Part of a special section on Buddhist Chaplaincy in the United States and Japan.
Editors’ note: Dr. Jitsujo Gauthier is chair and Associate Professor of Buddhist Chaplaincy at University of the West. Dr. Gauthier is also a Zen teacher, priest, and preceptor within the Zen Peacemakers and White Plum Asanga lineage. In this article, Dr. Gauthier introduces the work of Vietnamese Buddhist leader Thich Vien Ly, whose Beginning and Development of Buddhist Education in Vietnam outlines key pedagogical approaches derived from teaching methods used by the Buddha and in canonical Buddhist texts. Dr. Gauthier summarizes and re-organizes Thich Vien Ly’s work, providing illustrative examples of how these pedagogical methods can be applied in North American classrooms, sanghas, and clinical pastoral education programs. Dr. Gauthier also introduces new teaching methods addressing resistance from a Mahāyāna Buddhist worldview and a Buddhist “window of tolerance” based on recent research in trauma. With her attention to intersectionality and embodiment, Gauthier offers concrete exercises, demonstrating that Buddhist paradigms of learning have a lot to offer the fields of education, chaplaincy, and spiritual care.