> If the mind is originally pure, then how is one to account for empirical defilement? If the mind is not itself pure, then, being defiled, how can one ever attain purification?

> There is unanimous agreement that Nāgārjuna (ca 150–250 CE) is the most important Buddhist philosopher after the historical Buddha himself and one of the most original and influential thinkers in the history of Indian philosophy.

> We find that the number of lynching victims in a county is a positive and significant predictor of the number of Confederate memorializations in that county, even after controlling for relevant covariates. > This finding provides concrete, quantitative, and historically and geographically situated evidence consistent with the position that Confederate memorializations reflect a racist history, one marred by intentions to terrorize and intimidate Black Americans in response to Black progress.

Finishing off the discussion [in part one](/content/av/precepts1_burk-domyo) with a word on ordination in Theravāda Buddhism, this second episode introducing the monastic precepts explains how—and why—the Vinaya evolved in China.

A complete beginner's overview of precepts in Pāli Buddhism, especially the hundreds of Pātimokkha rules which the Buddha gave for the monks and nuns.

> The Toyok paintings cannot be explained by merely referring to the *Visualization Sūtra* alone but can be interpreted only by looking at the entire body of relevant meditation manuals.

Bhikkhu Anālayo examines the development of meditative encounters with Buddhas and Buddhafields through a comparative reading of Chinese Āgamas, Pāli discourses, and early Mahāyāna Sūtras.

> This study aimed at determining whether audiovisual training without linguistic material has a remediating effect on reading skills and central auditory processing in dyslexic children. > It was found that this training resulted in plastic changes in the auditory cortex, indexed by enhanced electrophysiological mismatch negativity and faster reaction times to sound changes. > Importantly, these changes were accompanied by improvement in reading skills.

> But was it really the novel which inspired the literati to create the name of “Rock for Sunning the Sūtra”? Or had this name already been transmitted for a long time, and, vice versa, it was the site of Mount Tai that inspired the author of the *Journey to the West*?

> As far as ordinary people (*pṛthagjana*) are concerned, the world which they see and reflect in their language is inaccurate and ultimately illusory. In this sense, one could say that in the case of ordinary man, the only thing which actually exists is his mind. Though the *Bodhisattvabhūmi* authors do not use such terms or descriptions, it seems that an incipient idea of 'mind-only' was, so to speak, almost on the tip of their tongues.

An edited volume of 11 papers exploring the relationship between these two schools of Mahāyāna philosophy, what their stances might contribute to contemporary philosophy, and whether their stances are actually so different after all.

> This doctrine of universal emptiness of inherent natures (*svabhāva-śūnyatā*) is the hallmark of the school, which places the school solidly in the tradition associated with the Perfection of Wisdom (*prajñāpāramitā*) literature of Mahāyāna Buddhism. [...] This article will deal only with the Madhyamaka school in India from the fifth through the eighth centuries, during which time the school underwent most of its evolution.

> (i) semantic cues should pull sentence interpretation towards plausible meanings, especially if the wording of the more plausible meaning is close to the observed utterance in terms of the number of edits; (ii) this process should asymmetrically treat insertions and deletions due to the Bayesian "size principle"; such nonliteral interpretation of sentences should (iii) increase with the perceived noise rate of the communicative situation and (iv) decrease if semantically anomalous meanings are more likely to be communicated. > These predictions are borne out, strongly suggesting that human language relies on rational statistical inference over a noisy channel.

> Far from being a literary work of art, the *Mahāvastu* is rather a labyrinth in which we can only with an effort discover the thread of a coherent account of the life of the Buddha. This account is constantly interrupted by other material, specially by the numerous Jātakas and Avadānas and also by dogmatic Sūtras. We find no order.

> Kaniṣka's faith involved devotion to Śākyamuni and Maitreya, who were looked upon by him as having quasi-divine status, by means of devotional images.

> Complex community dynamics, ineffective institutional responses, and broader societal forces of systemic violence intersect to further the impact of individual victimization.

> By providing examples for various forms of borrowings and additions this study aims at exploring the amount of innovation and the role of intertextuality in [supposedly commentarial] texts, thereby contributing to our understanding of the functions of Indian commentaries as well as of the motives and compositional techniques of their authors.

> The eclectic iconographic borrowings in the depiction of deities in Kizil show that the artists of Kucha developed a new, autonomous iconography based on the tradition of neighbouring regions.

An unholy alliance is working toward an apocalyptic future from which only a chosen few will emerge unscathed. It’s becoming clear how we stop them

> The essay proposes continuity along a range of "culinary" practices, focusing in particular on "ritual cake" (*gtor ma*) offerings and "nectar" (*bdud rtsi*) recipes involving creation of pills and healing foods. > The essay posits a "culinary aesthetics" of healing and personal enhancement and introduces speculation about Tibetan understandings of food as medicine

> What is particularly striking is that texts of the Mahāparinirvāṇa-group do not merely imply that *tathāgatagarbha* refers to something like an account of the self, but they declare that the Buddha unambiguously explains it to be the self!

> … buddha-fields completely filled with all treasures; and whatever gentleman or lady … would trust, believe, accept, and be devoted to [it]; and having trusted, believed … might teach to others in full, reveal, and cultivate [it], thereby, householder, this gentleman or lady …

> We found that the word orders speakers used in their everyday speech did not influence their nonverbal behavior. > Surprisingly, speakers of all four languages used the same order and on both nonverbal tasks. > This order, actor-patient-act, is analogous to the subject-object-verb pattern found in many languages of the world and, importantly, in newly developing gestural languages.

This matrix of Dharma lists, traditionally ascribed to "Nāgārjuna" but certainly from centuries later, shows both medieval Buddhism's pedagogical continuity with early Buddhism as well as its accretions and innovations, giving us a feeling for how Buddhism evolved during this period.

> Allusions to the two principle parts of rhetoric, memory and eloquence, *dhāraṇī* and *pratibhāna*, abound in Mahayana works.

> Subjects may see the preparation of the previous personality's body or the funeral or try to contact grieving relatives, only to find they are unable to communicate with the living. One subject said he did not realize he was dead.

> This was the only stupa in all of India at this time irregular in this way. They had to make some of the pillars thinner than the others to make it all appear slightly regular. The whole thing was a huge fudge made of stone. You can imagine the workers dreading news from the capital, dreading a messenger coming with a new command. And what would have happened if the patrons themselves, the rich men of empire, came to visit their own caves? Well, let's find out! 🪘

> One state, the one with the Aṣṭa identity, somewhere decided to call itself the Great Vehicle and dissociated itself from the Small Vehicle and the idea caught on in some other states who joined the bandwagon, even though it is entirely possible that many of those communities were not founded on the Aṣṭa principle. The end result is a hotch-potch, not really very united, 'Mahayana' front that gives the semblance that there is one entity called 'Mahayana.'

> The amplifying effects of culture can allow weak cognitive biases to have significant population-level consequences, radically increasing the evolvability of weak, defeasible inductive biases; however, the emergence of a strong cultural universal does not imply, nor lead to, nor require, strong innate constraints. > From this we must conclude, on evolutionary grounds, that the strong nativist hypothesis for language is false. > More generally, because such reciprocal interactions between cultural and biological evolution are not limited to language, nativist explanations for many behaviors should be reconsidered

> These stretches took weeks to cross even in the 20th century: From ancient times until the 1960s, camel and donkey skeletons marked out the route.

> The fact that this Aparimitāyus text was in circulation at a date so close to the shorter *Sukhāvatīvyūha-sūtra* and *Visualization Sutra* suggests that it may well have been part of the same milieu in fifth-century India, which in turn suggests that focusing solely on the three [official "Pure Land"] sutras serves only to systematically exclude other sources of information about the Indian origins of Pure Land Buddhism.

> Cross-modal cueing of attention boosted the apparent contrast of the visual target in association with an enlarged neural response in the contralateral visual cortex that began within 100 ms after target onset. > The magnitude of the enhanced neural response was positively correlated with perceptual reports of the cued target being higher in contrast. > The results suggest that attention increases the perceived contrast of visual stimuli by boosting early sensory processing in the visual cortex.

> One of the most striking aspects of popular Chinese Buddhism is the ubiquity of purgatorial and penitential liturgies that are performed as part of funerals, ancestral worship and religious festivals and involve communication with a bureaucratic pantheon for the sake of the well-being of the deceased and the living. This otherworld authority takes the form of a pre-modern Chinese bureaucratic empire ruled by the Indian Buddhist and local Chinese deities.

> After placing Foguangshan's expansion in historical perspective, I analyze its demographics and the methods that the master and his disciples have relied upon to carry out their ambitious objectives. Through this discussion, the challenges and tensions inherent within the group's mission come to light. The essay concludes by disclosing Master Xingyun's positive appraisal of the religious implications of globalization.

> When one describes a person, one is also describing how that person deviates from the norm, what makes them different from everyone else.

Chinese Buddhists are increasingly using technology, and especially social media, to spread and practice the Dharma.

> We found that the EEG activities in monks shifted to a higher frequency from resting to meditation. > Meditation starts with decrease of the (pre)frontal delta activity and increase of the (pre)frontal high beta and gamma activity; while at the deep meditative state, the posterior high-frequency activity was also increased, and could be specified as a biomarker for the deep meditation.

“It’s really tough doing anything in China right now,” my friend told me. He’s a serial entrepreneur in Shanghai with a locked-in grin. We were waiting for our food in a Taiwanese restaurant in a lovi...

> Since the revival of Buddhism in the People’s Republic of China following the Cultural Revolution, Rénjiān Fójiào 人间佛教, often translated as ‘Humanistic Buddhism’, has become a very prominent label. > It has served as a basic concept for various purposes, from the political self-legitimation of Buddhists, to the revival of traditional(ized) thinking, to religious innovation.

> This paper looks at the dynamic relationship between Buddhism, business, and merit in urban China, and particularly in the cities of the Lower Yangzi Delta (or Jiangnan), with a focus on Shanghai in late imperial and modern times. > It argues that Shanghai residents have continued to practice Buddhism notwithstanding the widespread iconoclasm enforced by the ruling elites and the recurrent calls to end all wasteful practices associated with Chinese religion.

The work is less about fighting what we feel, and more about meeting desire with curiosity, integrity and wisdom

> How had politics in Japan brought about a society that valued death above life? At the same time, I have to confess that I too had enjoyed that bracing feeling of devoting my whole being to the noble cause and being ready to sacrifice my life for the Emperor. These two feelings battled within me.

> This article surveys the life and work of Benjamin Clough (1791–1853), Wesleyan Methodist missionary to Ceylon, focusing on his contributions to the study of Pali and Buddhism. > It attempts to show that he inaugurated the Western study of Pali and that he should be recognised as one of the most important early scholars of Buddhism.

> The growth of these groups has been concomitant with democratisation, membership increasing very rapidly in the 1990s so that self-identification with Buddhism has now reached 13% of the adult population.

> From the 1990s onwards, local authorities sought to co-operate with Buddhism, hoping to profit by its cultural capital through attracting investors and promoting tourism. > The state did not cease to control and to oppress the Buddhists though, guided by economic interests, it contributed in some cases to promoting and reconstructing Buddhism

> Lin Qiuwu, also known by his monastic name Venerable Zhengfeng (1903-1934), is often referred to as 'Taiwan's revolutionary monk.' In his brief but intense life, he was involved in many of the cultural and political currents [of the day]. A staunch partisan of Taiwan autonomy, he put his talents to work helping the local population with the hardships of the Japanese colonial regime. Heavily influenced by Marxist analysis, he labored tirelessly to educate the workers about the pernicious nature of the capitalist and imperialist system under which they lived. As a modernizer, he took to the road as a lecturer and wrote many articles decrying superstition and advocating gender equality. As an ordained Buddhist monk, he faced the daunting task of putting Buddhism to work as a force for social and political change while simultaneously trying to convince other Marxists that it was different from other religions

> We find that the structure of global language networks is centered on English as a global hub and around a handful of intermediate hub languages, which include Spanish, German, French, Russian, Portuguese, and Chinese.

> FGS (“Buddha’s Light Mountain”) is the largest of several Buddhist movements in today’s Taiwan which draw their inspiration from the “Humanistic Buddhism” of the mainland Chinese monk Tai Xū (1890-1947). > It was founded in 1967 in southern Taiwan by the Master Hsing Yun (b.1927), also from the mainland, who came to Taiwan as a refugee in 1946. > Initially FGS was almost exclusively for monastics, but a lay branch, the Buddhist Light International Association (BLIA), was founded for the laity in 1991 and both organizations have spread across the globe.

> some returned female travelers have taken significant roles in organizing meditation retreats, and establishing meditation centers and meditation halls. > Through examining some ethnographic cases of Chinese nuns and laywomen, this paper argues that the transnational meditation movement has an impact not only on gender equality, especially concerning Chinese women practicing meditation, but also on the development of contemporary Chinese Buddhism.

> The Qing state several times felt that it had lost control of the religious population, recalled all certificates, and registered the whole clergy anew. Such a decision was taken by the young Qianlong emperor at the very beginning of his reign, possibly to give the impression that he was capable of exerting a very firm control over all quarters of society.