This special section of Pacific World Journal is a continuation of the conversations held during a panel that I organized for the Buddhism Unit of the 2022 American Academy of Religion (AAR) conference. The panel, titled “Performing Time in Buddhist Literature: Creative Reimaginings of Past, Present, and Future,” included myself and co-panelists Shayne Dahl, Sinae Kim, and Adam Miller, with…
Tag: narrative
An Uncommon Narrative Opening: Five Perfections in Tantra of the Sun
Shifting nidānas in Buddhist scripture signal different possibilities for what it means to embody the time of liberation, in short, buddhahood. This paper provides a close reading of the nidāna of an important, never-before studied Dzogchen Heart Essence (Tib. Snying thig) tantra called Secret Tantra of the Sun: Blazing Luminous Matrix of Samantabhadrī (Tib. Kun tu bzang mo klong gsal…
REVIEW: Hungry Ghosts, by Andy Rotman
Hungry Ghosts. By Andy Rotman. Somerville MA: Wisdom Publications, 2021. 224 pages + 8 color repro- ductions. $32.00 (paperback). ISBN 9781614297215. Andy Rotman is an acknowledged expert in Indian Buddhist narrative literature, and his two volumes of translations of Sanskrit stories from the Divyāvadāna have broadened and greatly enriched our understanding of early Indian Buddhism. We are lucky to have…