Stanley Weinstein Dissertation Prize Lecture

Event
Posted : February 27, 2018

The Council is pleased to present the 5th Stanley Weinstein Dissertation Prize Lecture. Though a part of the popular pilgrimage temple Zenkōji, and the recipient of shogunal largesse and local taxes, by the middle of the eighteenth century, Daihongan convent was having difficulty paying for its operating costs. On top of this, irregular expenses, such as travel and maintenance to convent buildings exceeded the convent’s ability to pay using ordinary means. For these reasons, they began to turn extraordinary means to cover these expenses and remain a viable institution. I discuss these...

Event
Posted : January 7, 2016

The Council is pleased to present the 4th Stanley Weinstein Dissertation Prize Lecture. In the middle of 748, Queen Consort Kōmyō commissioned one hundred copies—many on fine colored paper—of a relatively obscure work, entitled the Scripture on Saving and Protecting Body and Life. This text promises protection from attacks by demons and sorcerers, as well as from other threats that plague humans living in an era of decline. She also sponsored one hundred copies of the Golden Light Sutra and three copies of the Scripture on Brahma’s Spirit Tablets, a divination sutra, at the same time. This...

Event
Posted : September 13, 2013

This talk examines the ways in which Buddhist thought was used to discuss science in China from the end of the Qing Dynasty to the Second Sino-Japanese War (World War II). Although the focus is primarily on how committed Buddhists sought to define the relationship between their tradition and science, it will be shown that viewing the ideas discussed here as just another example of “science versus religion” are misguided, and ignore the complexity of the intellectual and historical circumstances in which these thinkers found themselves. Buddhists, and those of unclear affiliation who used...

Event
Posted : September 13, 2013

Is an apocryphon a spurious work to be excised from the canon, or is it a valuable text that sheds light on the historical development of doctrine? Is a woman barred from being “a vessel of the Dharma” due to physical impurity, or is she “the mother of all buddhas of the three times?” With a focus on Heian-period Japan, this project examines the rhetorical strategies, conceptual contexts, and ritual applications of a newly identified Buddhist apocryphon, _The Sutra on Women’s Transformation and Buddhahood.

Event
Posted : August 30, 2013

The concept of “visualization” is often invoked as a description or explanation of various forms of Buddhist meditation practice, prominent among which are certain forms of meditation that became popular in fifth-century China. Nevertheless precisely what we mean by “visualization” is rarely examined when this word is used to discuss Buddhist practices. Uncovering the roots of the concept of “visualization” in 19th-century experimental psychology shows how the eventual application of this word to several different forms of Buddhist contemplative practice was part of a broader shift in the...

Subscribe to Stanley Weinstein Dissertation Prize Lecture