The Importance of Understanding the Sociology of Religion

http://hds.harvard.edu/news/2016/01/20/importance-understanding-sociology-religion#

The Importance of Understanding the Sociology of Religion

Warren Goldstein is a sociologist of religion teaching at HDS. While his research aims to develop a critical sociology of religion as a "new paradigm" in the sociology of religion, he is more broadly interested in the development of a critical paradigm in the study of religion as a whole.

Buddha Weekly on the treatment of animals

http://buddhaweekly.com/prominent-scientists-declare-all-non-human-animals-are-conscious-beings-the-dalai-lama-protests-chicken-slaughter-an-orangutan-won-non-human-rights-over-zoo-keeper-what-do-the-teachers-say-ab/

Buddha Weekly  on the treatment of animals

Prominent Scientists Declare “All Non Human Animals… Are Conscious Beings.” The Dalai Lama Protests Chicken Slaughter. An Orangutan Won Non-Human Rights Over Zoo Keeper. What Do the Teachers Say About Non-Human Compassion?

A Buddhist cop’s approach to justice

http://www.lionsroar.com/a-buddhist-cops-approach-to-justice/

A Buddhist cop’s approach to justice

BY CHERI MAPLES| SEPTEMBER 23, 2015

Invented Religions

http://www.religiousstudiesproject.com/podcast/podcast-carole-cusack-on-invented-religions/

Invented Religions

What is an “Invented Religion”? Why should scholars take these religions seriously? What makes these “inventions” different from the revelations in other religions? What happens when an author does not want their story to become a religious text?

http://wellcomecollection.org/secrettemple

Tibet’s Secret Temple: Body, Mind and Meditation in Tantric Buddhism

Wellcome Collection, EXHIBITION

19 November 2015 - 28 February 2016

'Tibet’s Secret Temple’ explores Tibetan Buddhist yogic and meditational practice and their connections to physical and mental wellbeing.

Inspired by an exquisite series of 17th century murals from a private meditation chamber for Tibet’s Dalai Lamas in Lhasa’s Lukhang Temple, the exhibition features over 120 objects including scroll paintings, statues, manuscripts, archival and contemporary film, together with a wide range of ethnographic and ritual artefacts.

‘Tibet’s Secret Temple’ will uncover the stories behind the ancient, esoteric and once secret practices illustrated in the Lukhang murals and show their relevance to the expanding and wide-ranging contemporary interest in meditative wellbeing.

War Remembrance in Japan's Buddhist Cemeteries

1. http://japanfocus.org/-Brian-Victoria/4353/article.html
2. http://japanfocus.org/-Brian-Victoria/4367/article.html

War Remembrance in Japan's Buddhist Cemeteries (1-2)

War Remembrance in Japan’s Buddhist Cemeteries, Part I: Kannon Hears the Cries of War The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 13, Issue. 31, No. 3, August 03, 2015 Brian Victoria Abstract While the role of Yasukuni Shrine in both commemorating and eulogizing Japan’s wartime aggression is well known (and controversial), little to no attention has been paid to a similar role played by a number of Buddhist temples in contemporary Japan. For example, Kōa Kannon (Kannon for a Prosperous Asia) temple (興亜観音寺), located in Atami, a hot-springs resort south of Tokyo, is one such war-eulogizing Buddhist temple. This temple was initially established in the late 1930s at the initiative of Imperial Army General Matsui Iwane, supreme commander of the Japanese attack on Nanjing in December 1937, better known as the "Rape of Nanjing." In the postwar era, Kannon Bodhisattva, the Buddhist personification of compassion enshrined at Kōa Kannon, has gone on to become one of the main Buddhist figures employed throughout the country to comfort the “heroic spirits” (eirei) of all Japanese soldiers who died in the war while, at the same time, valorizing and eulogizing the war they fought in. In addition to Kannon-centric temples, the major Shingon sect-affiliated monastic complex on Mt. Kōya now plays a major role in the remembrance of the war dead, including an effort to transform convicted "war criminals" into national “martyrs” (junnan-sha), an effort backed by the current Japanese government. http://japanfocus.org/-Brian-Victoria/4367/article.html War Remembrance in Japan’s Buddhist Cemeteries, Part II:  Transforming War Criminals into Martyrs: “True Words” on Mt. Kōya The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 13, Issue. 34, No. 3, August 24, 2015 Brian Victoria

Theravada Bhikkhuni and the Buddha's Four-fold Assembly

http://buddhistchannel.tv/index.php?id=70,12420,0,0,1,0#.VccHJ61ywg4

Theravada Bhikkhuni and the Buddha's Four-fold Assembly

by Dr Dion Peoples, The Buddhist Channel, Aug 8, 2015

A properly functioning Sangha has four aspects: bhikkhus, bhikkhunis, lay women and lay men. All are equally required to uphold and support the Buddha's doctrinal tradition and practices.
Bangkok, Thailand -- When I was in the US Air Force, stationed in Germany, I was given a set of books - the writings of Nicherin, by an older woman co-worker.  I also came into contact with a Taiwanese Buddhist woman who owned and operated a Chinese Restaurant, near the base where I was stationed.  

tricycle: Across the Expanse, Anne C. Klein on the transmission of Tibetan Buddhism

http://www.tricycle.com/blog/across-expanse

July 15, 2015

Across the Expanse

Anne C. Klein on the transmission of Tibetan Buddhism

This interview with the scholar-practitioner Anne Carolyn Klein was originally published in the July–December issue of Mandala, a magazine run by the nonprofit organization Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition. We are republishing it here because of its excellent discussion of transmission, the secularization of Tibetan Buddhism as it has come West, and other ideas that speak practically and directly to the experiences of Western dharma practitioners. —Eds.

A New Way Forward

http://www.tricycle.com/feature/new-way-forward

A New Way Forward

Buddhist tradition and modernity are in many ways incompatible. But one Western intellectual tradition may hold a key to bringing the two into meaningful dialogue. Linda Heuman

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/americanbuddhist/2011/11/buddhist-modernism.html

Buddhist Modernism

BBC Radio 4: The Buddha: Waking India Up

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05rptcs#auto

The Buddha: Waking India Up

Incarnations: India in 50 Lives

Over the course of 50 episodes, Sunil Khilnani, director of the King's India Institute in London, takes listeners on a whirlwind journey from ancient India to the 21st century through the prism of the life

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRDi7JpB8Pw&list=PL1C7C1A7B5BE4CAD0

The Conscious Universe - B. Alan Wallace

 

Published on May 20, 2012

Recorded at Unity Church, Santa Barbara, CA , Jan. 16, 2008
The Conscious Universe: Where Buddhism and Physics Converge

Physicists have long assumed that the universe is fundamentally composed of matter and energy and that life and consciousness are accidental byproducts of configurations of matter. But a growing number of distinguished physicists are now suggesting that consciousness may play a much more fundamental role in nature than scientists previously believed. In this lecture Alan Wallace will review some of the most provocative theories presented by such leading physicists as John Wheeler, Stephen Hawking, and Andre Linde that challenge many of the materialist assumptions based on outdated 19th-century physics.

http://www.alanwallace.org

Please visit http://www.sbinstitute.com/ for more information.

 

University of the West (LA) : Spring 2015 Lecture Series

University of the West (LA) : Spring 2015 Lecture Series

 

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXAGHVGP8fk
 Buddhism Faces the 21st Century: Challenges and Opportunities, "The Revival and Rapid Growth of Buddhism in the last Decades of the 20th Century." Given at University of the West

2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ov1dZS2fcK4
 Buddhism Faces the 21st Century: Challenges and Opportunities. Monasticism grew along with the Buddhist revival but often had to adapt to changing world conditions and globalization. Recruitment reflects demographics of family size and this leaves the tradition with an uncertain future.

3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZnFKygFMck
Dr. Lewis Lancaster Spring Lecture 2015 Series: Lecture 3, "Challenges of Contemporary Followers: Growth of Urban Society".
 
4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwckrMfKozQ
 "Meditation and Mindfulness Practices in Daily Expressions", by Dr. Lewis Lancaster. Videotaped a Hsi Lai Temple.

5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovhtQZrxKsk
Lecture 5: "Maintaining Existing Buddhist Structural Developments. "Spring 2015 Lecture Series on the challenges and opportunities faced by Buddhism in the 21st century.

6. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvHg7crJDNA
"Catching Glimpses of 21st Century Buddhism". Filmed at Hsi Lai Temple. The seeds for the future of 21st century Buddhism are already with us. The question is how to spot those elements that will develop into the tradition over the rest of this century. Changes are inevitable and largely predictable.

BBC Radio Programs on issues involving Buddhism

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b038c0f6

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b052gz7m

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01457qc

BBC Radio Programs on issues involving Buddhism

Buddhism and Violence

Buddhism, Therapy, Violence, Rationality

Buddhism and Islam

BG 352: Buddhism Unbundled

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZfmZ0TZAV8

BG 352: Buddhism Unbundled

Published on Feb 18, 2015

Vincent Horn is a mind hacker & Buddhist geek. In this keynote from the 2014 Buddhist Geeks Conference Vincent explores the unbundling of components like meditation and mindfulness from contemporary Buddhism. He then explores the process of re-bundling and what the future of both Buddhist and Buddhist-inspired models may look like as new combinations of knowledge come together in novel, and sometimes timeless, ways.

One Dharma by Joseph Goldstein

http://www.tricycle.com/feature/one-dharma

One Dharma

by Joseph Goldstein

This article appears in 20 Years, 20 Teachings: The Tricycle 20th Anniversary E-Book. It's free to all Supporting and Sustaining Members. Get the e-book.

As different Buddhist traditions take root in the West, is it possible to find an essential teaching that supports them all? In an adaptation from a talk given at Tricycle's recent Conference on Practice and Inquiry, Joseph Goldstein searches for the "One Dharma" of liberation.

THE MONK Buddhism documentary 720p

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6KiwiwFijw

THE MONK Buddhism documentary 720p

Published on Feb 17, 2015

The film is about a holy camp holding in a temple in Fujian, China. More than 100 people around the world， who are at any ages，take part in this camp. Some of them are devout disciples, sincere teenagers， while some of them are lazy young monks. And there is also a German teenager who is curious about Chinese culture. Distinctively, by using peaceful lens language, it wants to tell us a special religious life in temple.

If the robes fit...

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/special-reports/475378/if-the-robes-fit

If the robes fit... 

The monkhood has long been off limits to women, but one 'bhikkhuni' is pushing for change, arguing the tradition is based on nothing more than a misguided technicality 

15 Feb 2015 at 06.35 

Newspaper section: Spectrum

Writer: Jeerawat Na Thalang 

Please credit and share this article with others using this link:http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/special-reports/475378/if-the-robes-fit. View our policies at http://goo.gl/9HgTd and http://goo.gl/ou6Ip. © Post Publishing PCL. All rights reserved.

Buddhism and Modernity

http://www.smith.edu/philosophy/docs/garfield_buddhism_modernity.pdf

Buddhism and Modernity 

Jay L Garfield,  Smith College, University of Melbourne, Central University of Tibetan Studies

1. Introduction: Authenticity and Impermanence
2. Historical comparisons
3. Modern Differences
4. The Modern Western Inflection of Buddhism
5. The Problem of Authenticity in Modernity

Also : HH Dalai Lama and Modernity

http://info-buddhism.com/Dalai_Lama_between_Modernity_and_Buddhism_by_Georges_Dreyfus.html

Also from the Tricycle magazine:

http://www.tricycle.com/buddhism-and-modernity

Buddhism and Modernity

With support from the John Templeton Foundation, Tricycle’s Buddhism and Modernity project is initiating a conversation between Buddhists and leading thinkers across the humanities and social sciences. Tricycle is exploring how perspectives drawn from research about the nature of religion, culture, science, and secularism can shed light on unexamined assumptions shaping the transmission of Buddhism to modernity. This project offers Western Buddhists new ways of thinking about their spiritual experiences by demonstrating how reason can be used as a tool to open up—rather than shut down—access to traditional faith.

Linda Heuman, a Tricycle contributing editor who is heading up the project, is a freelance journalist based in Providence, Rhode Island. Below are her online Tricycle pieces that we hope will initiate dialogue on the interaction between Buddhism and modernity.

A More Human Science | An interview with Amadeo Giorgi. The Western intellectual tradition of human science could help recast the dialogue between Buddhism and the contemporary world.

Don't Believe the Hype | Neuroscientist Catherine Kerr is concerned about how mindfulness meditation research is being portrayed in the media. Tricycle speaks with her to understand the significance of an emerging meta-discourse—the conversation about the conversation about meditation.

Meditation Nation | How convincing is the science driving the popularity of mindfulness meditation? A Brown University researcher has some surprising answers.

Given the widespread belief that meditation practice is scientifically certified to be good for just about everything, the results of a recent major analysis of the research might come as some surprise... 

Culture Wars | As science invades the humanities, our understanding of Buddhism hangs in the balanceIn view of Western Buddhists’ eagerness to collaborate with the scientific study of Buddhism, it might be a good idea to consider whether this collaboration is likely, in the long run, to affirm or prove injurious to the very values and understandings...



Eastern Self/Western Self RevisitedMy previous blog post reflecting on Gish Jen’s new book Tiger Writing: Art, Culture, and the Independent Self, generated quite a bit of discussion. Some respondents dismissed as mere “personal observation” the claim that people from Western and Eastern cultures tend toward different types of self-construal...



Eastern Self/Western SelfWe in the West are quite concerned these days with how to make the dharma authentically Western. But caution please, folks. Before we start inventing a new flavor of Buddhism to suit Western palettes, it is important to look closely at the implicit assumptions we are bringing to this project. To start, we might examine more closely our underlying picture...

Mindfulness meditation – what’s all the fuss about?

http://home.bt.com/lifestyle/wellbeing/mindfulness-meditation-whats-all-the-fuss-about-11363959359180

Mindfulness meditation – what’s all the fuss about?

Celebs, wellbeing gurus and even MPs are catching the mindfulness bug. Reporter Abi Jackson heads to Westminster for the launch of the Mindful Nation UK interim report to find out more