REL 444/544 Winter 2010 Final Paper Topics
Final Paper due Thursday, Mar 11 in class
* Double-spaced, 8-11 pages (12-15 for REL544). You may do one of the
suggested topics or formulate one of your own. If you wish to do your
own topic, then you must submit a one paragraph description by email
at least one week prior to the due date. The instructor will review
your topic for approval. You may proceed once you have received
feedback.
* You are not required to do any outside research for the final
paper. However, if you would like to use additional sources, you may
do so. I would be happy to recommend some sources if you wish.
* I encourage you to discuss these topics with one another.
* Be sure to write your name, the name of the class, and the title of
your topic at the top of the page.
* Please read the essays on my Writing web pages, especially "Four
Keys to Writing in the Humanities," "Paper Writing Guidelines,"
"Checklist for Papers," "Writing: The Bridge between Consciousness
and Unconsciousness," "Clauses and Commas."
Topics
1. Ryokan. Ryokan was a Zen monk in the lineage of Dogen's Soto Zen
Buddhism. However, instead of staying in a training monastery with
other monks or becoming a Zen master who trains other monks, Ryokan
became a country priest living among the villagers, playing with
children, and falling deeply in love with a nun named Teishin-ni. He
also lived in an area of Japan where there were many devout Shin
Buddhists (Pure Land Buddhists) who followed the teachings of
Shinran; nearing death, Ryokan wrote the following verse:
If anyone asks if Ryokan has written a death poem, tell them I said, "Namu Amida Butsu."
He also wrote:
What I say in this grass hut, morning and night: "Namu Amida Butsu."
Clearly, Ryokan was influenced by the Shin Buddhist ethos in his local area. He also continued to meditate and read Dogen's Zen Buddhist philosophy. His free-flowing lifestyle also resonates with themes of simplicity, nature, and humility found in the Daoist thought of Zhuangzi. Using passages and ideas from Shinran, Dogen, and Zhuangzi, provide a picture of Ryokan's spiritual and social vision as reflected in his life and poetry.
2. Coffinman. Coffinman is the story of a mortician named Shinmon Aoki whose work unexpectedly leads to a life of spiritual self-discovery. Discuss three key turning points in Aoki's journey in light of Shinran's religious thought. Be sure to discuss both the philosophical dimension of individual practice and spiritual cultivation and Shinran's social vision. Are there any ways in which Aoki's life does not conform to Shinran's Shin Buddhist thought?
3. Passages from The Tale of the Heike , Barbara Ruch's "The Other Side of Culture in Medieval Japan," and "Chapter 5: Gendered Power of Light" from Unno's Shingon Refractions contain discussions of the lives of Medieval Japanese Buddhist women. Create a dialogue among the women from these sources discussing the relation between individual spirituality, Buddhist institutions and society, and gender. Include both philosophical and social reflections that examine women and men's religious potential and social possibilities and limitations. Be sure to document your sources.
4. 3. Gender and Buddhism 1. On the one hand, religious realization of enlightenment is often described in terms of internalizing what are seen as external faults and seeing them within oneself. On the other, various social issues including unequal treatment of women within Buddhist communities may require external changes in those communities. Discuss the relation between inner realization and external social or organizational change based on the findings of two or three scholars. What do these scholars say or imply about this relationship, and what are the strengths and weaknesses of their views?
5. Sudden and Gradual 2. Compare and contrast the view of sudden and gradual awakening as evident in the following: Zen master Dogen, the Pure Land figure Shinran, and the Shingon monk Myoe. (Suggestion: Dogen incorporates affirmation of delusion as part of his understanding, Shinran incorporates blind passions, and Myoe emphasizes gradual awakening). What are the strengths and weaknesses of each approach to this problem?
- Notes on Dogen's "Genjokoan"
- (contains notes on Dogen's view of sudden awakening in Zen Buddhism)
- Mark Unno, "The Nembutsu as the Path of the Sudden Teaching,"
- (explains the view of sudden awakening in Pure Land Buddhism according to Shinran)
- Mark Unno's Shingon Refractions (pp. 79-86)
- (explains view of sudden versus gradual awakening in Myoe's Shingon Buddhism)
6. Purity and defilement, good and evil. In Shingon Refractions, Unno discusses the relationship between purity and defilement in Myoe's practice of the Mantra of Light. Taking up some of the themes he examines, compare and contrast the treatment of purity and defilement and related issues of good and evil as found in: Myoe (Shingon refractions, pp. 111-128), Shinran (see various readings related to Shinran including the Tannisho), and Coffinman. In particular, analyze their respective views of how they do or do not address purity and defilement within Buddhist institutions. You may replace one of these figures with Dogen if you like; in that case, read the section on "purity" in Hee-Jin Kim, Eihei Dogen: Mystical Realist.
7. Emptiness and transgression. Emptiness as a critical term is designed to break down dogmatic assumptions and barriers. On the positive or creative side, the realization of emptiness is an all-encompassing oneness. In terms of both its critical and positive functions, emptiness implies that, ultimately, nothing is excluded in Buddhist awareness, and that all phenomena are included. Historically, this has led to the questioning of distinctions of lay and ordained, pure and defiled, male and female, celibate and non-celibate, and so on. Compare and contrast two or more transgressive figures that we have studied and how their transgressive practices and behaviors reflect the dynamic of emptiness.
8. Near Death. You have a terminal case of liver cancer. Several months have passed since the diagnosis and now the end is near. Your lover/partner is far away and is unable to share this time with you, caught in a foreign land with an invalid passport. You are writing a letter to your lover/partner expressing what the past has meant to you, what you have learned as you struggled with the illness and impending death, and how you now see life and death. Write this letter drawing on the works we have read. You may combine insights from more than one text if you like, but it is recommended that you restrict your sources to two or three sources and not try to do too much.