The unprecedented number of global crises is casting a shadow on the future of humanity, all of which seem to augur that the dharma-ending age (mofa 末法) described in Buddhist classics is now silently approaching us. At this crossroad, the climate crisis may wield the most immediate impacts for the world. Buddhism may prove to […]
This lecture will explore the Western reception of the Zhuangzi, a foundational text of the Chinese philosophical tradition and the cornerstone of Daoist thought, and how the early European encounters with South and East Asian religious traditions profoundly shaped the development of modern Orientalism and expansion of Western religious perspectives.
Almost all scholars of East Asian Buddhism refer to Buddhists’ books as either the “Three Baskets” or the “canon”. But either term denotes a collection of thousands of individual books, whether in manuscript or printed form. Many premodern Japanese Buddhist temple librarians used another term, shōgyō 聖教 (shengjiao), possibly meaning the noble teachings. This presentation will explore […]
This presentation focuses on the collection Fa Yuan Zhu Lin compiled by the Tang Dynasty’s Buddhist scholar Daoshi, and explores the role of Fa Yuan Zhu Lin in the canonization of Buddhist stories, focusing on the Jātaka (Buddha’s past life stories), purgatory, and supernatural stories. The Jātaka stories can be divided into types such as treasure hunting in the […]
There has been a surge of interest in earlier meditation techniques as well as in Theravāda meditation, particularly vipassanā, throughout the Sinitic world over the past few decades. These Theravāda-inspired meditation techniques, whether rediscovered in canonical scriptures or newly introduced from South-East Asia, retain the allure of being early Buddhist practices and are welcomed as such […]
The FROGBEAR project is a research and training network that fosters scholarship of East Asian religions through field visits, skill building, study, and knowledge sharing. Since the project’s inception in 2016, our international teams of researchers have identified new textual and visual sources preserved in East Asia. The research clusters have surveyed key sites of […]
Curiosity moves us. Determination gets us there—because progress doesn’t happen on its own. See how we push forward.
