Thich Nhat Hanh with Martin Luther King, Jr. (approx. 1966)
Below is Thich Nhat Hanh’s translation of the Metta Sutta. This text plays an important role in Buddhist practice and is chanted daily in a range of languages throughout the Buddhist world. It took on additional importance for me two weeks ago. Continue reading
Some reflections on what I teach — and what I don’t.
Contemporary Buddhist nuns.
Looking Back
Last year was my first time back in a Religious Studies classroom after two years away. As I returned to the classroom, I began to think more about the range of voices in a religious tradition, and the ways in which some of them (especially the voices of women) were not featured as prominently as they could have been in my courses.
One reason for this, I now realize, dealt with definition. How do I, as the teacher – and thus, the learning-materials-selector – define the discipline? Take the example of one course I have taught, Asian Religions. What does Asian Religions mean? The way that I define and understand this term will have significant implications for the texts/art/films/etc. that I choose – and by extension, the texts that I leave out. Continue reading
As I mentioned in the previous post, I am in India for two weeks with students from the US. The students arrived a week before I did, and have completed their second week here. This past week, we spent about three days in Ahmedabad at the Environmental Sanitation Institute, a Gandhi-inspired organization designed to promote health literacy in urban and rural India. After that we departed for Mumbai (where I’m writing this post), the Indian city of dreams, home to some 20 million people from all over India (and, of course, the world).
I don’t have a single theme or thread to explore here – and, sadly, no pictures at the moment, as internet connections are unreliable and slow – but I did want to share some moments that have stuck out.
I’m composing my first blog post from an airport! I’m on my way to Ahmedabad, Gujarat to join students from Phillips Academy and Phillips Exeter Academy on a program called Niswarth.
Lots of links above. Niswarth is an opportunity for students and faculty to learn with each other and peers from Indian schools. We will learn about modern India — politics, religion, culture, history, educational system — while also grappling with questions of privilege, inequality, social change, moral agency, and justice. I’ve been on this trip twice before (in 2008 and 2011) and am delighted to be a part of it once more.
A couple years ago I wrote about the pedagogy of this program for Independent Teacher, an online magazine published by NAIS. You can read that article here.
More interesting, however, is the blog that is being updated regularly by student participants from this year’s trip. It’s well worth a read! (I’ll also try to share thoughts and reflections when I can.)
The philosophical graffiti above comes from a remark during my spring Bioethics course. We were talking about abortion (I believe) and a student was a bit concerned that she would not be able to articulate exactly what was on her mind. In response, these words came out of my mouth. They get to, I think, the ideal of what I hope for in a course on Ethics or Religious Studies. Continue reading
Teaching (mostly) Asian Religions 