“While I have been a student of Buddhist thought for over two and a half decades, it has always remained something of a puzzle for me to work out as to how to integrate Buddhist epistemology into my workplace — academia.” — Glenn Hudak (Pace University, NYC – 1998)* This is indeed a huge challenge – even more so than integrating Buddhist epistemology into our everyday lives outside of work. By ‘Buddhist epistemology‘ Dr. Hudak speaks of something distinctly other... Read more
Another weekly report on Buddhism in the news… This week is a quiet one, with the Dalai Lama gracing our pages again, along with a great article in the Christian Science Monitor on American Buddhism… Dalai Lama to Hollywood: “make a movie about Buddha.” 🙂 I know what you’re thinking.. “the Passion of Siddhartha” right? Maybe not. But a Hollywood feature about the Buddha (this time without Keanu Reeves) could create great benefits in America and beyond. As more and... Read more
The discussion in my last post raised some good questions. I don’t suppose I can get into it much now, but along with the comments in the “Free Inquiry” article mentioned in the comments from my last post I thought I’d add this. Brian Victoria has made quite a name for himself as a gadfly in the Zen world – he was (is?) an ordained Soto priest and has published a powerful critique of Zen (see below): Book Announcement Zen... Read more
I taught class today and felt the need for some mention of the Buddhist response to 9/11. Here are the excerpts and photos I breifly presented. It was a difficult position to be in – our University isn’t officially recognizing the day and I didn’t want to say too much or get too little. In the end I chose three statements, those by The Dalai Lama, Thich Nhat Hanh, and one by the Buddhist Peace Fellowship, along with two verses... Read more
I hope to start a regular (perhaps weekly) posting on Buddhism in the news; so here goes… One of my bookmarked websites is Google News, which I’ve customized to exclude the ‘Entertainment’ and ‘Sports’ sections and include ‘Buddhism.’ I still get some Entertainment news in there, things like ‘Jennifer Aniston embraces Buddhism’ [can’t find the link now] or ‘Sharon Stone Meets the Dalai Lama‘ and Sporting news like ‘Tibetan Monks support Italy in World Cup’ [no link]… But for the... Read more
It’s becoming far too common a complaint for me; and really it’s not even a complaint as much as an acknowledgement: I’m very, very, very busy. The downside is that I’m not able to go over class notes and post interesting (to me at least) bits from my courses each day or so. The upside is that I’m living my dream, insofar as “teaching Buddhism” has long been my dream. Speaking of which, things are going well so far. The... Read more
From the e-mail bin: Call for Papers/Abstracts/ProposalsHawaii International Conference on Arts & Humanities January 12 – 15, 2007 Waikiki Beach Marriott Resort & Spa, the Radisson Waikiki Prince Kuhio, and the Pacific Beach Hotel, Hawaii, USA. Since many people have individually asked for an extension of the submission deadline, we are extending the deadline for submissions to Wednesday, September 13th, 2006. Call for papers, abstracts, student papers, work-in-progress reports, research proposals, workshop proposals, poster sessions, research tables, or reports on... Read more
Dispatches: The Killing Zone British report on Israeli violence in Gaza against not only Palestinian civilians, but international aid volunteers and foreign reporters as well. ————— See also this illuminating article by Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor. http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/taylor1 Of particular interest is this paragraph: “One more source of categorical violence must also be mentioned. Today, we rescue and recognize victims and punish perpetrators and victimizers. Concern for victims is, for Girard, the religion of the modern world. It is a force... Read more
Today was my first day taking classes, which provided a nice diversion from thoughts of teaching. Kant was first, at 8am. We’ll read the Critique of Pure Reason for most of the semester, using the new Cambridge edition of the translation which claims to have not “sacrificed literalness in favor of readability.” Thanks. Kant is incredibly difficult to read in the first place, we rather appreciate those translations that do sacrifice a bit in the name of readability… Next was... Read more
Or, at least “survival” (I won’t put up the big “Mission Accomplished” banner just yet). Syllabi weren’t a big issue – 1500 copies in less than an hour, stapled (saved by technology). I found the video that we were supposed to watch, previewed it, and managed to get it to class. Durring the lecture all went well enough. It was simple stuff: who am I? What is the class about? What is the schedule? etc. Of course that was after... Read more
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