03/16/2024
Sharing an announcement of interest for those in the DC area - the George Washington University Department of Religion will be hosting the following talk on Thursday, March 21:
Shaping our Collective Worlds: Lessons from Yogacara Buddhism
"Professor William Waldron of Middlebury College is our guest lecturer. He will present core insights from one of the most influential schools of Buddhism: the Yoga-Practitioners School (Yogācāra, 3-5th c CE). We will focus on two of these insights, starting with “collective worlds.” These collective worlds are social with cultural constructs that we are constantly re-constructing together. The companion insight is they recognized that most of these constructive processes occur outside of our conscious awareness. These insights give us tools to understand our “worlds,” our cultures, more clearly and critically, so that we can intentionally construct them in more inclusive and compassionate ways. We will outline how Yogācāra Buddhists came to see all this and suggest some of its implications for our
radically pluralistic world."
Bio:
"William Waldron has been teaching courses on Buddhism, Hinduism, and the Study of Religion at Middlebury College since 1996. He received his B.A. in South Asian Studies and Ph.D. in Buddhist Studies, both from the University of Wisconsin, after working with native teachers and scholars in India, Nepal, Taiwan, and Japan. His research focuses on Indian Buddhism and the Yogācāra school, especially in dialogue with modern theories of mind. He published a monograph on the Yogācāra idea of ‘store- house consciousness’ (ālaya-vijñāna) (The Buddhist Unconscious, 2003), and, more recently, an introduction to Indian Yogācāra Buddhism: Making Sense of Mind-Only: Why Yogācāra Matters (2023)."
