Stanford Scholar on the Conceits & Blind Spots of Every Form of Buddhism | Prof. Paul Harrison Q&A

In this session, Ajahn Kovilo and Ajahn Nisabho interview Paul Harrison, professor of religious studies at Stanford University (https://religiousstudies.stanford.edu/people/paul-harrison).

00:00:00 Introduction

00:01:23 Balancing academic scholarship and personal spiritual practice

00:04:09 Exploring the spiritual dimension of studying Buddhist texts

00:05:55 How early Mahayana Buddhism emerged

00:08:56 The timeline and setting where Mahayana began to diverge

00:12:54 Explanation of the Lokaksema Corpus and early ascetic Mahayana traditions

00:15:21 The cultural motivations and societal forces that drove the Mahayana movement

00:18:11 Why early texts lack questions about attaining full Buddhahood

00:21:29 The tension between historical scholarly development and traditional faith views

00:25:11 Blind spots in the Theravada and linguistic distances from Pali

00:30:59 The validity of an early Buddhist text conceit vs radical doctrinal differences with Mahayana texts

00:34:48 The implications of written transmission versus oral recitation, and what the Gandhari scrolls reveal about it

00:38:00 Do modern scholars actively practice text memorization?

00:45:59 The historical evidence for ancient Greek and Persian cross-cultural influences on early Buddhism

00:49:57 The polemical framing of Sariputta and the sectarian put-downs of the Shravakas in texts like the Vimalakirti Sutra

00:54:06 The most fascinating current realms of research in Buddhist academia

00:56:13 The key historical and doctrinal insights gained from the Gandhari scrolls

00:57:28 The utility and drawbacks of using AI for translating sacred Buddhist texts

Biography of Paul Harrison:

Paul Harrison is the George Edwin Burnell Professor of Religious Studies at Stanford University. Educated in his native New Zealand and in Australia, he specializes in Buddhist literature and history, especially that of the Mahāyāna, and in the study of Buddhist manuscripts in Sanskrit, Chinese and Tibetan. He has edited and translated a number of Buddhist texts, including the Pratyutpannabuddhasaṃmukhāvasthitasamādhisūtra, the Vajracchedikā, and (with Luis Gómez) the Vimalakīrtinirdeśa, and is also one of the editors of the series “Buddhist Manuscripts in the Schøyen Collection.”

The link to the 7:00-7:45 pm Zoom session following the livestream may be found on the event listing at https://www.clearmountainmonastery.org/events/wednesday/.

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