Atman in Advaita Vedanta: Variations on a theme from the Principal Upanishads”
GUERRERO, Laura P. (Utah Valley University)
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- GUPTA, Sandeep (Dei University, India) “Consciousness - Space – Place”
- GURU, Gopal (Jawahrlal Nehru University, India) “The Metaphysics of Pilgrimage: Wari as Dynamic Space”
- GUZOWSKA, Joanna ( University of Warsaw , Poland) “Speech in the Realm of Teeming Life: An Exploration of the Hengxian and the Qiwulun
- HALL, Gerard (Australian Catholic University, Australia) "The Pertinence of Panikkars Diatopical Hermeneutics for Intercultural Dialogue with Aboriginal Australians
- HARRINGTON, Michael (Duquesne University) “Neo-Confucian Reflections on Being Out of Place”
- HARRIS , Stephen (Leiden University, The Netherlands) “Samsara is Nirvana: Locating the kleśas in Buddhist Cosmic Psychology”
- HARRIS, Thorian R. ( University of Maryland Baltimore County ) “Confucius and the Confederacy: What Early China Can Teach us About the Ethics of Memorials”
- HAVLICK, David (University of Colorado at Colorado Springs) “Re-Placing Memory: Total War, Commemoration, and Reuse of Militarized Sites in Japan”
- HE, Jinli (Trinity University) “Spatiality and Location in the Inner Chapters of the Zhuangzi ”
- HEINE, Steven (Florida International University) “Utopian Space and Institutional Place in Classical Chan Buddhism”
- HEITZ, Marty (Oklahoma State University) “I Am Here Now”—A Finger Pointing at the Moon”
GUERRERO, Laura P. (Utah Valley University) “The Place of Reality and the Reality of Place: Ramifications of Buddhist Conventionalism about Reality” Coming to realize that reality is ultimately conventional is, according to Mahāyāna Buddhists, transformative in a positive way of how a person acts and reacts to her lived world. However, and perhaps ironically, the claims to conventionality threaten to undermine the epistemic and ethical norms required to support the Buddhist soteriological project and defend it against rivals. In an effort to address this concern, this paper explores the role that lived experience pragmatically plays in shaping that conventional reality and determining its norms in non- arbitrary ways. Focusing on a comparison between Madhyamaka and Yogācāra articulations of the conventionality of reality, I will argue that the Yogācāra account of representation that is defended by Dharmakirti provides a pragmatist account that can support the necessary norms while retaining the conventionality that is important to the Buddhist account of the reality of one’s lived world. GUPTA, Sandeep (Dei University, India) “Consciousness - Space – Place” “Place is security, space is freedom: we are attached to the one and long for the other” and “what begins with undifferentiated space becomes place as we get to know it better and endow it with value” observes Yi-Fu Tuan. Tuan’s observations reflect the Eastern philosophy wherein experience is central to human life and ‘place’ is a subset of ‘space’. Organic survival, satisfaction and multiplication are the three genetic compulsions of all living species and it is no different for man. Based on the quality of his experience each one creates his own ‘place’ (physical, mental, social, economic, political and religious) and holds on to it, in his bid to feel secure, happy and loved. Unmindful of his basal instincts (desire, anger, attachment, greed and ego) he more often than not becomes the slave of his ‘place’ rather than its master. He identifies himself with his ‘place’ to such an extent that expansion and protection of his ‘place’ becomes his sole goal of life. This tendency became all the more pronounced during the scientism and materialism driven 19th & 20th centuries which perceived reality and life in material terms and declared the higher realms of reality (spirit & mind) as a figment of imagination. However, with systems theory and quantum physics gaining acceptance in mainstream science, there is a growing realization that spirit and mind also have an identity of their own and are as real as matter. This makes it necessary to look afresh at the concept of ‘place’ in light of the scheme of an integrated universe so that instead of being a limiting factor to human growth, ‘place’ becomes a contributing factor to human growth. In the Indian thought the creation is made of spirit, mind and matter and so is man, which makes him the perfect microcosm of the macrocosm. Further, nature has bestowed him with a dual dimension consciousness which not only gives him the ability to change himself but also his external environment. At the spirit level there is no differentiation between ‘space’ and ‘place’. The differentiation sets in at the mind* level in a subtle form (*mind is different from brain), which gets highly pronounced at the material level. In the ordinary course, human consciousness is pre-occupied by the material world and its dynamics. Once it learns to subsist and operate from the mind level a marked change takes place in the way one perceives life and reality. ‘My place is different and I need to protect its uniqueness’, which earlier seemed important, ceases to be so as it becomes ‘my place is different but similar’. Similarly as consciousness expands and starts operating from the spirit level, the subtle differentiation which exists between ‘space’ and ‘place’ at the mind level also ceases and one starts seeing the entire creation as one big undifferentiated ‘space’ from which the mind spaces and material places have been born. This transformation in consciousness is a mental revolution in the way one sees, thinks and acts and in no-way undermines the ‘place’ creating propensity of man or the necessity of ‘place’ in man’s life to enable him to lead a full life. Drawing from the ancient Indian philosophy which integrates the secular and the non-secular needs of man, and has evolved through the ages (Vedanta & Buddhism) and still continues to evolve in modern times in the form of Sant-Mat and gives out a definite “science of human possibilities” (philosophy of consciousness), this paper focuses on how through the process of consciousness expansion, ‘place’ a core human requirement can be transformed from a growth limiting factor to a growth promoting factor. GURU, Gopal (Jawahrlal Nehru University, India) “The Metaphysics of Pilgrimage: Wari as Dynamic Space” Arguably, places are empty; they become meaningful after they are filled with different kinds of meanings. These meanings are generated through social relations and are communicated through language. Logic of social hierarchy for example, tends to fragments place thus nesting people in stigma and un-freedom. Spaces with their dynamic nature, on the other hand, assigns liberating meaning to places thus erasing the stigma that is associated with place. Places provide basic normative condition for the realization of values such as freedom, equality and dignity. Place, in order to develop this normative capacity has to be reconfigured along new organizing principles such as democracy. Thus, the realization of freedom depends on places that are seamless both in terms of time and space. One could argue and scholars have been arguing that reconfiguration of place occurs in the modern time. It is here one can raise the point: do we require modernity as the moment of arrival for such a reconfiguration of places on egalitarian line? Does one require modernity to release dynamic spaces that then can effectively attack the constraining logic that tends to fragment the places? I , in this essay, would like to interrogate the modernity thesis and argue that even before the arrival of modernity in India, certain humanitarian tradition did generate spaces which were accommodative of associational aspirations of different social groups. For example the heterodox tradition of WARI (the pilgrimage), which has its origin in 13th century Maharashtra continues to exist even today with the same dynamism of social inclusiveness. I, in this essay, would discuss the emergence of WARI as a dynamic space particularly in the context of the limits of place which is constitutive of water tight compartmentalization. Conversely, it would also be imperative to discuss the limits of WARI in terms of its inability to reproduce dynamic spaces in differentially structured social places. In short, the focus of the essay would on the tension between the place whose logic is to fold people in the rigid hole and the spaces whose dynamism is to free people from this hole and make them flow freely. GUZOWSKA, Joanna (University of Warsaw, Poland) “Speech in the Realm of Teeming Life: An Exploration of the Hengxian and the Qiwulun” The Hengxian paints an intriguing picture of human speech. Words (言) and names (名) are like all other phenomena in the realm of teeming life (茲生). They too follow the threefold logic of spontaneous emergence, reproduction, and gradual entrenchment. As is implied throughout the text, no particular name (no doctrine, innovation, affair, action, etc.) enjoys any special cosmic or natural warrant. Cosmically speaking, each actual name is allowed for with equal indifference. Naming is simply one more process of life. A similar insight can be found in the second chapter of the Zhuangzi, the (in)famous Qiwulun, although there the view of speech (言) as yet another life phenomenon is entertained as an open question rather than stated with certainty. However, speech is not only natural but also normative and both texts recognize it. The Hengxian notes that human activity is the source of disorder in the world (亂), and the Qiwulun explores the problem of inter–school conflict that is predicated on the distinction between right and wrong (是非). The goal of my presentation is to explore how the Hengxian and the Qiwulun construe speech as both spontaneous and normative, both natural and human, with an eye to formulating an account of how speaking both partakes in and transforms the realm of teeming life. HALL, Gerard (Australian Catholic University, Australia) "The Pertinence of Panikkar's Diatopical Hermeneutics for Intercultural Dialogue with Aboriginal Australians XXXXX HAQ, Sara (University of Maryland) “’My Place is the Placeless:’ A-Duality and Homeless Sexualities in Mystical Thought” What do Rumi’s metaphysics of placelessness/tracelessness and Jennifer Purvis’ notion of a “homeless sexuality” have to say to each other? How are Sufis “queer” in embodying the vulnerability that comes with owning one’s homelessness? Using Raimon Panikkar’s notion of advaita (a-duality), and the Sufi concept of zaat (identity/essence/being), I make the case that our identity politics are always-already intertwined with our ontological being. The Sufi is that which is always-already queer; the queer-of-color is that which is always-already fueled by the spiritual. Given that much work has already been done on the latter by womanists, feminists, and queer activists of color, rooting their theorizing in religio- spirituality far more than white feminists, this paper will focus on the former statement: the Sufi is that which is always-already queer. In this paper, I will do the following. 1) In the first section, I present two poems, one written by Rumi, the other by me, illustrating an example of how both Sufi thought and queer theory study the underlying instability of categories. Queer theory primarily works to destabilize gender binaries; Sufi philosophy destabilizes self/Other, human/Divine binaries by using the destabilization of gender binaries as one of its many metaphorical lenses. I use Raimon Panikkar’s notion of aduality, Rumi’s poetry, and Layli Maparyan’s womanist philosophy to make the case for a love-based feminist/queer method that Orientalism look like today? What does dis-orienting neo- compartmentalized, otherized sexuality that is defined by xenophobic/xenophilic orientations? These are a few of the questions that are both performed and analyzed in this paper. 2) In the second section, I use Panikkar’s advaitic philosophical notion of a loving-knowledge and a knowing-love to reflect upon the beloved Punjabi folk-tale of Heer-Ranjha. Drawing on the poem “Chanting Ranjha,” in which the male poet is masquerading in the female voice of Heer, I make the case for a Sufi linguistic and poetic style that is always-already queer. I also conduct an in-depth analysis of Persian and Punjabi terms kardan/kardi (to chant, to do) and zaat (identity, being), to make the case for the inextricable intertwining of identity politics with the ontological, the doing with the being. 3) In the third section, I switch focus to the male character of the epic, Ranjha, discussing the theme of homelessness and connecting this with Jennifer Purvis’ notion of a homeless sexuality. What feminist/queer scholars have identified as disidentification in the context of queer hermeneutics – challenging straight/gay binaries via hybridized positionality, and calling for a post-binary approach to sex, sexuality, gender, and race – is symbolized in the theme of homelessness found in Ranjha’s story. I employ Panikkar’s ideas on the contradictory nature of aduality to frame this trope of owning one’s homelessness as a new home. 4) In my last section, I use AnaLouise Keating’s notion of threshold theorizing to reflect on how this paper has been an exercise of this methodology, and looking forward, how we must move past an interrelatedness and call for a radical intra-relatedness. Heer-Ranjha’s epic is simply one representation of what such a radical intra-relatedness looks like, a learning to let the Other speak from within the self, rather than simply speaking on behalf of the Other. HARRINGTON, Michael (Duquesne University) “Neo-Confucian Reflections on Being Out of Place” In a world where human desire and heavenly principle matched up precisely, there would be no need for anyone to be out of place. The Song dynasty Confucians have a robust vocabulary to describe the proper placement of things, employing terms like “principle” (li 理), “pattern” (wen 文), and “position” (wei 位), among others. Effective action requires that the position of the agent match up with his or her disposition, as well as with the positions of other people and things involved in the action, and more broadly with the pattern of heaven and earth. The world we live in is not one where this is always or often possible. It is important, then, for the student of government to consider not only how to put everything in its place, but how to be effectively out of place. The Song dynasty commentaries on the Yijing provide a useful starting point for such a consideration. The Symbol commentary frequently makes the claim that a line’s “position is not proper for it” (weibudang 位不當). This claim serves as a starting point for Confucian reflections on when it is good or bad to be out of place. The initial and top lines of the hexagrams also occasionally provoke a commentator to give advice on how to be effectively out of place, since these lines are often understood as referring to people who ought to be serving in government, but for one reason or another remain in seclusion. Finally, the entirety of the March (lü 旅) hexagram is understood by several Song Confucians as providing advice for those who are out of place. From these scattered reflections, it is possible to develop an attitude toward being out of place that is more than mere resignation, and that reflects an appreciation for its personal and political significance. HARRIS, Stephen (Leiden University, The Netherlands) “Samsara is Nirvana: Locating the kleśas in Buddhist Cosmic Psychology” A startling feature of Buddhist psychology, cosmology and meditational theory is the correlation of saṃsāric mental states with cosmological realms of rebirth. According to Abhidharmic categorizations of mental states, this correlation is quite literal: anger is the state of mind that predominates in a hell realm, and when I lose my temper I share the mental experience of a hell being. These same claims apply for the other realms of rebirth, with craving predominating in the realm of hungry ghosts, ignorance in the realm of animals and so on. There is a sense, then, in which the negative mental states (kleśas) are physically located, as (predominantly) arising in a given realm. I argue that this early cosmological picture hints at the rejection of dualisms in later Mahāyāna metaphysics. I begin by emphasizing the distinction in Buddhist psychology between pleasure and pain (vedanā) which are karmically and soteriologically neutral, and the negative mental states (kleśas) like anger and craving. I use The Simile of the Saw from the Pali Canon as illustrating the limit case in which terrible physical pain is experienced with complete emotional equilibrium. Theoretically, this same distinction should apply in the negative realms as well, and this is what we find in Śāntideva’s description of the bodhisattva’s complete immunity to distress in the hell realms. Nirvana with remainder, therefore, has no physical location within the realms of existence, but instead is a skillful (kuśala) mode of interacting with any external phenomena whatsoever. All of this hints at the radical rejection of dualisms we find in later Mādhyamika and Yogācāra metaphysics. Here the dichotomy between virtuous (kuśala) and negative (kleśa) mental states is itself destabilized, but the basic soteriological movement we find in the spatialization of the kleśas repeats within the psychological domain. Nirvana with remainder is no longer merely constituted by a subset of virtuous qualities, but is now a mode of experiencing all phenomena whatsoever as empty of intrinsic existence (svabhāva) or of subject object duality. HARRIS, Thorian R. (University of Maryland Baltimore County) “Confucius and the Confederacy: What Early China Can Teach us About the Ethics of Memorials” Memorials have many social functions, but perhaps the most definitive is to transcribe, transmit, and trigger the memory of the subject—whether it is a specific person, group, event, and action. Memorials that are dedicated to specific persons can express love, grief, thanksgiving—yet, regardless of the specific intentions of those who establish them, many such memorials also take on the function of commending the memorialized person to our attention, encouraging us to regard the person as exemplary, even if only in a limited capacity. As recent debate in the United States over the memorials dedicated to figures of the Confederacy demonstrates, the normative force of memorials and the moral significance of putative exemplars are rightfully subject to critique. But what are the proper terms and goals of such criticisms? Must those whom we memorialize be wholly free from moral flaws? If we are critical of monuments dedicated to militant defenders of the institution of slavery, must we also be critical of monuments dedicated to slave-owning presidents? Can monuments focus on specific aspects of a person, and not require approbation of everything about the person? Can memorials function to open up critical discussions and sustain conflicting moral evaluations, or is a dominant moral interpretation always implied? Is it possible that we might memorialize cautionary, and not simply exemplary, figures? Drawing upon the discussions on exemplars, both terrible and excellent, in the early Confucian literature, as well as the critical engagement, on the part of Confucians, in the practices of memorialization—burial mounds, ancestor tablets, historical records—I will define and defend a Confucian program for critically assessing the normative force and moral significance of exemplars and the places and objects we use to memorialize them. HAVLICK, David (University of Colorado at Colorado Springs) “Re-Placing Memory: Total War, Commemoration, and Reuse of Militarized Sites in Japan” The 1931 to 1945 Asia Pacific war created an array of specific militarized places and more generalized militarized landscapes. These latter, the product of a commitment to total warfare pursued especially by the US starting in 1944, present a challenge to subsequent efforts at commemoration. It can be a relatively straightforward task to commemorate a particular site of military impact, but when warfare has broadly impacted entire cities or regions it introduces a problem of scale. Total warfare also creates a distinctive and more diffused post-war politics of memory that raises ethical concerns for land redevelopment, commemoration, or obliteration. Paradoxically, the turn to total war may actually make it less likely that we will later memorialize and learn from the horrors of war. As the survivors of total war in Japan become fewer and fewer, the task of translating direct experiences into a broader memory of cultural trauma also becomes both more difficult and more important. This paper examines the irony of total warfare diminishing the cultural significance of particular places, and asks in turn to what degree current efforts to revise history and social studies texts, and to remilitarize Japan, might be a reflection of the Asia-Pacific War fading from view. Are there ways to better cultivate an ethic of memory that is grounded in physical places, and to elevate the meaning of the past so it can more clearly inform the present and the future? HE, Jinli (Trinity University) “Spatiality and Location in the Inner Chapters of the Zhuangzi” Zhuangzi’s interest in spatiality and location constitutes important features of his philosophy. In this aspect, several questions can be explored: Why it is necessary for occupying huge space and changing locations (the image of Kun in the Xiaoyaoyou [Free and Easy Wandering])? Why there has to be a specific location (for example, Ku-se Mountain)? What is the significance of spatiality (occupying big space vs. occupying small space)? How is spatiality expressed in the concept of you 有 and its relationship with wu 無 ? How to read the dislocation of the body? How and what does it for losing/forgetting oneself (losing your spatiality and your location), etc..? In my discussion of those questions, I also intend to explain Zhuangzi’s possible contribution to our contemporary social space. HEINE, Steven (Florida International University) “Utopian Space and Institutional Place in Classical Chan Buddhism” This paper examines the distinction between two seemingly contradictory yet complementary views of the sacred habitat for monks evident in classical Chinese Chan Buddhist writings and forms of practice: one based on a utopian sense of mystical immersion in an unregulated and unfettered natural setting; and the other based on the institutional construction of a strictly regulated and highly disciplined monastic training regimen. The utopian view is primarily evoked in Tang dynasty legends of monks who lived exclusively or with preference for a natural state unfettered by the encumbrances of society. Some of the main examples include the Bird’s Nest Monk who resided at the top of a tree, from which perch he instructed Bai Juyi among many others; the Boat Monk who floated on a lake for thirty years until he found a fitting disciple and deliberately capsized; and Baizhang’s Peak, where the prominent master known for his monastic rules and devotion to laboring in the fields, escaped for solitary contemplation which he referred to as the “most extraordinary matter of Chan.” The institutional view is mainly demonstrated by the Song dynasty’s uniform pattern of Chan temple construction, which contained seven main buildings, including the Dharma Hall for preaching and the Monks Hall for meditation. Ideally, based on Baizhang’s Rules a temple would not need to house a Buddha Hall since the Abbot who resided in a special quarters was considered a manifestation of the Living Buddha, but that was aim was rarely practiced. In any case, each and every aspect of the monastic life was carefully regulated on a 24/7 basis, in contrast to the independent wanderings of Tang recluses. A famous verse about an all-night vigil while gazing at the mountains and waters after hearing an inspirational sermon at a temple by the eminent Song lay poet Su Dongpo provides an intriguing bridge linking the utopian and institutional impulses in Chan. HEITZ, Marty (Oklahoma State University) “I Am Here Now”—A Finger Pointing at the Moon” Given that the best we can do, when speaking of ultimate truth, is offer a “finger pointing to the moon,” I have developed my own “pointer,” and it expresses what I take to be the fundamental, existential fact: I Am Here Now. That may not sound like much, but as I understand it each word in this statement is a synonym for every other word, such that any single word directly implies the other three. Also, while this is a statement of absolute or “transcendent” truth, it has a relative and “contingent” corollary: i am here now. That is, we live our lives in the contingent realm of specific places and times, as this specific person with a specific, relative history, yet wherever I am, whatever the clock time or whoever I am, “I Am Here Now.” So in the deepest sense, I can never be “there” or “then,” for I can only ever be Here and Now. I use this, of course, to help express and explain the non-duality of Advaita Vedanta, Buddhism and Daoism. Directory: phil -> wp-content -> uploads phil -> Going global oddities of globalism phil -> Identification ethics and spirituality phil -> Special Topic: “The home-made bombing at the Marathon Races in Boston, Massachusetts” by Sally Ramage pages 2-50 phil -> The Role of Error in Computer Science phil -> 菲律賓私立大專校院（非屬Autonomy and Deregulated heis） phil -> Gualtiero Piccinini phil -> Buildings Leased/Sold phil -> Phillip M. Adams & Associates, L. 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