Instructor: Jamie Hubbard; Seelye 33a, ext. 3449

Office Hours: Tuesday and Thursday, 1:30 - 2:30 & by design

Required readings:
Gunapala Dharmasiri, Fundamentals of Buddhist Ethics (Paradise Copies)
Thich Nhat Hanh, Being Peace
Dalai Lama, A Policy of Kindness
The Politics of Enlightenment Reader, a Coursepack available at Paradise Copies.

Requirements:

• Takehome midterm: Total 25% of your final grade.

• Projects & papers: two research papers are required; the first will be a written report on the current status of Buddhism in one of the countries not covered in class; this paper will be presented in class; the second paper will be a report and analysis of one aspect of "American Buddhism" such as the transmission and enculturation of Buddhism within a particular community, the impact of Buddhism on popular culture, Buddhism and Western feminism, immigrant Buddhism, etc. This paper is due the last day of class. Each paper will comprise 30% of your final grade.

• Attendance and Participation: Regular attendance and informed participation in discussions is expected; we will also take one field trip to a Cambodian temple and to the Peace Pagoda on a Saturday (date yet to be arranged); total 15% of final grade.

Tuesday, 01/26: Introduction; Religion, society, and politics; Buddhism and transcendence; the contemporary Buddhist landscape
 

Thursday, 01/28: Doctrinal foundations: interdependence
Buddhist Ethics, chapters 1-2; COURSEPACK: Thich Nhat Hanh, "Interbeing" and "The Sun My Heart;" Recommended: Engaged Buddhist Reader, Parts 1 & 2

Tuesday, 02/02: Action; good and evil; compassion; enlightenment
Buddhist Ethics, chs. 3-5, 11, 12 (pp. 109-115); COURSEPACK: Dalai Lama, "Cultivating Altruism;" "Equalizing and Exchanging Oneself With Others"

Thursday, 02/04: Monasticism; monastic rules; monastic economy
Buddhist Ethics, ch. 9; COURSEPACK: Thurman, "Monasticism and Civilization"; Recommended: Engaged Buddhist Reader, Part 5.
Film: Preserving the Monastic Tradition

Tuesday, 02/9: Buddhism and society: renunciant and householder; Buddhist laity; merit
Buddhist Ethics, chs. 6-7; COURSEPACK: "On Progressive Teachings;" Spiro, Buddhism and Society, pp. 66--70, 92-113; from the Nirvana Sutra on stupas; "Buddhadasa: A Modern Sermon on Merit Making," by Donald Swearer

Thursday, 02/11: Mah„y„na Buddhism: the altruistic ideal of the bodhisattva
Buddhist Ethics, ch. 10; Recommended: Engaged Buddhist Reader, Part 3.

Tuesday, 02/16: Mah„y„na Buddhist doctrine: emptiness and society
Buddhist Ethics, ch. 12 (pp. 115-124); COURSEPACK: Robert Thurman, "Guidelines for Buddhist Social Activism" from Eastern Buddhist, pp. 19-51.
Film: Walking Meditation

Thursday, 02/18: Social and political setting of the early Buddhist church
COURSEPACK: Romila Thaper, "Ethics, Religion, and Social Protest in the First Millennium B.C. in Northern India" from Daedalus, pp. 119-132.

Tuesday, 02/23: Models of Buddhist rulers: Asoka, Empress Wu, and Emperor Shomu
Buddhist Ethics, chapter 8; COURSEPACK: Thurman, "Edicts of Asoka" from The Path of Compassion, pp. 66-72; Diana Paul, "Empress Wu and the Historians: A Tyrant and Saint of Classical China" from Unspoken Worlds, pp. 145-154; "Emperor Shomu and the Kokubunji system" from Alicia and Daigan Matsunaga, Foundations of Japanese Buddhism, part I, pp. 120-123.

Thursday, 02/25: Buddhism and the state in Tibet: The Mythic Kingdom of Shangri-la
COURSEPACK: Lobsang Lhalungpa, "Tibetan History," from White Lotus, chapter 1 (31-44); Robert Thurman, "Tibet and the Monastic Army of Peace" from Inner Peace, World Peace, 77-90; Recommended: Prisoners of Shangri-la, ch. 7.

Tuesday, 03/02: The Buddhist Response to the Chinese occupation of Tibet
Dalai Lama, A Policy of Kindness, chs. 5, 7, 10-13, 15, 16; COURSEPACK: Anne Klein, "Contemporary Tibet: Cultural Genocide in Progress" from White Lotus, chapter 2 (209-216);
FILM: Satya

Thursday, 03/04: Buddhist evangelism and the state in Japan: Nichiren, Sokka Gakkai and the Komeito (Clean Government Party)
COURSEPACK: Jamie Hubbard, "Buddhist-Buddhist Dialog? The Lotus Sutra and the Polemic of Accommodation" from Buddhist-Christian Studies; "Nichiren the Evangelist"; Readings on Nichiren and Nichirensho-shu from the Encyclopedia of Religion (pp. 425-430);

Tuesday, 03/9: Prophets, Clergy, and Laity: The Nichiren excommunication of the Sokka Gakkai
COURSEPACK: Anson Shupe, "Militancy and Accommodation in the Third Civilization: The Case of Japan's Soka Gakkai," from Prophetic Religions and Politics; Daniel A. Metraux, "The Dispute Between the Soka Gakkai and the Nichiren Shoshu Priesthood: A Lay Revolution Against a Conservative Clergy" from Japanese Journal of Religious Studies

TAKEHOME MIDTERM DUE 3/11

Thursday, 03/11: Post-colonial turmoil: The dislocation of the traditional and Buddhist nationalism
Buddhist Ethics, appendix, "Buddhism and the Modern World"; COURSEPACK: Learning True Love by Sister Chan Khong, pp. 3-48.

Tuesday, 03/16: Spring Break
Thursday, 03/18: Spring Break

Tuesday, 03/23: The "monk's war" in Vietnam
Thict Nhat Han, Being Peace, entire
FILM: The Awakening Bell

Thursday, 03/25: Cambodia: Buddhist socialism
COURSEPACK: Suksamran, "The Buddhist Concept of Political Authority and Society as Basis to Rebuild the Khmer Society and Nation" from Buddhism and the Future of Cambodia.

Tuesday, 03/30: Project reports

Thursday, 04/01: Project reports

Tuesday, 4/6: Elite and ethnic Buddhism in America: import, export and baggage
COURSEPACK: Jan Nattier, "Visible and Invisible: The Politics of Representation in Buddhist America" from Tricycle 5/1; Recommended: The Faces of Buddhism in America, esp. chs. 10-11.
FILM: Rebuilding the Temple

Thursday, 4/8: Racial, religious, and cultural conflict: Buddhism in the heartland
COURSEPACK: Victor Hori, "Sweet and Sour Buddhism," from Tricycle; Recommended: The Faces of Buddhism in America, esp. ch. 8.
FILM: Blue Collar and Buddha

Tuesday, 04/13: Buddhism and Rights
COURSEPACK: Taitetsu Unno, "Personal Rights and Contemporary Buddhism" from Human Rights and the Worlds Religions, pp. 129-147 and Robert Thurman, "Social and Cultural Rights in Buddhism" from Human Rights and the Worlds Religions, pp. 148-163; Journal of Budhist Ethics; Recommended: Engaged Buddhist Reader, Part 6.

Thursday, 04/15: The academic study and re-presentation of Buddhism" to the West
COURSEPACK: Robert H. Sharf, "The Zen of Japanese Nationalism" from Curators of the Buddha, pp. 107-160; Donald Lopez, "New Age Orientalism: The Case of Tibet" from Tricycle; Recommended: Prisoners of Shangri-la, ch. 6; The Faces of Buddhism in America, chs. 5 & 12.

Tuesday, 04/20: Issho Fujita: On Teaching Nothing to Americans
Readings: TBA

Thursday, 04/22: Buddhism and women: the tradition
COURSEPACK: Heng-ching Shih, "The Potentialities of Women in the Mah„y„na Vehicle" from Sakyadh‡t„, 91-102; The Goddess from the Vimalakirti Sutra; "Ordination as a Buddhist Nun" from Sakyadh‡t„, pp. 53-78; readings from the Therigatha; Sally King, "Awakening Stories of Zen Buddhist Women."
FILM: Choice for a Chinese Woman: Enlightenment in a Buddhist Convent.

Tuesday, 04/27: Buddhism and women: contemporary critique
COURSEPACK: Rita Gross, "Buddhism and Feminism: Toward Their Mutual Transformation," parts. I & II from Eastern Buddhist, pp. 44-58; pp. 62-75; ; Recommended: The Faces of Buddhism in America, ch. 14.

Thursday, 04/29: Buddhism, feminism, and postmodernism
COURSEPACK: Anne Kleine, "Presence with a Difference: Buddhist and Feminists on Subjectivity" from Hypatia.