1997-98

Starting the Center

The Center for Buddhist Studies (SCBS) began operation in the autumn term of the 1997-98 academic year. The new Center was defined as a unit of Stanford's Center for East Asian Studies (CEAS), within the School of Humanities of Sciences, and put under the jurisdiction of the School's Associate Dean for Humanities.

Administration. The CEAS Executive Committee for Buddhist Studies took charge of administration, with Profs. Carl Bielefeldt and Bernard Faure, both of the Department of Religious Studies, designated co-directors. Prof. Faure being on sabbatical for the year, Prof. Bielefeldt served as director.

Facilities. In the autumn, the Center moved into Building 50 on Stanford's central Quad, a building newly rennovated to house the Department of East Asian Languages, CEAS, and SCBS. Here, the Center maintains a research office and shares space in the East Asian Languages reading room and CEAS computer cluster. In the summer of 1998, SCBS will expand into additional offices in Building 70.

Library. Also in the autumn, the Center began development of its library with purchase of the Michel Strickmann collection. This is a major scholarly collection of approximately 3000 volumes, focused on Chinese and Japanese religions, offered to SCBS by the estate of the late Prof. Michel Strickmann of Berkeley and Bordeaux. In addition to works on Buddhism, Daoism and popular religions, it includes valuable materials on Chinese history, epigraphy and literature. In the winter term, graduate assistants of the Center began the work of preparing an electronic catalogue of the collection, a project that should be completed by autumn, 1998.

Research

In its first year, SCBS took on sponsorship of two ongoing research projects of its faculty and established a fellows program in support of researchers.

Buddhist Studies Bibliography Project. A joint faculty-graduate student effort to create an annotated data base on basic reference materials for the study of Buddhism and Asian religions. This work will provide a valuable tool not only for future research and graduate training but for the development of the Center reference library. In the winter term, Prof. Bielefeldt offered an research proseminar on the project through the Department of Religious Studies.

Sôtô Zen Text Project. Undertaken with support from the Center for the Study of Sôtô Zen Texts, Tokyo, this project organizes an international team of scholars for work on the major texts of the Sôtô school of Zen Buddhism. In the spring term, Prof. Bielefeldt offered a seminar on one text through the Departments of Religious Studies and Asian Languages.

Center Research Fellows Programs. SCBS established several programs whereby doctoral students and other scholars can be affiliated with the Center for purposes of research. This year, the following scholars participated.

  • Egil Fronsdal (Sati Center for Buddhist Studies), Affiliate Scholar, working on early Mahayana Buddhist texts
  • Henry Glassman (Religious Studies), Doctoral Fellow, for a project on women in medieval Japanese Buddhism
  • Mark Gonnerman (Religious Studies), Doctoral Fellow, for a project on Gary Snyder as religious thinker
  • Linda Hess (UC-Davis and Religious Studies), Visiting Fellow, working on Indian religions
  • David Moerman (Religious Studies), Doctoral Fellow, for a project on pilgrimage sites in medieval Japanese Buddhism
  • Richard Payne (Institute for Buddhist Studies), Affiliate Scholar, working on Japanese esoteric Buddhism

Events

SCBS Lectures

Gregory Schopen (Texas). "On Buddhist Monks and Making Babies: Strategies for Getting Boys into the Monasteries" (with Religious Studies)

Gregory Schopen (Texas). "Bringing the Buddha into Town: Monastic Image Processions and Fundraising Techniques" (with Religious Studies)

Imai Masaharu (Tsukuba University, Japan). "The Holy Renunciant Ippen: A Nenbutsu Monk of the Kamakura Period"

Anne Klein (Rice). "Buddhism and Bon in Eighth-century Tibet"

Buddhist Studies Workshop

"Critical Terms for Buddhist Studies", with Carl Bielefeldt (Stanford), Steven Collins (Chicago), Collett Cox (Washington), Janet Gyatso (Amherst), Charles Hallisey (Harvard), Donald Lopez (Michigan), and Robert Sharf (Michigan)

Colloquium

"The Religions of China"

Franciscus Verellen (Paris). "The Zhang Daoling Legend in Medieval Sichuan: A New Perspective on Early Heavenly Master Daoism"
Steven Sangren (Cornell). "Rebellious Sons and Filial Daughters: Gender and Filial Piety in Chinese Stories about Gods"
Miriam Levering (Tennessee). "Imagining the Impossible: The Woman Ch'an Master in the Golden Age of Ch'an Buddhism"
Stephen Bokenkamp (Indiana). "The Salvation of Laozi: Transformations of the Sage in the Lingbao Scriptures"
Hal Roth (Brown). "Original Tao: Inward Training (nei-yeh) and the Foundations of Taoist Mysticism"
Angela Zito (Barnard). "Purchasing Parents: Filiality and Money in a Seventeenth-Century Short Story"
Xu Xin (Nanjing University, Visiting Scholar, Harvard University). "On the Religious Life of the Kaifeng Jewish Community in the 15th-17th Centuries" (co-sponsored with the Jewish Studies Program)
Donald Leslie (Canberra University, Australia). "Islam in China"
Daniel Stevenson (Kansas). "Ritualizing T'ien-t'ai 'Tradition' in the Sung"
Charles Orzech (North Carolina). "Politics and Enlightenment: Reflections on Method in the Study of Chinese Buddhism"
Aramaki Noritoshi (Kyoto University). "Northern Wei Buddhism at the Yün-kang Caves"
Pat Berger (Berkeley). "Politicizing the Pantheon: Inconographers of the Qianlong Court"

Humanities Center Workshop

"Gary Snyder's Mountains and Rivers Without End" (organized by Mark Gonnerman, with Stanford Humanities Center)

Gary Snyder. Reading from his Mountains and Rivers Without End
Susan Matisoff (Asian Languages). "Noh, Yamamba, and the Mountain Spirit"
Carl Bielefeldt (Religious Studies). "Dogen's Mountains and Rivers Sutra"
Richard Vinograd (Art). "Words on Paintings on Words, and the Esthetics of Endlessness"
Raoul Birnbaum (UC Santa Cruz). "Buddhists and Chinese Mountains: Representations, Fantasies, Real Practices"
P.J. Ivanhoe (Religious Studies and Philosophy. "Views of Nature in Early Chinese Thought"
David Robertson (UC Davis). "Gary Snyder: Riprapping in Yosemite, Circumambulating Mt. Tamalpais, Practicing on San Juan Ridge"
Kimi Kodani Hill. "The Life and Work of Chiura Obata"
Tom Hare (Asian Languages). "Reclaiming Orientalism"
Robert Hass (UC Berkeley). "Reading Mountains and Rivers Without End"
Michael McClure. "Reading Mountains and Rivers Without End"
Haun Saussey (Asian Languages). "Taking Nothing but Pictures (If That) with Wang Wei as Predecessor"
David Freyberg (Geology). "Hydrology for Poets: Mountains and Rivers, Canyons and Eddies"
Charles Junkerman (Continuing Studies). "Walking to Work"
Norman Fischer (San Francisco Zen Center). "Zen and the Art of Mountains and Rivers Without End"
Timothy Dean (Stanford Humanities Center Fellow). "The Force of Poetic Personality in Mountains and Rivers Without End"

Symposia

"New Approaches to Buddhism: Three Recent Works." (Evans-Wentz event, with Religious Studies)

Steven Collins (Chicago), on his book Nirvana and Other Buddhist Felicities: Utopias of the Pali Imaginaire, with comments by Collett Cox (Washington)
Janet Gyatso (Amherst), on her book Apparitions of the Self: The Secret Autobiography of a Tibetan Visionary, with comments by Charles Hallisey (Harvard)
Donald Lopez (Michigan), on his book Prisoners of Shangri-La: Tibetan Buddhism and the West, with comments by Robert Sharf (Michigan)

"Ethics and Aesthetics at the Turn of the Fiftieth Millennium: Gary Snyder's Mountains and Rivers Without End." A one-day public symposium with Gary Snyder and others. (Organized by Mark Gonnerman, with Continuing Studies Program)

"Zen Studies, Zen Practice." A one-day public conference bringing together Buddhist scholars and practitioners to discuss relationships between Buddhist academic and religious communities (with Green Gulch Farm, Marin)

"The Life, Times, and Teachings of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi." A two-day public symposium, organized by SCBS fellow Egil Fronsdal, on the founder of the San Francisco Zen Center (with Sati Center for Buddhist Studies, Palo Alto)

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