ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 30, 2023
Indian Traditionalism in Eihei Dōgen’s Shoaku makusa
Victor Forte
Albright College
Eihei Dōgen’s Shōbōgenzō fascicle Shoaku makusa (“Not Producing Evil”), was presented during the early period of his career, while leading a small group of monastic and lay followers at the Kōshōji temple in Kyoto. Derived from the early Buddhist universal precept and inspired by the Indian ideal of bodhisattvic moral freedom within the dharmadhātu, this work primarily served as a corrective for antinomian inherent awakening doctrine. The ethical implications of this corrective are best understood in the context of Indian Mahāyāna philosophy, an often-overlooked influence on Dōgen’s thought. Not only are such influences to be found in the Shoaku makusa fascicle, but throughout Dōgen’s career, in earlier works like the Shōbōgenzō zuimonki, and later fascicles like Sanjūshichihon bodaibunpō, “The Thirty-seven Factors of Awakening,” and Hotsu bodaishin, “Raising the Mind of Enlightenment,” which were also concerned with the meaning of moral practice from an Indian Buddhist standpoint.
Read article
ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 30, 2023
The Function and Contemporary Role of sikkhāpaccakkhāna (Abandoning the Training Rules) in the Pāli Canon
Chandima Gangodawila
Ronin Institute
This article examines the intricacies of abandoning the monastic training rules (sikkhāpaccakkhāna) in key Pāli sūtta and Vinaya texts to better understand how these textual sources, in addition to early modern Sri Lankan monastics as well as the contemporary saṅgha, have understood the abandonment of the training rules not as a spiritual failure, but rather as a set of pragmatic monastic principles that emphasize the retention of monkhood and the continuity of the Buddhasāsana. To demonstrate this, I propose an innovative approach to examining the first pārājika (concerning sexual intercourse) in relation to the sikkhāpaccakkhāna by considering Pāli sūttas, Vinaya texts, and the example of noncelibate seventeenth-century Laṅkān gaņinnānse (non-bhikkhu monks). I conclude by arguing that the contemporary Sri Lankan saṅgha can use sikkhāpaccakkhāna to avoid falling into the first pārājika, which provides a basis for reordination and thus a more human-centered framework for supporting the stability and duration of the Buddhasāsana.
Read article
ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 30, 2023
Capitalism—its Nature and its Replacement: Buddhist and Marxist Insights. By Graham Priest. London: Routledge, 2021, xviii + 252 pages, ISBN 978-1-032-04911-3 (hardback), $170.00, 978-1-032-04910-6 (paperback), $48.95, 978-1-003-19514-6 (e-book), $44.05.
Reviewed by David Cummiskey
Read article.
ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 30, 2023
Tanabe Hajime and the Kyoto School: Self, World, and Knowledge. By Morisato Takeshi. London, UK: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2022, 224 pages, ISBN 978-1-35010-171-5 (hardback), $90.00, 978-1-35010-170-8 (paperback), $26.95, 978-1-35010-172-2 (e-book), $24.25.
Reviewed by Melanie Coughlin
Read article.
ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 30, 2023
The Missing and Their Families: Buddhism and the Role of Ritual in Processing Grief and Ambiguous Loss
Alex Wakefield
Independent Scholar
This article considers the support that Buddhist ritual practices may offer families and relatives of missing people. Families of missing individuals experience a specifically defined form of grief known as ambiguous loss. Such loss is usually denied the traditional funerary or commemorative practices of other forms of bereavement. Nevertheless, psychologists and humanitarian organizations stress the importance of such practices and their socio-cultural context as a way for families to effectively process ambiguous loss. I highlight the value in these practices coming from Buddhist religious groups within Buddhist communities, while noting that disappearances often present exceptionally difficult circumstances for many religious traditions, including Buddhism. Examples are drawn from the Pāli Nikāyas supporting the argument for a “reconfiguration” of ritual to meet these needs, and case studies are cited to demonstrate religious communities supporting, via ritual practices, families of missing individuals. I therefore propose ritual as an element of Buddhist praxis that may effectively address the psychological and social requirements for families of missing people.
Read article
ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 30, 2023
Legal Reasoning About Displacement and Responsibility: A Dialogue Between the Buddhist Monastic Discipline and IHL
Christina A. Kilby
James Madison University
Civilian displacement is a common consequence of armed conflict with grave humanitarian implications. In this article, I analyze Buddhist codes of monastic discipline in order to illuminate how these legal traditions have reasoned about the significance of home and the harms of displacement. I then bring my findings into conversation with the legal reasoning that international humanitarian law (IHL) requires of parties to armed conflict whose decisions may result in displacement of civilians. I argue that both IHL and the Buddhist monastic codes take into account responsibility for the causes of harm, for direct harm, and for the reverberating fallout of harm. By exploring the ethical values and reasoning habits that these two traditions hold in common, Buddhist actors—in military and civil society—may strengthen their commitment to prevent displacement and to protect displaced people and their hosts during times of conflict.
Read article
ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 30, 2023
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
Read article.
ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 30, 2023
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
Read article.
ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 30, 2023
“Meditation Sickness” in Medieval Chinese Buddhism and the Contemporary West
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?
Read article
ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 30, 2023
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
Read article.
ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 30, 2023
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
Read article.
ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 30, 2023
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
Read article.
ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 30, 2023
Lta sgom spyod gsum: A Tibetan Approach to Moral Phenomenological Praxis
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.
Read article
ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 30, 2023
Are Ethnocentric/Nationalist Buddhists Engaged Buddhists? Certainly Not.
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.
Read article
ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 30, 2023
Engaged Buddhism at Sixty-Five: Nuancing The Consensus
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.
Read article
ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 30, 2023
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
Read article.
ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 30, 2023
Beyond Queen and King: Democratizing “Engaged Buddhism”
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.
Read article
ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 30, 2023
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
Read article.
An online journal of Buddhist scholarship
