Buddhist Violence and Religious Authority: A Tribute to the Work of Michael Jerryson. Edited by Margo Kitts and Mark Juergensmeyer. Sheffield, UK: Equinox, 2022, vi + 187 pages, ISBN 978-1-80050-101-0 (hardback), $75.00, 978-1-80050-102-7 (e-book), $75.00.
Reviewed by Marte Nilsen
New Perspectives in Modern Korean Buddhism: Institution, Gender, and Secular Society. Edited by Hwansoo Ilmee Kim and Jin Y. Park. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 2022, ix + 334 pages, ISBN 978-1-4384-9131-8, $99.00 (hardback), 978-1-4384-9132-5, $36.95 (paperback).
Reviewed by Kevin Cawley
C. Pierce Salguero
The Abington College of Penn State University
A certain percentage of people report experiencing adverse mental and physical side effects from practicing meditation. Contemporary scientific literature and personal reports from meditators are beginning to document the phenomenon, but centuries-old Buddhist texts also warned about the dangers of “meditation sickness.” Writings from medieval China not only identify the adverse mental and physical symptoms that can arise in the course of meditation practice, but also explain why these occur and how they can be effectively treated. Might these materials contain important therapeutic in-formation that is relevant for meditators today? What would be required to make this historical knowledge accessible for contemporary practitioners and clinicians? And do our disciplinary norms as religious studies scholars even allow us to ask such questions?
Buddhism and Comparative Constitutional Law. Edited by Tom Ginsburg and Benjamin Schonthal. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022, xx + 384 pages, ISBN 978-1-00-928604-6 (hardback), $125.00, 978-1-00-928601-5 (e-book), $125.00, 978-1-00-928602-2 (open access PDF): https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/buddhism-and-comparative-constitutional-law/36B349A13BAFF639EC6E737A9C9FB186.
Reviewed by Miguel Álvarez Ortega
Thailand’s Buddhist Kingship in the 20th and 21st Centuries: Power, Influence and Rites. By Marie-Sybille de Vienne. Oxford and New York: Routledge, 2022, viii + 278 pages, ISBN 978-1-03-204555-9 (hardback), $170.00, 978-1-00-319376-0 (e-book), $52.95.
Reviewed by Patrick Jory
Buddhism and Waste: The Excess, Discard, and Afterlife of Buddhist Consumption. Edited by Trine Brox and Elizabeth Williams-Oerberg. Bloomsbury Studies in Material Religion. London: Bloomsbury, 2022, 208 pages, ISBN 978-1-3501-9553-0 (hardback), $115, 978-1-3501-9554-4 (e-book), $103.50.
Reviewed by Mark Speece
Colin H. Simonds
Queen’s University at Kingston
This article unpacks the Tibetan framework of lta sgom spyod gsum, or view, meditation, action, and relates it to the Buddhist ethical project of moral phenomenology. It first investigates how the framework has been defined and used both descriptively and practically in Tibetan primary texts. It then nuances this usage by identifying key aspects of its deployment in Tibetan contexts, including how view is prioritized among the three limbs, how the unity of view and action is the intended fruition of practice, and how there is a specific order of operations in its implementation. This article then relates lta sgom spyod gsum directly to the ethical project of moral phenomenology and demonstrates how it can be mobilized as the practical arm of this unique¬ly Buddhist ethical theory. Thus, this article presents a robust reading of lta sgom spyod gsum in Tibetan Buddhist contexts, contributes to the ongoing development of the ethical theory of moral phenomenology, and provides further avenues for engaging the Tibetan Buddhist ethical tradition with the moral issues facing us today.
Sallie B. King
James Madison University
This is a brief response to Donna Lynn Brown’s article, “Beyond Queen and King: Democratizing ‘Engaged Buddhism’,” (Journal of Buddhist Ethics Vol. 30, 2023) and indirectly to others who have argued that ethnocentric and/or nationalist Buddhism could be a part of Engaged Buddhism. To this question, I will argue that this is not possible. Secondarily, I take up the question of the “oneness” of Engaged Buddhism.
Christopher Queen
Harvard University
After more than 65 years of public activism and social service by engaged Buddhists in Asia and the West, it is time to reconsider the nature of engaged Buddhism and how faithfully it has been represented by scholars. In “Beyond Queen and King: Democratizing ‘Engaged Buddhism,’” Donna Lynn Brown argues that the category should be expanded to include “overlooked Buddhists” who may have traditional, ethnic, national, state-supported, or conservative orientations; those who perform social service; and those who engage in violence. Furthermore, Brown claims that engaged Buddhism is a narrative imposed by Western scholars on Asian Buddhists who may not know or approve of it. In this response, I will focus on three characteristics of engaged Buddhism that Brown and other scholars she cites have misunderstood or rejected in their critique: (1) the practice of compassionate service by engaged Buddhists; (2) the commitment of engaged Buddhists to nonviolent social change; and (3) the decentralized, hybrid, and evolving nature of engaged Buddhist ideology and praxis which reflects the contribution of voices and values from Asia and the West.
Buddhism under Capitalism. Edited by Richard K. Payne and Fabio Rambelli. London: Bloomsbury, 2022, 280 pages, ISBN 978-1-350-22832-0 (hardback), $90.00, 978-1-350-22833-7 (paperback), $29.95, 978-1-350-22835-1 (e-book), $26.95.
Reviewed by Stephen Christopher
Donna Lynn Brown
University of Manitoba
What counts as Buddhist social engagement? Why, in Buddhist Studies, do certain forms of engagement and certain Buddhists often not count? This article argues that the limits that scholars Christopher S. Queen and Sallie B. King placed around Buddhist engagement in the 1990s—limits that produced a rough consensus in Buddhist Studies—should be democratized to include all Buddhists and their social engagement. For years, criticism of these limits and research that circumvents them have appeared without seriously undermining them. However, 2022 may mark a turning point. In that year, two publications, by Paul Fuller and Alexander Hsu, offered comprehensive and convincing arguments for considering all Buddhists’ socially oriented activities “engaged.” This article examines the consensus on the nature of Buddhist engagement, its origins in activism, research that dissents from it, and critiques it has faced. The article assesses dissent and critiques and considers why, until recently, they have had little effect. It then discusses why Fuller’s and Hsu’s publications represent a turning point and proposes new areas of research beyond those even these two scholars suggest.
Buddhist Visions of the Good Life for All. Edited by Sallie B. King. Routledge Critical Studies in Buddhism. Oxford and New York: Routledge, 2021, xvi + 256 pages, ISBN 978-0-367-56181-9 (hardback), $160, 978-1-00-310045-4 (e-book), $44.05.
Reviewed by Timothy Loftus