Pub Date : 2020-07-02DOI: 10.1080/14639947.2021.1942578
O. Porter
Thomas Borchert’s Educating Monks: Minority Buddhism on China’s Southwest Border provides a detailed account of the Theravada Dai-lue of Sipsongpanna, an ethnic minority group in Southwestern China...
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Pub Date : 2020-07-02DOI: 10.1080/14639947.2021.1942577
O. Porter
In Attracting the Heart: Social Relations and the Aesthetics of Emotion in Sri Lankan Monastic Culture, Jeffrey Samuels challenges the idealised view of monastic culture by focusing on how affectiv...
{"title":"Attracting the Heart: Social Relations and the Aesthetics of Emotion in Sri Lankan Monastic Culture","authors":"O. Porter","doi":"10.1080/14639947.2021.1942577","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14639947.2021.1942577","url":null,"abstract":"In Attracting the Heart: Social Relations and the Aesthetics of Emotion in Sri Lankan Monastic Culture, Jeffrey Samuels challenges the idealised view of monastic culture by focusing on how affectiv...","PeriodicalId":45708,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Buddhism","volume":"21 1","pages":"436 - 438"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2020-07-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/14639947.2021.1942577","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46053942","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-07-02DOI: 10.1080/14639947.2021.1976016
Andrew Bartles-Smith, K. Crosby, P. Harvey, P. D. Premasiri, A. Tilakaratne, Daniel Ratheiser, M. Deegalle, Noel Maurer Trew, Stefania Travagnin, E. Harris
ABSTRACT This article stems from a project launched by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in 2017 to examine the degree to which Buddhism might complement or enhance international humanitarian law (IHL), also known as ‘the law of war’ or ‘the law of armed conflict’. Given that Buddhist teachings discourage violence, scholarship has critiqued Buddhists’ involvement in armed conflict rather than considered how Buddhism might contribute to regulating the conduct of hostilities once war has broken out. Yet the Buddhist aim to reduce suffering is particularly relevant during armed conflict, and the empirical realism of early Buddhist texts shows that early Buddhist communities were very much aware of its grim reality. The article investigates the evidence for this empirical realism before exploring a range of concepts, doctrines and practices from within Buddhism that are pertinent to the recognition and implementation of IHL principles and the conduct of war. While IHL lays down explicit rules to follow during war, Buddhism emphasises broader ethical principles to be applied, so as not to dilute its ideal of non-violence. At a deeper level, it addresses the intention or motivation of parties to armed conflict, and possesses psychological insights and resources to help change their behaviour.
{"title":"Reducing Suffering During Conflict: The Interface Between Buddhism And International Humanitarian Law","authors":"Andrew Bartles-Smith, K. Crosby, P. Harvey, P. D. Premasiri, A. Tilakaratne, Daniel Ratheiser, M. Deegalle, Noel Maurer Trew, Stefania Travagnin, E. Harris","doi":"10.1080/14639947.2021.1976016","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14639947.2021.1976016","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article stems from a project launched by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in 2017 to examine the degree to which Buddhism might complement or enhance international humanitarian law (IHL), also known as ‘the law of war’ or ‘the law of armed conflict’. Given that Buddhist teachings discourage violence, scholarship has critiqued Buddhists’ involvement in armed conflict rather than considered how Buddhism might contribute to regulating the conduct of hostilities once war has broken out. Yet the Buddhist aim to reduce suffering is particularly relevant during armed conflict, and the empirical realism of early Buddhist texts shows that early Buddhist communities were very much aware of its grim reality. The article investigates the evidence for this empirical realism before exploring a range of concepts, doctrines and practices from within Buddhism that are pertinent to the recognition and implementation of IHL principles and the conduct of war. While IHL lays down explicit rules to follow during war, Buddhism emphasises broader ethical principles to be applied, so as not to dilute its ideal of non-violence. At a deeper level, it addresses the intention or motivation of parties to armed conflict, and possesses psychological insights and resources to help change their behaviour.","PeriodicalId":45708,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Buddhism","volume":"21 1","pages":"369 - 435"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2020-07-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45302692","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-07-02DOI: 10.1080/14639947.2021.1942580
O. Porter
The Irish Buddhist is a captivating biography of the elusive and exceptional U Dhammaloka, a working-class Irish sailor turned Buddhist monk who challenged the colonial project’s myths of racial an...
{"title":"The Irish Buddhist: The Forgotten Monk Who Faced down the British Empire","authors":"O. Porter","doi":"10.1080/14639947.2021.1942580","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14639947.2021.1942580","url":null,"abstract":"The Irish Buddhist is a captivating biography of the elusive and exceptional U Dhammaloka, a working-class Irish sailor turned Buddhist monk who challenged the colonial project’s myths of racial an...","PeriodicalId":45708,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Buddhism","volume":"21 1","pages":"440 - 443"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2020-07-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/14639947.2021.1942580","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45972383","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-07-02DOI: 10.1080/14639947.2021.1977013
D. Byrne, G. Mason
ABSTRACT Despite Jane Hirshfield’s having published 11 books of poetry and having received six awards for poetry, there is a dearth of published criticism on her work. Most of the existing literature consists of online tributes and interviews with the poet, with barely any scholarly consideration. In light of this academic lacuna, we offer a two-fold framework for reading and exploring her poetry. Our foci are the expression of Zen Buddhism and feminist concerns in her poetry. These two themes, although apparently divergent, intersect in Hirshfield’s representation of desire. Desire plays a central role in Zen Buddhism, which theorises it as a central, but problematic, feature of human existence. Desire traps the desiring subject in sensory reality, which is, by its nature, always already contingent. Feminist thinking also foregrounds desire, insisting on women as desiring subjects, and on the complexity of the desiring relation, imbued with overtones of power and domination. Our article explores the representation of desire and relations of desire in a selection of Hirshfield’s poems, demonstrating the centrality and relevance of our twin foci. We offer these here as preliminary tools for reading Hirshfield’s poetry, in the hope of stimulating further research into her work.
{"title":"Two Gates Into Jane Hirshfield’s Poetry","authors":"D. Byrne, G. Mason","doi":"10.1080/14639947.2021.1977013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14639947.2021.1977013","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Despite Jane Hirshfield’s having published 11 books of poetry and having received six awards for poetry, there is a dearth of published criticism on her work. Most of the existing literature consists of online tributes and interviews with the poet, with barely any scholarly consideration. In light of this academic lacuna, we offer a two-fold framework for reading and exploring her poetry. Our foci are the expression of Zen Buddhism and feminist concerns in her poetry. These two themes, although apparently divergent, intersect in Hirshfield’s representation of desire. Desire plays a central role in Zen Buddhism, which theorises it as a central, but problematic, feature of human existence. Desire traps the desiring subject in sensory reality, which is, by its nature, always already contingent. Feminist thinking also foregrounds desire, insisting on women as desiring subjects, and on the complexity of the desiring relation, imbued with overtones of power and domination. Our article explores the representation of desire and relations of desire in a selection of Hirshfield’s poems, demonstrating the centrality and relevance of our twin foci. We offer these here as preliminary tools for reading Hirshfield’s poetry, in the hope of stimulating further research into her work.","PeriodicalId":45708,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Buddhism","volume":"21 1","pages":"328 - 350"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2020-07-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47103525","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-07-02DOI: 10.1080/14639947.2021.1985352
Isabelle Charleux
ABSTRACT This paper questions the current construction of a 54 metres statue of Maitreya against a 108 metres stupa in the steppe south of Ulaanbaatar, that will stand at the edge of a new ‘eco-city,’ Maidar City. The Grand Maitreya Project (GMP) was initiated in 2009 by H. Battulga, businessman and MP (before he was elected president of Mongolia). The project aims to be ‘one of the largest Buddhist complex in the world,’ and now is a ‘National project for reviving traditional Buddhist education and culture.’ I propose to use religious and art-historical approaches in order to document the ‘birth’ of a Buddhist project, with a special interest in the long process of conception, fundraising and promotional programme. Relying on recent studies on the entanglement of Buddhism, politics, culture, consumerization and tourism that gave rise to new cultual modalities, and on studies of colossal statues recently built in Asia, this article asks what the GMP tells us about modern Mongolian politics and public religious culture. What are the sources of inspiration and foreign references of the GMP? Is it a religious monument that will benefit from the tourist economy, a tourist attraction, or a unifying, nationalist symbol of 21st-century Mongolia?
{"title":"The Grand Maitreya Project of Mongolia: A Colossal Statue-cum-Stupa for a Happy Future of ‘Loving ♡Kindness’","authors":"Isabelle Charleux","doi":"10.1080/14639947.2021.1985352","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14639947.2021.1985352","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This paper questions the current construction of a 54 metres statue of Maitreya against a 108 metres stupa in the steppe south of Ulaanbaatar, that will stand at the edge of a new ‘eco-city,’ Maidar City. The Grand Maitreya Project (GMP) was initiated in 2009 by H. Battulga, businessman and MP (before he was elected president of Mongolia). The project aims to be ‘one of the largest Buddhist complex in the world,’ and now is a ‘National project for reviving traditional Buddhist education and culture.’ I propose to use religious and art-historical approaches in order to document the ‘birth’ of a Buddhist project, with a special interest in the long process of conception, fundraising and promotional programme. Relying on recent studies on the entanglement of Buddhism, politics, culture, consumerization and tourism that gave rise to new cultual modalities, and on studies of colossal statues recently built in Asia, this article asks what the GMP tells us about modern Mongolian politics and public religious culture. What are the sources of inspiration and foreign references of the GMP? Is it a religious monument that will benefit from the tourist economy, a tourist attraction, or a unifying, nationalist symbol of 21st-century Mongolia?","PeriodicalId":45708,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Buddhism","volume":"21 1","pages":"73 - 132"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2020-07-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48221694","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-07-02DOI: 10.1080/14639947.2021.1929603
Mgr. Jitka Cirklová
ABSTRACT The article examines the phenomenon known as the quarter-life crisis. The aim was to explore how young people in the Czech Republic practising Buddhism experience this crisis and how Buddhism influences the way they cope. Qualitative research was used to gain insight into how respondents experience this life phase and whether they perceive the world of too many opportunities as a challenge or a problem. The relationship with consumer culture and material consumption was discussed along with the practice of Buddhism and the way Buddhism-based values play a role in influencing respondents’ lives. Respondents showed they are missing a set of principles and values to ease their orientation in the world and their decision-making process. They found in Buddhism a structure that helps them form a delimitation against consumer and non-sustainable production. As a result of adhering to Buddhism and engaging in some practices based on Buddhism, they reported more control in self-directing together with a growth in self-confidence during the decision-making process. At the same time, they overcame feelings of exclusion, observed as one of the manifestations of a young age crisis. They reported that establishing contacts with like-minded young people, whether in meditation, sports centres or discussion forums on social networking sites, gave them a sense of belonging to a group.
{"title":"Coping with the quarter-life crisis the buddhist way in the Czech Republic","authors":"Mgr. Jitka Cirklová","doi":"10.1080/14639947.2021.1929603","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14639947.2021.1929603","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The article examines the phenomenon known as the quarter-life crisis. The aim was to explore how young people in the Czech Republic practising Buddhism experience this crisis and how Buddhism influences the way they cope. Qualitative research was used to gain insight into how respondents experience this life phase and whether they perceive the world of too many opportunities as a challenge or a problem. The relationship with consumer culture and material consumption was discussed along with the practice of Buddhism and the way Buddhism-based values play a role in influencing respondents’ lives. Respondents showed they are missing a set of principles and values to ease their orientation in the world and their decision-making process. They found in Buddhism a structure that helps them form a delimitation against consumer and non-sustainable production. As a result of adhering to Buddhism and engaging in some practices based on Buddhism, they reported more control in self-directing together with a growth in self-confidence during the decision-making process. At the same time, they overcame feelings of exclusion, observed as one of the manifestations of a young age crisis. They reported that establishing contacts with like-minded young people, whether in meditation, sports centres or discussion forums on social networking sites, gave them a sense of belonging to a group.","PeriodicalId":45708,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Buddhism","volume":"21 1","pages":"222 - 240"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2020-07-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/14639947.2021.1929603","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44564549","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-07-02DOI: 10.1080/14639947.2022.2043038
H. Nilsson
ABSTRACT Long-distance running is an intra-subjective activity that orients the individual towards his/her own experiences and struggle for achievement within both the narrow context of training and competition and the broader context of life itself. This article takes a hermeneutic phenomenological approach to the obstacles and opportunities entailed in running; within this framework, mindfulness training will be prominently featured. These practices have been shown to strengthen the mind–body connection, increase situational awareness and enhance psychophysical well-being. The aim here is to examine the experiential aspect of long-distance running, aided by various understandings gleaned from mindfulness, phenomenology, Buddhism and sports, with a special emphasis on the memoir What I Talk about When I Talk about Running, by Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami.
{"title":"Taking a Mindful Run with Murakami: A (hermeneutic) phenomenological approach","authors":"H. Nilsson","doi":"10.1080/14639947.2022.2043038","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14639947.2022.2043038","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Long-distance running is an intra-subjective activity that orients the individual towards his/her own experiences and struggle for achievement within both the narrow context of training and competition and the broader context of life itself. This article takes a hermeneutic phenomenological approach to the obstacles and opportunities entailed in running; within this framework, mindfulness training will be prominently featured. These practices have been shown to strengthen the mind–body connection, increase situational awareness and enhance psychophysical well-being. The aim here is to examine the experiential aspect of long-distance running, aided by various understandings gleaned from mindfulness, phenomenology, Buddhism and sports, with a special emphasis on the memoir What I Talk about When I Talk about Running, by Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami.","PeriodicalId":45708,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Buddhism","volume":"21 1","pages":"351 - 368"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2020-07-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48748025","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-07-02DOI: 10.1080/14639947.2022.2029212
L. Obadia
ABSTRACT This paper aims to understand the complex and ambivalent relationships that globalized Buddhism between Asia and the West has with the COVID-19 pandemic, both in terms of Buddhism’s adaptation of practices to the pandemic and its representational position in society. Buddhism is not the most renowned religion in the media for its interpretation of the causes of the pandemic, nor is it the one that has epitomized the most original adaptations, particularly digital ones, of religions in a context of restricted sociability. Above all, it offers introspective resources that can help to psychologically resist the lockdown and the restriction of sociability imposed by governments, thus psychologically palliating a normative and brutal inflection of social habits. Based on an analysis of information published in analogical and electronic media, as well as personal knowledge of the empirical expressions and scriptural forms of Buddhism, this article intends to show that, far from being limited to this single contribution, Buddhism has an ambivalent relationship to the COVID-19 pandemic, much like other religions.
{"title":"Buddhist “Solutions” and Action in the Context of COVID-19, East and West: Complexity, Paradoxes, and Ambivalences","authors":"L. Obadia","doi":"10.1080/14639947.2022.2029212","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14639947.2022.2029212","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This paper aims to understand the complex and ambivalent relationships that globalized Buddhism between Asia and the West has with the COVID-19 pandemic, both in terms of Buddhism’s adaptation of practices to the pandemic and its representational position in society. Buddhism is not the most renowned religion in the media for its interpretation of the causes of the pandemic, nor is it the one that has epitomized the most original adaptations, particularly digital ones, of religions in a context of restricted sociability. Above all, it offers introspective resources that can help to psychologically resist the lockdown and the restriction of sociability imposed by governments, thus psychologically palliating a normative and brutal inflection of social habits. Based on an analysis of information published in analogical and electronic media, as well as personal knowledge of the empirical expressions and scriptural forms of Buddhism, this article intends to show that, far from being limited to this single contribution, Buddhism has an ambivalent relationship to the COVID-19 pandemic, much like other religions.","PeriodicalId":45708,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Buddhism","volume":"21 1","pages":"170 - 189"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2020-07-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46931256","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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