Category Archives: Volume 25 2018

Reply to Rick Repetti

ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 25, 2018

Talking Past Each Other? Reply to Rick Repetti

Karin Meyers
Insight Meditation Society

This essay is a response to Rick Repetti’s “It Wasn’t Me: Reply to Karin Meyers,” in respect to my article, “False Friends: Dependent Origination and the Perils of Analogy in Cross-Cultural Philosophy.” My article was written—at Repetti’s invitation—in response to his edited volume of essays on the topic of free will in Buddhism, Buddhist Perspectives on Free Will: Agentless Agency?—to which I am also a contributor (“Grasping”). In the article (for which Repetti was also the editor), I compliment Repetti’s analysis of the topic and his own substantive account of a Buddhist theory of free will, but am critical of the way he frames an affirmative answer to the question of why there should be a Buddhist theory of free will. My arguments concern comparative and historical method—namely, the importance of considering critical differences between Buddhist and Western ideas and what Buddhists have said when imagining what they can say about a topic. In his reply, Repetti wonders whether we have been talking past each other. Here I attempt to clarify the nature and scope of my critique and to correct some of the points on which Repetti seems to have misread it. Read article

Reviving the Bhikkhunī Order by Single Ordination

ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 25, 2018

The Case for Reviving the Bhikkhunī Order by Single Ordination

Bhikkhu Anālayo
Numata Center for Buddhist Studies, University of Hamburg

In this article I examine the legal validity of reviving the Theravāda Order of bhikkhunīs by an act of single ordination, granted by bhikkhus on their own. My presentation responds to criticism voiced by Bhikkhu Ṭhānissaro of this possibility of restoring the missing one out of the four assemblies in the Theravāda tradition.Read article

Rita Gross and Engaged Buddhism

ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 25, 2018

Borrowing a Prophetic Voice, Actualizing the Prophetic Dimension: Rita Gross and Engaged Buddhism

Charles R. Strain
DePaul University

“I am taking permission, as a Buddhist,” Rita Gross boldly affirmed, “to use the prophetic voice.” More than any other engaged Buddhist scholar she made this voice an explicit part of her work. This article explores the prophetic voice/dimension within Buddhism by pushing further along the path that Gross has blazed. This involves, first, a return to the classical Hebrew prophets where, arguably, the religious dimension of the prophetic voice is most clearly presented. The second section deconstructs the misogynistic narratives that pervade the prophetic literature and their theology of retributive justice and then offers an argument about what is salvageable in the prophet’s raw speech. The third section examines how Gross applies a prophetic method to the deconstruction of the androcentric views and the patriarchal structures of all schools of Buddhism. The final, fourth, section comes to terms with the religious chords sounding in the prophets’ declamations. It does so by examining three aspects of the prophetic mode of being religious: allegiance to the God of Exodus, the practice of grief, and the practice of hope. In each case it suggests what challenges these modes of being religious present to engaged Buddhists.
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It Wasn’t Me: Reply to Karin Meyers

ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 25, 2018

It Wasn’t Me: Reply to Karin Meyers

Rick Repetti
Kingsborough Community College
City University of New York

This is my reply to Karin Meyers, “False Friends: Dependent Origination and the Perils of Analogy in Cross-Cultural Philosophy,” in this Symposium. Meyers generally focuses on exegesis of what Early Buddhists said, which reasonably constrains what we may think about them if we are Buddhists. I agree with and find much value in most of her astute analyses, here and elsewhere, so I restrict my reply here to where we disagree, or otherwise seem to be speaking past, or misunderstanding, each other. In this regard, I focus on three of her claims. Meyers argues that (1) Buddhist dependent origination is not determinism; (2) attempts at naturalizing Buddhism threaten to run afoul of her hermeneutics; and (3) I seem to err on both fronts. However, I have emphasized that I am not a determinist, and I am not as concerned with what Buddhists did say about causation and agency. As a philosopher, I am mainly concerned with what philosophers can say about them. Thus, Meyers’s criticisms of my work seem predicated on interpretations of ideas I do not exactly espouse. Thus, the “Repetti” that Meyers primarily critiqued, as the title to this Reply (hopefully humorously) makes clear, wasn’t me! Whether I have failed to make my ideas clear, she has failed to accurately interpret them, or some combination of both, I am uncertain. Thus, I focus on trying to clarify those ideas of mine that Meyers seems to interpret in a way that I do not.
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It Wasn’t Us: Reply to Michael Brent

ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 25, 2018

It Wasn’t Us: Reply to Michael Brent

Rick Repetti
Kingsborough Community College
City University of New York

In “Confessions of a Deluded Westerner,” Michael Brent insists no contributions to Buddhist Perspectives on Free Will (Repetti) even address free will because none deploy the criteria for free will that Western (incompatibilist) philosophers identify: the ability to do otherwise under identical conditions, and the ability to have one’s choices be up to oneself. Brent claims the criteria and abilities in that anthology are criteria for intentional action, but not all intentional actions are free. He also insists that Buddhism, ironically, cannot even accept intentional action, because, on his analysis, intentionality requires an agent, which Buddhism rejects. I have four responses: (i) Brent ignores the other half of the debate, compatibilism, in both Western and Buddhist philosophy, represented in the anthology by several contributors; (ii) the autonomy of Buddhist meditation virtuosos is titanic compared to Brent’s autonomy criteria, which latter are relatively mundane and facile, rather than something Buddhists fail to rise up to; (iii) such titanic Buddhist autonomy challenges, and possibly defeats, all major Western arguments against free will; and (iv) several contributors address the possibility of agentless agency. These responses could have been taken right out of the anthology, not only from my contributions.
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Primordial Wisdom and the Buddhist Free Will Controversy

ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 25, 2018

A Role for Primordial Wisdom in the Buddhist Free Will Controversy

Marie Friquegnon
William Paterson University

In Buddhist Perspectives on Free Will (Repetti), I set forth my position on Buddhism and free will in terms of three ways of understanding the issue of freedom in Buddhism. Here I first offer a sketch of that threefold analysis, and then I analyze certain key passages in some of the other essays in that collection through that lens. Each of these three ways of understanding Buddhist conceptions of freedom harmonizes with some of the essays. I then analyze Śāntideva’s view on the acceptability of the action of the bodhisattva who shot a pirate to save 500 people; I contrast that with Śāntarakṣita’s view; and I try to dissolve an apparent contradiction. I then take Śāntideva’s use of upāya (skillful means) in the pirate case and apply it to his position on free will. Lastly, I conclude by suggesting that the way out of some of the discrepancies in the analysis of free will in Buddhism may be resolved by appealing to primordial wisdom as a hypothetical construct, making reference to what appears to be an analogous use of the concept of a hypothetical construct that may be found in Aquinas.
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Dependent Origination and the Perils of Analogy in Cross-Cultural Philosophy

ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 25, 2018

False Friends: Dependent Origination and the Perils of Analogy in Cross-Cultural Philosophy

Karin Meyers
Centre for Buddhist Studies
Kathmandu University

Cross-cultural philosophical inquiry is predicated on the possibility of drawing analogies between ideas from distinct historical and cultural traditions, but is distorted and constrained when those analogies are overdrawn. In considering what Buddhists might have to say about free will, scholars tend to draw analogies between dependent origination and distinctively modern naturalistic ideas of universal causation. Such analogies help promote the idea of Buddhism as a “scientific religion” and help justify the impulse to naturalize Buddhism (or to simply ignore its un- or super-natural elements) in order to make it a more credible conversation partner. By tracing some of the early history of the idea of dependent origination, this essay discusses how and why these analogies have been overdrawn. It addresses why this matters to the inquiry into free will and other cross-cultural philosophical engagements with Buddhism. With respect to naturalizing Buddhism, it argues that decisions about what to exclude from serious consideration (such as karma and rebirth) necessarily influence how we understand ideas (such as dependent origination) we deem more congenial (and thus essential), and that by excluding those we do not find congenial, we foreclose opportunities to submit our own philosophical assumptions to scrutiny and to be genuinely transformed by our encounter with Buddhism.
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Free Will and Artificial Intelligence

ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 25, 2018

Buddhist Philosophy, Free Will, and Artificial Intelligence

James V. Luisi
Independent Scholar

Can Buddhist philosophy and Western philosophical conceptions of free will intelligently inform each other? Repetti has described one possible Buddhist option of solving the free will problem by identifying a middle path between the extremes of rigid determinism, as understood by the hard determinist, and random indeterminism, as understood by the hard indeterminist. In support of this middle path option, I draw upon ideas from the fields of artificial intelligence, quantum computing, evolutionary psychology, and related fields that together render coherent the ideas that determinism may be non-rigid and that indeterminism may be non-random, on the one hand, and upon Buddhist ideas, such as interdependence, the four-cornered negation, and what Repetti describes as the Buddhist conception of causation as “wiggly,” to argue that Buddhist philosophy has much to contribute to the field of artificial intelligence, on the other hand. Together, I suggest, the Buddhist philosopher and the software expert would form an ideal team to take on the task of constructing genuine artificial intelligence capable of the sort of conscious agency that human beings apparently possess.
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Heroic Willpower (Virya)

ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 25, 2018

Freedom through Cumulative Moral Cultivation: Heroic Willpower (Vīrya)

Jonathan C. Gold
Princeton University

Although abstract speculation on “freedom of the will” is hard to find in premodern Buddhist writings, this is not for Buddhists’ lack of attention to responsibility and effortful moral acts. This paper studies early teachings on the dharmas called “effort” (vyāyāma) and “heroic will-power” (vīrya), which are key to such quintessential Buddhist lists as the Eightfold Path, the Four Right Endeavors, and the Perfections cultivated by a bodhisattva. A look at effortful action as treated in traditional Buddhist texts helps to show why the western philosophical preoccupation with “free will” is not self-evidently worthwhile from a practical or moral perspective. Effort on the Buddhist path accumulates into moral strength through numerous and different kinds of enactments at the level of individual mental events. The goal of this model of practice is that one arrives at the ability to transcend the busy, messy work of having to decide to act morally—one’s virtue becomes spontaneous. This structure suggests that not only is the capacity for moral choice not a necessary precondition of effective practice or moral significance; it may get in the way.
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A Perspective on Free Will from Mindfulness-Based Interventions

ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 25, 2018

The Healing Paradox of Controlled Behavior: A Perspective from Mindfulness-Based Interventions

Asaf Federman
Sagol Center for Brain and Mind, Muda Institute, IDC Herzliya
Oren Ergas
Beit Berl College, Israel

In this paper, we discuss the issue of free will as it may be informed by an analysis of originally Buddhism-based meditative disciplines such as mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT), and related mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) that are deployed in a variety of therapeutic contexts. We analyze the mechanics of these forms of mindfulness meditation, paying particular attention to the ways in which they appear to enable individual practitioners to reduce a variety of otherwise unwholesome mental and behavioral factors, such as habituated or conditioned dispositions to reactivity, that are intuitively associated with increasingly ineffective agency or diminished free will, while increasing wholesome mental and behavioral tendencies, such as spontaneous responsiveness. We pay particular attention to a somewhat paradoxical way in which direct efforts at control are counter-productive, on the one hand, while meditative practices designed to cultivate “choiceless awareness,” a sort of non-control associated with a non-judgmental acceptance of things beyond our control, tend to indirectly increase self-regulative abilities, on the other hand.
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Confessions of a Deluded Westerner

ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 25, 2018

Confessions of a Deluded Westerner

Michael Brent
University of Denver

In this paper, I aim to make two general points. First, I claim that the discussions in Repetti (Buddhist Perspectives on Free Will: Agentless Agency?) assume different, sometimes conflicting, notions of free will, so the guiding question of the book is not as clear as it could be. Second, according to Buddhist tradition, the path to enlightenment requires rejecting the delusional belief in the existence of a persisting self. I claim that if there is no persisting self, there are no intentional actions; and, if there are no intentional actions, there is no hope for Buddhist enlightenment. Thus, rejecting the allegedly delusional belief in a persisting self has disastrous consequences, both for the existence of intentional action and for Buddhist soteriology.
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Tracing the Trajectory of Buddhist Free Will Theorizing

ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 25, 2018

Tracing the Trajectory of Buddhist Free Will Theorizing

Katie Javanaud
Keble College, Oxford

This paper documents the key trends and developments in the history of Buddhist free will theorizing, indicating potential new avenues for research. Part 1 traces the debate from its origins in the late 19th century to the present day. Though scholarship remains divided as to whether a Buddhist free will problem can even be formulated, this paper contends that such skeptical arguments can be defeated. An important aspect of Buddhist free will debates concerns the commensurability of causal determinism and dependent origination: by evaluating their similarities and differences it becomes clear that dependency relations encompass, but are not limited to, causal relations. Part 2 examines psychological/spiritual responses to the problem, where the focus has shifted away from metaphysics. Finally, this paper initiates an exploration into the prospects of articulating a pan-Buddhist response to the free will problem.
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Symposium on “Buddhist Perspectives on Free Will: Agentless Agency?”

ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 25, 2018

Symposium on Buddhist Perspectives on Free Will: Agentless Agency?

Rick Repetti
Kingsborough Community College
City University of New York

This special issue of the Journal of Buddhist Ethics, Volume 25, is a symposium on the anthology, Buddhist Perspectives on Free Will: Agentless Agency? (Repetti), and on the topic reflected by that title, more broadly, based on an Author Meets Critics session of the 2018 American Philosophical Association Eastern Division meeting organized by Christian Coseru. To orient readers new to the topic, I first sketch what some of the issues are regarding Buddhist perspectives on free will. Second, I briefly describe the anthology, and third, I introduce the several contributions to this symposium. As I am sympathetic to most of the papers here, I only respond briefly to them in this introduction, giving some reasons for my approval. Two papers here, however, are significantly critical of either the anthology as a whole (Brent), or critical of my contributions to it (Meyers). I respond separately to each of them in the last two papers in the symposium. Together with this introduction, all the included papers are original.
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Basic Goods Provision in Buddhist Economic Ethics

ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 25, 2018

The Wisdom of Need: Basic Goods Provision in Buddhist Economic Ethics

Kenneth A. Reinert
Schar School of Policy and Government
George Mason University

Human beings have basic needs, and these needs must be addressed through the provision of basic goods and services. This article reviews the role of basic goods in Buddhist economic ethics, both traditional and contemporary. It suggests that basic goods provision deserves particular attention in economic considerations and that such attention is fully consistent with both Buddhist economic ethics and the idea of moral minimalism in political philosophy. The article proposes and discusses basic goods in the form of “eight requisites,” a modification of the traditional Buddhist “four requisites” of food, clothing, shelter, and medicine.
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Social Inequalities and the Promotion of Women in Buddhism in Thailand

ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 25, 2018

Social Inequalities and the Promotion of Women in Buddhism in Thailand

Manuel Litalien
Nipissing University

Studies have shown that religion can support or hinder social development (Haynes 2007; Tomalin 2013). This article makes a case in favor of how, in Thailand, the demands for greater justice and gender equality have engaged groups of women to seek higher Buddhist ordination as a means to better promote human and social development. Equal religious philanthropic contribution between men and women is presented as a component to democratic participation in the struggling political Kingdom of Thailand. The study finds that the women’s Buddhist movement in Thailand capitalizes on the limited welfare resources offered by the government, along with the current institutionalized politics of religious diversity, as defined in the Thai constitution. To present the inequalities and challenges faced by Thai Buddhist women, the function of the Thai Buddhist monastic community (saṅgha) will be portrayed as an organization promoting an “inequality regime.” The governing structural configuration of the saṅgha will be presented as reinforcing social roles divided by oppressive gender conceptions. The Buddhist institution’s inequality regime will be depicted in light of its refusal to ordain bhikkhunīs. The exclusion of Thai Buddhist nuns is situated in eight different lenses: namely, biological, ritual, scriptural, cultural, political, institutional, historical, and legal contexts. Finally, the vital sustainable core to these women is introduced as both a global and a local network of Buddhist women. This is better known as a glocalization strategy for the promotion of gender equality in Theravāda Buddhism.
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The Place of Socially Engaged Buddhism in China

ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 25, 2018

The Place of Socially Engaged Buddhism in China: Emerging Religious Identity in the Local Community of Urban Shanghai

Weishan Huang
Chinese University of Hong Kong

This article aims to analyze a realization of socially engaged Buddhism outside of Buddhist monasteries in China by using the case studies of Tzu Chi Foundation. Since the 2000s, state-led religious charities have been gradually implemented among Han Buddhist monasteries in China. With a renewal of the religious idea of “Humanistic Buddhism,” temples have set up guideline to conduct their charitable work. At the same time, Buddhist communities have become more diversified due to the international immigration of Buddhist groups. While social service is the central focus of Tzu Chi Foundation worldwide, I raise the question of how a global movement of moral reform and social service can help us re-think the normative account of “public engagement” in a highly regulated and censored society such as China. Based on the ethnographic work, I argue the successful structural adaption of the Tzu Chi movement corresponding with, first, the promotion of socially engaged Buddhism, which aligns with state policy and interests. Secondly, the timely change of organizational missions corresponding with the shift in social identity of urban residents from “Work Units” to “Communities” in urban Shanghai.
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Self-immolations, Human Security, and the Violence of Nonviolence in Tibet

ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 25, 2018

Burning for a Cause: Self-immolations, Human Security, and the Violence of Nonviolence in Tibet

Antonio Terrone
American Theological Library Association

In Tibetan areas of the People’s Republic of China, more than 150 Tibetans have immolated themselves in the past decade to protest what they perceive as limited religious, cultural, and civil rights. Revered as national heroes in exile and compassionate human rights fighters among Euro-American audiences, Tibetan self-immolators are considered mere terrorists in China. This article brings studies in terrorism into its analysis of the Tibetan self-immolation crisis, examining the ways in which both are heightened by modern communication technology and media. Rejecting any interpretation that aligns self-immolation with suicide terrorism, I argue that although Tibetan self-immolators uphold Buddhist scriptural principles of bodhisattvic self-sacrifice, their martyrdom is nevertheless a form of violence with far ranging causes, both political and religious.
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The Politics of Buddhist Relic Diplomacy Between Bangladesh and Sri Lanka

ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 25, 2018

The Politics of Buddhist Relic Diplomacy Between Bangladesh and Sri Lanka

D. Mitra Barua
Cornell University

Buddhists in Chittagong, Bangladesh claim to preserve a lock of hair believed to be of Sakyamuni Buddha himself. This hair relic has become a magnet for domestic and transnational politics; as such, it made journeys to Colombo in 1960, 2007, and 2011. The states of independent Ceylon/Sri Lanka and East Pakistan/Bangladesh facilitated all three international journeys of the relic. Diplomats from both countries were involved in extending state invitations, public exchanges of the relic and a state-funded, grand scale display of the relic.

This article explores the politics of such high profile diplomatic arrangements. For the Bangladeshi Buddhist minority, these international relic exchanges help them temporarily overcome their marginalized position in a predominantly Muslim society and generate religious sympathy among the Buddhist majority in Sri Lanka. Such Buddhist fellowship and sympathy results in sponsorship for Bangladeshi Buddhist novices to attend monastic trainings in Sri Lanka and the donation of Buddhist ritual artifacts like Buddha statues, monastic robes, begging bowls, and so forth, for Buddhist institutions in Bangladesh.

But how do the relic exchanges benefit the Islamic state of Bangladesh and the Sri Lankan government? That question leads to an analysis of the relic exchanges in relation to global and trans-national politics. I argue that the repeated exchanges of the relic are part and parcel of creating “good” governance images for both Sri Lankan and Bangladeshi governments for both a domestic and transnational audience respectively.
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Geopolitics of Buddhism

ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 25, 2018

Geopolitics of Buddhism

André Laliberté
University of Ottawa

This article argues that Buddhists still lack an international organization that could help them present a unified voice the way that the World Council of Churches does for non-Catholic Christians, or the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, for all Muslims, whether they are Sunni or Shia. There exist international organizations that claim to speak on behalf of Buddhists the world over, but they compete against each other. The basis of this competition has little to do with the differences between the Mahāyāna, Theravāda, and Vajrayāna schools, but owes a lot more to competition between Asian great powers, in particular China and India. The article will demonstrate this by first presenting an historical account of the different attempts to create a unified Buddhist international organization, along with different transnational Buddhist institutions. Then it will review the divisions that have prevented, so far, the creation of such an organization.

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Is Buddhaghosa the Author of the Vinaya and Abhidhamma Commentaries?

ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 25, 2018

The Authorship of the Vinaya and Abhidhamma Commentaries: A Response to von Hinüber

Ven. Pandita (Burma)
University of Kelaniya

Von Hinüber claims in his recent article, “Early Scripture Commentary,” which is included in Brill’s Encyclopedia of Buddhism, that: (1) Buddhaghosa is the author of the commentaries on four nikāyas, but (2) not of other commentaries traditionally attributed to him. I agree with (1) but not with (2). On the contrary, I believe it is highly probable that the Vinaya and Abhidhamma commentaries have come from Buddhaghosa. I will give in this article the reasons for this belief.

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Mindfulness and Ethical Dogmatism

ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 25, 2018

Mindfulness and the Psychology of Ethical Dogmatism

Josef Mattes
University of Vienna

Motivated by recent controversies concerning the relationship between modern mindfulness-based interventions and Buddhism, this article discusses the relationship between mindfulness and dogmatism in general, and dogmatism in ethics in particular. The point of view taken is primarily that of the psychology of judgment and decision making: Various cognitive illusions affect the feelings of righteousness and certainty that tend to accompany ethical and moral judgments. I argue that even though there is some evidence that mindfulness practice improves judgment and decision making, this improvement is rarely as strong as is implied in various contributions to the above-mentioned controversies. In addition, I reflect on claims that “the original teachings of the Buddha” justify the moral stances taken. I argue that these stances likely arise, at least in part, due to the cultural transmission of cognitive dissonance of early Christianity rather than being inherent in the Buddha’s teachings.

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The Atipada Problem in Buddhist Meta-Ethics

ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 25, 2018

The Atipada Problem in Buddhist Meta-Ethics

Gordon F. Davis
Carleton University

We can express a wide range of objections to philosophical views by saying a view “goes too far”; but there is a more specific pitfall, which opens up when a philosopher seeks to generalize some form of anti-realism in such a way that it must itself be pronounced groundless or incoherent by its own standards. In cases where this self-stultification looks impossible to overcome without revising the view in question, it can be called the atipada problem. Signifying a risk of “overstepping,” this Sanskrit label reflects a particular relevance to Mahāyāna ethicists who seek to enlarge the scope of compassion by enlarging the meaning of emptiness (śūnyatā) to the point where all truths and ideals are pronounced ultimately empty, and likewise, at least ipso facto, the ideal of compassion itself. This incarnation of the problem is left unresolved by several recent defenders of Madhyamaka ethics, as well as by one recent interpreter of Vasubandhu; meanwhile, some Buddhist ethicists who try to avoid theorizing at this “ultimate” level run into the same general problem nonetheless. More than a specialized meta-ethical puzzle, this problem threatens to undermine central Buddhist ideals in precisely those contexts where philosophical ethics is invoked to vindicate them; however, rather than disposing us to foreswear meta-ethics in an attempt to avoid the problematic views in question, the problem should lead us to expand the scope of Buddhist meta-ethics.

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A Buddhist Chaplain in Occupied Japan

ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 25, 2018

Prison and the Pure Land: A Buddhist Chaplain in Occupied Japan

Melissa Anne-Marie Curley
Ohio State University

In November 1945, the United States military took over the use of Tokyo’s Sugamo Prison in order to house those charged by the Allied Powers with war crimes. For close to three years, Hanayama Shinshō served as the prison’s volunteer Buddhist chaplain, attending thirty-six executions. Hanayama did not protest the imposition of the death penalty but this essay argues that in his work as chaplain he nonetheless resisted the carceral logic shaping life and death inside Sugamo by mobilizing the ritual and narrative repertoire of Pure Land Buddhism. In Hanayama’s framing, Sugamo was a site of liberation as well as confinement, affording the condemned a unique opportunity to reflect upon the past and commit themselves to a different future, even in death. As Hanayama tells it, the peace discovered by the dead was an absolute peace, transcending politics; he also insists, however, on a connection between this absolute peace and the ordinary peace that the living might hope to secure. The article concludes with a consideration of the political and ethical implications of Hanayama’s reading of the dead as having “found peace” in light of larger conversations about how best to remember—or forget—the nation’s dark past, and what it means to share responsibility for crimes against humanity.

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Buddhist Leadership

ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 25, 2018

Beyond Precepts in Conceptualizing Buddhist Leadership

Phra Nicholas Thanissaro
University of Warwick

Monastic saṅgha members may be seen as monopolizing leadership in traditional forms of Buddhism. The usual Theravādin justification for this is that monastics keep a greater number of precepts than laypeople and therefore provide a higher standard of ethical leadership as well as being symbols of their religion. Such allocation of authority to monks breaks down where the monastic-lay distinction blurs. This paper presents a review of the literature of anthropological and attitude research findings to explore how the demand for alternative modes of leadership, such as charismatic, visionary, servant, facilitative, strategic, or participative leadership or management, has opened up opportunities for lay people to take more prominent roles in Buddhist leadership in Western Buddhism as well as contemporary Asian contexts.

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Is a Buddhist Praxis Possible?

ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 25, 2018

Is a Buddhist Praxis Possible?

Charles R. Strain
DePaul University

The question that forms the title of this essay may well evoke an instant response: “Of course, why not?” This answer assumes a vague and quite elastic understanding of praxis. Latin American Liberation theologians saw praxis, to the contrary, as arising from a dialectic of critical reflection and practice. Following the example of Liberation Theology, this paper argues the thesis that the pieces of the puzzle of an adequate critical reflection on Buddhist praxis exist but they have yet to be put together into a Buddhist theory of political transformation akin to any number of Liberation Theologies. The following definition of praxis serves as a heuristic device to examine engaged Buddhist theoretical contributions to a Buddhist praxis: Praxis is action that is: (1) symbolically constituted; (2) historically situated; (3) critically mediated by a social theory; and (4) strategically and politically directed. After examining each of these components in turn, the article concludes by asking what might be the “vehicle” of a distinctively Buddhist praxis.

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Animals as Lamas in Sikkim

ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 25, 2018

Foxes, Yetis, and Bulls as Lamas: Human-Animal Interactions as a Resource for Exploring Buddhist Ethics in Sikkim

Kalzang Dorjee Bhutia
Occidental College

Sikkimese Bhutia language oral traditions feature an abundance of stories related to human-animal interactions. In order to begin to critically consider the significance of these interactions, this article will engage with these oral traditions and what they can tell us about local traditions of Buddhist ethics. Although some of these tales seem anthropocentric because humans overpower and outwit animals, others are more ambiguous. In this ethical universe, foxes, yetis, and magical bulls all act as agents and, at times, religious teachers, reminding humans of the Buddhist theme of interconnectedness in their interactions with the environment. This article is a starting point for considering how such tales can act as a rich resource for negotiating ambiguous forms of ecocentrism in local Buddhist practice and narrative in the Eastern Himalayas.

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Laughter and Transmission of the Dharma

ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 25, 2018

Language, Reality, Emptiness, Laughs

Soraj Hongladarom
Chulalongkorn University

Laughter, especially in connection with philosophy, reality, or language, is not much discussed in the vast literature of Buddhism. In the few places where it is discussed, however, there are two strands. On the one hand, laughter is frowned upon when it is seen as an attraction that leads one astray from the path. This is evident in the Tālapuṭa Sūtra, where the Buddha says that actors and comedians would find it very difficult to enter the Path. It is also found in the Vinaya, where the emphasis is on the proper behavior of monks. The Buddha often rebukes monks who laugh out loud in the villages where householders can see them. The other strand views laughter more positively. This strand is found more in the Mahāyāna literature, where the Buddha laughs when he realizes emptiness, that nothing is substantial. The attitude of Buddhism toward laughter is conditional. Laughter and playfulness have a soteriological role to play as a skillful means, and Buddhism is not always serious.

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The Ruination of a Dead Nun’s Stupa

ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 25, 2018

The Ruination of a Dead Nun’s Stupa: Does This Really Evince the Suppression of Nuns?

Ven. Pandita (Burma)
University of Kelaniya

It is firstly Horner, and later Schopen, who have expressed negative opinions on a story in the Vinaya. I argue, however, that the aforesaid story, at least its Pāli version, is not so bad as it sounds if we interpret it properly.

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