Buddhism and Peace

First International Symposium

Buddhism and Peace

May 25-26, 2002

Hosted by The Department of Asian Studies, University of British Columbia

Sponsored by The Tzu Chi Foundation

Conference Program

Saturday, May 25

Registration & Breakfast 9:00am-9:30am Asian Centre, Foyer

Opening Remarks 9:30am-10:30am Asian Centre, Auditorium

Gary Ho, Tzu Chi Foundation, Canada
Steven Huang, Tzu Chi Foundation, Taiwan

Session I: 10:30am-11:30am Asian Centre, Auditorium

Noritoshi Aramaki, Otani University, Kyoto, Japan

Which Is More Real – War Or Peace, Economy Or Ecology, Secular Or Pure Land?

Discussant: Hubert Durt

Lunch Break 11:30am-1:00pm Asian Centre, Foyer

Session II: 1:00pm-2:00pm Asian Centre, Auditorium

Hubert Durt, l’école francaise d’extrême-orient, Paris, France
Indian Buddhism And The Modern Concept Of Peace
Discussant: James Benn

Session III: 2:00pm-4:00pm Asian Centre, Auditorium

Roundtable Discussion on Issues of Buddhism and Peace

Reception & Dean of Arts Address 5:00pm Sage Bistro, Music Room

Banquet 7:00pm Fortune Garden Restaurant, 1475 West Broadway

 

All sessions are open to the public.

 

Sunday, May 26

Breakfast 8:30am-9:00am Asian Centre, Foyer

Session I: 9:00am-10:00am Asian Centre, Auditorium

David W. Chappell, Soka University of America, USA

Buddhist Interreligious Peacework With Muslims?

Discussant: James Benn

Session II: 10:00am-11:00am Asian Centre, Auditorium

James A. Benn, Arizona State University, Tempe, USA

Self-Immolation And Peace? Some Examples From The History Of Chinese Buddhism

Discussant: Robert Sharf (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA)

Coffee Break 11:00am-11:15am Asian Centre, Foyer

Session III: 11:15am-12:00pm Asian Centre, Auditorium

Jinhua Chen, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada

A Peace-Maker and Trouble-Shooter: The Political Career of the Buddhist Monk

Fazang (643-712)
Discussant: James Benn

Lunch Break 12:00pm-1:00pm Asian Centre, Foyer

Session IV: 1:00pm-2:00pm Asian Centre, Auditorium

Fumihiko Sueki, Tokyo University, Tokyo, Japan
Is Japanese Buddhism Deficient In Morality? A Focus on Modern Buddhist Ideas Concerning Politics
Discussant: Robert Sharf

Session V: 2:00pm-3:00pm Asian Centre, Auditorium

James H. Foard, Arizona State University, Tempe, USA

The Banality of Good: Buddhism And The Civic Discourse Of Hiroshima

Discussant: Fumihiko Sueki

Banquet 6:00pm Chianti Restaurant, 1850 West 4th Avenue

All sessions are open to the public.

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Abstracts of Papers

Panelists:

Noritoshi Aramaki (D. Litt., Kyoto University, 1984) was born in Yokohama on August 14th 1936. After completing his Ph. D. course work in Buddhist Studies at Kyoto University in March 1964, he went to study at Chicago University (September 1964 – August 1965) and the University of Wisconsin (September 1965 – February 1966). He subsequently returned to Kyoto University, where he served as Research Associate at the Institute for Research in Humanities (1966-1974). He has taught at Osaka University (1981-1991), Kyoto University (1974 -1981, 1991-2000) and Otani University (2000 -present). He has published extensively on Indian, Chinese and Japanese Buddhism. In addition to over fifty journal articles and book-chapters, he is the author and co-author of two important books on Indian Buddhism (1967, 1976). He is also the editor of a major volume on Chinese Buddhism (2000).

James Benn, born in 1964 in Shifnal, Shropshire (UK), was educated at Cambridge University and the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London (with T. H. Barrett), where he obtained his M.A. He later studied at the Italian School of East Asian Studies (Kyoto) and University of California, Los Angeles, where he was awarded his doctorate in 2001. He spent one year as Visiting Assistant Professor at Lewis and Clark College (1998-99). He has been teaching at Arizona State University since 2001. In addition to a number of articles and book reviews, he is now working on a major study on self-immolation in medieval China based on his doctoral dissertation.

David W. Chappell is Professor of Comparative Religion at Soka University of America and is Professor Emeritus of the University of Hawaii. His doctorate at Yale University was Tao-ch’o (563-645), A Chinese Pioneer of Pure Land Buddhism. His publications include several edited books: Buddhist and Taoist Studies (1977), T’ien-t’ai Buddhism: An Outline of the Fourfold Teachings (1983), Buddhist and Taoist Practice in Medieval Chinese Society (1987), Unity in Diversity: Hawaii’s Buddhist Communities (1997), and Buddhist Peacework: Creating Cultures of Peace (1999). After initiating a series of Buddhist-Christian conferences in the 1980s, he became the founding editor (1981-1995) of the academic journal Buddhist-Christian Studies, the founding Director of the Buddhist Studies Program, UH (1987-1991), a co-founder of the Society of Buddhist-Christian Studies (1988), and later its president (1993-95). He is currently exploring the public roles of religion in civil society.
Jinhua Chen, born in 1966, had studied at Beijing University (1983-1990) and the Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (1990-1991) before coming to Canada in 1992 for further education. After receiving his doctorate from McMaster University in 1997 with a dissertation on the formation of Tendai Esoteric Buddhism in Japan, he conducted his post-doctoral research at Kyoto University, Japan (November, 1997 – April, 2000). He had taught at the University of Virginia for one year before joining the University of British Columbia in the summer of 2001, where he also serves as Canada Research Chair in East Asian Religions. He is the author of Making and Remaking History: A Study of Tiantai Sectarian Historiography (Tokyo, 1999), Monks and Monarchs, Kinship and Kingship: Tanqian in Sui Buddhism and Politics (Kyoto, 2002). His forthcoming books include Legend and Legitimation: The Formation of Tendai Esoteric Buddhism in Japan (revised version of his Ph.D dissertation), Fame and Obscurity: The Creation of the Legends and Ideologies about the “Third Chan Patriarch”; Fact and Fiction: A Biographical Study of the Avatamsaka Master Fazang (643-712); and Early Chinese Meditation and Vinaya Traditions (5-7th Century): A Study of the Chandingsi, a Forgotten Buddhist Center from the Turn of the Sui and Tang Dynasties.

Hubert Durt, born in 1936, is Professor at the International College for Advanced Buddhist Studies in Tokyo. He has also some responsibilities in Nepal (Lumbini International Research Institute) and in Belgium (Melanges Chinois et Bouddhiques). He started his Buddhist studies at the University of Louvain (Ph.D. in 1970). Most of his activities in Japan (where he arrived in 1961) are devoted to the Hobogirin, a French encyclopedia on Sino-Japanese Buddhist terms, to which he made numerous contributions (especially in the volumes 4 to 8). They are generally related to the Chinese adoption of the Vinaya rules and of early Mahayana. He wrote also several articles concerning the legend of the Buddha and Buddhist historiography (Problems of Chronology and Eschatology – Four Lectures on Tominaga Nakamoto’s Essay on Buddhism [Kyoto, 1994]).

James H. Foard (Ph.D., Stanford University) is Professor of Japanese Religion in the Department of Religious Studies at Arizona State University. He has published studies of medieval and early modern Japanese popular religion, as well as articles on the ritual responses to the atomic bombings. He is currently working on the theme of body substitution and transformation in Japanese religions.

Robert Sharf is Arthur F. Thurnau Professor and Associate Professor of Buddhist Studies in the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Michigan. He is author of Coming to Terms with Chinese Buddhism: A Reading of the Treasure Store Treatise (University of Hawai’i Press, 2002), and coeditor of Living Images: Japanese Buddhist Icons in Context (Stanford University Press, 2001).

Fumihiko Sueki is Professor of Japanese Religions in Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology of University of Tokyo. His main works (in Japanese) include History of Japanese Buddhism (Tokyo, 1992), Miscellaneous Essays on Japanese Buddhism (Tokyo, 1993), Studies in Buddhist Doctrines in the Early Heian Period (Tokyo, 1995) and Studies in the Formation of Kamakura Buddhism (Kyoto, 1998). He also contributed several articles in English to the Japanese Journal of Religious Studies and other journals.

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