Lecture - Decoding Dr. Ambedkar: Ideas of Nation Building and Buddhism
We are delighted to invite our audience to this lecture entitled:
Decoding Dr. Ambedkar:
Ideas of Nation Building and Buddhism
About this Event
Join us for an insightful evening as we delve into the brilliant mind of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, exploring his profound ideas on nation-building, Buddhism, and social justice. This in-person event will provide an opportunity to engage with community members and gain deeper insights into Dr. Ambedkar’s contributions toward a just and equitable society.
We are honored to host Professor Vivek Kumar (Center for the Study of Social Systems, JNU) as the speaker for the final Dr. Ambedkar Memorial Annual Lecture. His lecture will critically examine Dr. Ambedkar’s impact on political thought and Buddhist philosophy.
This event will also mark the launch of the Consortium for the Annihilation of Caste Discrimination in Canada and Beyond.
About the Speaker
Dr. Vivek Kumar
Dr. Kumar is a Professor at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (New Delhi), Tata Institute of Social Sciences. He is a world-ranking Sociologist and a Public intellectual, and was Chairperson of Centre for the Study of Social Systems, School of Social Sciences, JNU. He has also being a visiting professor at Columbia University New York & Humboldt, Berlin. His areas of interest are : Methodology of Social Sciences, Sociology of Marginalized Sections, Sociology of Indian Diaspora and Sociology of South Asia.
Some of his work include India’s Roaring Revolution: Dalit Assertions and New Horizons and Caste and Democracy in India.
About the Symposium Series
About this Event
This symposium concludes a 4-day retreat hosted by Plum Village and Deer Park, and invites scientists from around the world to explore the intersection of Buddhism, psychology, and neuroscience through the embodied practice of mindfulness.
The Buddha the Scientist Hybrid Symposium will be offered online and in-person at the Asian Centre at UBC. The symposium combines mindfulness practice with groundbreaking scientific inquiry and discussion, inspired by “The Buddha, the Scientist” series held at Deer Park Monastery (2022, 2023) and Dartmouth College (2025), this retreat and symposium brings Thích Nhất Hạnh’s vision of integrating mindfulness into scientific communities to life.
Virtual and in-person attendees will experience the unique format of practicing mindfulness alongside scholars, who then present their research in a reflective, inspirational symposium. Following the presentations, a panel Q&A will offer opportunities for meaningful dialogue.
A vegetarian lunch will be provided for those who attend in-person.
About the Speakers
Brother Pháp Liệu , Dharma teacher & cardiologist | Healing Spring Monastery | Plum Village Practice Centre, France
Brother Pháp Liệu was born in Vietnam and grew up in France. He ordained as a novice monk with Zen Master Thích Nhất Hạnh in 2003, and became a Dharma teacher in the Plum Village tradition in 2010. Previously trained as a cardiologist, Br. Pháp Liệu is a pioneer of the Plum Village “Health and Mindfulness Meditation retreats.” He has enjoyed leading these retreats in Plum Village France, throughout Europe, Asia, Australia and Canada since 2008. Following the path of his teacher, Br. Pháp Liệu tries to find ways to connect Buddhist psychology teachings with research in neuroscience. He currently resides in Healing Spring Monastery, a Plum Village practice centre in the East-Paris area, recently established in October 2018.
Brother Pháp Lưu, Monastic, Editor & co-chair of the TNH Foundation and Parallax Press board | Deer Park Monastery, USA
Brother Pháp Lưu was ordained in 2003, and received the Transmission of the Lamp from Zen Master Thích Nhất Hạnh in 2011. He helped start Wake Up, the Plum Village movement for young people, and has been working with Wake Up Schools since its inception in 2012 to bring mindfulness to schools. Br. Pháp Lưu also helped to begin the Happy Farm, Plum Village’s organic farming community. He is the advisor and editor of the Mindfulness Bell, co-chair of the Thích Nhất Hạnh Foundation and Parallax Press board, and has served as the monastic editor for a number of Thầy’s books, including Happy Teachers Change the World, Stepping Into Freedom, The Admonitions and Encouraging Words of Master Guishan, How to Focus, and Cracking the Walnut. He initiated The Buddha the Scientist retreat and symposium series and leads mindful backpacking retreats in nature around Deer Park Monastery in Escondido, California; Joshua Tree National Park; the Sierra Nevada; and on the Appalachian Trail. His new book on mindful walking in nature, Walking Zen, co-written with Brother Pháp Xa, will be released in the spring of 2025.
Sister Hội Nghiêm, Dharma Teacher & Abbess of the Lower Hamlet | Plum Village Monastery, France
Sister Hội Nghiêm was born and raised in Vietnam. Before becoming a nun, she was a school teacher and wished to incorporate mindfulness in her teaching in order to help her students transform suffering into happiness. At the age of 25, she came to Plum Village, France and ordained as a novice with Zen Master Thích Nhất Hạnh in 1999. She became a Dharma Teacher in 2007. Sister Hội Nghiêm translated The Buddha Body, the Buddha Mind, encompassing Thích Nhất Hạnh’s teachings offered during the first neuroscience retreat in Plum Village in 2006. She is currently the Abbess of the Lower Hamlet of the Plum Village monastery and continues to teach mindfulness at Plum Village, France as well as around the world. She enjoys meditation, nature, poetry and inspiring people to practice.
Lynne Quarmby, Professor | Molecular Biology & Biochemistry | Simon Fraser University
Lynne Quarmby and her team are working to illuminate the interspecies relationships that support growth in the harsh conditions of nutrient impoverishment and low temperature. Snow algae live intimately with a community of bacteria, viruses and various microscopic eukaryotes. They hypothesize that photosynthate secreted by the algae in the form of mucus provides the foundation of fixed carbon to sustain the microbial community. They seek to understand the cellular and molecular bases of the mutualistic and commensal relationships that capture micronutrients, resist dessication and possibly provide a form of innate immunity or defense against parasitic microbes. The work will provide a foundation for understanding similar relationships in the related ecosystems of snow & ice in alpine regions and in Antarctica. For over two decades, their group has done cell biology using the lab rat of Green Algae, Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. Through their work on cilia and the cell cycle they made discoveries that help us understand the fundamental machines of cellular life and the etiology of several human diseases. The Quarmby lab is well positioned to undertake this important new interdisciplinary project at the interface of cell biology and ecology.
David R. Vago, Research Associate Professor | Department of Psychiatry | Harvard Medical School
David R. Vago is the President of the International Society for Contemplative Research, a neuroscientist, and a widely recognized leader in contemplative science, digital health, and well-being. Dr. Vago has dedicated his research and scholarly work to clarifying the neurobiological and psychosocial mechanisms underlying mind body practices, including meditation, yoga, breathwork, and psychedelics. Dr. Vago was formerly Associate Professor at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. He served as Research Director at the Osher Center for Integrative Health, core faculty at the Vanderbilt Brain Institute, and Vanderbilt Institute for Infection, Immunology, and Inflammation. Dr. Vago also previously held faculty positions at Harvard University and the Contemplative Sciences Center, University of Virginia. Dr. Vago maintains a Research Associate position at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School. He has served as Senior Scientist and Research Director at the Mind & Life Institute, where he currently serves as a research fellow advising on strategy and programs. As an advisor and fractional chief science officer for the academic community and digital health industry, he provides scalable research, strategy, and science-backed solutions for driving innovation and developing products that empower individuals to live with purpose and well-being.
Elli Weisbaum, Assistant Professor in the Buddhism, Psychology and Mental Health Program | Faculty of Arts & Sciences & Department of Psychiatry | Temerty Faculty of
Medicine, University of Toronto
Elli Weisbaum BFA, MES, PhD, works internationally facilitating mindfulness workshops and retreats in education, healthcare and business. At the University of Toronto, she is Assistant Professor (teaching stream) in the Buddhism, Psychology and Mental Health Program (BPMH), with a joint appointment to the Department of Psychiatry, in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, with a cross-appointment to the Dalla Lana School of Public Health in their Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation. At the heart of her teaching and research is an interest in cultivating learning and occupational environments where all members thrive. Her work draws on research from in neuroscience, education, healthcare and the workplace to explore how the scientific evidence base for mindfulness is integrated and operationalized across society. Past and ongoing collaborations include working with UofT’s Faculty of Law, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, Faculty of Engineering, Rotman School of Management, Physical Therapy Department, the Ontario Hospital Association, The Hospital for Sick Children, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology to integrate mindfulness into programming for faculty, staff, clinicians, patients and students.
Michelle A Williams, Adjunct Professor of Epidemiology & Professor of Public Policy | Harvard
Michelle A Williams, SM ’88, ScD ’91, is a renowned epidemiologist, an award-winning educator, and a widely recognized academic leader. She served for seven years as Dean of the Faculty at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, stepping down in June 2023. Prior to becoming Dean, she was Professor and Chair of the Department of Epidemiology at the Harvard Chan School and Program Leader of the Population Health and Health Disparities Research Programs at Harvard’s Clinical and Translational Sciences Center. Dr. Williams took a position as Professor of Epidemiology and Population Health at Stanford University in January 2025. She remains an adjunct professor at Harvard Chan School. Dr. Williams previously had a distinguished career at the University of Washington School of Public Health. Her research places special emphasis in the areas of reproductive, perinatal, pediatric, and molecular epidemiology. Dr. Williams has published more than 520 scientific articles and was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2016. In 2020, she was awarded the Ellis Island Medal of Honor and recognized by PR Week as one of the top 50 health influencers of the year. Dr. Williams has an undergraduate degree in biology and genetics from Princeton University, a master’s in civil engineering from Tufts University, and master’s and doctoral degrees in epidemiology from the Harvard Chan School.
About the Moderators
Jessica Main, Associate Professor | Department of Asian Studies | University of British Columbia
Jessica Main began work at UBC in 2009 as the Tung Lin Kok Yuen Canada Foundation Chair and Director of UBC’s Buddhism and Contemporary Society Program. In 2014, the program was renamed The Robert H.N. Ho Family Foundation Program in Buddhism and Contemporary Society and forms part of a network of academic institutions and scholars around the world. She wrote her PhD dissertation (McGill 2012) on the topic of descent-based discrimination, human rights, and Jōdo Shinshū Buddhism in Japan, looking especially at the problem of caste-based discrimination in Pure Land Buddhism against the burakumin. She is currently working on a manuscript on this topic entitled, No Hatred in the Pure Land: Burakumin Activism and the Shin Buddhist Response in Interwar Japan. Her research interests include modern Buddhist ethics, social action, and institutional life in Japan, East Asia, and Southeast Asia.
Dzung X. Vo, Co-Director | BC Children’s Hospital Centre for Mindfulness
Dzung X. Vo primary area of research is on mindfulness-based interventions for adolescents with depression, anxiety, and/or pain. I also do research on health equity and social determinants of health, vulnerable child and adolescent populations (“Social Pediatrics”), and somatization and mind-body medicine. I have written a book for teens called “The Mindful Teen: Powerful Skills to Help You Handle Stress One Moment at a Time,” and a website, www.mindfulnessforteens.com, to help translate research and innovation into practice and public knowledge.
Know More
We are delighted to host this hybrid event entitled:
Khata – A movie by Dr. Huatse Gyal
About this Event
This 45-minute film juxtaposes the sense of “purity” and good intentions behind the Tibetan tradition of offering long white scarves to religious teachers with the “pollution” of the environmental impacts of its mass proliferation. The film follows the proliferation of the custom in contemporary society and how scarves are now offered or otherwise employed in a variety of contexts, and colors.
About the Speakers
Huatse Gyal (དཔའ་རྩེ་རྒྱལ།) is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology in the Anthropology Department at Rice University in Houston, Texas. He received his Ph.D. in Sociocultural Anthropology from University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Dr. Huatse Gyal has contributed peer-reviewed articles to international journals such as Critical Asian Studies, Nomadic Peoples, and Ateliers d’anthropologie. He is the co-editor of a volume, entitled, Resettlement among Tibetan Nomads in China (2015). He recently co-edited a special issue, entitled, Translating Across the Bardo: Centering the Richness of Tibetan Language in Tibetan Studies (2024). His research explores the interdependent and intimate relationships between land, language, and community, with concerns about state environmentalism and climate change, and an interdisciplinary approach to land-based indigenous revitalization movements in a global context. Read his Trycicle interview here.
Pasang Yangjee Sherpa is a Sharwa (Sherpa) anthropologist from Pharak in northeastern Nepal. She is an Assistant Professor of Lifeways in Indigenous Asia in the Institute for Critical Indigenous Studies and the Department of Asian Studies. Her research areas include human dimensions of climate change and Indigeneity with a focus on the Himalayas and the diaspora. Check her page here.
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Thank you.
The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Program in Buddhism and Contemporary Society, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, will host the Tung Lin Kok Yuen Canada Foundation Conference on “Buddhism and the Cold War” at UBC Vancouver’s Point Grey campus and via Zoom online.
Buddhism and the Cold War
The Cold War era, stretching from the end of World War II in the late 1940s to the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, witnessed a massive realignment, both ideologically and geopolitically. The Cold War situation altered the configuration of academic institutions, affecting the study of Asia and of religions such as Buddhism. And Buddhists, Buddhist organizations, and scholars of Buddhism were and continue to be deeply affected by Cold War tensions, norms, and popular consciousness.
We encourage papers that explore Buddhism in relation to the Cold War centered on any geographical region, transnational flow, or from the perspective of any actor (individual, group, state, or other). Papers may explore themes such as:
– Political dimensions of Cold War-era Buddhism: how did government policies utilize Buddhism and, conversely, how did Buddhists and Buddhist organizations engage with state power?
– Transnational dimensions: how did Cold War politics, armed conflicts, etc., affect how Buddhists moved and communicated across national boundaries during this era?
– How did Buddhists navigate the ideological tensions between ‘capitalism’ and ‘communism’, ‘left’ and ‘right’ during this period? What attempts were made to apply Buddhist principles to the major conflicts of the time?
– How did Cold War norms affect the portrayal of Buddhism by scholars and others? In what ways did Buddhism become part of media and communications meant to sway and convince audiences to choose one side or the other?
– In what ways do the trends of that time continue to impact current conditions? What lessons can be learned from the ways that Buddhists engaged with / in Cold War politics? Can lessons from that time inform present-day actors?
Paper Proposal
Deadline:
Mar 10, 2025
How to submit a proposal:
We invite the submission of paper title, abstract (~150 words), and a brief bio (~100 words) to bcs.program@ubc.ca. We ask you to indicate your preferred forms of address and whether you would like to attend in person or online. Presenters will have approximately 20 minutes plus time for discussion and questions.
On behalf of the paper selection committee:
Jessica Main (University of British Columbia, Vancouver)
Justin Stein (Kwantlen Polytechnic University)
David Geary (University of British Columbia, Okanagan)
Casey Collins (Columbia College and University of British Columbia, Vancouver)
Luke Clossey (Simon Fraser University)
Detailed Program
A detailed program and conference web page are forthcoming. Please check this site for updates.
This event is an online panel, and can be attended online via Zoom.
This event is made possible by the generous support of The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation, co-sponsored by the International Association of Shin Buddhist Studies (IASBS).
We are delighted to host this virtual symposium entitled:
Other Power IV:
Other Power: the Final Words on its Prevalence in Buddhism
About this Series
This virtual symposium is the fifth in a series of panels of scholars investigating various dimensions of the “Other Power” in Buddhism organized by Prof. Kenneth Tanaka. Links to the first four symposia as well as video recordings and text Q&A, may be found below.
About this Event
In this fifth and final gathering of the series of annual symposia that began in 2020, four of the leading scholars in their respective fields will share their views on the topic of Other Power. The topics addressed can be found in detail below.
These presentations will bring to consummation the growing recognition among scholars and laypersons that the dimensions of Other Power — contrary to the image — are prevalent throughout the Buddhist traditions.
About the Panelists and their Papers
Stephen Jenkins, Professor Emeritus, CalPoly Humboldt University
Other Power Paths of Faith to Radiant ‘Dharmalogical’ Lands of Bliss in Mainstream Abhidharma and Narrative Traditions
Through stūpa worship, buddhānusmṛti, love for Buddha, and “a single mind of faith to the marrow of one’s bones,” Ābhidharmikas such as Buddhaghosa aspired to rebirth in śuddha-āvāsa and sukha-vihāras ideal for receiving Buddhist teachings and attaining arhatship. Through devotion, one can overcome extreme bad karma and attain birth in such “happy lands” without the retrogression normally entailed by heavenly birth. The Buddha is presented as the ideal guide to such rebirth and the engine for such attainment, even for those without merit or having great sin [i.e. without self-power], was the merit-field of the Buddha. The Pali Suttas offer instruction on how to attain super longevity in radiant, pure, and “happy lands” through devotion and focused deathbed aspiration practices, strikingly resonant with East Asian rituals. Calling out “Namo Buddha” at the approach of death was a common practice meant to result in rescue or auspicious rebirth. This paper reveals parallels and antecedents in mainstream Buddhism for pure land traditions which became enduring core aspects of Indian Mahāyāna.
Stephen Jenkins is Professor Emeritus of Religion at CalPoly Humboldt University, received a doctorate from Harvard in 1999. His research centers on concepts of compassion, their ontological grounding and ethical implications. Recent examples include “Buddha in the Ring of Fire,” in Cambridge Companion to Religion and War, (2023) and “Compassion Blesses the Compassionate” in Buddhist Visions of the Good Life for All, (2021). Currently, he is writing a book on the Indic origins of pure land traditions. A preliminary publication from that project is “Heavenly Rebirth and Buddhist Soteriology,” in The Oxford Handbook of Buddhist Practice, (2022).
Jacqueline Stone, Professor Emerita, Princeton University
By the Power of the Lotus Sūtra: The Relational Nature of Buddhahood in Nichiren’s Thought
The Lotus Sūtra promises its devotees worldly benefits, security for the next life, and rapid realization of buddhahood. Lotus devotees across Asia have revered, enshrined, copied, and recited the sūtra as a source of soteriological power. The Japanese Buddhist figure Nichiren (1222-1282) understood that power as enabling ordinary persons (bonbu) to become buddhas. An ardent Lotus advocate and fierce critic of Pure Land teachings, Nichiren drew on nondual Tiantai/Tendai metaphysics and Lotus devotional traditions to frame the dynamics of Lotus Sūtra practice as neither self-power nor Other-Power but encompassing both. Activated by the practitioner’s faith—expressed in chanting the sūtra’s daimoku or title (Namu Myōhō-renge-kyō) —the power of the Lotus manifests both internally and externally. This understanding underlies Nichiren’s claim that the faith of Lotus practitioners would transform the outer world into a buddha land. Nichiren’s account of the daimoku seems to allow for its interpretation both as a form of “stimulus-response” (kannō dōkō), as when buddhas, bodhisattvas, or deities respond to petitionary prayers, and as a mode of contemplation for discerning the buddha in one’s mind; the ontological basis, in either case, is the same. This perspective invites a rethinking of an assumed divide between devotional and meditative practices.
Jacqueline Stone is Professor Emerita in the Religion Department of Princeton University. Her chief research field is Japanese Buddhism. Much of her work focuses on the reception history of the Lotus Sūtra, particularly the Tendai and Nichiren Buddhist traditions. She is presently working on a book-length study of Nichiren. Stone is the author of Original Enlightenment and the Transformation of Medieval Japanese Buddhism (1999), and Right Thoughts at the Last Moment: Buddhist Deathbed Practices in Early Medieval Japan (2016). Currently she heads the Kuroda Institute for the Study of Buddhism.
Marcus Bingenheimer, Associate Professor, Temple University
Wang Rixiu’s Longshu jingtuwen (1162 CE) and the Pure Land tradition in East Asia
The “Essays on the Pure Land from Longshu” (Longshu Jingtuwen 龍舒淨土文) (1162 CE) by Wang Rixiu 王日休 (1105-1173) is one of the first extensive texts on Pure Land Buddhism by a layperson. Wang’s Essays have come to be seen as an orthodox presentation of Chinese Pure Land practice and for the last eight-hundred years have been widely cited and reprinted. Their influence can be seen in the rise of the Pure Land Schools in 13th century Japan as well as in the 20th century Pure Land revival centered on Yinguang, considered the most recent “patriarch” of Chinese Pure Land Buddhism.
We will trace the history of the text from its non-canonical beginnings in the 12th century, to its first inclusion in a canonical edition in the Wanli period and the continuation of extra-canonical editions until today. This enables us to identify the stemmatic relationship between editions as well as revealing the “best” and the “worst” available edition. We will argue for its pervasive influence on East Asian Pure Land Buddhism based on the spread of its editions, records of its use by leading Pure Land figures, and quantitative measures regarding textual reuse in later works. Finally, what was Wang’s understanding of Other Power and how does it relate to other understandings of Pure Land in his time?
Marcus Bingenheimer is Associate Professor of Religion at Temple University. He taught Buddhist Studies and Digital Humanities for six years in Taiwan, and held visiting positions at universities in Korea, Japan, France, Thailand, and Singapore. Since 2001, he has supervised numerous projects concerning the digitization of Buddhist culture. His main research interests are Buddhist history and historiography, early sūtra literature, and how to apply computational approaches to research in the Humanities. He has written and edited a handful of books and some sixty peer-reviewed articles.
Currently he is working on the Longshu jingtuwen 龍舒淨土文, a 12th century Buddhist text and Buddhist temples in Southeast Asia. He is also trying to better understand and evaluate Machine Translation of Buddhist text.
James C. Dobbins, Professor Emeritus, Oberlin College, Ohio
The Convergence of Self-Power and Other-Power in the Thought of D. T. Suzuki
Daisetsu (Daisetz) Teitarō Suzuki (1870–1966) was a world-renowned interpreter and promoter of Buddhism in the mid-twentieth century. He published extensively in both Japanese and English, and became famous for spreading Zen to the West. He also developed a deep and enduring interest in Pure Land Buddhism. In his interpretations, Suzuki drew extensively from traditional Buddhist ideas, including self-power (jiriki) and other-power (tariki), as well as from Western concepts such as religious experience and mysticism. He treated self-power and other-power as objective analytical categories for classifying religion rather than as simple apologetic claims of the Pure Land tradition to defend its teachings and practices. He tended to apply self-power to Zen and other-power to Pure Land, as is common in Buddhist hermeneutics, but he went on to problematize this distinction by explicating the highest experience in each to be a state of “letting go” and passivity. In doing so, he also drew on Western themes common in the study of religion in the early twentieth century. This paper will explore and analyze Suzuki’s understanding of self-power and other-power, especially as they apply to Zen and Pure Land Buddhism.
James C. Dobbins is the Fairchild Professor Emeritus of Religion and East Asian Studies at Oberlin College in Ohio. He is the author of “D.T. Suzuki: A Brief Account of His Life” (The Eastern Buddhist, 3.2.2, 2022) and the editor of The Selected Works of D.T. Suzuki, Vol. 2: Pure Land (2015). His other works include Jōdo Shinshū: Shin Buddhism in Medieval Japan (2002), Letters of the Nun Eshinni: Images of Pure Land Buddhism in Medieval Japan (2004), and Behold the Buddha: Religious Meanings of Japanese Buddhist Icons (2020).
About the Organizer & Moderator
Kenneth K. Tanaka is Professor Emeritus of Musashino University, Tokyo. He received his education at Stanford (B.A.), a temple in Thailand, Institute of Buddhist Studies, Berkeley (M.A.), Tokyo University (M.A.), and the Universiy of California, Berkeley (Ph.D.). After serving as Associate Professor and Assistant Dean at IBS for 11 years, and a resident priest for 3 years in a Shin temple in California, he taught at Musashino University for 20 years. He is the former President of the International Association of Shin Buddhist Studies (IASBS). His publications include The Dawn of Chinese Pure Land Buddhist Doctrine, Ocean: An Introduction to Jodo Shinshu Buddhism in America, and books in Japanese on Shin and American Buddhism. His books have been translated into Japanese, Chinese, and Portuguese. He is the 2017 recipient of the 27th Nakamura Hajime Eastern Study Prize, awarded by the Eastern Institute and the Indian Embassy, Tokyo.
Please follow the link to register for this event: Zoom Registration Link
