Lamotte’s argument led to various debates that gave rise to a wide array of hypotheses on who the author of Dà Zhìdù Lùn could have been. The theory that Dà Zhìdù Lùn could have been a text not (or not only) written by Nāgārjuna reached Chinese Buddhist monks and scholars as well, including the monk Yìnshùn (1906-2005). This paper will show the impact of Western scholarship on East Asian Buddhism, highlight the (pluri)directionality of knowledge.

Drawing on ethnographic research, this paper examines how the material and corporeal aspects of Buddhist ritual contribute to the distinctive religious sense of place that reinforce the memory of the Buddha’s life and Buddhism’s historical ties to the Indian subcontinent. It is found that at most Buddhist sites, pilgrim groups mostly travel with their own monks, nuns, and guides from their respective countries who facilitate devotion and reside in the monasteries and guest houses affiliated with their national community. Despite the differences across national, cultural–linguistic, and sectarian lines, the ritual practices associated with pilgrimage speak to certain patterns of religious motivation and behavior that contribute to a sense of shared identity that plays an important role in how Buddhists imagine themselves as part of a translocal religion in a globalizing age.

[In Taiwan,] two Humanistic Buddhist groups have influenced the majority of Buddhists on the island to adopt important aspects of sustainable lifestyles. This multi-sited ethnographic study uses participant observation with formal and informal interviews to research these two groups—the Buddhist Tzu Chi Foundation and Dharma Drum Mountain—in the two different social contexts of Taiwan and California.

A comparative analysis of the results finds that the believers’ adoption of pro-environmental lifestyle changes is strongly influenced by their membership in a strong moral community, by sensing the material and social, or “terrestrial,” strain of environmental degradation coupled with a feeling that the government and other official institutions are not doing enough, and by integrated religious teachings, which include theory and praxis, from authoritative figures who model the desired behaviors. Moreover, this study shows the power of the sacred to inspire behavioral change, which, in the context of Buddhism, is cultivation of the bodhisattva ethic

Because of the war, the mission of the Shōjuin bell swung drastically…

During the Asia-Pacific War, as metals grew scarce, temple bells became a material resource for munition production. Why were temples and shrines convinced to give up their bells that embodied the hopes and vows of past donors? What was the process of transformation from a religious instrument used to comfort the dead into an object that would destroy life?

[Children in these picture books] have qualities that differ from what mature adults have, but they are valuable none-the-less. And actually, in the case of 一休 (Ikkyū) especially, he is often shown as being wiser in a certain way or at least more clever than the adults. [… They show that] naughty or mischievous behavior isn’t necessarily an endpoint, and that change and growth are possible. [… So,] you can think about how these stories work for both children and for the adult caregivers who might be reading them.

This essay focuses on Albert J. Edmunds, a British-American Buddhist sympathizer, and it considers the ways that Western occult traditions, especially Swedenborgianism, moved back and forth across the Pacific and shaped the work of D. T. Suzuki.

Ultimately, then, religions derive their power from the depth of their spirituality. The power of Zen, for example, flows out of Tokusan’s “Thirty Blows” or Rinzai’s “Katsu!!!” or Jōshū’s “Mu” (“Emptiness”). The power of Jodo Shinshu also originates from one single point of absolute depth: from the nembutsu.

Unno examines how religious power and influence emerge from deep inner spirituality rather than external institutions, illustrated through historical figures in Zen and Jōdo Shinshū Buddhism.

Although he is highly critical of a hybrid culture in which Westernized values are on the ascendant and traditional Asian/Thai values wane, he is by no means hostile to the building of a hybrid culture of resistance where Buddhism and Christianity join hands in confronting injustice.

In response, Buddhist leaders divided traditional Buddhist cosmology and practices into the newly constructed categories ‘superstition’ and ‘religion.’ Superstition was deemed ‘not really Buddhism’ and purged, while the remainder of Buddhism was made to accord with Westernized ideas of ‘religion.’

The founder of Fo Guang Shan is one of the most influential Buddhist monks in Taiwan and around the world. This study examines the biographies of Hsing Yun as depicted in Fo Guang Shan’s popular media to elucidate the uses and significance of Buddhist hagiography in contemporary Taiwan. I argue that unlike the Buddhist hagiographies of earlier times in which eminent monks were depicted as transcendental beings with superhuman powers and spiritual attainments, the informal and intimate portrayals of Hsing Yun in popular media seek to portray the monk as a worldling bodhisattva

Orientalist tropes are pervasive in current tibetological work published in China, including articles in purportedly scholarly journals. This work is closely connected with government propaganda, and it is often explicitly directed by members of the government to further agendas of suppression.

Equally importantly, the article examines the ways in which Tibetans are presented with a version of their religion that bears little or no resemblance to how they traditionally have understood it; but it is also an image that Tibetans are increasingly being coerced to endorse.

Within the context of Ravanisation—by which I mean the current revitalisation of Ravana among Sinhalese Buddhists in Sri Lanka—multiple conceptualizations of Ravana are constructed. This article concentrates on two different Ravana conceptualizations: Ravana as a warrior king and Ravana as a healer.

At the Sri Devram Maha Viharaya, a recently constructed Buddhist complex in Colombo, Ravana has become the object of devotion. In addition to erecting a Ravana statue in a shrine of his own, two annual rituals for Ravana are organized by this temple. In these rituals we can clearly discern the two previously mentioned conceptualizations: the Ravana perahera (procession) mainly concentrates on Ravana’s martial side by exalting Ravana as warrior king, and in the maha Ravana nanumura mangalyaya, a ritual which focusses on healing, his benevolent side as a healer is stressed.

The focus on ritual invention in this article not only directs our attention to the creativity within the rituals but also to the wider context of these developments: the glorification of an ancient civilization as part of increased nationalistic sentiments and an increased assertiveness among the Sinhalese Buddhist majority in post-war Sri Lanka.

Founded in Taiwan in 1989, the Modern Chan Society was a community of lay Buddhists that challenged monks’ religious privileges and put forward the idea of equality between monks and lay believers. It asserted an independent authority from that of the monasteries in managing “salvation goods” and accordingly recruited its own clergy.

In tracing the history of the Modern Chan Society, this article assesses modern Chinese Buddhism: the role of the prophet in symbolic power, the conditions governing the emergence of a prophet, the legitimisation of religious reforms in modern practice and the paradox of institutionalisation.

It examines how the fascination with marble, which is vernacularly categorized as ‘white jade’ in Chinese, motivated such endeavors and how these icons shaped the perception of a developing Buddhist cosmopolis among Chinese Buddhists by helping them locate Burma in the Buddhist world in a spiritually and materially meaningful way.

Shinnyo-en’s founders and their successors envisioned a particular strategy for being Buddhist in modernity, one which aligns with some, but not all, scholarly characterizations of Buddhist modernism. As a result, Shinnyo-en and other lay organizations have largely remained on the margins of Buddhist studies despite their apparent popularity and proliferation. This article offers a new category for theorizing and positioning such organizations as contramodern—connected with, but divergent from mainstream forms of Buddhist modernism.

This study examines the early career of the renowned Buddhologist Lü Cheng as an aspiring revolutionary. My findings reveal that Lü’s rhetoric of “aesthetic revolution” both catapulted him into the center of the New Culture Movement and popularized a Buddhist idealism—Yogācāra—among thinkers who sought alternative social theories.

Buddhist soteriology supplied powerful tools for theorizing the social: The doctrine of no-self refuted philosophical solipsism and curtailed individualism; dependent-origination refashioned social evolution as collective spiritual progress.

The importance of Abhidhamma (higher doctrine) in Myanmar Buddhist society is well known. However, it is only within the last century that this doctrine has become more accessible to the laity, and specifically to women devotees.

During the colonial era, a considerable number of literate women were part of a “growing reading public,” and I argue that Burmese laywomen created a “demand” for learning Buddhist doctrine, with monks then creating a “supply”.

This article examines how modern Chinese Buddhism has been influenced by Christianity. For our purposes ‘modern Chinese Buddhism’ refers to a form of what has become known in the West as ‘Engaged Buddhism’, but in Chinese is known by titles which can be translated ‘Humanistic Buddhism’ or ‘Buddhism for Human Life’.

We differentiate between conscious imitation and analogous development due to similar social circumstances, and show how Protestant Christianity and Roman Catholicism have had different effects. In Part four, we examine Fo Guang Shan as a missionary religion.

Even the remote mountain monasteries have broadened their access to lay visitors. Nowadays monastic and lay Buddhists have more occasions to meet than before and the current intensification of their relationships brings important redefinitions of their respective identities.

I focus on a one-week retreat for laity in a Buddhist monastery dedicated to meditation. This case study examines the ambiguous goal of this retreat programme that combined two aims: initiating lay practitioners to the monastic lifestyle and the practice of kanhwa son meditation; and establishing a group of lay supporters affiliated to the temple. This temporary monastic experience was directed towards an intense socialisation of the participants to the norms and values of an ascetic lifestyle, blurring some aspects of the border between lay and monastic practices of Buddhism. However, this paper suggests that this transitory rapprochement contributed to both challenge and strengthen the distinction between the renouncers (ch’ulga) and the householders (chaega).

… a critical assessment of naturalism and a reevaluation of the most recent forms of Buddhist modernism, including the extraordinary success of Mindfulness. It argues for a more balanced and encompassing approach that would extol the richness of the Buddhist tradition.

During the Chosŏn period (1392–1910), the discussion of precepts all but disappeared from the religious discourse in Korean Buddhism. Not only were the precepts left unstudied, but even the performance of official ordination ceremonies for new monks based on the precepts ceased.

This article examines the challenges the modern Chogye Order of Korea faces in applying traditional monastic discipline. It shows how modernization has led the Order to modify or abandon key Vinaya principles, increasingly turning to secular rules and norms instead.

The stand-alone practice of memorization of dhāraṇīs appears to have increased in recent years, as evidenced by the mass production of small inexpensive books and series of books for copying and chanting dhāraṇīs and mantras.

This essay explores the contemporary use of dhāraṇīs and mantras in South Korean Buddhism, particularly among lay practitioners, through literature and ritual materials. Since the early 2000s, interest in dhāraṇīs has grown alongside the revival of apotropaic practices, with laypeople employing them in devotionals, merit-making, rituals for worldly benefits.

The nunneries and monasteries are trying to respond to these critiques and to this question of identity but, as often times with religious institutions, the changes are slower than the changes in the societies around them.

A former Tibetan nun talks about the slowly expanding opportunities for education available to women in Tibetan monastic institutions and the challenges adapting tradition to the modern world.

Paralleling the reinvention of Christmas in the modern period, Buddhists reconfigured the Buddha’s birthday as a symbol of their religious identity and power. The Buddha’s Birthday festival should be understood in the context of increasing contact and exchange among Buddhists in the East and the West. The festival’s prominence was the result of complex negotiation and collaboration between Korean and Japanese Buddhists who both hoped the festival would advance their overlapping visions of Buddhism. The festival was not so much an imposition of the colonizer on a native culture as it was a dynamic, creative feature of modern Korean Buddhism in a colonial context.

Notwithstanding the long history of Buddhism in the peninsula, it was far from certain at the dawn of the twentieth century that the tradition would be able to secure a viable and legitimate place in modern Korean society. This book argues that a key factor in the effort to revitalize the religion was the concerted and sustained attempt by a wide variety of Buddhist organizations and individuals to systematically propagate (p’ogyo 布敎) Buddhism.

The following discourses were attempts to deal with the problems faced by the Buddhist community during modernization: the discourse on secularity and social participation, the discourse on modernity centering on the issue of modifying precepts, and the discourse on identity contemplating the originality of Korean Buddhism.

Han wrestled with the task of bridging the gap between institutional Buddhism and lay Buddhism, which had resulted in the deterioration of the Buddhist ideal. In an attempt to find a middle ground that could connect these two extremes, Han’s strategy was to focus on both the Buddhist notion of expediency and the caring spirit of bodhisattva. He was not particularly successful.

From 1982 through 2016, Korean media outlets have reported over 120 instances of vandalism, arson and harassment targeting Buddhist temples and facilities in South Korea. An extension of on-going tensions between South Korea’s Buddhist and Evangelical Protestant communities, this one-sided wave of violence and harassment has caused the destruction of numerous temple buildings and priceless historical artifacts, millions of USD in damages, and one death.

[This article] examines the responses from South Korea’s Buddhist and Evangelical communities and various government agencies, as well as the effects of these responses, before investigating the relationship between these incidents and the mainstream Evangelical doctrines of religious exclusivism, dominionism and spiritual warfare.

Hirakawa and Matsunami think that a moribund Buddhism can be revived by understanding traditional doctrines. Akizuki’s new Māhāyana turns out to be nothing but the old Zen. Endō is a harsh critic with no particular plan for reform. Fujii and Sasaki recognize that Buddhism must undergo rebirth, but suggest that current forms will suffice.

A scathing review of several recent books on the state of Buddhism in Japan by traditional Buddhists, suggesting that the “New Religious Movements” in Japan are where the real reforms are happening.

Even as Vajirayan criticized the supernaturalism of indigenous Siamese religious forms, certain ideas and practices were left intact. In particular was a focus on karma or merit and morality…

The Western-style murals adorning the walls at Wat Bovorn Niwet reflect Prince Mongut’s vision for a reformed Thai Buddhism that would adopt the rationalism and advances of the West but still place the Buddha at its center.

The charismatic and idiosyncratic Ajaan Man and his widely revered forest-dwelling disciples remained on the rim of the establishment for much of their lives — yet constituted the mystical core of orthodoxy

This book provides an analysis of the political and historical context in which the modern Thai Forest Tradition arose.

a concise history of amulets and an overview of amulet culture in Thailand.

The general introduction to the Siam Society’s special issue all about the topic.

I examine a corpus of documents belonging to the Dhammakāya text genre and its different functions, revealing how a single genre can, in fact, fulfil functions from meditation, on the one hand, to consecrations and protective chanting on the other. I then conclude that the disappearance of the Dhammakāya text genre from Central Thai practice is further evidence for the suppression of Siam’s “boran”, or pre-reform, Buddhism in response to modernist concerns about canonicity and textual authenticity.

By using original documents this article shows the evolution of the Zen denominations within the larger context of the legal framework that shaped all Buddhist denominations, and depicts how the divisions between sects and branches were reshuffled several times before stabilizing in their present form.

Without a coercive village structure to enforce giving, the low-tension temples found themselves without their effective retainer. With the first-best contract unavailable, many temples have turned to fee-for-service arrangements of which the abortion-related ritual is merely the most notorious. Ironically, the new environment presents an entirely different challenge: temples now find themselves competing with internet-based priest-dispatch services.

“We’re on the way to enlightenment”, he said. “And on this way, what should we do?”

This article presents the phenomenon of TikTok monks in Cambodia and the question of whether it’s appropriate to use social media to preach the dharma.

Hikkaduwe Sri Sumangala was of interest to me because he was such an influential and active figure among Buddhists in Sri Lanka, Buddhists in other countries, scholars of Buddhism, as well as with colonial administrators…

A scholar reflects on the life of the colonial-era, Sri Lankan revivalist who, among others, taught Anagarika Dharmapala

He is usually understood through the process by which Sri Lanka became independent, by which Sri Lankans who had become Christians returned to their Buddhist origins: an entirely Sri Lankan context. But reading the diaries, I realized he spent 80–90% of his adult life living outside of Sri Lanka.

A brief look at the life of a famous Buddhist advocate as he understood it.

These were attempts in the first instance not to achieve liberation, but to revive the forest-dwelling way of life and re-establish hermitages, whence liberation could be sought. It is relatively recent history…

The biographies of several pioneering recluses.

Our times are characterized by the sheer intensity and spread of bhakti religion; and while it starts among the urban poor, it gets accepted by others as a reaction to the fundamentalism and the puritan ethics of Protestant Buddhism.

An analysis of the parallel threads of modern Sri Lankan Buddhism: the “rational,” European-inflected forms of the educated, upper classes and the Hindu-inflected “devotional” forms of the masses.

While much has continued to change in Sri Lanka in the decades since their field work, the book remains a solid introduction to the modern history of Buddhism in Ceylon.

social welfare activities conducted by nuns in Myanmar enhance their social and religious capital

I examine this change with the example of the Shwemyintzu nunnery founded in 1993 in the legacy of Daw Nyanacari.

• What is the relationship between peace and happiness?
• What are our responsibilities to each other?
• What is new about “modern” Buddhism?
• Why worship stupas?
• What’s the purpose of the monastic rules and ceremonies?
• What’s the difference between Samatha and Vipassanā?
• What about Thai Buddhism is essential and what is cultural?

In the same way, one who has attained to the ultimate truth sees that there’s no such thing as ‘religion.’ There is only a certain nature which can be called whatever we like. We can call it ‘Dhamma,’ we can call it ‘Truth,’ we can call it ‘God,’ ‘Tao,’ or whatever, but we shouldn’t particularize that Dhamma or that Truth as Buddhism, Christianity, Taoism, Judaism, Sikhism, Zoroastrianism, or Islam, for we can neither capture nor confine it with labels and concepts.

In this 1967 discussion with laywomen in Bangkok, Venerable Buddhadasa explores themes of religious pluralism, the nature of language, and the essence of religious experience. He presents the thought-provoking thesis that true awakening transcends conventional boundaries of religion, leading to a state of “no-religion.”

Every religion teaches unselfishness, the differences are merely in methodologies.

For his 80th birthday, known as his ‘Age Teasing Day,’ Tan Ajahn Buddhadāsa prepared a souvenir book for his students, outlining what he hoped his legacy would be.

This article will use the case study of nuns’ training programs to examine the revival of the sangha in Sri Lanka and the role of exchange among devotees of different traditions in Asia. By cross-tradition I am referring to different traditions such as, in this case, the Theravāda tradition in Sri Lanka and the Mahayana Chinese tradition in Taiwan.

In the past, the temple was the center for learning, where elders taught their grandchildren how to chant and pay respect to monks. But in contemporary Thailand, this system is quickly losing influence. Because of this, a number of strategies have recently developed to communicate Buddhist teachings to Thai youth. This paper investigates two significant strategies: private schools with Buddhist-inspired curricula and media targeted towards Thai youth.

youth initiatives have remained a popular vehicle for support and recruitment despite numerous criticisms and scandals over the past decades.

In a lecture which he gave in his monastery on the 12th of June 1971, Buddhadāsa criticised this Three Lifetimes Theory with sharp words. He compared this presentation of paṭiccasamuppāda with ‘cancer, an incurable tumour of Buddhist scholarship’.

These scholarly nuns elevate the standards of their Buddhist academies and use their original academic specializations to expand the educational curriculum of their school. The role of scholarly nuns in contemporary Taiwan exemplifies that Buddhism provides educational resources for women, as educational resources enhance women’s engagement in Buddhism.

… dependent origination in early Buddhism was transmuted from a causal chain binding beings to samsara—something to get free from—into contemporary interpretations of interdependence as a web of interconnected beings and events to celebrate, embrace, and become one with.

The early conception of dependent origination is first reframed in the Mahayana, through ideas such as interpenetration in the Avatamsaka Sutra and the reverence for the natural world in East Asia. The concept then picks up western influences from Romanticism, Transcendentalism, systems theory, deep ecology, and popular accounts of quantum physics. The recent synthesis of these elements is a hybrid concept of interdependence unique to contemporary Buddhism that combines cosmology and world-affirming wonder with ethical, political, and ecological imperatives.

Anyone who tries to emulate Buddhadasa, whichever life one has decided to lead, should first remember the authenticity in his life. Authenticity engenders humility because aspiring to any ideal can never be perfectly achieved.

A fascinating look at how Buddhadasa Bhikkhu responded to the challenges and opportunities of modernity in 20th century Thailand and provided an example able to inspire a new generation of Buddhists.

Creativity is a human exercise that is only possible when we are free.

A Korean, Buddhist philosopher talks about contemporary philosophy—Western and Eastern.

By the turn of the century, at least in Sri Lanka, the Buddhists no longer welcomed the white man who sought to speak on their behalf. They could speak for themselves, in English.

A snapshot of Buddhism in approximately the year 1900 of the Common Era (or 2444 After Nirvana).

The Kandy episode reflects Chulalongkorn’s self-image both as a Buddhist leader—a “defender of the faith”—and as a champion of rationalism. This dual self-fashioning remained an extremely strenuous exercise.

How some British-discovered relics made their way to Thailand.

For many Chinese speakers in China and elsewhere, experiencing or connecting with matters of religion often includes mediation through or with material objects. Such mediation is readily accessible to larger and larger audiences and often occurs through the consumption of religious material goods, thanks also to media technologies and the Internet. In this article, the author seeks to complicate the notion that the production and consumption of novel Buddhist religious goods can be analyzed solely in terms of ‘market theory.’ While on the one hand the author shows that Buddhist technologies of salvation are historically associated with materiality, she also contends that the ‘aura’ of Buddhist-inspired modern religious goods is not so much effaced as it is reconfigured and transformed by technological mediations.

The post-modern epistemic absolute is based on the belief that knowledge is intrinsically tied to identity. And consequently this belief embraces positionality and standpoint theories as valid theoretical and practical foundations for personal and communal education, or cultivation. These beliefs come to percolate contemporary Buddhist discourse more and more.

In this interview, Bhikkhunī Dhammadinnā discusses her paper for the 2021 TLKY International Conference. That paper focused on the dialogue between early Buddhism and postmodern discourse on ideas of self-identity, self-conceit, and the construction of first-person experience and whether liberation is truly subjective.

To present slowness and simplicity as prophetic counterpoints against the dizzying excesses of the contemporary metropolis; and to offer contemplative attentiveness as a therapeutic resource for life in the modern world.

This paper studies the ways that Walker, a short film by the Malaysian-Taiwanese auteur Tsai Ming-Liang, visualizes the relationship between Buddhism and modernity.

You can also watch on YouTube:

• a clip from the film discussed in this article
• a sped-up version of another film from the series
• and an interview with Ng about this article

Embarrassed the organizers were indeed, even dismayed, when they were showered with fervent thanks from the women participants for organizing such a wonderful spiritual experience…

This article discusses the modern reenactments of the Nunohashi kanjoe (the Cloth-Bridge Consecration [Initiation] rite) in Tateyama-cho, Toyama prefecture, and the religious and political issues they raised. Originally a popular Edo-period rite for women’s salvation, the Nunohashi kanjoe was obsolete for one hundred and thirty years, until it was reconstructed and performed as the main spectacle of the Culture Festival ibento (event) in Tateyama in 1996. A decade later, in 2005, 2006, and 2009, its reenactments were resumed as ceremonies of traditional healing. This paper follows the progression of these attempts at transforming a Buddhist ritual into a modern-day cultural event. It looks at the gap between the politics and purposes behind the reenactments of the rites, and the reactions of the women who participated in them. It further considers general issues illuminated by these reenactments, such as the nature and status of religious experiences, and the relations of religion and state in contemporary Japan.

As meat-eating has become normative in modern Japan and among the Japanese Buddhist clergy, a sacrificial rationale has replaced anti-meat-eating discourses that have remained a central feature of Buddhist identity in other parts of East Asia.

This article provides a close reading of Partaking of Life: The Day That Little Mii Becomes Meat, followed by historical contexts for Buddhist vegetarianism and discrimination against professions that rely on killing animals, particularly as these themes pertain to Jōdo Shin Buddhism. The essay ends on an analysis of Team Ichibanboshi’s sermon on Partaking of Life.

If as spiritual practitioners we ignore the discoveries of science, our practice is also impoverished…

Even as groups like the International Network of Engaged Buddhists are attempting to frame a unified Buddhist position on environmental issues, Buddhists in different places are interpreting and adapting Buddhist teachings in ways specific to and meaningful in each society. Can the efforts of Buddhists to develop and implement an environmental ethic or activism in one location be translated into other Buddhist societies?

If we don’t freeze to death in the winter and don’t die of hunger on the other days, that’s good enough.

A loving biography of a modern Chan Master who faced many challenges in his mission to revitalize authentic, Chinese Buddhism.

For his offical autobiography, see Footprints in the Snow (2008).

The first way to explain this unlikely fusion of merciful religion and a quite merciless modern creed is to remember to what degree the impact of Social Darwinism on early modern Korean intelligentsia was strong and lasting.

For many young intellectuals aspiring to understand the basic principles of the new, “enlightened and modern” world, Social Darwinism was to very high degree synonymous with “foreign thought” and “modernity” as such – the more so, as this creed was on the one hand totally unconnected to the ideologies of traditional time, having no analogues, not even very crude ones, among them, and on the other hand structurally close to orthodox Neo-Confucianism as a philosophy explaining both natural and social phenomena.

There is little in Kapleau’s book to suggest that his teachers were anything but respected members of orthodox Zen monastic orders. Yet such was not the case, for in 1954 Yasutani Hakuun 安谷白雲 (1885-1973), the Zen priest whose teachings are featured in The Three Pillars of Zen, severed his formal ties to the Soto school in order to establish an independent Zen organization called the Sanbokyodan 三宝教団, or “Three Treasures Association.”

The influence exerted by this contemporary lay reform movement on American Zen is out of proportion to its relatively marginal status in Japan: modern Rinzai and Soto monks are generally unaware of, or indifferent to, the polemical attacks that Yasutani and his followers direct against the Zen priesthood.

An excellent overview of the modern Zen sect and how its influential Koan practices contrast with more traditional Rinzai and Soto practice and training.

To practice meditation is to look deeply in order to see into the essence of things.

A translation and commentary on the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta by the renowned Vietnamese reformer.

For people trying to make sense of a religious perspective or simply questioning materialism, you should be looking at the missing heritability problem.

It was during this fertile period—[the seventh and eighth centuries, or] “early Chan”—that the lineage myths, doctrinal innovations, and distinctive rhetorical voice of the Chan, Zen, Son, and Thien schools first emerged. Although hundreds of books and articles have appeared on the textual and doctrinal developments associated with Chan, relatively little has been written on the distinctive meditation practices, if any, of this movement. This essay emerged from an attempt to answer a seemingly straightforward question: what kinds of meditation techniques were promulgated in early Chan circles? The answer, it turned out, involved historical and philosophical forays into the notion of “mindfulness”

… the integral, yet unacknowledged, role that Indians played in the making of modern global Buddhism in the century prior to Ambedkar’s conversion, and the numerous ways that Buddhism gave powerful shape to modern Indian history

Although we have acknowledged the mutually beneficial nature of the archetypal relationships between teacher and meditator, it is certainly the case that this ideal is often not met.

Despite the title, this book is not a standard primer and instead takes a more critical stance. For a more standard introduction, see King, 2009.

… the lives and thought of two rather different radical, Zen Buddhists of late Meiji Japan in order to discern whether and in what ways their progressive political ideals were influenced by Chan thought and practice.

Seno’o Giro’s personal pilgrimage spanned tradition and modernity, and took him from the political right to the extreme left such that in the vicissitudes of this one life is somehow recapitulated the whole dilemma of Japanese Buddhism since the Meiji Restoration. It highlights well the unresolved conflicts at the heart of modern liberal Buddhism.

What is meant by its central philosophical concept of “absolute nothingness,” and how did the Kyoto School philosophers variously develop this Eastern inspired idea in dialogue and debate with Western thought and with one another?

… two Buddhist responses to rising nationalism and the restriction of freedom of religion and thought

Buddhist denominations sought to inspire Koreans to become reacquainted with cultural heritage and internationals to learn about Buddhism. Temple stays were and continue to be promoted as a way to find one’s “true self” […] This burgeoning tourism niche attracted 70,910 internationals in 2017

Maureen and Sonam had an instinct that there must be a connection between the common gastric pain that Tibetans call Phowa and Helicobacter Pylori. With the backing of a specialist medical team in Australia, they’re here now to test that theory.

Ranjani de Silva has been described as the “person most responsible for the Theravāda bhikkhunī revival,” and “the prime mover in the re-establishment of the bhikkhunī sangha in Sri Lanka.” Yet her full story—including her account of the revival—had never [before] been told.

Pomp and ceremony opened the conference and then the activities settled into a daily pattern…

Its conveners outlined an ambitious set of objectives, including improved opportunities for women to study dharma and the establishment of a full bhikshuni ordination in the Theravada and Tibetan traditions. Central to Sakyadhita’s mission has been a series of biannual international conferences that provide opportunities for Buddhist women across cultures to come together to share their experiences and learn from each other. The interactions and exchanges that occur at these conferences highlight the issues and concerns the Buddhist women bring to a transnational forum, while also offering insight into the feasibility of Sakyadhita’s purpose.

… the Buddhist nuns’ revival movement fit into the broader women’s liberation discourse and the national modernization project

… expecting mindfulness teachers to stimulate political activism is not in keeping with relevant Buddhist antecedents

A response to Ron Purser.

The Buddhist Modernist Monk: a figure now familiar and beloved in American culture as an embodiment of compassion and rationality, yet with a history of prejudice and politics that has yet to be meaningfully explored.

How British and American antagonism to Catholicism shaped the English-speaking world’s engagement with Asia’s Buddhist traditions.

It is remarkable that there was a cosmology in Buddhism twenty-five centuries ago that doesn’t conflict with modern physics.

Ajahn Brahm explores how Buddhism and scientific inquiry aren’t opposed but complement each other.

Sōtō Zen temples in Japan kept necrologies in which the ancestors of outcaste members of their congregations were clearly identified, sometimes by derogatory titles such as “beast” or “less than human.” Indeed, Sōtō priests routinely allowed access to these memorial registers by private investigators, who perform background checks to insure that prospective marriage partners or company executives do not come from outcaste families.

After pledging to stop discriminating against “outcasts” in the late ’70s, the Sōtō Zen school in Japan is still grappling with the challenges of modernity.

Tzu Chi was founded in a small town in eastern Taiwan in 1966 by a lady who has become known by the title and name Master Cheng Yen (b.1937).

… although objects manufactured in factories for profit are not made or handled according to Buddhist tradition, the “aura” can be produced in different ways and at different points of an object’s life

… the first of the four major holy places of Buddhism, being where the person who was to become the Buddha was born.

A short history of Lumbini.

Dhammaloka’s life is a window into the relationships at the heart of empire, a glimpse into alternative possibilities of the struggle against colonialism. It is a way of thinking about the meaning of “Buddhism” at the start of its modern globalization. It is also, of course, a remarkable tale

The biography of a turn-of-the-century, plebeian agitator against the British colonial establishment and one of the first, Western monks.

You can hear an interview with Alicia Turner talking about the book on the New Books Network.

… when the Japanese kept insisting that Buddhism was a specific religion that originated in north India, westerners were puzzled. There was no cult of Buddha in India, and northern India in particular was largely Muslim.

On the early modern encounters between Europeans and Japanese Buddhists and how they shaped each other’s understanding of Asia.

… the discontinuity [with premodern forms of Buddhism] that the modernists emphasize is just that, an emphasis—it is less an observation than it is an ideologically motivated construction

An important note about how and why Western scholarship is reshaping the Buddhism it claims to study.

When we think about spiritual formation, I think it’s done best when it’s amplified through a community.

A full-throated defense of teaching children (and adults!) the Dharma as a “first language.”

Buddhism is not likely to be at variance with science so long as scientists confine themselves to their methodology and their respective fields without making a dogma of materialism.

When we adopt a Buddhist perspective on the wounds that afflict our world today, we soon realize that these wounds are symptomatic: a warning signal that something is fundamentally awry with the way we lead our lives.

You can also listen to this book on Pariyatti’s website.

… my main intention is to indicate a new approach to philosophy which the Buddha tends to suggest in the modern context

A pitch for taking Buddhist Philosophy seriously

The true success of Tzu-chi – not just growth in numbers but modern cultivation of the virtues of compassion – would have important implications for ecumenical engagement with the crises of modernity.

… the case of “youth Buddhism” in Ladakh highlights how youth play a vital role in the revitalization and reformation of [modern] Buddhism.

… this self-effacing, almost anonymous commentator’s proneness to being loved or hated, exalted or reviled, is certainly one of the least expected outcomes of Buddhist history.

… one traditional account of Buddhaghosa’s own death has the moribund commentator mentally revising the three meanings of the word ‘death’ while expiring, and it seems clear that this, rather than a parody of pedantic intellectualism, was intended as praise

On modern Theravāda’s ongoing struggle to appraise the legacy of their tradition’s greatest scholar.

He legitimised the secularisation of the modern Sangha and its interpretation of Buddhism as exclusively Sinhala

Watanabe did not envision a radical position for Buddhists on the issue of the ‘labour question’; rather, he imagined Buddhism as a harmonizing influence that could help avoid the pitfalls of unrestrained capitalism, on the one hand, and revolutionary socialism, on the other.

An early example of an “engaged Buddhist” reformer in early 20th century Japan.

What is the “otherwise” of modernism in Mongolia and Inner-Asia?

A sketch of the life and works of Zawa Damdin: a prolific, Mongolian historian who lived through—and theorized—the destruction of his tradition.

Like an object circling the sun, the visitor senses she is within the gravitational pull of a powerful entity.

An analysis of the Fo Guang Shan Buddha Museum’s immense Buddha statue and its rich dàochǎng 道場: a bodhimaṇḍala for the (postmodern) human realm.

… independence was perceived as an opportunity for a particular ethnic group

… the sudden wealth generated during Taiwan’s period of rapid economic development created a need to give that wealth meaning […] Ciji provided a way of adapting traditional Buddhist rhetoric and imagery to facilitate the move from traditional “almsgiving” to “modern scientific charity.”

From the 1920s, Vietnamese Buddhist reformers revitalized their religion, inspired in great part by the Chinese monk Taixu’s blueprint to modernize and systematize sangha education and temple administration, and by his idea of rénjiān fójiào, “Buddhism for this world”

On the transnational origins of “Engaged Buddhism”

Although the mediums and content have changed significantly, the methods used to instruct the Dhammapada have remained largely the same since the sixteenth century. Instruction still operates on a system of drawing selected Pali words from the text and offering expanded creative glosses and analogies to contemporary issues.

In the interests of conservatism it has had to compromise with modernity in such features as the veneer of bureaucratically efficient procedures and also the multiplication of interstitial roles. But the groups of devout men firmly penned into their quarters and lectured daily on the Jatakas pose no threat to traditional Buddhist order

Just as a river is geographically conditioned to flow in a certain direction, [compassionate] efforts are predetermined to move toward success (as sentient beings are endowed with Buddha nature). But just as a river will never dry up, their project will never end.

A lengthy summary of Tan Sitong’s 仁學 (Rénxué), which outlined his eclectic Buddhist defense of non-discriminating compassion’s agency in the unfolding of history, this paper shows how one Chinese philosopher grappled with the challenges of modernity emerging at his time and how his themes continue in the work of Buddhists such as Thich Nhat Hanh.

… the evidence found in early printed liturgical booklets that promote Buddha-vandanā points to a different kind of modernization. This article reveals how Buddhist activists in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries made use of the capabilities presented in the colonial context, including print technology, to promote this devotional ritual practice as a principal marker of a newly constructed Buddhist identity.

Engaged Buddhism is a contemporary form of Buddhism that engages actively yet nonviolently with the social, economic, political, social [sic], and ecological problems of society. At its best, this engagement is not separate from Buddhist spirituality, but is very much an expression of it.

We don’t doubt that the Buddha attained nibbāna, but we doubt very much that we can

In this illuminating interview, we see how this meme of the declining Dhamma gave rise to particular responses among Burmese Buddhists to British Colonialism and how those reactions helped to birth modern Buddhism.

It is not always easy to look into one’s own mind. Man generally fights shy of looking too closely into his own mind since the awareness of his own silent evil thinking upsets his good opinion of himself. Continued practice of mindfulness of thoughts will help the disciple to understand that his thoughts are not himself.

An excellent overview of the various kinds of mindfulness meditation practices and why everyone should engage in them.

Walpola Rahula’s book has had a dramatic impact on the shape of Buddhist thought in the West but its interest is far from merely historical: it remains one of the most lucid and sympathetic introductions available in English, even today. Recommended for newcomers to Buddhism or anyone looking for a solid grounding in Buddhist doctrine.

You can also find the book read out loud on YouTube, or you can order a physical copy of the book for free by contacting the Corporate Body of the Buddha Educational Foundation.