors, the analytic concepts to understand the data and to make judgments and decisions. In this method, Buddhism would be relatively passive and mimetic theory would be more active. I am sure that there is ample material in Buddhist history that lends itselfto mimetic analysis (one can think ofthe traditional treatment ofthe so-called "outcasts" in Japanese society). One could, as James Alison noted in his opening address, go on endlessly, even obsessively applyingmimetic concepts to different areas of human experience. I am not sure this qualifies as true dialogue, however. It risks continuing the older Orientalist assumption that only Western concepts are capable of understanding Asia's experience and that Asians themselves have relatively little to contribute.1 For a true dialogue, the voices ofboth traditions must play a rather more active role. Both traditions can furnish material for both the upper and the lower blades of the scissors. In Lonergan's terminology, we aremovingbeyondinterpretation, which seeks understanding, and beyond history, which for Lonergan asks what is going forward in history, to the distinct functional specialization of dialectic (Lonergan 125?30). This discipline reflects upon the underlying values at work in historical processes and the assumptions behind these values. In this inquiry we ask about the status of differences of perspective: to what degree are they complementary and where are they contradictory? I would like to organize the discussion between Buddhist perspectives and mimetic theory around the three central points of mimetic theory, which René Girard himself has described as his three most important discoveries: (1) the mimetic construction of desire as the source of human identity, (2) the surrogate victim mechanism as the central dynamic of 1 On Orientalism, see Edward W. Said, Orientalism (New York: Vintage Books, 1979). A Response to Christopher Ives177 primal religion and culture, and (3) biblical revelation as the unique, unparalleled unmasking of the surrogate victim mechanism... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Monasticism, Buddhist and Christian: The Korean ExperienceJames A. Wiseman OSBMonasticism, Buddhist and Christian: The Korean Experience. Edited by Sunghae Kim and James W. Heisig. Louvain Theological and Pastoral Monographs 38. Leuven: Peeters; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008. 201 pp.In order to evaluate Monasticism, Buddhist and Christian properly, one must know something about its origin. The principal editor, Sunghae Kim, is director of the Seton Interreligious Research (...) Center in Seoul, a center that regularly sponsors interreligious dialogues at a scholarly level. In addition to those dialogues, the center also organizes a series of monthly lectures for the public at large, held each year around a specific theme. The chapters of this book were, with one exception, originally given in the 1995 lecture series and later translated from Korean into English. For that reason, most of the material will already be quite familiar to specialists in the Buddhist and Christian traditions and will at times seem to offer generalizations that would be accurate enough for presentations to the general public but would need various qualifications and nuances to meet the more rigorous standards of scholars.The first two chapters are broadly introductory. In the first, Sunghae Kim gives a brief overview of the renunciatory life in six major religions (Hinduism, Buddhism, Daoism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam). She concludes that “in terms of strict renunciation of possessions, family, and pursuit of the ego, Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Daoism stand out” (p. 35), with Buddhism and Christianity in particular being characterized by highly developed forms of monasticism per se. Bernard Senécal, a Canadian Jesuit who teaches Buddhist studies at Sogang University in Seoul, wrote the following chapter, “Korean Buddhism Today and Its Encounter with Christianity,” specifically for this book. The eight chapters that follow are the heart of the book. Jaemoon Yun, the abbot of the Korean Buddhist monastery in Chung-ju, has chapters on the history of the Buddhist monastic precepts, on nonpossession and the use of property in the saṅgha, on the organizational structure of the saṅgha, and on the homeless life and the Buddhist practice of compassion. Following each of these four chapters is one by the Benedictine monk Thomas Timpte on the corresponding topic in Christian monastic life as found in the Roman Catholic Church. A short final chapter by Younghae Yun, a professor of Buddhist studies and comparative religion at Gongguk University in Kyeong-ju, highlights a few characteristics of Buddhist and Christian life. Rather than comment on material from each chapter, I [End Page 228] will discuss in this review three points that struck me as particularly interesting and/or controversial.At the beginning of the first of his four chapters, “The History and Spirit of Christian Monastic Rules,” Thomas Timpte rightly devotes several pages to clarifying terminology. The details need not concern us here, but in general monks and nuns in the Catholic Church make public profession of the “evangelical counsels” of poverty, celibacy (sometimes called chastity), and obedience; in addition, they practice some degree of enclosure (“separation from the world”) and (except for the relatively few who are hermits) live in community. Timpte notes that although there have been men and women who practiced the evangelical counsels since New Testament times, the formal institution of Christian monastic life arose in the eastern part of the Mediterranean only around the year 300. For that reason, he argues that monasticism cannot be considered central to the Church in an institutional sense, whereas monasticism was an essential part of Buddhism from the beginning, the Buddha himself and his earliest followers all having been monks. This is one of the points about which Younghae Yun disagrees with Timpte, for the Buddhist scholar claims that even though Buddhist monks and nuns, like their Christian counterparts, take vows (precepts), and in some sense live apart from society at large, such a way of life itself “is neither essential nor central” in Buddhism (p. 185). Younghae Yun bases his argument on the fact that the Buddha considered such practices as only “a means to achieve enlightenment” and that enlightenment itself is not the true raison d’être of Buddhism but is rather a way of facilitating... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Dialogue:Moving ForwardThomas Cattoi (bio) and Carol S. Anderson (bio)The San Francisco Bay Area is an interesting location in which to ponder Buddhist-Christian relations. The website UrbanDharma.org lists more than a hundred institutions affiliated with Buddhist organizations—a density higher than in the Beijing metropolitan area. Some of these centers have a clearly ethnic and denominational character, serving a predominantly immigrant population. Some, like many of (...) the Tibetan organizations, function as cultural centers but also attract a considerable Western clientele. Others, like the San Francisco Zen Center or Spirit Rock in Marin County, belong to the first wave of historical Buddhist centers established in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s. A few more are trying to establish new forms of enculturated Buddhist practice that are more suited to Western sensitivities and are only loosely affiliated with the cultures of traditional Buddhist societies. At the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, alongside schools training Jesuit priests, Dominican friars, and Protestant ministers of various denominations, the Institute of Buddhist Studies prepares students from different walks of life to work as Buddhist chaplains in hospitals and educational institutions. Buddhism, in its various forms and manifestations, is no longer an exotic import from a little known “elsewhere,” but is part and parcel of the local spiritual landscape.For students and scholars practicing in such a diverse environment, it is perhaps difficult to imagine that for the greatest part of its history, most of Christendom was largely unaware of the very existence of the Buddhist tradition. While Clement of Alexandria and Jerome do mention Buddhism, and references to its practice can be found in the writings of medieval travelers such as Marco Polo, most European Christians lived in a world where the role of the religious “other” was played by Judaism and Islam. It was only in the early modern era, with the beginning of the European colonization of Asia, that non-Abrahamic religious traditions gradually entered the intellectual horizon of Western intellectuals and scholars. Around the year 1740, a French Jesuit named Jean-François Pons (1688–1752), otherwise remembered as a pioneer of Sanskrit studies in the West, came to the startling realization that many of the religious practices that missionaries and travelers had come across in regions as far apart as China, Japan, Nepal, and Mongolia were actually all parts of the same religious tradition. In his correspondence with his fellow Jesuits in France, he coined the [End Page vii] term Bauddhamatham—teaching of the Buddha—to refer to what would eventually be known as Buddhism. In the early years of the nineteenth century, many Sanskrit and Tibetan texts started to be catalogued and translated into the major European languages, bringing about the first encounter between Europe’s intellectual elites and this utterly foreign religious tradition.The nineteenth century also saw the beginning of a more existential engagement with the Buddhism tradition, albeit one that was limited to intellectual elites who were highly critical of institutional Christianity. In his work The World as Will and Representation, Schopenhauer found in Buddhism many echoes of his own philosophical insights. Many of the members of the Pāli Text Society, established in London in 1871, had rejected Christianity and thought they would find in Buddhism a moral framework in a society where the normativity of the Christian tradition had already started to be questioned. At the same time, we also see the beginning of the first comparative studies, where Buddhism and Christianity are compared from a speculative and doctrinal perspective. In 1880, Ernest de Bunsen claimed that if one made an exception for the crucifixion, many of the fundamental moral teachings of Buddhism and Christianity were virtually identical. This was just the beginning of a slew of similar studies.While the Christian churches were initially uninterested or outright skeptical about engaging in dialogue with non-Christian religious traditions, this attitude started to shift in the decades following the Second World War. The Second Vatican Council, for instance, marked an important shift in the Catholic Church’s attitude toward other religions. Before the 1960s, Catholic theology departments did not offer courses on other religious traditions or on interreligious dialogue... (shrink)

The analysis of the reciprocal relations of the discipline of philosophy and other cultural phenomena requires a few disclaimers. First of all, the characterization of philosophy as a cultural phenomenon along with literature, music and theater, or culinary arts, fashions and sports, rejects claims that philosophy somehow relates to absolute truths which transcend the limits of any particular cultural context and mean the same things for anyone who manages to reach the heights and/or depths necessary for that purpose. This also (...) entails that any pursuit of philosophy, including Buddhist philosophy in Japan, is only possible within the network of textualities and cultural practices that surround it, and the people engaged in it relate to the cultural codes and institutions of their environment just as they relate to the internal rules of their philosophy and its received heritage. Secondly, we have to acknowledge two major aspects in approaching any cultural phenomenon, namely, its texts and its practice. The texts produced by the people engaged in, say, philosophy or literature or cooking are distinct from, yet always related to, the practical aspects of that phenomenon, which determine who produces these texts, how and why they are produced, and how they are used and disseminated. Alternatively, seen from the aspect of practice, texts are a sort of by-product of what people do; for example, reciting Buddhist sutras does not imply a deep understanding of their semantic, textual, and philosophical content. Both of these aspects are equally relevant to the phenomenon as a whole, and neither can be sufficiently analyzed without the knowledge of the other. In this article, I will focus on some key categories and issues mainly as they have been reflected in the domain of literature, especially since it can be argued that literature is the filter through which Buddhist influence, and its philosophical aspect, in particular, has been mediated to other spheres of culture. (shrink)

Contributed papers presented at the Seminar, organized by Birla Archaeological & Cultural Research Institute, Hyderabad; with reference to Andhra Pradesh, India.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 23 (2003) 155-157 [Access article in PDF] Religious Feminism and the Future of the Planet: A Buddhist-Christian Conversation. By Rita M.Gross and Rosemary Radford Ruether. New York: Continuum, 2001. 229 pp. Is feminism indigenous to Buddhism and Christianity? Or must feminists reinvent their religious traditions? The probing autobiographical reflections by Rita Gross and Rosemary Ruether expose the tensions of feminist reform. Like many religious feminists, (...) they claim to preserve continuity with tradition despite their innovations. But upon reading Religious Feminism and the Future of the Planet, the similarities between feminist Buddhism and feminist Christianity lead me to wonder whether feminism plays a more formative role than tradition in shaping their visions of the future.The ingenious structure of the book allows the opportunity for maximum dialogue. [End Page 155] Authors write chapters paired on the same topic, and each chapter has a short response attached. This organization mirrors the real-life dialogue between Gross and Ruether that occurred at a workshop in Grailville, Ohio, in 1999. The back-and-forth movement allows for meta-reflection on feminist interpretation, on the self-understandings of scholars who practice the traditions that they study.The first two chapters are autobiographical. There is an especially detailed account of Gross's journey toward Tibetan Buddhism and a shorter chapter on the evolution of Ruether's Catholic identity. The second pair of chapters responds to patriarchal religious origins. Ruether's critique of Christian sexism is theological, dealing with Christology, anthropology, and ecclesiology. In contrast, Gross asserts that the Buddhist "view" or theology is nonsexist and even feminist, thus she considers male leadership as the main obstacle to women. The difficulty of defending such large claims in a short space is compensated by the fact that their conclusions have already been developed in previous publications.Striking parallels emerge when the authors identify what is most liberating in their tradition and most inspiring in the other tradition. In both cases, mindfulness practice in Buddhism and the prophetic voice in Christianity are singled out. The overarching message is that Christians can learn about prayer from Buddhists, and Buddhists can learn about social critique from Christians. Another crucial parallel occurs when the authors choose one key social problem to address religiously—they both focus on environmental ethics. They agree that loving care for the earth is the key to both ecological and human flourishing.One asymmetry, however, concerns sensitivity to departure from tradition. In particular, Gross questions whether by utilizing "prophetic" critique she is applying an extrinsic Hebrew and Christian viewpoint to Tibetan Buddhist reflection. I greatly admire how she faces up to the problem of discontinuity between feminist critique and Buddhist institutions rather than insist that the tradition is inchoately feminist. Ruether, on the other hand, does not take the discontinuity between traditional and feminist Christian viewpoints as seriously, although she undoubtedly reshapes Christianity, particularly theological doctrines, into new forms.From a Christian perspective, I notice striking omissions in Ruether's presentation concerning the subject of prayer and the theme of suffering. When Ruether experimented with lay monastic practice early on in her career, she became impatient with silence and intensive prayer as isolating and unproductive. In her autobiographical chapter, she speaks of turning away from prayer toward social engagement. Yet she also mentions admiration for certain contemporary monks and nuns who are on the vanguard of creative worship and ethical engagement. Although she admires Buddhist mindfulness, she does not take seriously analogous Christian meditative practices and their capacity to sustain social activism. She leaves the impression that prayer and action are separate paths, whereas Christian prayer and resistance may be closely associated.The nature of suffering and its overcoming are topics central to Christianity and Buddhism, as well as to feminist thought. For feminists, reflection on suffering tends [End Page 156] to concentrate on exposing and removing its causes, such as abuse, oppression, or violence. Buddhists also focus on cessation of suffering, but "suffering" is centrally an individual barrier to overcome before social issues can be corrected. In contrast, Christians think about... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 22 (2002) 217-221 [Access article in PDF] Book Review Buddhism in America Luminous Passage: The Practice and Study of Buddhism in America Buddhism in America. By Richard Hughes Seager. Columbia Contemporary American Religion Series. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999. Luminous Passage: The Practice and Study of Buddhism in America. By Charles S. Prebish. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1999. These two books (...) are general overviews of Buddhist religion as practiced in America. 1 Buddhism in America is written for a general audience, even for readers unfamiliar with Buddhism, and would work well as a textbook. Luminous Passage presupposes some familiarity with the topic of Buddhism in America, and is addressed mainly to fellow scholars and supporters of Buddhism. Both books focus on Buddhist communities in America (leaders and institutions) and opt not to discuss Buddhist thought, [End Page 217] doctrine, or theology (margology). This review will describe each book in turn, and then raise some issues.Seager characterizes Buddhism in America as "a road map to the American Buddhist landscape, in which histories, communities, institutions, and individuals are set in meaningful relationship to each other in order to make sense of developments that are often baffling in their complexity" (xii). Buddhism in America is divided into three parts and fourteen chapters. Part 1 (chapters 1-4) offers background information on basic Buddhist teachings, institutions, historical traditions, and a brief history of Buddhism in America. Part 1 is a useful primer for readers unfamiliar with Buddhism and adds to this book's value as a college textbook. Part 2 (chapters 5-10) is "the heart of the book," with chapters on the Japanese Pure Land sect Jodo Shinshu (Buddhist Churches of America), the proselytizing movement Soka Gakkai, Japanese Zen Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism, Theravada Buddhism (including vipassana meditation groups), and "other" forms of Buddhism (Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese). Part 3 (chapters 11-14) discusses the themes of gender, social engagement, interreligious dialogue, and Americanization. The book concludes with seventeen profiles of prominent Buddhist figures, a chronology, glossary, resources, and an index. The glossary is superfluous (the index directs the reader to longer definitions in the text), and is misleading in several cases (e.g., "bodhisattva" should be defined as "enlightenment being," not "wisdom body"). The section of resources includes select annotated bibliographies of books, periodicals, videos, and Web sites (75 percent current). The list of videos is particularly valuable for teaching.Chapter 13, "Intra-Buddhist and Interreligious Dialogue," will be of particular interest to readers of this journal. The section on Christian-Buddhist dialogue is very short (221-225), mostly on Thomas Merton and his legacy. In keeping with his focus on communities rather than doctrines, Seager approaches the topic of interreligious encounter by discussing recent dialogues rather than by discussing doctrinal or philosophical issues.Luminous Passageis also a book about Buddhist communities. It is intended as a companion volume to The Faces of Buddhism in America, a collection edited by Prebish and Kenneth Tanaka and published simultaneously by University of California Press. Like Seager's book, Luminous Passage is based on recent fieldwork, but unlike the former book, Luminous Passage is also based on the author's encounters with Buddhist figures over the years and his career as a buddhologist. The author's personal approach to his topic is both a strength and a weakness. An advantage of writing such a personal book is the plethora of interesting anecdotes that the author is able to include. However, a disadvantage to writing such a personal book is that the book becomes strongly shaped by the author's personal concerns. The author identifies himself as a Buddhist academic, and the book expresses his own ideals and hopes for the future of "American Buddhism." As the title of the book suggests, the author is hopeful for a "luminous passage," an evolution of the Buddhist traditions in America into an identifiably American Buddhism.Luminous Passage has six chapters, plus preface and appendix. Chapter 1 sketches [End Page 218] the history of Buddhism in America and... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 22 (2002) 217-221 [Access article in PDF] Book Review Buddhism in America Luminous Passage: The Practice and Study of Buddhism in America Buddhism in America. By Richard Hughes Seager. Columbia Contemporary American Religion Series. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999. Luminous Passage: The Practice and Study of Buddhism in America. By Charles S. Prebish. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1999. These two books (...) are general overviews of Buddhist religion as practiced in America. 1 Buddhism in America is written for a general audience, even for readers unfamiliar with Buddhism, and would work well as a textbook. Luminous Passage presupposes some familiarity with the topic of Buddhism in America, and is addressed mainly to fellow scholars and supporters of Buddhism. Both books focus on Buddhist communities in America (leaders and institutions) and opt not to discuss Buddhist thought, [End Page 217] doctrine, or theology (margology). This review will describe each book in turn, and then raise some issues.Seager characterizes Buddhism in America as "a road map to the American Buddhist landscape, in which histories, communities, institutions, and individuals are set in meaningful relationship to each other in order to make sense of developments that are often baffling in their complexity" (xii). Buddhism in America is divided into three parts and fourteen chapters. Part 1 (chapters 1-4) offers background information on basic Buddhist teachings, institutions, historical traditions, and a brief history of Buddhism in America. Part 1 is a useful primer for readers unfamiliar with Buddhism and adds to this book's value as a college textbook. Part 2 (chapters 5-10) is "the heart of the book," with chapters on the Japanese Pure Land sect Jodo Shinshu (Buddhist Churches of America), the proselytizing movement Soka Gakkai, Japanese Zen Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism, Theravada Buddhism (including vipassana meditation groups), and "other" forms of Buddhism (Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese). Part 3 (chapters 11-14) discusses the themes of gender, social engagement, interreligious dialogue, and Americanization. The book concludes with seventeen profiles of prominent Buddhist figures, a chronology, glossary, resources, and an index. The glossary is superfluous (the index directs the reader to longer definitions in the text), and is misleading in several cases (e.g., "bodhisattva" should be defined as "enlightenment being," not "wisdom body"). The section of resources includes select annotated bibliographies of books, periodicals, videos, and Web sites (75 percent current). The list of videos is particularly valuable for teaching.Chapter 13, "Intra-Buddhist and Interreligious Dialogue," will be of particular interest to readers of this journal. The section on Christian-Buddhist dialogue is very short (221-225), mostly on Thomas Merton and his legacy. In keeping with his focus on communities rather than doctrines, Seager approaches the topic of interreligious encounter by discussing recent dialogues rather than by discussing doctrinal or philosophical issues.Luminous Passageis also a book about Buddhist communities. It is intended as a companion volume to The Faces of Buddhism in America, a collection edited by Prebish and Kenneth Tanaka and published simultaneously by University of California Press. Like Seager's book, Luminous Passage is based on recent fieldwork, but unlike the former book, Luminous Passage is also based on the author's encounters with Buddhist figures over the years and his career as a buddhologist. The author's personal approach to his topic is both a strength and a weakness. An advantage of writing such a personal book is the plethora of interesting anecdotes that the author is able to include. However, a disadvantage to writing such a personal book is that the book becomes strongly shaped by the author's personal concerns. The author identifies himself as a Buddhist academic, and the book expresses his own ideals and hopes for the future of "American Buddhism." As the title of the book suggests, the author is hopeful for a "luminous passage," an evolution of the Buddhist traditions in America into an identifiably American Buddhism.Luminous Passage has six chapters, plus preface and appendix. Chapter 1 sketches [End Page 218] the history of Buddhism in America and... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The 2006 Meeting of the Society for Buddhist-Christian StudiesWashington, DC, November 17–18, 2006Frances S. Adeney, SecretaryThe theme of this year's meeting was "Religious Self-Fashioning and the Role of Community in Contemporary Buddhist and Christian Practice." The first session presented participants with three papers. The first compared Christian and Buddhist groups that fostered community and long-term commitment. A second paper developed the theme of community affiliation with (...) a description of the Buddhist practice of Hoza. And a third paper demonstrated how a dual practitioner could minister pastorally to both Buddhists and Christians. In the second session practical and philosophical foci met in the discussion of papers on individualized vs. Sangha Buddhism in the United States and co-origination and universal intersubjectivity in Buddhist and Christian philosophies. It was a rich feast indeed.Dr. Sandra Costen Kunz presented her paper "Christian and Buddhist Confession, Affiliation, and Countercultural Action" to start off the first session. In a study of Christian and Buddhist groups, she found interesting methodological parallels in the process that groups undertook to build commitment and community among followers of each tradition. Focused on specific congregations, her paper served to illustrate a trend toward community building that has broad implications for both Buddhist and Christian institutions in their work of fostering commitment and nurturing faith in participants.Dr. Gene Reeves continued along the same theme with a description of the Buddhist practice of Hoza in his particular Buddhist community in Japan. A weekly practice of meeting together to help one another demonstrates a deeper philosophical belief that all can become bodhisattvas for others. Within the hierarchical Buddhist institutional structure, the meetings around Hoza display an egalitarianism that empowers ordinary people to see the Buddha nature in others and to realize it in themselves. In addition to empowering individuals, that process of mutual aid also solidifies the group.According to both papers, individual practice of religion, be it Buddhist or [End Page 133] Christian, and a group process of social solidification work together to deepen faith and community.The third paper in this first session showed the results of that individual/ social dialectic in the life of Dr. Duane Bidwell, who presented his paper "Practicing the Religious Self: Buddhist-Christian Identity as Social Artifact." The main emphasis of this paper was that religion, as a socially constructed reality, depends on community even in its most individualistic forms. As Buddhism and Christianity develop their traditions, those socially constructed worlds can be penetrated by one who traverses between the two worlds. Two stories of pastoral care demonstrated his point. First, in a Buddhist setting, Bidwell, although perceived as a Christian, drew on his Buddhist practices to comfort the dying. In the second example, the situation was reversed. In a setting in which Christianity was the expected form, Bidwell drew on those resources to worship around the deathbed of a young man.In her response to those three papers, Dr. Sallie King brought a critical dimension into the discourse as she asked questions concerning authority and decision making in each context. "How is consensus decision making balanced with hierarchical power in the groups studied?" she asked Dr. Kunz. "Given the equalizing power of Hoza, why is Reeves's organization so hierarchical?" was her question to Dr. Reeves. "And how," she asked, "did choice enter into Bidwell's religious identity?" Responses to those queries led to an interesting discussion that provided food for thought for participants in this meeting.The second session opened with Dr. Kenneth Tanaka's study "The Individual in Relation to the Sangha in American Buddhism: An Examination of 'Individualized Religion.' " Dr. Tanaka spoke to both communal and individualized dimensions of American Buddhism by analyzing a sangha in Alameda County, California, and contrasted it with the Buddhist practices of converts who did not participate in a sangha. He showed that identity for sangha members in Alameda was primarily related to selective joining of group activities by members. In the case of converts, his research showed that their Buddhist identity was most strongly related to meditative practices. A high level of commitment to those practices, with a goal of spiritual development, marked the converts who were... (shrink)

Due to a burgeoning tourism industry in the Indian Himalayan region of Ladakh, Buddhist monasteries now have lucrative means for generating income through tourism-related business and financial support from international sponsors and local business owners. Where previously Buddhist monasteries were dependent on the donations and labour of the lay community, currently, with the accumulation of surplus wealth, many Buddhist leaders of prominent monasteries have begun flipping this donor system around. Throughout this article, I look at how (...) class='Hi'>Buddhist monastic leaders have invested surplus economic resources into philanthropic projects as a way to ‘give back’ to the wider community. I argue that the philanthropic initiatives by Buddhist leaders in Ladakh help to position Buddhist monastics as taking a leading role in the social and economic transformation of the region, thus working to push back against processes of secularization that threaten to decrease the influence of Buddhist monastic institutions. (shrink)

The study of the cultural activity of the Spiritual missions of the Russian Orthodox Church in various regions of Russia is one of the urgent tasks in the context of the problematic field of the theory of regionalism, cultural studies and socio-philosophical knowledge. Russian settlements on the territory of the Yenisei River basin and the entry of ethnic groups and territories of Yakutia and Buryatia into the Russian Empire has become one of the most important stages of the integration of (...) the ethnic groups of Siberia into a single statehood. The Irkutsk Spiritual Mission received a more perfect organization, institutionalized by increasing the number of missionary camps, which for successful Christian activities carried out among pagans allowed the formation of school educational institutions for the education and upbringing of a new Buryat generation of children in the doctrinal Orthodox canons, and Russian cultural traditions. In this regard, one of the key tasks of the missionaries was to establish a rational view of further life in new Christian-type formations, which was realized in socio-cultural activities: providing medical care to sick representatives of other ethnic groups, a friendly attitude to people of a different faith and a sincere desire to guide them on the path of righteousness, etc. It should be noted that the largest share of foreigners in this territory belonged to Buddhists, which was reflected in the influence of lamas on doctrinal issues, including economic ones. Since Buddhism in the Russian Empire belonged to the section of tolerant religions, direct (administrative) pressure on it was impossible. There remained funds of an exclusively spiritual nature, to which Orthodox missionary work was directed. Today in the Russian Federation, Buddhism, as well as Islam, Catholicism and Protestantism, as well as some other faiths belong to the category of traditional religions, which organizationally operate within the framework of the modern Russian Constitution. (shrink)

Indian Buddhist monasteries, as institutions in dynamic interactions with other societal institutions, have created a vast functional matrix or were parts thereof. In the past hundred years or so, contours of this matrix have been generally reconstructed with a macro perspective. Now we need to go beyond macro generalizations. We need to analyse individual monasteries in their local and supra-local contexts.

_Making Sense of Tantric Buddhism_ fundamentally rethinks the nature of the transgressive theories and practices of the Buddhist Tantric traditions, challenging the notion that the Tantras were "marginal" or primitive and situating them instead -- both ideologically and institutionally -- within larger trends in mainstream Buddhist and Indian culture. Critically surveying prior scholarship, Wedemeyer exposes the fallacies of attributing Tantric transgression to either the passions of lusty monks, primitive tribal rites, or slavish imitation of Saiva traditions. Through comparative (...) analysis of modern historical narratives -- that depict Tantrism as a degenerate form of Buddhism, a primal religious undercurrent, or medieval ritualism -- he likewise demonstrates these to be stock patterns in the European historical imagination. Through close analysis of primary sources, Wedemeyer reveals the lived world of Tantric Buddhism as largely continuous with the Indian religious mainstream and deploys contemporary methods of semiotic and structural analysis to make sense of its seemingly repellent and immoral injunctions. Innovative, semiological readings of the influential _Guhyasamaja Tantra_ underscore the text's overriding concern with purity, pollution, and transcendent insight -- issues shared by all Indic religions -- and a large-scale, quantitative study of Tantric literature shows its radical antinomianism to be a highly managed ritual observance restricted to a sacerdotal elite. These insights into Tantric scripture and ritual clarify the continuities between South Asian Tantrism and broader currents in Indian religion, illustrating how thoroughly these "radical" communities were integrated into the intellectual, institutional, and social structures of South Asian Buddhism. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Good Work:An Engaged Buddhist Response to the Dilemmas of ConsumerismDavid Landis BarnhillConsumerism is such an ingrained part of our culture, it is paradoxically difficult to avoid and easy to ignore. Sometimes it seems like the water we modern fish swim in.But the Buddhist call to awareness of our state of mind and the nature of reality leads us to reflect on it, to encounter it as directly (...) as possible. When we do, it is all too clear that consumerism goes directly against virtually everything Buddhism stands for. In thinking about a Buddhist response to it, what first comes to mind is the rich monastic tradition, with its trenchant analysis of the pervasiveness of desires, the ideal of life lifted free of craving, and the inviting simplicity of the communal life. But as an engaged Buddhist, I almost immediately feel that, compelling as it is, this monastic tradition is insufficient, particularly at a time when consumerism has become so devastating on a global scale. While the monastic tradition offers a model of a nonconsumer lifestyle, it does little to affect the industrialized world's accelerating exhaustion of natural resources. I sometimes put this point in mythical Buddhist imagery by saying that we live in a culture of hungry ghosts.1 But that would be optimistic. While hungry ghosts have a bloated stomach of insatiable cravings, their throats are as thin as pins. Modern culture has a gargantuan mouth and throat, and yet we still act as if our bellies are empty.So what can we as Buddhists do about such a destructive culture? Engaged Buddhism is a way of confronting social, political, and psychological poisons that threaten our world, and it offers an effective counter to consumer culture in at least three main ways. There is the extension of the Buddhist analysis of reality beyond the psychological and the metaphysical to the social, structural dimension of life of economic systems and political institutions. In the social context, the Buddhist truth of the mutual co-arising of phenomena takes on a more immense scope than the mere conditioning of consciousness, and a more concrete—and thus soiled—quality than Huayan Buddhism's mesmerizing metaphysics of Indra's net. The interpenetration of life (pratītya-samutpāda) includes billboards and boardrooms, peasants uprooted from their land as coffee is planted in their place. I live not just in interrelationship with the postglacial hills of Wisconsin but also with the mountains of toxins spewed [End Page 55] into the air to give us cheap, but very costly, energy. As Stephen Batchelor has said, "the contemporary social engagement of Dharma practice is rooted in awareness of how self-centered confusion and craving can no longer be adequately understood only as psychological drives that manifest themselves in subjective states of anguish. We find these drives embodied in the very economic, military, and political structures that influence the lives of the majority of the people on Earth."2 Engaged Buddhism gives us an incisive way to comprehend and critique our situation, and we stand on more solid ground as we view the vast and painful interconnections.Second, engaged Buddhism also can give us a vision of a social and political alternative, one that is based not on the three poisons of greed, hatred, and delusion but on generosity, compassion, and wisdom. But in doing so Buddhism must go beyond the limits of its own tradition and draw on the insights of contemporary social and environmental philosophies, from anarchism to bioregionalism. A creative merging of Buddhism and such ecosocial thought can help us work toward a modern life of communalism rather than consumerism, of contentment rather than self-perpetuating desire.3Third, engaged Buddhism gives us a basis for directly responding to a world of craving and suffering. Activism against the rising tide of consumerism—and against the social, political, and military structures and the deafening ideologies that support it—can emerge from a meditational steadiness. Contemplative activism avoids rage, burnout, and psychic numbness and allows us to meet greed and hatred with peace in a spirituality of resistance. Such a religiously based activism, however, needs to join hands4 with social philosophy and... (shrink)