PACIFIC WORLD Journal of the Institute of Buddhist Studies
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PACIFIC WORLD Journal of the Institute of Buddhist Studies Third Series Number 16 2014 TITLE iii Pacific World is an annual journal in English devoted to the dissemination of his- torical, textual, critical, and interpretive articles on Buddhism generally and Shinshu Buddhism particularly to both academic and lay readerships. The journal is distributed free of charge. Articles for consideration by the Pacific World are welcomed and are to be submitted in English and addressed to the Editor, Pacific World, 2140 Durant Ave., Berkeley, CA 94704-1589, USA. Acknowledgment: This annual publication is made possible by the donation of BDK America of Berkeley, California. Guidelines for Authors: Manuscripts (approximately twenty standard pages) should be typed double-spaced with 1-inch margins. Notes are to be endnotes with full biblio- graphic information in the note first mentioning a work, i.e., no separate bibliography. See The Chicago Manual of Style (16th edition), University of Chicago Press. Authors are responsible for the accuracy of all quotations and for supplying complete refer- ences. Please e-mail electronic version in both formatted and plain text, if possible. Manuscripts should be submitted by February 1st. Foreign words should be italicized and marked with proper diacriticals, except for the following: bodhisattva, buddha/Buddha, karma, nirvana, samsara, sangha, yoga. Romanized Chinese follows Pinyin system (except in special cases); romanized Japanese, the modified Hepburn system. Japanese/Chinese names are given surname first, omit- ting honorifics. Ideographs preferably should be restricted to notes. Editorial Committee reserves the right to standardize use of or omit diacriticals. Conventionalized English form of sutra title may be used if initially identified in original or full form in text or note. Editorial Committee reserves the right to edit all submis- sions. Upon request, page proofs may be reviewed by the author. Include institutional affiliation and position, or present status/occupation and place. All manuscripts submitted for publication become the property of Pacific World. By agreeing to publication in the Pacific World, authors give the journal and the In- stitute of Buddhist Studies an unlimited license to publish and reprint the essay. This license includes, but is not limited to, any media format (hard copy, electronic, etc.), and international rights. Copyright remains the author’s. EDITORIAL COMMITTEE Richard K. Payne, Chair David Matsumoto Eisho Nasu Natalie Quli Scott Mitchell ASSISTANT EDITOR Natalie Quli BOOK REVIEW EDITOR Scott Mitchell REVERSE TITLE PAGE iv PACIFIC WORLD Journal of the Institute of Buddhist Studies Third Series, Number 16 2014 CONTENTS Māra Re-Imagined: Stories of the “Evil One” in Changing Contexts MICHAEL D. NICHOLS 1 Guṇabhadra to Bodhidharma: The Laṅkāvatāra-Sūtra and the Idea of Preaching without Words CHARLES WILLEMEN 19 The Path from Metaphor to Narrative: Gampopa’s Jewel Ornament of Liberation RICHARD K. PAYNE 29 The Abhayagirivihāra’s Pāṃśukūlika Monks in Second Lambakaṇṇa Śrī Laṅkā and Śailendra Java: The Flowering and Fall of a Cardinal Center of Influence in Early Esoteric Buddhism JEFFREY SUNDBERG 49 BOOK REVIEWS Immigrants to the Pure Land: The Modernization, Acculturation, and Globalization of Shin Buddhism, 1898–1941 by Michihiro Ama JONATHAN H. X. LEE 187 Luminous Bliss: A Religious History of Pure Land Literature in Tibet by Georgios T. Halkias KENDALL MARCHMAN 192 Living Karma: The Religious Practices of Ouyi Zhixu by Beverley Foulks McGuire ERIK HAMMERSTROM 199 BDK English TripiṭaKa sEriEs 205 v vi Editor’s Note First published in 1925, Pacific World was originally envisioned by Yehan Numata as a bi-monthly journal. After a lapse of some decades, the journal was reinitiated in 1982. Both that first issue and the second, 1983, were desig- nated as “Spring.” However, it is unclear as to why the season was included, as these were both annual issues. A “new series” was initiated in 1985, and the seasonal designation was retained, though now shifted to “Fall.” This re- mained in place after the “third series” was introduced in 1999. After almost three and a half decades, it seems an appropriate time to simply use the year, and to no longer designate an issue in terms of a season. vii viii Māra Re-Imagined: Stories of the “Evil One” in Changing Contexts1 Michael D. Nichols Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, Saint Joseph’s College INTRODUCTION Any scholar of Buddhism who has studied the various narratives of the awakening of Siddhārtha Gautama will also have encountered the figure of Māra, the deity/demon who represents desire and death and attempts to prevent Gautama’s realization. Found in numerous textual permutations—such as the Buddhacarita, Nidāna-kathā, or Lalitavistara to name some of the primary accounts—the story of this confrontation has been a frequent subject for adaptation and reinvention in Buddhist traditions. While previous work on Māra has been done regarding the figure’s symbolism in these Indian traditions and some contemporary festivals in Southeast Asia,2 little attention has been focused on ap- pearances of Māra in Western forms, especially popular culture. To do so has two immediately discernible benefits. First, it is instructive as to at least some of the ways an ancient figure such as Māra is perceived in or adapted to a mass media world. Second, it might provide evidence for the broader reception (or even consumption) of Buddhism in the Western world, including the tensions and renegotiations inherent in the process of adapting an older narrative symbol to new times and media. Several theoretical ideas concerning the ongoing revision and ad- aptation of religious narratives, especially in the context of popular culture, are helpful as background to what I will explore in this paper. For instance, in their treatment of religious themes in popular culture in America, Bruce David Forbes and Jeffrey Howard Mahan acknowl- edge the reflective properties of mass media, but emphasize that it “both reflects and shapes us.”3 The two perspectives are, of course, not mutually exclusive, and together provide an explanation for how 1 2 Pacific World religious narratives take on stereotypical guises in popular culture and mass media, yet proceed to engender new forms. Anthropologist Edmund Leach summarizes this way of understanding religious nar- ratives very well, writing that religious narrative (or, to use another term, “myth”) “is a language of argument, not a chorus of harmony.”4 Myths may be made, but we would be wrong to think they ever stop being made, or being contested. In defining the term “transvaluation,” James Liszka has argued along these lines also, writing that myth “is a shape, or better, a value-shifter rather than a value producer.”5 It is better, therefore, to understand religious narratives as being in a con- stant state of flux, the concept of “myth” as coextensive with “myth- making,” and religious story-telling as inextricable from socio-politi- cal debate and imagination.6 Religious narratives exist in an ongoing process of reinterpretation and the affect of popular media as a factor in these transformations cannot be ignored. In this paper I will analyze and compare two such instances of the reinterpretation, or even recalibration, of Māra in Western popular media and the ways those re-imaginations of the figure reflect, and perhaps even shape, Western contexts. The first is Canadian convert Buddhist Ajahn Puṇṇadhammo’s work Letter from Māra, an explicit Buddhist reworking of the literary classic The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis, with Māra providing instructions to his minions for ensnaring humans specific to the contemporary West.7 The second is the appear- ance of Māra in two series (eight episodes) of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who in the early 1980s. One, entitled “Kinda,” ran in early February of 1982 and a second, “Snakedance,” in January of 1983. While these manifestations of Māra have different contexts, mo- tivations, and represent very different kinds of media, their symbol- ism is very telling for the deployment of Māra in Western Buddhism. Indeed, they both grow out of yet constitute different responses to what Buddhist Studies scholars have called “Buddhist modernism.” One of the leading scholars on this topic, David McMahan, has described Buddhist modernism as “forms of Buddhism that have emerged out of an engagement with the dominant cultural and intellectual forces of modernity,” such as nationalist elements and the replacement of traditional mythology with modern science and cosmology.8 In react- ing to these forces, Buddhist modernists have demonstrated a compli- cated relationship with the West. As McMahan points out, Buddhist modernists have not carried out a “mere accommodation to [Western Nichols: Māra Re-Imagined 3 discourses] . some of the developments have selectively adopted certain modern Western ideas and practices as tools to critique domi- nant features of modernity.”9 In the following, I will attempt to bring out both these different levels of responses to modernity in Letter from Māra and episodes of Doctor Who, attend to the effect of the different media involved in their representations, and ultimately consider their potential significance for evolving notions of Buddhist narrative. LETTER FROM MĀRA Beginning with Letter from Māra, the author Ajahn Puṇṇadhammo, ac- cording to biographical information on his website, was born in Toronto in 1955 as Michael Dominskyj.10 Becoming interested in Buddhism as a young man, he traveled to Thailand for thirteen years and ordained as a Theravādin monk. In 1992, he returned to Canada and founded a meditation and retreat center near Thunder Bay, Ontario called the Arrow River Forest Hermitage. This center, in both its physical and digital form on the Web, is dedicated to educating the unfamil- iar about Buddhist teachings. According to advertisements, visitors to the center receive access to its library of Buddhist texts and tai- lored meditation instruction.