Hasil untuk "Buddhism"

Whatley, Katherine G.T.

This article tells the story of a diasporic Jewish family across generations, continents, and languages through a shared name—Katherine—showing how names serve as talismans, linking present and past. Centered on the author’s grandmother, a Hungarian Holocaust survivor who lived in Europe and Australia, and the author, raised in Japan, it explores how Jewish names act as markers of memory, identity, politics, and religion. The author argues that Jewish naming rituals reflect the diasporic, cosmopolitan nature of prewar Jewish society. She examines tensions between assimilation and non-assimilation, secularism and mysticism, nationalism and cosmopolitanism, advocating for a renewed sense of multilingual, cosmopolitan Jewish identity. Drawing on Judaism, Buddhism, and esoteric mysticism, the author presents multilingualism and cosmopolitanism as inherent strengths of Jewish diasporic life—and as vital in today’s world. Through her own translational upbringing and family history, she offers a deeply personal narrative intertwined with 20th-century upheavals and calls for a revival of prewar Jewish cosmopolitanism.

Robin Ghosh

Yutong Zheng

Humanistic Buddhism is one of the mainstreams of modern Buddhism, with special emphasis on the humanistic dimension. With the development of artificial intelligence (AI) technology, Humanistic Buddhism is also at an important stage of modernization and transformation, thus facing a continuous negotiation between religious values and technological innovations. This paper first argues that AI is technically beneficial to the propagation of Buddhism by citing several cases in which AI technology has been used in Buddhism. Then, by comparing Master Hsing Yun’s Buddhist ethics to “Posthuman” ethics, it points out that the theories of Humanistic Buddhism share similarities with AI and Posthuman ethics. Among them, Master Hsing Yun’s theory of “the nature of insentient beings” provides an important theoretical reference for the question of “whether AI can become a Buddha”. From the technical and ethical dimensions, it points out that the interaction between Humanistic Buddhism and AI can promote original uses or implementations of AI technology. However, it should also be noted that compared to the cases of “Artificial Narrow Intelligence”discussed in the paper, the “Strong AI” could lead to much more ethical crises. It is also likely to cause the cult of science and technology, and thus subvert the humanistic tradition of Buddhism with a new instrumental rationality. In addition, there are some potential pitfalls that Humanistic Buddhism may encounter when using AI. Hence, while it is necessary to encourage the use of technologies such as AI in contemporary Buddhism, it is also important for Buddhism to keep a critical distance from digital technologies.

Anilkumar Payyappilly Vijayan

Keeping three radical ideas of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, which have not been seriously dealt with by mainstream Indian/Kerala historiography, at the backdrop, namely, the Nagas and Dravidians are the same people, the untouchables were Buddhists, and India’s history as the history of mortal conflicts between Buddhism and Brahminism, the article attempts to study a Malayalam poem that has attained a classical status in the language, Poothapattu, to unravel the concealed layers of Kerala’s past. Drawing on the distinction the filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein establishes between the image and representation and on the insights provided by the Sangham Thinai conceptualizations, the article argues that in the Pootham image created by the Savarnna Malayalees, one could see sedimentation of history, where representations of the untouchable population of different historical moments are fused into a complex image, attesting to the veracity of Ambedkar’s radical ideas enumerated above.

Seyed Mehdi Taheri

The Indian subcontinent is considered one of the five ancient civilizations in the world and the inheritor of a magnificent and diverse culture. India, as the largest country in this subcontinent, is considered the seventh largest country in the world. Due to its strategic importance, this region has always been favored by people from other parts of the world. Regarding the relationship of other nations, races and religions with the people of the Indian subcontinent, they were able to influence the life and culture of the region. One of the distinctive features of this region is the existence of different religions and religious sects, among which Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam are the most important religions of the region. The mentioned religions have many sects in the region, and one of the important Islamic sects is Sufism, which has established a positive interaction with other religions by becoming indigenous in the subcontinent and peacefully coexisting. In this article, after discussing the potentials and capacities of the subcontinent region, the author tries to investigate issues such as the importance of peaceful coexistence in Islam, interring in Islam and Sufism to the subcontinent, different sects of Sufism and its peaceful coexistence with other religions. In this regard, the author believes that Sufism was able to influence Hindu seekers through familiarity with philosophical works, the type of worldview and interaction with mystics and also through the peaceful coexistence emphasized by Islam. By taking advantage of good morals, decent behavior and the call to philanthropy derived from Islam, not only did they gain great influence among the common people, but beyond that, throughout history, they were able to attract the devotion of kings and gain a lot of power in the courts of some rulers of India.

Q. Vuong, Quang-Khiem Bui, Viet-Phuong La et al.

Computational folkloristics, which is rooted in the movement to make folklore studies more scientific, has transformed the way researchers in humanities detect patterns of cultural transmission in large folklore collections. This interdisciplinary study contributes to the literature through its application of Bayesian statistics in analyzing Vietnamese folklore. By breaking down 307 stories in popular Vietnamese folktales and major story collections and categorizing their core messages under the values or anti-values of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism, the study shows how the Bayesian method helps discover an underlying behavioural phenomenon called “cultural additivity.” The term, which is inspired by the principle of additivity in probability, adds to the voluminous works on syncretism, creolization and hybridity in its technical dimension. Here, to evaluate how the values and norms of the aforementioned three religions (“tam giáo” 三教) co-exist, interact, and influence Vietnamese society, the study proposes three models of additivity for religious faiths: (a) no additivity, (b) simple additivity, and (c) complex additivity. The empirical results confirm the existence of “cultural additivity” : not only is there an isolation of Buddhism in the folktales, there is also a higher possibility of interaction or addition of Confucian and Taoist values even when these two religions hold different value systems (β{VT.VC} = 0.86). The arbitrary blend of the three religions is an example of the observed phenomenon of Vietnamese people selecting and adding ideas, beliefs, or artefacts—which may sometimes appear contradictory to principles of their existing beliefs—to their culture. The behavioural pattern is omnipresent in the sense that it can also be seen in Vietnamese arts, architecture, or adoption of new ideas and religions, among others. The “cultural additivity” concept, backed by robust statistical analysis, is an attempt to fill in the cultural core pointed out by syncretism and account for the rising complexity of modern societies.

Phon Mammani

The Sadàrasantosa refers to contentment with one’s own wife. It is considered as the doctrine of the stability and development of the family institution to have the noble living or Brahmacariya: a holy life. One should restrain from Akusala-kamma: or unwholesome action viz., evil deed; bad deed and should have the Sanyama or Self – Control, consisting within non-violence to oneself and others in the family and society. In addition, one should develop the doctrine of Drama: taming and training oneself and living with the heedfulness. The Sadàrasantosa can be defined as the family action plan which can build up the warm family, stability and peace.

Joesana Tjahjani, Sonya Sondakh

Bukit Kasih Kanonang (Kanonang Love Hill) is a place of worship for Christians of the Minahasa Regency, North Sulawesi, one of the provinces of Indonesia, which in its development has also become a popular tourist destination. As a site that blends Christian elements, local traditional elements and values of tolerance among the world’s major religions namely Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism, this beautiful piece of land includes a number of sites such as a monument to tolerance, a house of worship for each religion, a giant crucifix, statues, and the faces of Minahasan ancestors carved into cliff faces. All these elements suggest that while the people have values of tolerance and religious harmony, nonetheless the 55-meter giant white cross at Bukit Kasih Kanonang is evidence of the dominance of the local people’s Protestant Christian belief. Using the perspective of Hayden’s Antagonistic Tolerance, this paper investigates how people of other religions deal with the issue of dominance and how the social construct in the saying Torang Samua Basudara (we are all family), which has been the way of life of the Minahasan people, supports the concepts of tolerance and harmony.

Anna Halafoff, K. Lam, Cristina Rocha et al.

Buddhism was first established in Australia through flows of migrants in the mid-nineteenth century, and is currently Australia’s fourth-largest religion. Yet Buddhists have received significantly less scholarly attention than Christians, Jews and Muslims in Australia. Previous research conducted on Buddhism in Australia has also largely centered on the southern states, and on white Buddhists. This article shares findings of archival research on Buddhism in the far north of Australia, focused on Chinese, Japanese, and Sri Lankan communities working in mining, pearling, and sugar cane industries, pre-WWII. It documents the histories of exclusion, resistance and belonging experienced by Australia’s Buddhists in the far north of Australia pre-WWII, during times of colonial oppression and Japanese internment. In so doing, this article challenges dominant narratives of a white Christian Australia, and also of white Buddhism in Australia, by rendering Asian communities in scholarship on religion in Australia more visible.

Swāmi Prabhavananda

Renata Cueto de Souza, Charles Scott

Our paper addresses the so-called college mental health crisis and the adoption of the strategy of mindfulness-based interventions. We offer a critique of their underlying medical–therapeutic paradigm by engaging the notion of self-transcendence in Viktor Frankl’s Existential Analysis and Buddhism in dialogue. We argue that the current mindfulness movement has decontextualized and appropriated mindfulness from its Buddhist foundations in favor of a model that offers objectively verifiable biophysical and mental benefits. Self-transcendence, whether from the perspective of Buddhism or Frankl’s work, offers what we feel is an existentially viable path forward for college students, in lieu of the current paradigm promoted by those advocating use of these mindfulness-based interventions. We conclude by considering Existential and Buddhist notions of self-transcendence in dialogue, suggesting they offer an educational practice worthy of implementation.

Brian D. Somers

This thesis aims to consider some of the differences between mindfulness as a Buddhist practice and mindfulness-based programs. The primary difference considered is the individualistic perspectives taken by mindfulness-based programs. If modern mindfulness-based techniques are meant as a treatment for depression, and depression is in part caused by isolation then these programs must also consider mindfulness as a project, which does not accentuate the self as distinct from others. Personal salvation from deficits of the mind is a regular theme of modern mindfulness. This initial goal-oriented, self-interested perspective is potentially threatening to a depressed person who secludes her- or himself in a private world of the “fix it” self-project. With interdependent origination (緣起) as a tenet and the sangha (僧) as one of the three jewels (三寶), Buddhism emphasizes community where salvation is defined as the liberation of all beings from suffering. Therefore, this thesis suggests that mindfulness practices initiated from a self-help perspective are troubled to the extent that they isolate the practitioner. Therefore, a Buddhist interpretation of modern mindfulness, especially regarding individualism and isolation as a cause of depression, is desirable.

N. N. Trubnikova, M. V. Babkova

“Konjaku monogatari-shu”, a collection of Japanese Buddhist setsuwa tales composed in XII c., has been studied by Japanese scholars using Western methodology from the end of XIX and the beginning of XX cc. That is also the time when Western scholars start mentioning it in their works. From the very beginning untill recent times publications dealing with “Konjaku” gave special attention to the appraising of the text: the authors speculated if we could put this record amidst other chefs d’oeuvres of Japanese literature, its main outcomes? Review of those speculations shows us some particularities of the history of XX c. Japanese studies. Depending on the period when this of those study was made we can find there problems of the origins of “Konjaku”, should they be found in folklore or in the literature, of the religious and artistic tasks of “Konjaku”. The answers to all these questions are determinative to a large extent for the suggestions made by scholars about the circumstances of creation of “Konjaku”, its author(s), its composition in the whole and the meaning of its particular tales.

Jack Meng-Tat Chia

Mention “Southeast Asian Buddhism” and what comes to mind is often Theravāda Buddhism, the dominant religion in the mainland Southeast Asian states of Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and Thailand [...]

Wei-Yi Cheng

This paper introduces the works of two Vietnamese Buddhist nuns in Taiwan. They both envision a permanent or long-term stay in Taiwan and have purchased properties to function as their temples. They provide services to the Vietnamese diaspora. Special attention will be given to the discussion of gender role in the transmission of Vietnamese Buddhism to Taiwan and an assessment of what Buddhist feminist Rita Gross calls “the prison of gender role” in the works the nuns conduct.

Nicolas Levi, Roman Husarski

This paper explores the significance of the legacy of Buddhism in North Korea. Our primary concerns in the North Korean context are twofold: the presence of Buddhism in North Korean culture and the role of Buddhism in North Korea cultural and propaganda policy. We argue that the religious revival in North Korea seen from the 1970s onwards was part of a project created by the Workers’ Party of Korea and had certain political goals. Fieldwork and analysis of sources revealed that the North Korean state has used Buddhism to repair the country’s international image by creating a facade of religious freedom to promote tourism and as a part of policies towards unification. While seemingly peripheral, Buddhism still has relevance at state and social levels in North Korea.

Tiziano Bielli

P Fuller is a Teaching Fellow in Buddhist Studies at the University of Edinburgh whose research focuses on early Buddhist philosophy, modern Buddhism, ‘views’ (ditthi) in the Pali canon, belief and attachment in modern forms of Buddhism, and blasphemy, as well as ethnicity and nationalism in engaged Buddhism. The theme of dialogue is the focus of his soon-to-be-published volume, co-authored with DavidWebster, entitledWaiting for Gotama: A set of Buddhist dialogues (Fuller andWebster in press). In this work, two monks explore key Buddhist ideas through a series of chance meetings. His ability to bring people, texts and ideas into dialogue is also at work in the volume being reviewed here.

Yaoqin Li, Xichan Chen, Wanli Li et al.

PurposeThis study explores whether and how Buddhism impacts corporate cash holdings. Buddhist culture affects investors' perception of how cash is deployed and then influences corporate cash holdings. This study first examines the impact of Buddhism on corporate cash holdings and then investigates whether formal governance mechanisms such as legal institutions and institutional ownership influence the relationship between Buddhism and corporate cash holdings.Design/methodology/approachThe authors conduct empirical tests with data on Chinese listed companies between 2006 and 2019. Buddhism is measured with the natural logarithm of the number of Buddhist temples within a radius of a certain distance around a firm's headquarters. The authors adopt the OLS method to regress and take the 2SLS method, Heckman selection model and FEVD approach to address the endogeneity issue.FindingsThe results show a positive relationship between Buddhism and corporate cash holdings. This positive relation is more prominent for firms located in regions with weak legal institutions and for firms with low institutional ownership. Further analysis shows that Buddhism works through the channel of alleviating agency problems and finally improves the value of cash to investors.Research limitations/implicationsThe authors’ findings have important implications. First, this study provides inspiration for incorporating the ethical values of traditional cultures, such as Buddhism, into the corporate governance system. Second, the findings imply that informal institutions can influence corporate financial decisions beyond the effect of formal institutions, suggesting that informal systems should be emphasized when dealing with business affairs in countries where legal institutions are relatively weak. Third, the results suggest the significance of encouraging research on religious culture to explore its active role in corporate governance.Originality/valueThis study illustrates the positive value of religious culture in advancing corporate governance by relating Buddhism to corporate cash holdings based on the explanation of investors' perception. It makes a marginal contribution to the literature that investigates the determinants of cash policies and explores the firm-level consequences of religious culture, adding to the research area of culture and corporate finance.

Stephen Batchelor

This essay explores the possibility of a complete secular redefinition of Buddhism. It argues that such a secular re-formation would go beyond modifying a traditional Buddhist school, practice or ideology to make it more compatible with modernity, but would involve rethinking the core ideas on which the very notion of “Buddhism” is based. Starting with a critical reading of the four noble truths, as presented in the Buddha’s first discourse, the author proposes that instead of thinking of awakening in terms of “truths” to be understood one thinks of it in terms of “tasks” to be accomplished. Such a pragmatic approach may open up the possibility of going beyond the belief-based metaphysics of classical Indian soteriology (Buddhism 1.0) to a praxis-based, post-metaphysical vision of the dharma (Buddhism 2.0).