Institute of Buddhist Studies Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

Narrative in Buddhist Texts, Practice and Transmission, an exploration of the significance of narrative in Buddhism from a variety of perspectives.

Mara Re-imagined: Stories of the ‘Evil One’ in Changing Contexts by Dr. Michael D. Nichols, Saint Joseph’s College with response by Scott Mitchell.

Recorded Friday, April 18, 2014, Berkeley, CA.

Funding provided generously by the Numata Foundation.

(c) 2014 Michael Nichols

Narrative in Buddhist Texts, Practice and Transmission, an exploration of the significance of narrative in Buddhism from a variety of perspectives.

The Path from Metaphor to Narrative: Gampopa’s Jewel Ornament of Liberation by Dr. Richard K. Payne, Institute of Buddhist Studies with response by Daijaku Kinst.

Recorded Friday, April 18, 2014, Berkeley, CA.

Funding provided generously by the Numata Foundation.

(c) 2014 Richard Payne

Spring 2012 Ryūkoku Lecture Series
Presented by Professor Hisashi Tonouchi, Ryūkoku University

True Teaching, Practice and Realization (Kyōgyōshinshō): its aim and the formation of Shinran’s Pure Land Teaching

The Jōgen Suppression and Shinran’s admonition against self-power (continued)

In Japanese with English translation.

An outline of the lecture series is available as a downloadable PDF in English or in Japanese.

[6 of 6]

Originally recorded on 22 March 2012
(c) 2012 The Institute of Buddhist Studies

Spring 2012 Ryūkoku Lecture Series
Presented by Professor Hisashi Tonouchi, Ryūkoku University

True Teaching, Practice and Realization (Kyōgyōshinshō): its aim and the formation of Shinran’s Pure Land Teaching

The Jōgen Suppression and Shinran’s admonition against self-power

In Japanese with English translation.

An outline of the lecture series is available as a downloadable PDF in English or in Japanese.

[5 of 6]

Originally recorded on 22 March 2012
(c) 2012 The Institute of Buddhist Studies

Spring 2012 Ryūkoku Lecture Series
Presented by Professor Hisashi Tonouchi, Ryūkoku University

True Teaching, Practice and Realization (Kyōgyōshinshō): its aim and the formation of Shinran’s Pure Land Teaching

Birth through the nembutsu: Shinran’s explications of practice and shinjin (continued)

In Japanese with English translation.

An outline of the lecture series is available as a downloadable PDF in English or in Japanese.

[4 of 6]

Originally recorded on 15 March 2012
(c) 2012 The Institute of Buddhist Studies

Spring 2012 Ryūkoku Lecture Series
Presented by Professor Hisashi Tonouchi, Ryūkoku University

True Teaching, Practice and Realization (Kyōgyōshinshō): its aim and the formation of Shinran’s Pure Land Teaching

Birth through the nembutsu: Shinran’s explications of practice and shinjin

In Japanese with English translation.

An outline of the lecture series is available as a downloadable PDF in English or in Japanese.

[3 of 6]

Originally recorded on 15 March 2012
(c) 2012 The Institute of Buddhist Studies

Spring 2012 Ryūkoku Lecture Series
Presented by Professor Hisashi Tonouchi, Ryūkoku University

True Teaching, Practice and Realization (Kyōgyōshinshō): its aim and the formation of Shinran’s Pure Land Teaching

Features and Critiques of Hōnen’s Pure Land Teaching (continued)

In Japanese with English translation.

An outline of the lecture series is available as a downloadable PDF in English or in Japanese.

[2 of 6]

Originally recorded on 8 March 2012
(c) 2012 The Institute of Buddhist Studies

Spring 2012 Ryūkoku Lecture Series
Presented by Professor Hisashi Tonouchi, Ryūkoku University

True Teaching, Practice and Realization (Kyōgyōshinshō): its aim and the formation of Shinran’s Pure Land Teaching

Features and Critiques of Hōnen’s Pure Land Teaching

In Japanese with English translation.

An outline of the lecture series is available as a downloadable PDF in English or in Japanese.

[1 of 6]

Originally recorded on 8 March 2012
(c) 2012 The Institute of Buddhist Studies

As a basic principle governing moral thinking, the Buddhist concept of karma is brilliant. With clarity and simplicity, it informs participants in Buddhist cultures that what becomes of them in life is dependent on the quality of their relations to other people and on what they do in life. The fact that the concept of karma was transferred from one religious tradition to others in Asia has meant that its early mythological foundations have been weakened, to some extent allowing it to stand on its own.
Although western religions have moral principles that function in similar ways, in each case these concepts cannot so easily be severed from their mythological grounding in the ideas of the will of God, heaven and hell. That difference suggests that karma’s potential as a moral principle for contemporary global culture is outstanding. In order to live up to that role, however, some dimensions of the concept of karma would require rethinking. In this lecture, Prof. Wright assesses the strengths and weaknesses of the idea of karma, and suggests how certain aspects of the idea can be developed into a powerful and realistic moral framework for the approaching global society.

A video version of this talk is also available.

Originally recorded on 28 October 2011, at the Institute of Buddhist Studies in Berkeley, Ca.
Copyright © 2011 Dale Wright

Sometime during the late fourteenth or early fifteenth century, several variants of an indigenous Chinese sutra known as the Xuepenjing 血盆経 (“Blood Bowl Sutra,” Jpns. Ketsubonkyō), were transmitted to Japan. Emphasizing the impurity of women’s reproductive blood, this short scripture teaches that women are fated to fall into a special hell known as the “Blood Pond Hell” (chi no ike jigoku 血の池地獄) in retribution for the sin of polluting the earth with blood. By the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, temples throughout Japan actively promoted the cult of the Blood Bowl Hell as a method of saving women. In this cult, disgust for the female body, first emphasized in Buddhist texts as a means of encouraging celibate monks to remain distant from women, is directed not to celibate monks, but to a new audience of lay men and women. My talk will explore two early modern commentaries on the text in an effort to understand how priests presented the teachings of the Blood Bowl Sutra to this audience. 

Originally recorded April 22, 2011 at the Institute of Buddhist Studies in Berkeley, Ca.
Copyright © 2010 Lori Meeks