2. Karin Meyers | Buddhist Philosophy and Ecological Activism

08/01/21 • 75 min

In this episode, we speak with Dr. Karin Meyers about her path to Buddhist Studies, her experiences teaching Buddhist Studies in the US and Nepal, how she relates the study of Buddhist philosophy to contemporary engagement with social issues, and how she stays motivated to tackle the ecological crisis. We also preview her upcoming online course, BSO 103 | Indian Buddhist Philosophy.

Speaker Bio

Dr. Karin Meyers received a PhD with distinction from The University of Chicago Divinity School in 2010, and is currently Academic Director at Mangalam Research Center in Berkeley, CA. She has taught Buddhist Studies at several colleges and universities in the US and abroad, including Kathmandu University and Rangjung Yeshe Institute’s Centre for Buddhist Studies in Nepal, where she directed the Masters program in Buddhist Studies until returning to the US in 2017. Karin’s scholarly work focuses on bringing Buddhist perspectives to bear on cross-cultural and interdisciplinary inquiry into fundamental metaphysical, epistemological, and ethical questions. Karin has practiced Buddhism in Tibetan and Theravāda traditions and took a year in 2019 to serve as Retreat Support Fellow at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, MA. Before attending graduate school she worked at the Buddhist Peace Fellowship in the Bay Area and has recently returned to these socially engaged roots, promoting Buddhist activism in regard to the accelerating climate and ecological crisis.
As Academic Director at Mangalam Research Center, Karin teaches Buddhist Studies and language courses in Mangalam’s residential and public programs; host public talks, conversations, and conferences with scholars of Buddhist studies and related fields. Her mission is to help make scholarly research and classical Buddhist traditions accessible to Dharma practitioners, and to draw on these resources to support and inspire socially and ecologically engaged Buddhist thought and practice. Karin is also host of Buddhist Currents, conversations on current social, political, and ecological issues in light of Buddhist thought, history and practice. More information on the series and Karin's other projects can be found here: https://www.buddhistcurrents.blog.

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Previous Episode

1. Daniel Stuart | The History of Buddhist Meditation

In this first episode, we speak with Dr. Daniel M. Stuart about his path to Buddhist Studies, different academic approaches to studying Buddhism, how meditation might drive new ideas in the history of Buddhism, differences and continuities in meditation practices across Buddhist history, and preview his upcoming online course, BSO 102 | Buddhist Meditation in Theory and Practice.

Speaker Bio

Daniel M. Stuart is Associate Professor in the Department of Religious Studies, University of South Carolina. His research focuses on the history of traditional Buddhist contemplative practices from their origins in premodern South Asia into the global present. He holds an MA in Sanskrit Literature and a PhD in Buddhist Studies from the University of California at Berkeley.
Dr. Stuart is particularly interested in how Asian thought systems, practice regimes, and cosmovisions converge in specific ways to form distinctive traditions of practice at particular moments in history. He has worked on a wide range of premodern Indian textual traditions, bringing to light lesser-known texts and unedited manuscripts in various Asian languages and scripts. He works with textual materials in Sanskrit, Pāli, Hindi, Gāndhārī, Buddhist Chinese and literary Tibetan. He has also spent nearly a decade in Asia as a student, as a research scholar, and as a practitioner of meditation. He is the author of four books: Thinking about Cessation, A Less Traveled Path, The Stream of Deathless Nectar, and S. N. Goenka: Emissary of Insight.

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3. Jay L. Garfield | Buddhist Ethics and the Bodhicaryāvatāra

In this episode, we speak with Dr. Jay L. Garfield about his unconventional path to Buddhist Studies, the importance of multicultural philosophy, how philosophy can enrich Buddhist practice, and preview his upcoming online course, BSO 201 | Bodhicaryāvatāra: How to Lead an Awakened Life, which will focus on this important Mahayana text written by Śāntideva in the 8th century and cherished by Buddhists ever since.

Speaker Bio

Jay L. Garfield is Doris Silbert Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Philosophy, Logic and Buddhist Studies, Smith College. He chairs the Philosophy department at Smith College. He is also visiting professor of Buddhist philosophy at Harvard Divinity School, professor of philosophy at Melbourne University and adjunct professor of philosophy at the Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies.

Garfield’s research addresses topics in the foundations of cognitive science and the philosophy of mind; metaphysics; the history of modern Indian philosophy; topics in ethics, epistemology and the philosophy of logic; the philosophy of the Scottish enlightenment; methodology in cross-cultural interpretation; and topics in Buddhist philosophy, particularly Indo-Tibetan Madhyamaka and Yogācāra.

Garfield’s most recent books are Knowing Illusion: Bringing a Tibetan Debate into Contemporary Discourse (with the Yakherds, 2021), Buddhist Ethics: A Philosophical Exploration (2021), What Can’t Be Said: Paradox and Contradiction in East Asian Thought (with Yasuo Deguchi, Graham Priest, and Robert Sharf, 2021), Minds Without Fear: Philosophy in the Indian Renaissance (with Nalini Bhushan, 2017), Engaging Buddhism: Why it Matters to Philosophy (2015), Moonpaths: Ethics and Emptiness (with the Cowherds, 2015).

He recently finished a book on selves and persons, Losing Yourself: How to Be a Person Without a Self, to be published in February 2022, and is working on several other projects.

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