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Four Early Schools

Four Early Schools. Early Focus on Texts. Buddhism = Texts Receptacles of eternal truth Ahistorical vacuum Philology Compiling, editing, translating Sanskrit, Pali , Chinese Scientific methodology. Later Expansion. Main Developments. Move from Text to Context

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Four Early Schools

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  1. Four Early Schools

  2. Early Focus on Texts • Buddhism = Texts • Receptacles of eternal truth • Ahistorical vacuum • Philology • Compiling, editing, translating • Sanskrit, Pali, Chinese • Scientific methodology

  3. Later Expansion

  4. Main Developments • Move from Text to Context • Placing text in context through Social Sciences • Interest in Social, Cultural and Intellectual history • Inclusion of popular culture, not just elites • Innovations • Engaged Buddhism • Buddhism and Science • Use of Information Technology

  5. From Text to Context

  6. 3 New Developments

  7. 1). Engaged Buddhism (‘Humanistic Buddhism’) • Taiwan, rejection of ‘funerary Buddhism’ • Tsu Chi Foundation (Chen Yeng) • FoGuang Shan (HsinYun) • Vietnam (Thich Nhat Hanh) • Tibet, Dalai Lama • Western ecology and political activism

  8. ThichNhatHanh • Socially Engaged Buddhism consists of: • 1) awareness in daily life • 2) social service • 3) social activism

  9. The Engaged Buddhist Agenda

  10. Politics • Harris, I. C. (1999). Buddhism and politics in twentieth-century Asia. New York, Continuum. • Harris, I. C. (2005). Cambodian Buddhism : history and practice. Honolulu, University of Hawai'i Press. • Harris, I. C. and Becket Institute. (2007). Buddhism, power and political order. London ; New York, Routledge.

  11. Peace and Conflict • Victoria, Brian (1998) Zen at War. • Bartholomeusz, T. J. (2002). In Defence of Dharma. Just-war ideology in Buddhist Sri Lanka. • Harris, E. J. (2003). ‘Buddhism and the Justification of War: A Case Study from Sri Lanka.’ Just War in Comparative Perspective. P. Robinson. • Xue, Yu. (2005). Buddhism, war, and nationalism: Chinese monks in the struggle against Japanese aggressions, 1931-1945. • Jerryson, M. K. and M. Juergensmeyer (2010). Buddhist warfare.

  12. Social Commentary • “In a time when most Buddhist leaders seem up in the clouds and most political leaders seem lacking in moral imagination, Nichtern represents the wisdom of the in between”

  13. 2). Buddhism and Science • Goal of ‘seeing things as they truly are’ • Methods of investigation, observation, reasoning • Causal explanation and generalization based on natural laws and regularities • Openness to critique and revision

  14. a). Neuroscience • Varela, Francisco J., Evan T. Thompson, and Eleanor Rosch, The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience (1992) • Austin, James H., Zen and the Brain: Toward an Understanding of Meditation and Consciousness (1999) • Dalai Lama, Consciousness at the Crossroads: Conversations with the Dalai Lama on Brain Science and Buddhism (1999) • Wallace, B. Alan, Choosing Reality: A Buddhist View of Physics and the Mind (2003) • _____ ed. Buddhism and Science: Breaking New Ground (2003) • _____ Contemplative Science: Where Buddhism and Neuroscience Converge (2006) • _____ Hidden Dimensions: The Unification of Physics and Consciousness (2007)

  15. b) Quantum Physics • The ‘God particle’ • Fritjof Capra, The Tao of Physics (1992) • Ricard, Matthieu, and Trinh XuanThuan, The Quantum and the Lotus: A Journey to the Frontiers Where Science and Buddhism Meet (2004). • Dalai Lama, The New Physics and Cosmology: Dialogues with the Dalai Lama (2004) • Lopez, Donald S., Buddhism and Science: A Guide for the Perplexed (2008)

  16. c) Transhumanism • Psychopharmaceuticals as an aid to self-transformation? • Enlightenment in a pill? • Systems biology • “[s]afe and effective cognitive enhancers will benefit both the individual and society” Henry Greely, (bioethicist and neuroscientist) Nature 2008, p. 705.

  17. Upload yourself to Google? • Ray Kurzweil - director of engineering at Google - claims that by 2045 humans will be able to upload their entire minds to computers and become digitally immortal - an event called singularity. He made the statement at the Global Futures 2045 International Congress in New York, June 2013.

  18. 3). Digital Buddhism

  19. IT Resources • Digital editions of texts in major languages • Catalogues (UCBT), databases, dictionaries • Archives of photographs, films, maps • Textbooks, Kindle • Huntington Archive of Buddhist and Related Art • Frederick Williamson Collection (films) • Journal of Buddhist Ethics, Journal of Global Buddhism, JIATS, etc • Buddhism: the eBook

  20. Networking/Globalization • Institutional Networks • Buddhist Universities • IABU 2007 (59 members) • Increased numbers of Postgraduate students with diverse interests • Distance learning • Social Networks • Buddhist websites • Cybersangha • Facebook, YouTube • Ebooks, Ejournals,Blogs

  21. The Future

  22. Guiding Global Convergence • New techniques for the transformation of consciousness • New values for the transformation of society • New models for the development of science

  23. New Eyes • Look at the texts with new eyes, better understanding of the context • Move beyond ‘commentaries on commentaries’ • Dialogue with the texts

  24. A New Style of Buddhism? • Society • More engagement and critique • Monasteries • Move from inner cultivation to outer transformation

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