New Books in Buddhist Studies

An interdisciplinary collection in the new field of environmental humanities, Chinese Environmental Ethics: Religions, Ontologies, and Practices (Rowman and Littlefield, 2021) brings together Chinese environmental ethics, religious ontology, and religious practice to explore how traditional Chinese religio-environmental ethics are actually put into social practice both in China’s past and present....

Today I talk with Peter Salmon, author of An Event, Perhaps; an intellectual biography of Jacques Derrida. Our conversation was rich: We tackle Derrida and Buddhism, Derrida and the culture wars, Derrida and practice. Foucault gets a mention, as does Heidegger, as does spiritual enlightenment, mindfulness and spirituality. Our conversation was incomplete. We made plans. This is now the first part...

In the early twentieth century, Khunu Lama journeyed across Tibet and India, meeting Buddhist masters while sometimes living, so his students say, on cold porridge and water. Yet this elusive wandering renunciant became a revered teacher of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama. At Khunu Lama’s death in 1977, he was mourned by Himalayan nuns, Tibetan lamas, and American meditators alike. The many surviving st...

Andrea Miller is the deputy editor of Lion's Roar magazine (formerly the Shambhala Sun), a publication force within Buddhism that so many of you will already know, and the author of two picture books: The Day the Buddha Woke Up. She's also the editor of three anthologies, most recently All the Rage: Buddhist Wisdom on Anger and Acceptance. I spoke with Andrea on the heels of her trip to India to a...

Corey Ichigen Hess is an ordained Zen monk and body therapist. He lived a monastic life for many years at Sogenji Zen Monastery in Okayama, Japan. He teaches meditation classes and works with individual clients doing private embodiment process coaching sessions, Sourcepoint Therapy, Structural Integration, and Biodynamic Craniosacral therapy at his home on Whidbey Island in Langley, Washington. Le...

How does queer life fit into Buddhism and ritual? What role do gay men and trans women play in the practice of spirit mediumship and how do queer spirit mediums mediate between Thailand’s religious fields? How can we understand the increasing numbers of queer spirit mediums across mainland Southeast Asia? Peter A. Jackson and Benjamin Baumann provide important insights into their new book Deities...

Core Buddhist teachings are preserved in the ancient Indian language Pali. Listen in as Aleix Ruiz-Falqués speaks about its structure, its significance, and opportunities to study it with him online. Raj Balkaran is a scholar, online educator, and life coach. For information see rajbalkaran.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium m...

In this episode, returning guest Daniel Ingram comes on to discuss a range of fascinating questions concerning practice. We explore coming through the pandemic, the impact of long-term relationships on practice, first Buddhist books, hardcore Dharma practice, how life might have been different without practice, suffering and karma and Daniel’s new project, The Emergent Phenomenology Research Conso...

“Doubt is an uncomfortable condition, but certainty is a ridiculous one.” Voltaire You know too much, yet understand too little. And it’s the same for me, and everyone you and I happen to know. And, so it begins. What follows are a series of posts and audio-casts that respond to this living human condition, bringing together practice materials from non-Buddhism, post-traditional approaches to Budd...

The Spirit Ambulance: Choreographing the End of Life in Thailand (University of California Press, 2020) is a journey into decision-making at the end of life in Thailand, where families attempt to craft good deaths for their elders in the face of clashing ethical frameworks, from a rapidly developing universal medical system, to national and global human-rights politics, to contemporary movements i...

Are you curious about Buddhism but find yourself met with scholarly texts or high-minded moralizing every time you try to pick up a book about it? Well, if so, relax. This is no ordinary introduction to Buddhism; there are none of the saccharine platitudes and dense pontification that you may have come to expect. Buddhish: A Guide to the 20 Most Important Buddhist Ideas for the Curious and Skeptic...

Zenju Earthlyn Manuel is an author, Zen priest, teacher, divine seer, artist, and Drum medicine woman. Her work has been featured in Essence Magazine, CNN, CBS NEWS, KPFA Radio, Buddhadharma, and Lion’s Roar. She holds a M.A. from UCLA and a Ph. D. in Transformative Learning from California Institute of Integral Studies. She spoke to me from Green Gulch Farm, a Zen practice center within the San F...

Today I talked to Corey Landon Wozniak about his Revealer article (2022) "The Buddha at the Bellagio: (Teaching) Religion in Sin City." As Wozniak points out, Las Vegas (for all that it's sin city) is full of religion, all kinds of it. He talks about how religion is done in America's Sodom and Gomorrah rolled into one.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our sho...

D.T. Suzuki (1870-1966) reached global fame for his writings on Zen Buddhism. In this introduction to his theories of self, knowledge, and the world, Suzuki is presented as a Buddhist philosopher in his own right. Beginning with a biography of his life providing the historical context to his thought and discussing Suzuki's influences, The Zen Buddhist Philosophy of D. T. Suzuki: Strengths, Foibles...

After the death of Mao Zedong in 1976, history under him was retold: for example, the Cultural Revolution was rebranded as “Ten Years of Chaos” and its policies were deemed “ultra-left.” In comparison to these changes in national narratives, how was the local history of Tibet under Mao retold after his death and in the subsequent decades of economic reform? To answer this question, the edited volu...

Michael Downing teaches creative writing at Tufts University. This conversation features a deep dive into Michael’s nonfiction book Shoes Outside the Door: Desire, Devotion, and Excess at San Francisco Zen Center, hailed by the New York Review of Books as a "dramatic and insightful" narrative history of the first Buddhist monastery outside of Asia, and by the Los Angeles Times as "a highly readabl...

A remarkable exploration of the therapeutic relationship, Dr. Mark Epstein reflects on one year’s worth of therapy sessions with his patients to observe how his training in Western psychotherapy and his equally long investigation into Buddhism, in tandem, led to greater awareness—for his patients, and for himself For years, Dr. Mark Epstein kept his beliefs as a Buddhist separate from his work as...

Launched in 2013 by Chinese President XI Jinping, China’s Belt and Road initiative has manifested throughout Southeast Asia in the form of multibillion dollar investments in transport infrastructure, industrial estates and other forms of “hard” development. This push for trade and hard infrastructure has been accompanied by a surge in various soft power initiatives, including the use of religion a...

Meido Roshi is the abbot of Korinji monastery in Wisconsin. In 2008 Meido Roshi received inka shomei ("mind seal"), designating him an 86th-generation Zen dharma heir and a 48th-generation holder of the lineage descended from Rinzai Gigen. Meido Roshi's book The Rinzai Zen Way: A Guide to Practice is out from Shambhala Publications in March 2018. The focus of our conversation is this book and I hi...

Michael Vanhartingsveldt is a contributing columnist at Buddhistdoor Global. He works full-time at the Los Angeles Country Museum of Art. He did his masters in East Asian Art Business at Sotheby’s Institute of Art, and he also works as a lecturer for the Japan Foundation. Michael collaborates on "Carving the Divine TV" with filmmaker Yujiro Seki. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.f...

Hugo Bernard is the author of Naked Monk. His first work of Buddhist fiction was a short story written in high school. He is working on several novels, in different genres, using fiction as a tool to better grasp Buddhist teachings. With these stories, his goal is not to ‘teach’ but to ‘explore’ how the Dhamma resonates in challenging scenarios. He hopes to accomplish this while telling stories th...

Janica Towne Anderson (author of Zen Odyssey) is a master falconer and has been a student and teacher of esoteric traditions for fifty years. She has worked as a research assistant in the psychology department at Harvard University and served as an instructor at Esalen Institute. She founded Big Sur Tapes, which preserved and published audio archives from teachers such as Ram Dass, Buckminster Ful...

Shozan Jack Haubner is the pen name of a Zen monk whose essays have appeared in The Sun, Tricycle, Buddhadharma, and the New York Times, as well as in the Best Buddhist Writing series. His book Zen Confidential: Confessions of a Wayward Monk is the winner of a 2012 Pushcart Prize. His most recent book, Single White Monk: Tales of Death, Failure, and Bad Sex (Although Not necessarily in that Order)...

Robert Kennedy, S.J. is one of several practicing Catholic men and women who are recognized by the Buddhist community as zen teachers. He is the author of Zen and Christianity: Zen Gifts to Christians and Zen Spirit, Christian Spirit. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/buddhist-stud...

Guo Gu (Dr. Jimmy Yu) is the founder of the Tallahassee Chan Center and is also the guiding teacher for the Western Dharma Teachers Training course at the Chan Meditation Center in New York and the Dharma Drum Lineage. He is one of the late Master Sheng Yen’s (1930–2009) senior and closest disciples, and assisted him in leading intensive retreats throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia. He...