Author Meets Author: Multiple Truths in Buddhist Studies

“There are two kinds of truth. There are superficial truths, the opposite of which are obviously wrong. But there are also profound truths, whose opposite are equally right.” – Niels Bohr

“In defense of receptivity as an intellectual virtue, it should be remembered that abandoning truth in a particular context makes truth conditional, but this does not mean a rejection of the value of truth. It simply means, in the words of Ganeri again, that ‘…what value the truth has is dependent on what condition is met: that truth has different values in different conditions.’” – Vrinda Dalmiya, Caring to Know, 108

This roundtable intentionally breaks from the norms of intellectual argument, where one presents a thesis and defends it against critique from others, to provide an occasion for scholars to reflect and critique their own work from rival perspectives. Rather, this collegial conversation will demonstrate the value of situating one’s scholarship at the intersection of many different forms of truth, bringing to the fore critical methodological and disciplinary challenges for scholars reflecting on the intersection of Buddhist and Buddhist Studies epistemological categories. Led by two moderators who begin by showcasing conflicting reflections on their own scholarship, each panelist will pick a category (gender, identity, state, violence, mind, pluralism, and disciplinary boundaries) and critically reflect on (at least) two modes of engaging with these categories in Buddhist Studies, by making rival arguments that are equally valid. After their brief five-minute remarks, the moderator will open up the conversation among the panelists, and between panelists and the audience.

Our first moderator opens by highlighting the multiple truths that are in tension and drive their work on women, including misogyny in the Buddhist tradition and the liberating power wielded by Buddhist women. The picture is further complicated by the increased attention to non-binary identities, but a focus on the suffering of beings also brings reconciliation into the picture. Moderator 1 suggests that we rely on Process Philosopher Alfred North Whitehead’s concept of Truth, which moves away from reifying or divisiveness and facilitates deep listening, respect for diversity, and ever-expanding one’s perspective.

The second moderator explores the relationship between the modern state and Buddhism and argues that the tension between these two often concerns the nature and truth of temporality and spatiality. They raise important questions, such as how different models of historical consciousness (linear, cyclical, apocalyptic, etc.) could be used to legitimize and make sense of colonial violence and religious persecution. In doing so, scholars could reach a proper acknowledgment of the existence of Rashomonic, multiple, and often contradictory truths that blur the line between the categories of the state and religion.

Panelist #1 opposes the arguments that Buddhism and Buddhists hold nonviolence as a central value, on the one hand, and that certain sorts of violence are included routinely in the life of Buddhist communities, on the other. Their special focus will be sexual violence. They will consider vinaya case law on rape along with two contemporary examples of rape within Buddhist communities in order to explore whether sexual harm is actually disallowed for ordained Buddhist renunciants and, if so, on what reasoning. The record will prove to be unclear regarding the allowability of sexual violence within certain forms of monastic Buddhism, as much depends on what definitions of key concepts like harm, consent, celibacy, and compassion are employed.

Panelist #2 problematizes the primacy of the mind in Buddhist practice. Moving away from extraordinary figures of Buddhist history to the vast majority of Buddhist practitioners, who are non-extraordinary and non-monastic, they argue that this non-exceptional Buddhist majority are primarily engaged in multiple layers of domestic and religious labors, which disallow or disincentivize them from performing single-pointed meditation. Their practices of bodily labor, therefore, call into question our presuppositions on the relationship between mental intentionality and efficacious practice, and the mind as the main site of merit-making and wisdom production. It can simultaneously be argued that it is intentionality that transforms mundane practices into religiously efficacious ones.

Shifting the focus from Buddhist ethics and practice to the issue of language, the next two panelists present the richness in expressing Buddhist identities, personal or doctrinal. Panelist #3 interrogates whether a contemporary Chinese American religious healer who employs code-switching among multiple medical languages is engaging in oscillation among multiple ontologies.

Panelist #4 considers the implications of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama’s decision to translate chos lugs ris med, which might intuitively be rendered into English as something like “religious non-sectarianism” or “religious nondiscrimination,” as “secularism.” They will consider the Dalai Lama’s motives in advocating for this specific term, as well as the larger politics of representation in which the Dalai Lama was embedded. They will use the Dalai Lama’s translation choice as a mirror to explore their own treatment of ris med as a discourse of “religious pluralism” that stands to benefit contemporary scholars of the subject whether or not they are scholars of Buddhism. The panelist considers whether this choice, which comes from a sympathetic desire to bring more emic Buddhist theoretical categories into the larger religious studies academy, carries similar epistemic risks.

Panelist #5 questions what, if anything, gets across when we talk outside of disciplinary, linguistic, and national boundaries in Buddhist Studies. Is there a truth hidden behind diverse intellectual approaches, methodologies, and perspectives? Or are we too entrenched in our ways to share a common ground? In relating the experience of presenting their own scholarship in two academic worlds – China and the United States, they illustrate the distinct intellectual drives and trends in each academia, and the difficulty in making these mutually intelligible.

This conversation aims to create a space of openness and vulnerability where difficult dialogues between emic Buddhist and religious studies categories can take place, in hopes that situating a multiplicity of epistemological categories in the mirrors of one another will provide a vantage from which both scholarly and Buddhist notions of truth can be revalued.