Introduction: What Is Religion? & A Brief History of Buddhism

• Course text: Rethinking Karma: The Dharma of Social Justice. Ed. Jonathan S. Watts (Bangkok, Thailand: International Network of Engaged Buddhists, 2014, 2nd edition) (hardcopy for ¥500 from Prof. Watts)

• Kosambi, D. D. 1969. Ancient India: A History of Its Culture and Civilization. Cleveland: Meridian Books. especially chapters 5-7

• Swaris, Nalin. 2008. The Buddha’s Way to Human Liberation, A Socio-historical Approach Nugegoda, Sri Lanka: Sarasavi Publishers.

• Osamu, Tezuka. 1972-83. The Buddha (the manga). (Vertical: 2006) from the godfather of the Japanese manga genre. An enjoyable and quite accurate portrayal of the Buddha and his times. Read the original in Japanese too!

Buddhist Sociology: A Community of Liberation, A Culture of Diversity, An Institution of Power

• “The ‘Positive Disintegration’ of Buddhism: Reformation and Deformation in the Sri Lankan Sangha” first part pp. 91-107 in Rethinking Karma.

Buddhist Responses to Modernity

• Buddhist Nationalism (Japan): Victoria, Brian. 1997 Zen at War – small excerpt New York: Weatherhill. I have an extra copy of this book that can be borrowed. First come, first served. Send me an e-mail. Read an extended interview with the author in the Kyoto Journal.
• Buddhist Nationalism (Japan): Sōka Gakkai Founder, Makiguchi Tsunesaburō, A Man of Peace? 創価学会の創立者・牧口恒三郎　平和を愛する男？by Brian Victoria. The Asia Pacific Journal. Vol. 12, 37:3, August 4, 2014
• Buddhist Nationalism (Sri Lanka): “The ‘Positive Disintegration’ of Buddhism: Reformation and Deformation in the Sri Lankan Sangha” second part pp. 107-129 in Rethinking Karma.
• Buddhist Nationalism (Sri Lanka): Should Bhikkhus play an active role in politics? by Lionel Wijesiri, Daily Mirror, March 9, 2020
• Socially Engaged Buddhism (Burma): Min Zin. “Burmese Buddhism’s Impact on Social Change: the Fatalism of Saṁsāra and Monastic Resistance” in Rethinking Karma
• Socially Engaged Buddhism (Vietnam): King, Sallie B. “Thich Nhat Hanh and the Unified Church of Vietnam: Nondualism in Action” in Christopher S. Queen and Sallie B. King Eds. 1996. Engaged Buddhism: Buddhist Liberation Movements in Asia. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
• Socially Engaged Buddhism (Japan): Jonathan Watts “Which Way to Peace? The Role of Japanese Buddhism in Anti-Nuclear Civil Protest” in This Precious Life: Buddhist Tsunami Relief and Anti-Nuclear Activism in Post 3/11 Japan.
• Socially Engaged Buddhism (Thailand/Cambodia): Video of Thais & Cambodians engaging in a peace walk developed from Japan and ancient Buddhism.
• Buddhist Nationalism/Socially Engaged Buddhism/Market Buddhism (Japan): Stone, Jaqueline I. “Nichiren’s Activist Heirs: Soka Gakkai, Rissho Koseikai, Nipponzan Myohoji” by from Action Dharma: New Studies in Engaged Buddhism. Eds. Queen, Prebish, Keown. London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003. For a higher resolution, better quality copy of this pdf files, send me an e-mail and I will e-mail it to you.
• Market Buddhism (Japan): “Japan’s Newest Technology Innovation: Priest Delivery” by Jonathan Soble. New York Times Sept. 20, 2016
• Buddhist Socialism (Thailand): Buddhadasa Bhikkhu. 1993. Dhammic Socialism Trans. Donald Swearer. Bangkok: Thai Inter-religious Commission for Development. 日本語：タンマ社会主義 (scroll down halfway) For another English article: Santikaro Bhikkhu. “Buddhadasa Bhikkhu: Life and Society through the Natural Eyes of Voidness (especially 163-79) in Christopher S. Queen and Sallie B. King Eds. 1996. Engaged Buddhism: Buddhist Liberation Movements in Asia. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
• Buddhist Socialism (Burma): Sarkiyanz, Manuel. On the place of U Nu’s Buddhist Socialism in Burma’s History of Idea Studies on Asia Series 1 Vol. 2. 1961. pp. 53-62
• Buddhist Socialism (Tibet): The (Justifiably) Angry Marxist: An interview with the Dalai Lama 日本語
• Buddhist Socialism (Japan): Are the SDGs Today’s “Opium of the Masses”?
• Buddhist Socialism: Reconsidering the SDGs in Light of Grassroots Socially Engaged Buddhism & 仏教とSDGsの実践 (2022年3月24日)
• Market Buddhism (Thailand): Santikaro & Phra Phaisan Visalo. “Goodness and Generosity Perverted: The Karma of Capitalist Buddhism in Thailand” in Rethinking Karma
• Market Buddhism (Thailand): Mackenzie, Rory New Buddhist Movements in Thailand: Towards an understanding of Wat Phra Dhammakaya and Santi Asoke (New York: Routledge, 2007) includes a comparison with Soka Gakkai in Japan
• Market Buddhism (Thailand): Scott, Rachelle M. Nirvana for Sale? Buddhism, Wealth, and the Dhammakāya Temple in Contemporary Thailand (New York: SUNY, 2009). includes comparisons with other Market Buddhisms; available through Keio on-line media library.

Buddhist Economics I: The “Three Poisons” Institutionalized

• Buddhist Perspectives on Nuclear Energy: Section III in Lotus in the Nuclear Sea: Fukushima and the Promise of Buddhism in the Nuclear Age. ed. Jonathan S. Watts (Yokohama: International Buddhist Exchange Center, 2013) available in paperback copy for ¥500
• Various articles by David R. LoyEco-Dharma: Buddhist Teachings for the Ecological CrisisCan Corporations Become Enlightened? A Buddhist Critique of Transnational Corporations
  • The Religion of Consumption: A Buddhist Perspective
  • The Religion of the Market
  • Buddhism and Poverty
  • The Nonduality of Ecology and Economy
  • Beyond McMindfulness

Buddhist Economics II: Post Capitalist Buddhist Economics, Community Development & Clean Energy

• “Vienna in the Silicon Pure Land” by Dexter Cohen Bohn (October 2023)

  • Part 1: Feeling into the Dharma of Emerging Technology
  • Part 2: Navigating the Wild Wired West
  • Part 3: Reimagining Buddhist Economics
  • Part 4: Making Dharmic Finance Cool

• Jun Nishikawa. “The Choice of Development Paradigms in Japan after the 3/11 Fukushima Nuclear Disaster” in This Precious Life: Buddhist Tsunami Relief and Anti-Nuclear Activism in Post 3/11 Japan. ed.Jonathan S. Watts (Yokohama: International Buddhist Exchange Center, 2013) available in paperback copy for ¥500

• E.F. Schumacher “Buddhist Economics” in Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered, (New York: Harper and Row, 1974)

• Ven. P. A. Payutto. Buddhist Economics A Middle Way for the Market Place (Bangkok: Buddhadhamma Foundation, 1995)

• Buddhadasa Bhikkhu. 1990. Conserving the Inner Ecology.
• Bond, George D. 1996. “A.T. Ariyaratne and the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement in Sri Lanka.” In Engaged Buddhism: Buddhist Liberation Movements in Asia, edited by Christopher S. Queen and Sallie B. King. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
• Eco-Temple Community Development Project

• Jonathan S. Watts. 2018. Shift the Power: Building a Buddhist Temple Community as a Mechanism for Environmental and Social Change. Updated from “A Futuristic Priest whose Time Has Arrived” (about Rev. Hidehito Okochi) in This Precious Life: Buddhist Tsunami Relief and Anti-Nuclear Activism in Post 3/11 Japan.

• Rev. Hidehito Okochi. 2014. Kenju-in: An Eco-Temple Protecting Forests and Building Health and Longevity through Everyone’s Energy

•  Rev. Hidehito Okochi. 2012. Deconstructing the Myths of Nuclear Energy and Building a Pure Land without Nuclear or Military Presence

• Towards Collective Action: A Buddhist View of Laudato Si by Jonathan S. Watts, a paper prepared for a talk given to the Jesuit Social Center of Tokyo located at Sophia University on October 19, 2016.
• Activist’s self-immolation stirs questions on faith, protest (a Buddhist member of David Loy’s eco-sangha re-engages with the line between violent and non-violent activism) AP News April 26, 2022

Human Rights: Caste, Class, and the Revival of Buddhism in India

• “Everyone’s Tears Are Salty” (Ch. 43) from Old Path, White Clouds: Walking in the Footsteps of the Buddha by Thich Nhat Hanh
• Ven. Upali: the low caste man who became the top monk in the Buddha’s monastic discipline
• The Vasettha Sutta (Buddha’s discourse to two Brahmins on inheritance vs. deeds)
• Nalin Swaris “Karma: The Creative Life Force of Human Beings” in Rethinking Karma
• Mangesh Dahiwale “An Awakened Vision: Dr. B. R. Ambedkar’s Struggle to Re-ethicize Indian Society” in Rethinking Karma

Buddhism & Other Religions: Inter-Religious Conflict between Buddhism & Islam

• The Rohingyas: The Most Persecuted People on Earth? The Economist June 13, 2015

Regional Aspects:

• Sea of Suffering: The Rohingya and the Conundrum of Buddhist Terror by Rev. Hozan Alan Senauke Buddhistdoor Global August 28, 2018
• Buddhist-Muslim Violence in South and Southeast Asia: The Local Becomes Regional, or a Clash of Civilizations? by Bruno Marshall Shirley International Policy Digest June 29, 2016
• Global terror groups set to exploit violence in Myanmar’s Rakhine: Analysts
  by Amy Chew Channel News Asia October 3, 2017
• Politics in the Bay of Bengal: Curbing Violence, Enhancing Harmony by Chandra Muzzafar September 2014
• Persecution of Buddhists in Muslim Bangladesh: The Mirror Image of the Rohingya
• Rising Islamophobia in Thailand Irrational and Dangerous: Scholars by Pravit Rojanaphruk Khaosod English October 2, 2017

Buddhist Aspects:

• Ultranationalist Monks in Myanmar, Facing Crackdown, Say They’re Unrepentant (Profile of Ma Ba Tha) by Mike Ives New York Times May 26, 2017

• Buddhist Nationalism in Burma by Maung Zarni Tricycle: The Buddhist Review Spring 2013.
• Buddhist monk uses racism and rumours to spread hatred in Burma (profile of Ashin Wirathu) by Kate Hodal The Guardian 18 April 2013
• Book Review of The Voice of Hope: Aung San Suu Kyi Conversations with Alan Clements
• The Kalama Sutta: The Buddha’s Charter of Free Inquiry & Spiritual Independence
• The Prison of Life Buddhadasa Bhikkhu

Inter-Religious Activities:

• International Forum on Buddhist-Muslim Relations (BMF)
• Pope addresses Sangha Council of Buddhist Monks Vatican Radio Nov. 29, 2017
• A Call For Peace From Buddhist and Muslim Leaders in Yogyakarta Statement (with quotes from the Koran and Buddhist texts) March 3-4, 2015
• All People Are Chosen, All Lands Are Holy: Interfaith Dialog for Peace & Sustainability  by Rev. Alan Senauke October 2013

Gender: Women’s Role in Buddhism and Buddhist Perspectives in LGBTQ 

• The Story of the Buddha’s Step-Mother Leading the Movement for Women’s Ordination (pp.432-441, Ch. 44-45) from Old Path, White Clouds: Walking in the Footsteps of the Buddha by Thich Nhat Hanh
• Therī-gāthā: Verses of the Elder Nuns
• Rita M.Gross Buddhism After Patriarchy: A Feminist History, Analysis, and Reconstruction of Buddhism (New York: State University of New York Press, 1993)
• Ouyporn Khuankaew “Buddhism and Domestic Violence: Using the Four Noble Truths to Deconstruct and Liberate Women’s Karma” in Rethinking Karma
• Elise Anne DeVido. Taiwan’s Buddhist Nuns (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2010)
• Thailand’s Female Rebel Monks by Kelly Gonsalves The Week
• Buddhist Nun Leads Asia’s Fight for Gay Marriage Harvard Divinity Journal Spring/Summer 2020
• Buddhist Monk by Day, Makeup Artist by Night by Joei Goh (The New York Times Style Magazine – Singapore, April 6, 2017)
• This Monk Wears Heels: Be Who You Are by Rev. Kodo Nishimura (Watkins Publishing, 2022)
• “Gender transformed and meta-gendered enlightenment: Reading Buddhist narratives as paradigms of inclusiveness.” by Burkhard Scherer (Revista de Estudos da Religião – REVER 6.3, 2006, pp. 65-76.
• “Variant Dharma: Buddhist Queers, Queering Buddhisms” by Bee Scherer in Scherer (ed.) Queering Paradigms VI: Interventions, Ethics and Glocalities. (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2016) pp. 253-273
• Video Lecture: 「流転輪廻の面倒さをいかに体現するか―クイア仏教の「解放の神学」を目指して」Prof. Bee Scherer @ 龍谷大学、２０１８年６月２０日

The Science of Dying & Meditation

• The Satipattana Sutta: see the section on meditation on the dissolution of the body after death in the nine cemetery contemplations
• The Tibetan Book of the Dead  Compiled and edited by W. Y. Evans-Wentz. revised edition. Oxford University Press, 2000. 
• Sleeping, Dreaming, and Dying: An Exploration of Consciousness with the Dalai Lama Francisco J. Varela, Ed. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 1997.
• Jon Kabat Zinn Full Catastrophe Living: How to Cope with Stress, Pain and Illness Using Mindfulness Meditation. Piatkus, 1996
• Rational Buddhism: The scientific and philosophical basis for Buddhist belief and practice
• Beyond McMindfulness The Huffington Post. 8/31/2013 – Ron Purser and David R. Loy

• Being With Dying – The Upaya Contemplative End of Life Training Program Joan Jiko Halifax in Buddhist Care for the Dying and Bereaved Watts, Jonathan S & Tomatsu, Yoshiharu, Eds. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2012.

Death: Hospice Care and Suicide Prevention

• An Introduction to Buddhist Care for the Dying and Bereaved in the Modern World Jonathan Watts in Buddhist Care for the Dying and Bereaved

• 医療・ 仏教・死の現場～海外の事例が日本に示唆するもの – ジョナサン・ワッツ
• Journey Through Dukkha: The Suicide Prevention Priests of Japan Enter into Structural Violence and Connect to Social Change

• Last Call- A Buddhist Monk Confronts Japan’s Suicide Culture by Larissa MacFarquhar. The New Yorker. June 24, 2013

• From a Disconnected Society to an Interconnected Society Rev. Toshihide Shun’ei Hakamata published in The Eastern Buddhist 44/2: 77–94 (2013)

• Zen in the Mettaverse: How a 400-Year-Old Buddhist Temple is Evolving in Response to Modern Japanese Suffering by Dexter Cohen Bohn July 27, 2023
• Workshop notes on the 3rd International Conference Buddhist Psychotherapy and Suicide Prevention September 27-28, 2023

Global Youth Creating New Buddhist Identities & Cultures

• Blue Jean Buddha : Voices of Young Buddhists Sumi Loundon Ed. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2001.
• Wide Awake: A Buddhist Guide for Teens. Diana Winston. New York: Perigee Books. 2003.
• Buddha in Your Backpack: Everyday Buddhism for Teens. Franz Metcalf. Berkeley: Ulysses Press, 2002.
• “Changing With the Breath: American Students Reflect on Social Activism with INEB Teachers” Sarah Simon and Allegra Lovejoy (article on a Mindfulness and Social Justice retreat held for American university students at Princeton University in March 2015)
• Realizing Kalyanamitra: 2011 INEB “Young Bodhisattva” Training Workshop in Bodhgaya. Jonathan S. Watts