My latest “On the Buddhism Beat” post is now online over at Shambhala Sun Space. This week, it’s a conversation with Natalie Quli and Dr. Scott A. Mitchell about the four-day, academic conference held recently in Berkeley, CA, at the Institute of Buddhist Studies. It was entitled Buddhism without Borders: Contemporary Buddhism in the West, and gathered some of the most important scholars of Buddhism in America to explore two questions in particular.
Natalie and Scott were the organizers of the conference. Natalie is a Ph.D. candidate at the Graduate Theological Union, and also assistant editor of Pacific World: Journal of the Institute of Buddhist Studies. Scott, who serves on the adjunct faculty of the Institute of Buddhist Studies (among many other things), is perhaps best known to readers as the author of the blog the buddha is my dj and co-host (with Rev. Harry Bridge) of the DharmaRealm podcast.
Here’s a snippet of our conversation…
NATALIE QULI: I think blogs as well as social networking sites might be a fantastic new area of research in the near future, but it also raises some questions about the ethics of using material in the public domain. Should blogs be considered the same as, for example, articles in magazines in terms of the freedom we feel in citing them? Or should we look at these as more semi private, like private conversations in the context of a public place (e.g., eavesdropping on diners at a nearby table in a restaurant), and therefore in need of Human Subjects Protocols and special permission from the authors to use their work in a study? And what about those who offer written comments on blogs? What sort of anonymity should we offer them? Do we need their permission as well? If we can be aware of this ethical dimension and come up with strategies for addressing these issues, I think that Buddhist blogs could be a very useful way to keep in touch with what’s going on in certain Buddhist communities.
SCOTT A. MITCHELL: What seems important to me, though, is that it’s clear scholars take online religious activity seriously, that folks are doing research in this area and aren’t dismissing online technology or community as irrelevant.
Read the rest here.
Today’s quote is from Gary Snyder, the prolific and Pulitizer Prize-winning Beat poet, essayist, and environmentalist, whose work often focuses on the Buddha-dharma. In addition, he lived for many years as a Zen monk in Kyoto, and was the basis for one of Jack Kerouac’s most enduring creations: “Japhy Ryder” in The Dharma Bums. This is it–his poem “Avocado”:
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