Category Archives: Volume 03 1996

AAR Panel: Revisioning Buddhist Ethics

ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 3 1996

Opening Statement

Charles Prebish

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Cutting the Roots of Virtue

Daniel Cozort

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Buddhism and Suicide: The Case of Channa

Damien Keown

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Ethical Particularism in Theravāda Buddhism

Charles Hallisey

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Are There Seventeen Mahāyāna Ethics?

David W. Chappell

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Response: Visions and Revisions in Buddhist Ethics

Christopher Ives

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Two Notions of Poverty in the Pāli Canon

ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 3 1996

Two Notions of Poverty in the Pāli Canon

Mavis Fenn
McMaster University

The paper is divided into two sections. The first focuses on an analysis of the Cakkavatti-Sīhanāda Sutta, a sutta that provides the most extensive discussion of poverty as deprivation in the Nikāyas. Poverty in this text is primarily a socio-political issue that effects the spiritual development of all members of society. The second section of the paper focuses on the notion of poverty as simplicity, a notion associated with renouncers who are akiñcana, “without anything,” “lacking possessions.” Central to this section is an analysis of the Aggañña Sutta.

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Kusala in Canon and Commentary

ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 3 1996

Good or Skilful? Kusala in Canon and Commentary

L. S. Cousins
University of Manchester

This paper examines the use of kusala in the commentarial sources and finds that, although the commentators are aware of various senses of the word kusala, they tend to give primacy to meanings such as “good” or “meritorious.” A detailed examination of the canonical Pāli sources gives a rather different picture. The original meaning of kuśala (Sanskrit) in the sense with which we are concerned would then be “intelligent.” Its sense in early Buddhist literature would be “produced by wisdom.” The paper concludes with a brief discussion of the concept of puñña—”fortune-bringing action” rather than “merit.”

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Development of Buddhist Economic Ethics

ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 3 1996

Continuity and Change in the Economic Ethics of Buddhism:­ Evidence From the History of Buddhism in India, China and Japan

Gregory K. Ornatowski
Boston University

This paper offers an outline of the development of Buddhist economic ethics using examples from early Theravāda Buddhism in India and the Mahāyāna tradition as it evolved in India, medieval China, and medieval and early modern Japan, in order to illustrate the pattern of continuities and transformations these ethics have undergone. By “economic ethics” the paper refers to four broad areas: (1) attitudes toward wealth, i.e., its accumulation, use, and distribution, including the issues of economic justice and equality/ inequality; (2) attitudes toward charity, i.e., how and to whom wealth should be given; (3) attitudes toward human labor and secular occupations in society; and (4) actual economic activities of temples and monasteries which reflect the lived-practice of Buddhist communities’ economic ethics.

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Review: Theravāda Psychology and Soteriology

ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 3 1996

The Five Aggregates: Understanding Theravāda Psychology and Soteriology. By Mathieu Boisvert, Editions SR Vol.17: Canadian Corporation for Studies in Religion/Corporation Canadienne des Sciences Religieuses, Wilfred Laurier Press, 1995, xii +166 pages, ISBN: 0-88920-257-5, US$24.95.

Reviewed by Peter Harvey

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Review: Indo-Tibetan Scholasticism

SSN 1076-9005
Volume 3 1996

Buddhism and Language: A Study of Indo-Tibetan Scholasticism. By José Ignacio Cabezón (Foreword by Frank E. Reynolds), SUNY Series, Toward a Comparative Philosophy of Religions, Frank E. Reynolds and David Tracy, editors. Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 1994, xiii + 299 pages, ISBN 0-7914-1900-2 (paper).

Reviewed by Mark Siderits

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Review: Buddhism in Australia

ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 3 1996

The Buddhists in Australia. By Enid Adam and Philip J Hughes. Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service, 1992, xii + 71 pages, ISBN 0 644 35805 X, A$9.95.

Buddhism in Western Australia: alienation or integration? By Enid Adam, published by the author (eadam@echidna.stu.cowan.edu.au), x + 224 pages, ISBN 0 646 25136 8, A$19.95.

Reviewed by Helen Waterhouse

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