djbuddha

Category: Posts from the Before Times

  • Tranquility

    My article, “The Tranquil Meditator: Representing Buddhism and Buddhists in US Popular Media,” has been published by Religion Compass. You can download it from the website if your school has access to the journal. (I’m looking into other ways to distribute this one.) This paper was based, loosely, on a paper I gave in Chicago…

  • Criticism

    I am very late to the non-Buddhism/x-Buddhism party, let alone the post that inspires what I’m about to say. So the following isn’t mean to comment on, one way or the other, that ongoing discourse. Something written on the Speculative Non-Buddhism Blog that I happened to read over this past weekend triggered some other memory…

  • Reopen

    Reopen

    I’m resurrecting the blog. My faculty blog (this-a-way) will remain up and will post institute-related news. To the extent that this blog is my personal blog, neither supported nor endorsed by the Institute, the views and opinions expressed are mine. This site has ads because when you hear about people getting their advanced degrees with…

  • Nebraska

    Next week, I’ll be presenting some of my recent research on US Shin Buddhist music at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. I’m very grateful to Courtney Bruntz (recently minted PhD from the GTU) and her colleagues for the invitation. More info can be found here, and if they record the event in any way, I’ll update…

  • American Gāthā

    Several years ago, I did some research on Shin Buddhist music in the United States, ultimately publishing an article on the subject [PDF]. A lot of the research I did then found its way into my doctoral dissertation, and I’ve always been interested in returning to the topic. Of course, post-PhD life can be busy! One…

  • The Tranquil Meditator

    This past weekend at the American Academy of Religion, I participated in a panel for the Dharma Academy of North America. Our panel was organized by the wonderful Karma Lekshe Tsomo, and it brought together a variety of perspectives on the transmission and development of Buddhism in the United States. More details on other papers…

  • Dharma Dialogue

    Jane Iwamura down at the University of the West has a class going on right now on Buddhism in the West, and her students are managing a blog called “Dharma Dialogue.” It’s an admirable project to give students the opportunity to share their experiences and what they’re learning, studying, and the issues with which they’re…

  • See you in Chicago

    For those who go to the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion, it’s coming up this weekend in Chicago. The program book is online, searchable, and here’s what’s happening in Buddhist Studies. I’ll be presenting on Friday during a related meeting, the Dharma Academy of North America. My topic is, once again, media…

  • Space Buddha

    As you may remember, the story of a Tibetan Buddhist statue carved out of a meteorite and found in Germany with connections to the Nazis made the rounds of Buddhist and mainstream media a month or so ago. And really, that’s not surprising. Nazis, Tibet, statues made from space rocks. It has all the makings…

  • Buddhism and pop-culture across cultures

    Via Tricycle, via RocketNews, comes the following video demonstration of a Japanese video game released earlier this year titled “Sutra Master.” The game is simple enough. Your character must beat a wooden fish drum and singing bowl to the high-speed, J-pop techno music while swatting away the occasional ghost fire balls and human-animal hybrid gods.…