How To Do Things With Natures: Rehabilitating Svabhāva for Mādhyamikas
A standard account of Indian Buddhism holds that Nāgārjuna, the founder of the Madhyamaka or “Middler” philosophical tradition, extended the Buddha’s critique of an enduring Self (ātman) to include any kind of intrinsic nature (svabhāva) whatsoever. While it has long been recognized that important Mādhyamikas such as Candrakīrti do on occasion use the term svabhāva with a positive valance, the general consensus has been that such usage is reserved for exceptional...
From Dukkha to Disregulation: Buddhist Practice as a Treatment for Stress
Critical genealogies of Buddhism as a treatment for stress have typically focused on North American adaptations or appropriations of Southeast Asian practices, centering especially on the development of mindfulness-based stress reduction. This presentation explores the mobilization of Buddhism as a cure for stress in another time and place: Japan in the 1920s and 1930s. It focuses on the novelist Kurata Hyakuzō’s accounts of his experience of debilitating nervous exhaustion...
Plimpton Room (133) Barker Center, 12 Quincy Street
“On Talking Terms with the Venerable Buddha: Material and Bodily Practices of a Jōdo Shin Healer”
*This talk is co-sponsored by the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies*
The life story of Takumi Toyoko (b. 1929) illustrates the material and corporeal practices of contemporary popular Jōdo Shin Buddhism in Japan’s Hokuriku region. At the intersection between a secret Jōdo Shin confraternity and a healer with an open clientele, Takumi and her devotees challenge stereotypical notions of modern Jōdo Shin as being opposed to magic and folk traditions....
How Meditation Works: Self-Cultivation, Context, and Social Imaginaries
What does it mean for meditation to work, and what kind of work does it do? Meditation is often described in terms of internal mental states that presumably arise in anyone who practices them diligently, whether they are an ancient monastic or a contemporary professional. Much of the “work” these...
Mañjuśrī’s residence on China’s Wutai Shan: The view from distant India
The Buddhist practice of replicating sacred sites in multiple locations is a well-known feature of the history of the religion, as is the readiness of Buddhists to keep finding new places blessed by the presence of Buddhas, bodhisattvas and other such beings. Thus in China, for example, Wutai Shan in the north was identified as the residence of the great bodhisattva Mañjuśrī, while, in other parts of the country, we find the island of Putuo Shan in the east recognized as Potalaka, the...
The untimeliness of perfection: moments of reflection in a Tibetan Buddhist government
Abstract: Rulers of Tibet’s central government in the late seventeenth century drew on Buddhist cosmology to situate and celebrate their achievements. Often, such claims seem like direct descriptions of reality—statements of belief, or ideology. At times, however, we may also detect a critical self-awareness of the distance between those cosmic ideals and the world of experience. In this talk, I will introduce a few such moments from the prose and poetry of two...