This blog appeared on TheConversation.com. What is a bodhisattva? A scholar of Buddhism explains…. Read more…
[VIDEO] Interview About Global History of Buddhism & Medicine
A conversation with Frances Garrett and graduate students at the University of Toronto about A Global History of Buddhism & Medicine, on the podcast Buddhist Studies Foonotes.
[VIDEO] Integrating Scholarship and Practice
A conversation with Sabine Wilms and her Imperial Tutor Tea Time Talks about integrating scholarship and the practice of Buddhism and Asian medicine. https://imperialtutor.kartra.com/videopage/ScholarshipandPractice
[REPOST] There is much more to mindfulness than the popular media hype
This blog appeared on TheConversation.com. Mindfulness is seemingly everywhere these days. A Google search I conducted in January 2022 for the term “mindfulness” resulted in almost 3 billion hits. The practice is now routinely offered in workplaces, schools, psychologists’ offices
[VIDEO] Buddhist Responses to COVID-19
A brief lecture on Buddhist responses to the pandemic.
[REPOST] Buddhist Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic in Historical Perspective
This blog appeared on BuddhistdoorGlobal.net. With the emergence of the SARS-CoV-2 novel coronavirus in Wuhan, China, in late 2019, and its subsequent development into a global pandemic, Buddhist organizations have sprung into action around the world. Their responses have been diverse, reflecting
[REPOST] Curing Illness with Meditation in Sixth Century China
This blog was published on BuddhistDoor Though he lived in the sixth century, Zhiyi (538–597) has a lot to teach the modern practitioner of meditation, whether Buddhist or secular. He is best known as the founding patriarch of the Tiantai
[REPOST] A Roundup of Critical Perspectives on Meditation
This blog was published in Patheos. I am not a scholar of Buddhist meditation. My own research has only touched on meditation insofar as it was claimed to have therapeutic benefits in a handful of texts in premodern Asia. But,
[REPOST] Buddhist Medicine
This blog was published in the Penn Museum Blog and the Penn Press Log. Knowledge about healing and disease has held a central place within Buddhist thought since the earliest times. Taken collectively, Buddhist perspectives on health, disease, healers, patients, therapies,
[REPOST] What is Buddhist Medicine?
This blog was published at Patheos.com. Recently, I invited my Facebook friends to submit questions on the topic of Buddhism and medicine. I collated the questions together, and wrote the brief responses below…. Is there such a thing as “Buddhist medicine”?
[REPOST] Is Yoga Cultural Appropriation?
This post appeared on Patheos.com While I am not a historian of yoga per se, my academic research focuses on the crosscultural exchange of Buddhist ideas about health globally, and I specifically focus a great amount of attention on the many acts
[REPOST] Translating Meditation in Popular American Media
This blog appeared on Patheos.com TIME magazine’s 2 Feb 2014 cover announces the arrival of the “Mindful Revolution.” The publication joins a flurry of recent examples confirming that a shift is taking place in the representation of meditation in American popular media. The
A Beginner’s Guide to the Academic Study of Chinese Buddhist Texts
Preliminary Readings The Encyclopedia of Buddhism has an entry-level essay on the Buddhist canon by (see Vol. 1, pp. 111–5). The Encyclopedia of Religion (2nd Edition) has two articles that serve as useful starting points. Under “Buddhist Books and Texts” in Vol.
A Beginner’s Guide to the Academic Study of History of Chinese Medicine
Here are some resources for getting started in the study of Chinese medical history. This page will be updated on a periodic basis, so feel free to suggest any additions via email or Facebook. The date above reflects the last time this page
Abstracts of Buddhist Medical Sources in Pāli
In this blog, I provide short abstracts of important Buddhist medical sources in Pāli. Note that I have only included texts, chapters, or sections that are primarily about medicine or nursing. There are many Buddhist texts that include isolated or
The Essentials of Practicing Śamatha and Vipaśyanā, Chapter 9: Treating Illness [Chinese text]
Zhiyi’s shorter treatise on śamatha and vipaśyanā (Xiao zhiguan 小止觀) exists today in several printed and manuscript versions, the most readily accessible of which appears in Taishō Tripiṭaka no. 1915. Based on extensive comparison of the extant versions, however, the Japanese scholar Sekiguchi Shindai has