Theories of the Self, Race, and Essentialization in Buddhism PDF Download

Author: Ryan Anningson
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 100041163X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 243

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Book Description
This book analyzes Buddhist discussions of the Aryan myth and scientific racism and the ways in which this conversation reshaped Buddhism in the United States, and globally. The book traces the development of notions of Aryanism in Buddhism through Buddhist publications from 1899-1957, focusing on this so-called "yellow peril," or historical racist views in the United States of an Asian "other." During this time period in America, the Aryan myth was considered to be scientific fact, and Buddhists were able to capitalize on this idea throughout a global publishing network of books, magazines, and academic work which helped to transform the presentation of Buddhism into the "Aryan religion." Following narratives regarding colonialism and the development of the Aryan myth, Buddhists challenged these dominant tropes: they combined emic discussions about the "Aryan" myth and comparisons of Buddhism and science, in order to disprove colonial tropes of "Western" dominance, and suggest that Buddhism represented a superior tradition in world historical development. The author argues that this presentation of a Buddhist tradition of superiority helped to create space for Buddhism within the American religious landscape. The book will be of interest to academics working on Buddhism, race and religion, and American religious history.

Author: Ann Gleig
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197539033
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 561

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Book Description
The Oxford Handbook of American Buddhism offers the most comprehensive and up-to-date scholarship available on Buddhism in America. It charts the history and diversity of Buddhist communities, including traditions and communities that have been previously neglected, and looks at the ways in which Buddhist practices such as mindfulness meditation have been adopted in non-Buddhist settings.

Author: Scott A. Mitchell
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197641563
Category : Buddhism
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
As of 2010, there were approximately 3-4 million Buddhists in the United States, and that figure is expected to grow significantly. Beyond the numbers, the influence of Buddhism can be felt throughout the culture, with many more people practicing meditation, for example, than claiming Buddhist identity. A century ago, this would have been unthinkable. So how did Buddhism come to claim such a significant place in the American cultural landscape? The Making of American Buddhism offers an answer, showing how in the years on either side of World War II second-generation Japanese American Buddhists laid claim to an American identity inclusive of their religious identity. In the process they-and their allies-created a place for Buddhism in America. These sons and daughters of Japanese immigrants-known as "Nisei," Japanese for "second-generation"-clustered around the Berkeley Bussei, a magazine published from 1939 to 1960. In the pages of the Bussei and elsewhere, these Nisei Buddhists argued that Buddhism was both what made them good Americans and what they had to contribute to America-a rational and scientific religion of peace. The Making of American Buddhism also details the behind-the-scenes labor that made Buddhist modernism possible. The Bussei was one among many projects that were embedded within Japanese American Buddhist communities and connected to national and transnational networks that shaped and allowed for the spread of modernist Buddhist ideas. In creating communities, publishing magazines, and hosting scholarly conventions and translation projects, Nisei Buddhists built the religious infrastructure that allowed the later Buddhist modernists, Beat poets, and white converts who are often credited with popularizing Buddhism to flourish. Nisei activists didn't invent American Buddhism, but they made it possible.

Author: Hyangsoon Yi
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1040124070
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 235

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Book Description
Buddhism, Digital Technology and New Media in Korea introduces Ŭisang (625–702), a seminal figure in East Asian religion who founded the Korean Hwaŏm school of Buddhism, from various angles by placing his thought in the interdisciplinary and intercultural context of the twenty-first century. The book analyzes the scope of Ŭisang’s teachings through a study of his Ocean Seal Diagram with reference to digital technology and poetics. It attempts to identify diverse intersections between Ŭisang’s thought and Western ideas, elucidating the diagram’s potential as a meta-theory applicable to various academic fields in view of unprecedented changes in human life brought forth by the digital revolution. Contributors to the book present comprehensive and in-depth analyses of the dynamic applicability as well as persistent traits of the Ocean Seal Diagram in the AI era. Inspired by the creative potential of the diagram, the chapters unravel the points of agreement and disagreement between Hwaŏ Buddhism and contemporary intellectual currents, promising to take a transregional and transhistorical dialogue to the new level suitable to the ever-changing digitalized global environment. This book will be of interest to researchers in a wide range of disciplines such as Religious Studies, Philosophy, Korean Studies, Media Studies, Cultural Studies, Digital Humanities, Anthropology, and Globalization Studies, among others.

Author: Jørn Borup
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1003817629
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 205

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Book Description
Decolonising the Study of Religion analyses historical and contemporary discussions in the study of religion and Buddhism and critically investigates representations, possibilities, and challenges of a decolonial approach, addressing the important question: who owns Buddhism? The monograph offers a case-based perspective with which to examine the general study of religion, where new challenges require reflection and prospects for new directions. It focuses on Buddhism, one religion which has been studied in the West for centuries. Building on postcolonial theories and supplemented with a critical analysis of identity and postsecular engagement, the book offers new possibilities and challenges to the study of religion. It critically investigates decolonisation in the study of religion, subscribing to a third way between ‘objectivist’ and ‘subjectivist’ positions. Analysing the postcolonial and decolonial critique of the study of religion, with a particular focus on Buddhist studies in the West and in Japan, this book will be of interest to researchers in the field of Religious Studies, Buddhism, Japanese religions, anthropology, Asian Studies and those interested in religion and decolonisation.

Author: Youru Wang
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1040109276
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 314

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Book Description
This book investigates the various meanings of forgetting and their ethical dimension in the Daoist classic Zhuangzi. It responds to recent scholarship in the study of the ethics of forgetting, which has only emerged within the past two decades in the wake of the widespread memory-studies of the late 20th century. This book accomplishes two goals: First, it assimilates insights from contemporary scholarship, and specifically applies Ricoeur’s three areas of ethical examinations of forgetting, to the study of the Zhuangzi. It addresses a wide range of ethical themes related to acts of forgetting, such as the meaning of well-being and healing, the issue of personal identity and relational autonomy, the norm of spontaneity, naturalness and suitability, the capacities for being empathic, altruistic and responsive to others, and the values of accommodation, receptivity and all-inclusive friendliness. Second, it places forgetfulness in the wider context of the Zhuangzi’s ethical inquiry, and offers a novel understanding of this age-old notion and its exegetic tradition, bringing them into dialogue with Western philosophy and contributing to contemporary discourse on the ethics of forgetting. The first book to present a comprehensive examination on the ethical dimension and meanings of forgetting or forgetfulness in the Daoist philosophy of the Zhuangzi, this monograph will be of interest to researchers in Asian philosophy, religion and culture, moral philosophy or ethics, the study of memory and forgetting, and comparative or cross-cultural philosophy and ethics.

Author: M H Ilias
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000606007
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 278

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Book Description
This book explores some of the political and methodological directions that collectively lead to the repositioning of Islam in social science research as both an epistemic/ontological category and as a method. Chapters by experts in the field explore research in the Islamic context vis-à-vis these two distinct yet somehow interrelated frames. The question being raised here is how Islam as socio-religious notion is related to Islam as a theoretical/methodological framework. Taking cues from the experience of contributors, this book also examines the question if current methodologies or frames of references are pluralized enough to accommodate the question of Muslims or could the scholars themselves create alternative directions around the dominant spaces. The book offers ethnographic studies of Muslim communities mostly in minority settings and engages with a number of issues researchers encounter when dealing with the lived or everyday Islam. This book is essential reading for anyone engaged in the study of Muslims in the contemporary world. It will appeal to scholars of religious studies, studies of Islam in the West, anthropology, sociology, cultural studies, human geography, and research methods.

Author: Ming Dong Gu
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000916359
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
This book initiates a paradigm shift away from Zen/Chan as quintessentially Buddhist and examines what makes Chan thought and practice unique and original through an interdisciplinary investigation of the nature and rationale of Chan and its enlightenment. Exploring how enlightenment is achieved through Chan practice and how this differs from other forms of Buddhism, the book offers an entirely new view of Chan that embraces historical scholarship, philosophical inquiry, textual analysis, psychological studies, Chan practice, and neuroscientific research and locates the core of Chan in its founder Huineng’s theory of no thinking which creatively integrates the Taoist ideas of zuowang (forgetting in seated meditation) and xinzhai (fast of heart-mind) with his personal experiences of enlightenment. It concludes that Chan is the crystallization of an innovative synthesis of Buddhism, Daoism, and Confucianism as well as other resources of somatic and spiritual cultivation, and that enlightenment is a momentary return to the mental state of a baby before birth. This book will appeal to students and scholars of religion, philosophy, and neuroscience. It will also offer new insights to thinkers, writers, artists, therapists and neuroscientists as well as those practicing Zen, Mindfulness, and psychotherapy.

Author: Christopher Moxham
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000784878
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 147

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Book Description
This book analyses faith-based development action in the Philippines by studying Catholic social movements and development studies in Southeast Asia. By drawing upon primary, qualitative data, this book examines cultural production and community resilience amid poverty and structural restraints. It also interrogates the discourse of Basic Ecclesial Communities, the smallest organizational unit of the Philippine Catholic Church, to better understand the strengths and weaknesses of the social movement. The author shows that the dream of local economic development and empowerment requires help from the Catholic hierarchy, particularly the organizational and leadership resources at the diocese level. This book is a unique contribution in opening up interdisciplinary approaches to religion, faith, and social development. It will be of interest to researchers on Asian Studies, especially Southeast Asian Studies, Development Studies, the Anthropology of Development, Social Movements, and the Anthropology of Christianity, Missiology, and Religious Studies.

Author: Michel Boivin
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000985962
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 294

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Book Description
Inter-religious Practices and Saint Veneration in the Muslim World studies the immortal saint Khidr/Khizr, a mysterious prophet and popular multi-religious figure and Sufi master venerated across the Muslim world. Focusing on the religious figure of Khidr/Khizr and the practice of religion from Middle East to South Asia, the chapters offer a multi-disciplinary analysis. The book addresses the plurality in the interpretation of Khizr and underlines the unique character of the figure, whose main characteristics are kept by Muslims, Christians, Hindus and Sikhs. Chapters examine vernacular Islamic piety and intercommunal religious practices and highlight the multiples ways through which Khidr/Khizr allows a conversation between different religious cultures. Furthermore, Khidr/Khizr is a most significant case study for deciphering the complex dialectic between the universal and the local. The contributors also argue that Khidr/Khizr played a leading role in the process of translating a religious tradition into the other, in incorporating him through an association with other sacred characters. Bringing together the different worship practices in countries with a very different cultural and religious background, the study includes research from the Balkans to the Punjabs in Pakistan and in India. It will be of interest to researchers in History, Anthropology, Sociology, Comparative Religious Studies, History of Religion, Islamic Studies, Middle Eastern Studies, South Asian Studies and Southeast European Studies.