New Books in Buddhist Studies
351 episodes - English - Latest episode: 22 days ago - ★★★★ - 29 ratingsInterviews with Scholars of Buddhism about their New Books
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/buddhist-studies
Homepage Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Episodes
On Japanese Buddhist Art
March 25, 2022 08:00 - 51 minutesMichael Vanhartingsveldt is a contributing columnist at Buddhistdoor Global. He works full-time at the Los Angeles Country Museum of Art. He did his masters in East Asian Art Business at Sotheby’s Institute of Art, and he also works as a lecturer for the Japan Foundation. Michael collaborates on "Carving the Divine TV" with filmmaker Yujiro Seki. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast...
On "Naked Monk," Diligence, and Buddhist Practice
March 24, 2022 08:00 - 54 minutesHugo Bernard is the author of Naked Monk. His first work of Buddhist fiction was a short story written in high school. He is working on several novels, in different genres, using fiction as a tool to better grasp Buddhist teachings. With these stories, his goal is not to ‘teach’ but to ‘explore’ how the Dhamma resonates in challenging scenarios. He hopes to accomplish this while telling stories that are a pleasure to read. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support...
On the Zen Odyssey of Ruth and Sokei-an Sasaki
March 22, 2022 08:00 - 49 minutesJanica Towne Anderson (author of Zen Odyssey) is a master falconer and has been a student and teacher of esoteric traditions for fifty years. She has worked as a research assistant in the psychology department at Harvard University and served as an instructor at Esalen Institute. She founded Big Sur Tapes, which preserved and published audio archives from teachers such as Ram Dass, Buckminster Fuller, and Alduous Huxley. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support o...
On Writing and the Monk Life
March 18, 2022 08:00 - 1 hourShozan Jack Haubner is the pen name of a Zen monk whose essays have appeared in The Sun, Tricycle, Buddhadharma, and the New York Times, as well as in the Best Buddhist Writing series. His book Zen Confidential: Confessions of a Wayward Monk is the winner of a 2012 Pushcart Prize. His most recent book, Single White Monk: Tales of Death, Failure, and Bad Sex (Although Not necessarily in that Order) is out now from Shambhala Publishing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adcho...
On Jesuits and Zen
March 17, 2022 08:00 - 57 minutesRobert Kennedy, S.J. is one of several practicing Catholic men and women who are recognized by the Buddhist community as zen teachers. He is the author of Zen and Christianity: Zen Gifts to Christians and Zen Spirit, Christian Spirit. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/buddhist-studies
On Chan Buddhism
March 15, 2022 08:00 - 54 minutesGuo Gu (Dr. Jimmy Yu) is the founder of the Tallahassee Chan Center and is also the guiding teacher for the Western Dharma Teachers Training course at the Chan Meditation Center in New York and the Dharma Drum Lineage. He is one of the late Master Sheng Yen’s (1930–2009) senior and closest disciples, and assisted him in leading intensive retreats throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia. He is also a professor of Buddhism and East Asian religions at Florida State University, Tallahassee...
On Korean Zen Buddhism
March 10, 2022 09:00 - 54 minutesAnita Feng (Zen Master Jeong Ji) serves as the guiding teacher at Blue Heron Zen Community in Seattle, Washington. She has practiced Zen in the lineage of Zen Master Seung Sahn since 1976. In the late ’70s she lived and studied intensively with Zen Master Seung Sahn at the Providence Zen Center. She received Inka from Zen Master Ji Bong 2008 and received final transmission as a Zen Master in 2015. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a pr...
Jeffery D. Long and Michael G. Long, "Nonviolence in the World's Religions: A Concise Introduction" (Routledge, 2021)
March 10, 2022 09:00 - 1 hourJeffery D. Long and Michael G. Long's Nonviolence in the World's Religions: A Concise Introduction (Routledge, 2021) introduces the reader to the complex relationship between religion and nonviolence. The meanings of both religion and nonviolence are explored through engagement with nonviolence in Hindu, Buddhist, Chinese, Sikh, Jewish, Christian, Islamic, Jain, and Pacific Island religious traditions. This is the ideal introduction to the relationship between religion and violence for underg...
87 Stef Aupers on Conspirituality
March 08, 2022 09:00 - 1 hourStef Aupers is professor of media culture in the Institute for Media Studies at the University of KU Leuven in the Netherlands. As a cultural sociologist, he studies the role of cultural meaning in the production, textual representation and consumption of media. Stef has published widely in international journals on the topics of religion, modern myth, conspiracy theories and the way these cultures are mediatized. We discuss the fascinating phenomenon of conspirituality, which refers to the o...
86 Doubt: Part 1
March 07, 2022 09:00 - 23 minutes“Doubt is an uncomfortable condition, but certainty is a ridiculous one.” Voltaire You know too much, yet understand too little. And it’s the same for me, and everyone you and I happen to know. And, so it begins. What follows are a series of posts and audio-casts that respond to this living human condition, bringing together practice materials from non-Buddhism, post-traditional approaches to Buddhism, and the work of Peter Sloterdjik. Each post represents a visit to the Great Feast and provi...
On Accidental Buddhism and the Writer's Life
March 07, 2022 09:00 - 46 minutesDinty W. Moore is author of The Accidental Buddhist and The Mindful Writer. He is a professor of nonfiction writing at Ohio University, the editor of Brevity Magazine, and lives in Athens, Ohio. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/buddhist-studies
3.3 In the Editing Room with Ruth Ozeki and Rebecca Evans (EH)
March 03, 2022 09:00 - 41 minutesRuth Ozeki, whose most recent novel is The Book of Form and Emptiness, speaks with critic Rebecca Evans and guest host Emily Hyde. This is a conversation about talking books, the randomness and serendipity of library shelves, and what novelists can learn in the editing room of a movie like Mutant Hunt. Ozeki is an ordained Zen Buddhist priest, and her novels unfold as warm-hearted parables that have been stuffed full of the messiness of contemporary life. The Book of Form and Emptiness telesc...
On Soto Zen
March 03, 2022 09:00 - 58 minutesBrad Warner is the author of several books on Zen. A Soto Zen priest, he is a punk bassist, filmmaker, Japanese-monster-movie marketer, and popular blogger based in Los Angeles. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/buddhist-studies
On Rinzai Zen Buddhism
February 28, 2022 09:00 - 38 minutesSeido Ray Ronci is a Rinzai Zen monk and the director of the Hokoku-An Zendo meditation center in Columbia, Missouri. He is the author of the poetry collection The Skeleton of the Crow, winner of the 2009 PEN Center USA Award for Poetry, and This Rented Body (2006). He contributed to the Zen poetry collection America Zen: A Gathering of Poets, published in 2004. His work has also appeared in Tricycle, Narrative, and Rattle. Seido Ronci is an associate professor at the University of Missouri, ...
Eviatar Shulman, "Visions of the Buddha: Creative Dimensions of Early Buddhist Scripture" (Oxford UP, 2021)
February 23, 2022 09:00 - 55 minutesEviatar Shulman's Visions of the Buddha: Creative Dimensions of Early Buddhist Scripture (Oxford University Press, 2021) offers a ground-breaking approach to the nature of the early discourses of the Buddha, the most foundational scriptures of Buddhist religion. Although the early discourses are commonly considered to be attempts to preserve the Buddha's teachings, Shulman demonstrates that these texts are full of creativity, and that their main aim is to beautify the image of the wonderous B...
Jay L. Garfield, "Buddhist Ethics: A Philosophical Exploration" (Oxford UP, 2021)
February 21, 2022 09:00 - 1 hourIn Buddhist Ethics: A Philosophical Exploration (Oxford University Press, 2022), Jay Garfield argues that Buddhist ethics is a distinctive kind of moral phenomenology whose ethical focus is not primarily cultivation of virtues or the achievement of certain consequences. Rather, its goal is for moral agents to shift a non-egocentric attitude about the world from recognizing its interdependence, impermanence, and lack of any essential selves. He makes this argument through investigation into a ...
Dagmar Schwerk, "A Timely Message from the Cave" (2020)
February 14, 2022 09:00 - 1 hourFollowing the globalization of Tibetan Buddhism in the first half of the twentieth century, Indo-Tibetan Buddhist teachings such as Mahāmudrā have become increasingly popular around the world. Drawn by teachings that seem to promise practitioners fast-tracked enlightenment through powerful meditative practices and the blessings of the personal principal Guru, Mahāmudrā has not only maintained followers from Tibet and Bhutan, but has also attracted scholars and practitioners from the West. In ...
Richard Payne, ed., "Secularizing Buddhism: New Perspectives on a Dynamic Tradition" (Shambhala, 2021)
February 10, 2022 09:00 - 58 minutesA timely essay collection on the development and influence of secular expressions of Buddhism in the West and beyond. How do secular values impact Buddhism in the modern world? What versions of Buddhism are being transmitted to the West? Is it possible to know whether an interpretation of the Buddha’s words is correct? In this new essay collection, opposing ideas that often define Buddhist communities—secular versus religious, modern versus traditional, Western versus Eastern—are unpacked and...
Karen Derris, "Storied Companions: Trauma, Cancer, and Finding Guides for Living in Buddhist Narratives" (Wisdom Publications, 2021)
February 09, 2022 09:00 - 1 hourFacing a terminal cancer diagnosis, Karen Derris—professor, mother, and Buddhist practitioner—instinctually turned to books. By rereading ancient Buddhist stories with fresh questions and a new purpose in mind, she discovered evolving ways to make them immediate and real. Storied Companions interweaves Karen’s memoir of her lived experiences of trauma and terminal illness with stories from Buddhist literary traditions, sharing with the reader how she found ways to live fully even with the rea...
85 Secular Buddhism, Part 1: Winton Higgins
January 28, 2022 09:00 - 1 hourIn the practising life, choices must be made. Those choices occur at all levels from big picture views of the world, a whole life, and society, to the everyday choice of how to be in the world, how to act, and what to commit to. In this three part series on Secular Buddhism, we find figures who have made a specific choice to stick with Buddhism and attempt to change it. Winton Higgins notes that there are two lines that characterise the loose network of groups and individuals who identify as ...
84 Practice Item no. 1
January 25, 2022 09:00 - 35 minutesTake a trip to the Great Feast in this first in a series of posts on the practising life. Non-Buddhism meets post-traditional slants on practice, whilst tackling complexity, doubt, and ecological thought. Practise questions and suggestions are woven throughout as a response to all you who desire practical things and have asked for them. This might just be a revolution in rethinking meditation and the practising life. An audio read. Original text located here. Matthew O'Connell is a life coach...
Elizabeth J. Harris, "Buddhism in Five Minutes" (Equinox Publishing, 2021)
January 24, 2022 09:00 - 40 minutesIn Elizabeth J. Harris' Buddhism in Five Minutes (Equinox Publishing, 2021), academic specialists offer answers to 75 questions about Buddhism that people curious about Buddhism might ask. The questions cover the Buddha, what the Buddha taught, Buddhist monasticism and the role of lay people, the historical development of Buddhism, Buddhist art, Buddhist ethics, Buddhist responses to other religions, and Buddhist thought on contemporary issues. They include: Who is the fat Buddha figure? Can ...
Dominique Townsend, "A Buddhist Sensibility: Aesthetic Education at Tibet's Mindröling Monastery" (Columbia UP, 2021)
January 03, 2022 09:00 - 1 hourFounded in 1676 during a cosmopolitan early modern period, Mindröling monastery became a key site for Buddhist education and a Tibetan civilizational center. Its founders sought to systematize and institutionalize a worldview rooted in Buddhist philosophy, engaging with contemporaries from across Tibetan Buddhist schools while crystallizing what it meant to be part of their own Nyingma school. At the monastery, ritual performance, meditation, renunciation, and training in the skills of a bure...
Ian Reader and John Shultz, "Pilgrims Until We Die: Unending Pilgrimage in Shikoku" (Oxford UP, 2021)
December 22, 2021 09:00 - 1 hourIan Reader and John Shultz's Pilgrims Until We Die: Unending Pilgrimage in Shikoku (Oxford University Press, 2021)" explores the Shikoku pilgrimage by focusing on the themes of repetition and perpetual pilgrimage. Reader and Shultz employ a wide array of methods to portray how these itinerant pilgrims view their unending life on the trails. Some spend most of their life walking the pilgrimage, while others use cars and other methods of modern transportation, allowing them to complete the circ...
83 Stephen Batchelor on Secularizing Buddhism
December 02, 2021 09:00 - 1 hourToday I speak to Stephen Batchelor, figurehead for Secular Buddhism, well known author, and Scot. I present the lovely man some of the critique aimed at his work in the book Secularizing Buddhism, and from my previous interview with Richard K. Payne. We also discuss some of his intellectual influences, touch on phenomenology, Gianni Vattimo, and whether Stephen is fixated on the past in his relationship with early Buddhism. Stephen was game throughout for what turned out to be a constructive ...
Josep M. Coll, "Buddhist and Taoist Systems Thinking: The Natural Path to Sustainable Transformation" (Routledge, 2021)
November 19, 2021 09:00 - 57 minutesI recently sat down with Josep M. Coll to discuss his new book Buddhist and Taoist Systems Thinking: The Natural Path to Sustainable Transformation (Routledge, 2021). This book is the latest and final in a series published by Routledge that includes titles by some brilliant systems thinkers I have had the fortune to interview previously on this podcast (Managing Creativity, Córdoba-Pachón; Systems Thinking for Turbulent Times, Hodgson, Part 1 & Part 2; and The Hidden Power of Systems Thinking...
Ruth Gamble, "The Third Karmapa Rangjung Dorje: Master of Mahamudra" (Shambala, 2020)
November 18, 2021 09:00 - 1 hourA scholarly yet accessible biography of the Third Karmapa Rangjung Dorje, one of the great historical figures of Tibetan Buddhism. Known for his mastery of teachings across sectarian lines, his treatises on medicine and astrology, and his work as spiritual advisor to the last Yuan emperor of China, Rangjung Dorje (1284-1339) is considered one of the most important and influential figures in Tibetan Buddhist history. First recognized as a tulku, or reincarnated Buddhist master, at the age of ...
Nicole Willock, "Lineages of the Literary: Tibetan Buddhist Polymaths of Socialist China" (Columbia UP, 2021)
November 17, 2021 09:00 - 1 hourWhat happened to the Buddhist scholars who stayed behind in Tibet and China after the Fourteenth Dalai Lama and thousands of Tibetans fled from the People’s Liberation Army in 1959? In Lineages of the Literary: Tibetan Buddhist Polymaths of Socialist China (Columbia University Press 2021), Nicole Willock discovers through the stories and writings of the “Three Polymaths” (Tib. mkhas pa mi gsum) of socialist China that contrary to common assumptions, Tibetan Buddhist leaders active in the Peop...
Richard Harrold, "My Buddha Is Pink: Buddhism from a LGBTQI Perspective" (Sumeru Press, 2019)
November 16, 2021 09:00 - 1 hourWelcome to the Queer Voices of the South podcast on the New Books Network. In this episode, host John Marszalek interviews Richard Harrold about his book My Buddha Is Pink: Buddhism from a LGBTQI Perspective (Sumeru Press, 2019) Although today’s podcast doesn’t focus on the Queer South per se, it continues a series of interviews Marszalek has conducted from time to time on our podcast with authors of books with themes on the intersection of queer identity and religious/spiritual identity. Thi...
Alice Collett, "I Hear Her Words: An Introduction to Women in Buddhism" (Windhorse, 2021)
November 02, 2021 08:00 - 45 minutesIs there gender equality in Buddhist traditions? What do Buddhist texts say about women? How have Buddhist women responded to misogyny? Alice Collett's new book, I Hear Her Words: An Introduction to Women in Buddhism (Windhorse, 2021), reviews both recent scholarship and original writing in an accessible and compelling format. She shows that core Buddhist doctrines provide no justification for the notion that women are inferior to men. But Buddhism was born and took root in societies that hel...
Chenxing Han, "Be the Refuge: Raising the Voices of Asian American Buddhists" (North Atlantic Books, 2021)
October 20, 2021 08:00 - 57 minutesDespite the fact that two thirds of U.S. Buddhists identify as Asian American, mainstream perceptions about what it means to be Buddhist in America often whitewash and invisibilize the diverse, inclusive, and intersectional communities that lie at the heart of American Buddhism. Chenxing Han's Be the Refuge: Raising the Voices of Asian American Buddhists (North Atlantic Books, 2021) is both critique and celebration, calling out the erasure of Asian American Buddhists while uplifting the compl...
Roger K. Thomas, "Counting Dreams: The Life and Writings of the Loyalist Nun Nomura Bōtō" (Cornell UP, 2021)
October 19, 2021 08:00 - 56 minutesCounting Dreams: The Life and Writings of the Loyalist Nun Nomura Bōtō (Cornell UP, 2021) tells the story of Nomura Bōtō, a Buddhist nun, writer, poet, and activist who joined the movement to oppose the Tokugawa Shogunate and restore imperial rule. Banished for her political activities, Bōtō was imprisoned on a remote island until her comrades rescued her in a dramatic jailbreak, spiriting her away under gunfire. Roger K. Thomas examines Bōtō's life, writing, and legacy, and provides annotate...
Sharing Scholarship: Academic Publishing and Teaching Tibetan Buddhism in Finland
October 08, 2021 08:00 - 27 minutesHow can one approach religion as both an academic researcher and a spiritual practitioner? Join us for this wide ranging talk with Dr. Albion Butters, historian of religion and a specialist in Tibetan Buddhism. The first half of the conversation focuses on the Finnish Oriental Society (Suomen Itämainen Seura) and academic publishing through the digital journal Studia Orientalia Electronica, edited by Dr. Butters. In the second half of the episode, Dr. Butters shares his experiences and insigh...
Pankaj Mirshra, “Turning the Mirror: A View From the East” (Open Agenda, 2021)
October 07, 2021 08:00 - 1 hourTurning the Mirror: A View From the East is based on an in-depth filmed conversation between Howard Burton and award-winning writer Pankaj Mishra. The conversation provides behind-the-scenes insights into several of Pankaj’s books, including From the Ruins of Empire: The Intellectuals Who Remade Asia and An End To Suffering: The Buddha In The World, and his motivations to write them. Howard Burton is the founder of the Ideas Roadshow, Ideas on Film and host of the Ideas Roadshow Podcast. He c...
Orion Klautau and Hans Martin Krämer, "Buddhism and Modernity: Sources from Nineteenth-Century Japan" (U Hawaii Press, 2021)
October 06, 2021 08:00 - 1 hourBuddhism and Modernity: Sources from Nineteenth-Century Japan (University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2021) is a welcome new collection of twenty sources on modern Japanese Buddhism, translated and with introductions. The editors (Hans Martin Krämer and Orion Klautau) and translators have curated a diverse array of materials focusing on the struggles of Japanese Buddhism to come to terms with, accommodate to, and find its way in modernity from the mid-nineteenth century into the early decades of the tw...
Alastair Gornall, "Rewriting Buddhism: Pali Literature and Monastic Reform in Sri Lanka, 1157–1270" (UCL Press, 2020)
September 15, 2021 08:00 - 55 minutesRewriting Buddhism: Pali Literature and Monastic Reform in Sri Lanka, 1157–1270 (UCL Press, 2020) is the first intellectual history of premodern Sri Lanka’s most culturally productive period. This era of reform (1157–1270) shaped the nature of Theravada Buddhism both in Sri Lanka and also Southeast Asia and even today continues to define monastic intellectual life in the region. Alastair Gornall argues that the long century’s literary productivity was not born of political stability, as is of...
Pamela Ayo Yetunde on being Black and Buddhist
August 25, 2021 08:00 - 56 minutesWhat does it mean to be black and Buddhist, and what does that have to do with Life Wisdom? This episode of Life Wisdom features the dynamic work of Pamela Ayo Yetunde, Pastoral Counsellor, Co-Founder of Centre of the Heart, Buddhist Justice Reporter and co-editor of Black and Buddhist: What Buddhism Can Teach Us about Race, Resilience, Transformation, and Freedom. Raj Balkaran is a scholar, educator, consultant, and life coach. For information see rajbalkaran.com. Learn more about your ad c...
Ilana Maymind, "Exile and Otherness: The Ethics of Shinran and Maimonides" (Lexington Books, 2020)
August 13, 2021 08:00 - 48 minutesIn Exile and Otherness: The Ethics of Shinran and Maimonides (Lexington Books, 2020), Ilana Maymind argues that Shinran (1173–1263), the founder of True Pure Land Buddhism (Jodo Shinshu), and Maimonides (1138–1204), a Jewish philosopher, Torah scholar, and physician, were both deeply affected by their conditions of exile as shown in the construction of their ethics. By juxtaposing the exilic experiences of two contemporaries who are geographically and culturally separated and yet share some o...
Robin Derricourt, "Creating God: The Birth and Growth of Major Religions" ( Manchester UP, 2021)
July 29, 2021 08:00 - 57 minutesWhat do we really know about how and where religions began, and how they spread? Robin Derricourt considers the birth and growth of several major religions, using history and archaeology to recreate the times, places and societies that witnessed the rise of significant monotheistic faiths. Beginning with Mormonism and working backwards through Islam, Christianity and Judaism to Zoroastrianism, Creating God: The Birth and Growth of Major Religions ( Manchester UP, 2021) opens up the condition...
Francis Wade, "Myanmar's Enemy Within: Buddhist Violence and the Making of a Muslim 'Other'" (Zed Books, 2017)
July 28, 2021 08:00 - 55 minutesIn 2017, Myanmar's military launched a campaign of widespread targeted violence against its Rohingya minority. The horrific atrocities was later described by United Nations experts as genocide. This had been building since 2012, when earlier ethnic violence erupted between Buddhists and Muslims in Western Myanmar. These very grave incidents leading to the deaths and also the flight of thousands of Rohingya to neighbouring Bangladesh was the most concentrated exodus of people since the genocid...
A Conversation with Greg Bailey: Sanskrit Scholar and Novelist
July 22, 2021 08:00 - 55 minutesThis interview features a candid conversation with Greg Bailey, seasoned scholar of Sanskrit narrative Literature, on his multi-decade work on the Purāṇas and Mahābhārata, and on his new novel In Search of Bliss: A Tale of Early Buddhism (Vanguard Press, 2019). About the novel: Kshemapala is a monk from the North who has been tasked with an important scholarly mission: fill in the gaps in the history of the monk, Ananda, the Buddha's close companion, about whom there are legends but few facts...
Sokthan Yeng, "Buddhist Feminism: Transforming Anger against Patriarchy" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2020)
July 20, 2021 08:00 - 1 hourHow can Buddhism and feminism be brought together in a constructive way to challenge patriarchial structures? What could such a philosophy say about anger over injustice and oppression? In Buddhist Feminism: Transforming Anger Against Patriarchy (Palgrave, 2020), Sokthan Yeng answers these questions. She argues that, despite Buddhist institutions themselves being susceptible to feminist critiques, there are fruitful ways of reading Buddhist philosophy and practices that contribute to feminist...
Seth Zuihō Segall, "Buddhism and Human Flourishing: A Modern Western Perspective" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020)
June 25, 2021 08:00 - 1 hourWestern Buddhism is still in its infancy, but as it grows, it is evolving, as has been true in every country where Buddhism was introduced over the past two millennia. In this book, Seth Segall asks whether practicing Buddhism in the modern world means letting go of certain Buddhist teachings. In Buddhism and Human Flourishing: A Modern Western Perspective (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020), he suggests the possibility of blending Buddhist teachings with the teachings of Aristotle, who described wha...
April D. Hughes, "Worldly Saviors and Imperial Authority in Medieval Chinese Buddhism" (U Hawaii Press, 2021)
June 25, 2021 08:00 - 47 minutesWhat is the relationship between Buddhism and politics? How might Buddhism be realized in this world? And how might Buddhist texts help legitimate new rulers? These questions are ably addressed in April Hughes’s Worldly Saviors and Imperial Authority in Medieval Chinese Buddhism (University of Hawaii Press, 2021). Students of Buddhism are familiar with Wu Zhao, or Wu Zetian, the only woman in Chinese history take the title of “emperor,” and her use of Buddhist ideas and imagery to support her...
Susan Blakeley Klein, "Dancing the Dharma: Religious and Political Allegory in Japanese Noh Theater" (Harvard UP, 2020)
June 18, 2021 08:00 - 1 hourDancing the Dharma: Religious and Political Allegory in Japanese Noh Theater (Harvard UP, 2020) examines the theory and practice of allegory by exploring a select group of medieval Japanese noh plays and treatises. Susan Blakeley Klein demonstrates how medieval esoteric commentaries on the tenth-century poem-tale Ise monogatari (Tales of Ise) and the first imperial waka poetry anthology Kokin wakashū influenced the plots, characters, imagery, and rhetorical structure of seven plays (Maiguruma...
Michael Nichols, "Malleable Mara: Transformations of a Buddhist Symbol of Evil" (SUNY Press, 2020)
June 17, 2021 08:00 - 38 minutesMichael Nichols's Malleable Mara: Transformations of a Buddhist Symbol of Evil (SUNY Press, 2020) is the first book to examine the development of the figure of Māra, who appears across Buddhist traditions as a personification of death and desire. Portrayed as a combination of god and demon, Māra serves as a key antagonist to the Buddha, his followers, and Buddhist teaching in general. From ancient India to later Buddhist thought in East Asia to more recent representations in Western culture a...
Teaching Buddhist Studies Online: A Discussion with Kate Hartmann
April 30, 2021 08:00 - 1 hourJoin Raj Balkaran as he talks with Dr. Kate Hartmann, Assistant Professor of Buddhist Studies at the University of Wyoming and Director of Buddhist Studies Online, a new educational platform providing coursework on the history, philosophy, and practices of Buddhism. Founded in 2021 by Seth Powell as a sister institute to Yogic Studies, Buddhist Studies Online provides accessible, affordable, and high-quality courses for the broader community interested in learning more about Buddhism in a non...
Bhante Saranapala: The Urban Buddhist Monk
April 28, 2021 08:00 - 50 minutesWhat does wisdom have to do with kindness? This podcast features words of wisdom form Bhante Saranapala, also known as The Urban Buddhist Monk. An International Monk, Teacher, and Speaker, Bhante is the Founder and President of Canada: A Mindful and Kind Nation, he teaches loving-kindness meditation and offers private consultation and public speaking. Raj Balkaran is a scholar, educator, consultant, and life coach. For information see rajbalkaran.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit m...
A. Castiglioni and F. Rambelli, "Defining Shugendo: Critical Studies on Japanese Mountain Religion" (Bloomsbury, 2020)
April 26, 2021 08:00 - 52 minutesAndrea Castiglioni and Fabio Rambelli's edited volume Defining Shugendo: Critical Studies on Japanese Mountain Religion (Bloomsbury, 2020) presents the newest studies on Shugendō-related practices and traditions from both Japanese and non-Japanese scholars. Contributors in their chapters explore how Shugendō constructed topologies and invented chronologies, how their practitioners were imagined and fictionalized, as well as how the tradition was reflected through materiality and visual cultur...
Uranchimeg Tsultemin, "A Monastery on the Move: Art and Politics in Later Buddhist Mongolia" (U Hawaii Press, 2020)
April 23, 2021 08:00 - 1 hourHow, and why did a ger (yurt) develop into the largest and most important monastery in Mongolia, and how did it support the authority of its main resident, the Jebtsundampa Khutugtu? These are the questions that Uranchimeg Tsultemin answers about the mobile encampment of Ikh Khüree and the Jebtsundampa reincarnation lineage in A Monastery on the Move: Art and Politics in Later Buddhist Mongolia (University of Hawaii Press, 2020). This monastery on the move is referred to as Ikh Khüree in text...