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Phool Maya Chen Award 2021-22: Andrea Wollein and Andrew Dade

Congratulations to Andrea and Andrew for being awarded the 2021-22 Phool Maya Chen Scholarship!

Andrea Wollein is a PhD candidate at the Department for the Study of Religion. She holds an MA in Modern South Asian Studies and a BA in Tibetan and Buddhist Studies. Her dissertation explores innovations within the Newar Vajrayāna Buddhist tradition through two case studies of (non-celibate) monastic institutions (Skt. vihāra): (1) Yampi Mahāvihāra, Ī Bahī (in Tibetan known as e yi gtsug lag khang) in Lalitpur, Nepal and (2) Nṛtya Maṇḍala Mahāvihāra in Portland, Oregon, USA.

Andrew Dade is a PhD candidate in the Department for Study of Religion in collaboration with the Centre for South Asian Studies.  They completed their MLIS & MS Sociocultural Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee.  He is interested in the interpretations and varied work of sound and media for Buddhist traditions.  Their combination of ethnographic research and textual analysis follows devotional, philosophical, and ideological engagements of the Pali Abhidhamma, a Buddhist phenomenological-soteriological treatise, in Myanmar (Burma) and South/Southeast Asia more broadly.

Tibetan Studies Scholar Joins the U of T

Dr. Rory Lindsay

The Robert H.N. Ho Family Foundation Centre for Buddhist Studies at the University of Toronto is glad to welcome Dr. Rory Lindsay to our Buddhist Studies community in a new Assistant Professor position in the Department for the Study of Religion. With support from the Department and the Centre for Buddhist Studies, the new position has been established with a grant from global non-profit 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha. This five-year renewable position will support the teaching of Classical Tibetan and research related to Tibetan Buddhism.

Dr. Rory Lindsay, editor at 84000, joined us in his new position on July 1, 2021. Dr. Lindsay completed his doctorate in Tibetan Studies at Harvard University in 2018 and is a Visiting Scholar at the Buddhist Texts Translation Initiative at the University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB). In addition to his editorial work at 84000, he is currently preparing several publications, including his first book, Saving the Dead: Tibetan Funerary Rituals in the Tradition of the Sarvadurgatipariśodhana Tantra, which will be published in the University of Vienna’s Wiener Studien zur Tibetologie und Buddhismuskunde series later this year.

The University of Toronto has been steadily building Tibetan Studies for nearly two decades, training students who have moved on to teaching positions in Tibetan Studies (including Rory!) and building our library, which has become the largest Tibetan collection in Canada, thanks to a unique agreement with Columbia University. Dr. Lindsay will join a vibrant community of Tibetan Studies scholars and students at the University of Toronto, as well as the University’s larger Buddhist Studies community.

The Robert H.N. Ho Family Foundation Centre for Buddhist Studies supports academic training, collaborative research, and a program of events that engage scholars and the public seeking to deepen understanding of the diversity of Buddhist traditions around the world. Beyond participating in scholarship and teaching in these areas, Dr. Lindsay will also be continuing his editorial role with the nonprofit organization in pursuit of its one-hundred-year vision to translate and publish the Tibetan Buddhist Canon in English.

CFP > Buddhism and Breath Summit

Call for Participants!

The Buddhism and Breath Summit will be an online event that explores Buddhist practices of working with the breath and/or bodily “winds”. Presenters will address how Buddhist presentations of breath, “wind” or “life force” (prāṇa in Sanskrit, qi in Chinese, or rlung in Tibetan, for example) have influenced contemplative, philosophical, and medical theories and practices in Buddhist traditions. Featuring pre-recorded video and audio conversations or presentations by scholars and practitioners, plus supplementary educational resources, the Buddhism and Breath Summit will be publicly and freely available online in Fall 2021. Co-hosted by Frances Garrett and Pierce Salguero, this event is co-sponsored by the Robert H.N. Ho Family Foundation Centre for Buddhist Studies at the University of Toronto and Jivaka.net.

We are inviting participants to contribute a (roughly) 20 minute recorded video lecture on their work on this topic, by June 15. Recorded lectures can be made with Zoom, Powerpoint, Keynote, or other software. This need not be original research (although it can be) — on the contrary, we ask participants to share already published work as the basis of their talk, and moreover to think of this lecture as addressing an undergraduate or even public audience; we hope to offer these collected talks and written references as teaching resources. Participants may also or alternatively present their work in the form of a recorded conversation about their work with one of the Summit hosts — please let us know if this is preferable. We look forward to offering each selected participant an honorarium for their contributions. Please contact frances.garrett@utoronto.ca or pierce.salguero@gmail.com if you’re interested in participating.

We stand in solidarity and care: A letter from our Director

After yet another week of racist and misogynist violence directed at Asians and those of Asian descent in North America, I write to express solidarity with and deep care for all colleagues, communities, and families who are experiencing escalating anti-Asian harassment and violence.

The Ho Centre for Buddhist Studies condemns racism, misogyny, and heteropatriarchy in no uncertain terms. Addressing the recent increase in anti-Asian racism is not only an individual responsibility – it is also our collective and institutional duty. As a backbone of white supremacy in North America, anti-Asian racism is not new, although each act of violence is newly received in the bodies of victims and their allies. As scholars and students of Buddhist Studies, we commit to directly addressing our field’s legacy of orientalism and imperialism, and to supporting and defending all students, educators, and community leaders who are engaged in anti-racist work.

In my course this semester on Buddhist meditation and race in North America, we’ve been working to better understand how forces like colonialism, racism, orientalism, and white supremacy play roles in our everyday experiences – and how we can more fully embrace attitudes and practices that are oriented to anti-racism and social justice. This week, for example, we’ve been studying Sharon Suh’s work on meditation as a strategy for addressing internalized white supremacy, and next week we’ll be learning how, despite histories of discrimination against Asian Buddhist communities in Canada, some communities are taking strong anti-racist action. News of terrorism, both locally and around the world, is so painful and our students are struggling to manage it all – but education and open conversation can help. Below are a few resources we’ve been sharing.

Resources for Further Learning and Action

Project 1907, a great list of resources created by a grassroots group of Asian women working for racial justice movement

Hollaback Bystander Intervention Training, free bystander intervention training against anti-Asian and Asian American racism and xenophobia

Stop Asian Hate, resources about the oppression of Asian and Asian American people and their work for justice

Report by Stop AAPI Hate on hate incidents in the United States during 2020-21

Readings on the history of anti-Asian racism and how to be an anti-racist ally,compiled by Jennifer Ho at University of Colorado Boulder

Why This Wave of Anti-Asian Racism Feels Different, March 17 essay in The Atlantic by Cathy Park Hong

Antiracist Toolkit and Asian American Racial Justice Toolkit – on educating and assessing ourselves; examining and revising our work; and enacting change.

“Coronavirus and Racism: Asian-Americans in the Crossfire,” July 2020 episode of Asia Matters podcast with Christine R. Yano (University of Hawaii at Manoa) and Jennifer Pan (Stanford University)

“Black and Asian American Feminist Solidarities: A Reading List,” created by Black Women Radicals

Please be well, care for each other, and stay in touch.

Kindly,
Frances  

Dr. Frances Garrett (she/her)
@garrettfrances
Director, Robert H.N. Ho Family Foundation Center for Buddhist Studies
Associate Professor, Tibetan and Buddhist Studies
Department for the Study of Religion
University of Toronto
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The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation

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