Motivation

In today’s rapidly changing environment, religions face significant challenges. At the end of the twentieth century, many scholars observed a sharp decline in traditional religious beliefs. Religions were expected to decline gradually, overshadowed by a civilization of technology driven by capitalism, scientism, and liberalism in the secular world. This was especially expected to be true when it came to attracting younger generations.

However, after years of observation, it was found that religion had not declined but had instead manifested many novel features not seen in the past. Take Buddhism, for example; many individuals and groups actively responded to the contemporary social environment and produced many new experiences and developments in this two-thousand-plus-year-old tradition. Across the globe, Buddhism has shown vitality in the salvation of the secular world. Buddhism has not faded in the last half-century but has absorbed new elements and evolved into a more modern Buddhism with the characteristics of the times.

Organization

To bring attention to the practice and influence of Buddhism in current society and to promote the research and teaching of contemporary Buddhism in academia, Dr. Rey-Sheng Her, Deputy CEO of Tzu Chi Foundation, and Prof. Jinhua Chen of the Department of Asian Studies, University of British Columbia, jointly organize the Yin-Cheng Distinguished Lecture Series on Buddhism with seven top universities — Princeton, Harvard, Cambridge, Oxford, INALCO, Peking, and UBC. The steering committee, comprising professors from these seven universities, supported naming the lecture series after Master Yin Shun and Master Cheng Yen. With the sponsorship of the Tzu Chi Foundation, the committee intends for the lecture series to become an important platform for the promotion of research on contemporary Buddhist thought and practice.

This partnership, known as the Yin-Cheng Network for Buddhist Studies, now extends its activities to include the publication of the Yin-Cheng Journal of Contemporary Buddhism in both English and Chinese editions. It also organizes Yin-Cheng Conferences that promote Buddhism’s engagement with contemporary world issues.

UBC is responsible for coordinating the academic activities of partners in the network and the Yin-Cheng Journal for Buddhist Studies (English). The Tzu Chi Foundation is responsible for providing input and promoting the Lecture and Conference series, as well as logistical elements, to ensure the ideas have a broad reach and serve as a bridge between cultures.

Steering Committee Members

Jonathan Gold

Jonathan C. Gold is Professor in the Department of Religion and Director of the Center for Culture, Society and Religion. A scholar of Indian and Tibetan Buddhist philosophy, he is especially interested in Buddhist approaches to meaning, ethics, language and learning. He is the author of The Dharma’s Gatekeepers: Sakya Paṇḍita on Buddhist Scholarship in Tibet (2007) and Paving the Great Way: Vasubandhu’s Unifying Buddhist Philosophy (2015) as well as numerous articles, including recently “Wholesome Mind Ethics: A Buddhist Paradigm” in the Journal of Value Inquiry and the online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entries on Vasubandhu and Sakya Paṇḍita. He is co-editor, with Douglas S. Duckworth, of Readings of Śāntideva’s Guide to Bodhisattva Practice (Bodhicaryāvatāra) (2019). In his current work he is developing a Buddhist approach to politics and social thought.

Stephen Teiser

Stephen F. Teiser is D. T. Suzuki Professor in Buddhist Studies and Professor of Religion. His work traces the interaction between cultures along the silk road using textual, artistic, and material remains. He is interested in the transformations of Buddhism throughout Asia and focuses on Chinese-language materials. His most recent book is a monograph (in Chinese) on Buddhism and the study of ritual, Yilu yu fojiao yanjiu (Sanlian Publishers, 2022). Other books include an English translation of Chunwen Hao’s Dunhuang Manuscripts: An Introduction to Texts from the Silk Road (2020); Reinventing the Wheel: Paintings of Rebirth in Medieval Buddhist Temples (2006), awarded the Prix Stanislas Julien by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, Institut de France; The Scripture on the Ten Kings and the Making of Purgatory in Medieval Chinese Buddhism (1994); The Ghost Festival in Medieval China (1988). His courses cover the religions of China, the history of Buddhism, Chinese Buddhist texts, Dunhuang manuscripts, and approaches to the study of religion. In 2014 he was co-recipient (with Jacqueline I. Stone) of the Graduate Mentoring Award from Princeton’s McGraw Center for Teaching and Learning, and in 2022-23 he is Old Dominion Professor in the Humanities Council.

Eugene Wang

Eugene Y. Wang is the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Professor of Asian Art at Harvard University. He concurrently holds positions in the departments of History of Art and Architecture, Study of Religion, Theater, Dance, and Medium, and Inner Asia and Altaic Studies. A Guggenheim Fellow (2005), he is the art history editor of the Encyclopedia of Buddhism (2004). His extensive publications range from early Chinese art and archeology to modern and contemporary Chinese art and cinema. His book, Shaping the Lotus Sutra: Buddhist Visual Culture in Medieval China (2005), explores Buddhist worldmaking; it received the Sakamoto Nichijin Academic Award from Japan. His current research focuses on cognitive study of art and consciousness as well as biocentric art that integrates visual, biological, and ecological systems. He is also the founding director of Harvard CAMLab that explores the nexus of cognition, aesthetics, and multimedia storyliving, integrating humanistic research and sensorial-experiential staging of Asian cultural heritages.

Noga Ganany

Noga Ganany is an Assistant Professor in the Study of Late Imperial China at the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom, and a Fellow of Sidney Sussex College. Before assuming her current position at Cambridge, Dr Ganany taught briefly at Boston University (2018-2019). Dr Ganany received her BA and MA from Tel Aviv University in Israel, and her PhD from Columbia University in New York, USA (2018). In between, Dr Ganany studied at Xiamen University in Fujian Province and conducted research in China and Taiwan. Her research interests include Chinese cultural history, premodern Chinese literature, religious practice in China, print culture and history of the book, travel and pilgrimage, and popular culture. She is currently working on two book projects; the first explores hagiographic literature in late Ming, and the second focuses on conceptions of the netherworld in late imperial China. Dr Ganany is a member of the board of directors of the Society for Ming Studies. She is also a member of the Association for Asian Studies, the British Association for Chinese Studies, the American Academy of Religion, and the Society for the Study of Chinese Religions.

Kate Crosby

Kate Crosby is the Numata Professor of Buddhist Studies at the University of Oxford. She moved to Oxford from King’s College London, and previously held posts at the universities of Edinburgh, Lancaster, Cardiff and SOAS. She studied Sanskrit, Pali and other Buddhist languages, Indian religions and Buddhism at Oxford (MA and DPhil). She also studied at the universities of Hamburg and Kelaniya, as well as with traditional teachers in Pune, Varanasi and Kathmandu. She works on Sanskrit, Pali, and Pali-vernacular literature and on Theravada practice in the pre-modern and modern periods, including on the pre-modern meditation and its relationship to temporal technologies. Her publications include a translation and study of Śāntideva’s Bodhicaryāvatāra (with co-author Andrew Skilton, 1994); Mahābhārata: The Women and the Dead of Night (2009); Traditional Theravada and its Modern-Era Suppression (2013); Theravada Buddhism: Continuity, Identity, Diversity (2014); and  Esoteric Theravada: The Story of the Forgotten Meditation Tradition of Southeast Asia (2020).

Song Wang

Song Wang is Director of the Center for Buddhist Studies and Professor at the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Peking University. He received his B. A. and M. A. in Philosophy from Peking University and a Ph.D. in East Asian Buddhism from the International College for Postgraduate Buddhist Studies, Tokyo. Prior to teaching at the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies of Peking University in 2005, he conducted his postdoctoral research as Overseas Researcher of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS). He has been teaching Chinese Buddhism and Japanese Buddhism at Peking University and published three books: A Study on the Thought of the Huayan School in the Song Dynasty (Beijing: Religious Culture Press, 2008), Japanese Buddhism: From the Beginning till 20^th century (Beijing: Chinese Social Science Academy Press, 2015), and A Critical Annotation and Study on the Huayan Fajie Guanmen (Beijing: Religious Culture Press, 2016), in addition to numerous papers on East Asian Buddhism in Chinese, Japanese and English. He has been a specialist on Huayan/Kegon Buddhism. He is now focusing on the history of modern Chinese Buddhism, and the interaction between ancient Chinese philosophy such as Dark Learning and Buddhism of the Wei and Jin dynasties.

Zhao You

Zhao You is currently assistant professor in the Deparment of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Peking University. Her doctoral thesis focuses on the figure of Vimalakīrti from the Indic to the Chinese context. Apart from the transmission of Buddhism in the first centuries of the common era, she also has special interests in metaphors and metaphysics in Indian philosophical traditions. Her recent publications include: “The Moving Feast: Reading into the Fragrant Chapter of the Vimalakīrtinirdeśa” (IJBCT, 2021); “The Wheel Unturned: A Study of the Zhuan falun jing (T109)” (JIABS, 2020); “Time in Early Indian Philosophy: From Patañjali to Bhartṛhari” (Foreign Philosophy, 2018); she is also a co-translator of The Impact of Buddhism on Chinese Material Culture by John Kieschnick.

Zhe Ji

Ji Zhe is Professor of Sociology and Holder of the Inalco-Sheng Yen Chair of modern and contemporary Chinese Buddhism at the Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales (Inalco) in France. He leads the Centre d’études interdisciplinaires sur le bouddhisme (CEIB) since 2016. His main study areas are Buddhism and the relationship between religion and politics in modern and contemporary China. His recent publications include Religion, modernité et temporalité : une sociologie du bouddhisme chan contemporain (CNRS Editions, 2016), Making Saints in Modern China (co-edited with David Ownby and Vincent Goossaert, Oxford University Press, 2017), Buddhism after Mao: Negotiations, Continuities, and Reinventions (co-edited with Gareth Fisher and André Laliberté, University of Hawai‘i Press, 2019).

Steering Committee Co-Chairs

Jinhua Chen

Jinhua Chen is Professor of East Asian intellectual history (particularly religions) at the University of British Columbia, where he also served as the Canada Research Chair in East Asian Buddhism (2001-2011). He additionally held short-term teaching positions at other universities including the University of Virginia (2000-2001), the University of Tokyo (2003-04), and Stanford University (2012). He is a Royal Society of Canada (RSC) Fellow (2020) and recipient of multiple research grants and fellowships from different sources including Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), Canada Research Chairs (CRC) Program, Killam Foundation, Peter Wall Institute for the Advanced Studies, Society for the Promotion of Buddhism (Bukkyō Dendō Kyōkai [BDK]), Japan Society for the Promotion of Social Sciences (JSPS), Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and the Max Plank Institute, the Academy of Korean Studies, and the National Humanities Center (USA). He has engaged in research projects related to East Asian state-church relationships, monastic (hagio/)biographical literature, Buddhist sacred sites, relic veneration, Buddhism and technological innovation in medieval China, and Buddhist translations. In addition to publishing five monographs, including (1). Making and Remaking History (Tokyo, 1999), (2). Monks and Monarchs, Kinship and Kingship (Kyoto, 2002), (3). Philosopher, Practitioner, Politician: The Many Lives of Fazang [643-712] (Leiden, 2007), 4. Legend and Legitimation: The Formation of Tendai Esoteric Buddhism (Brussels, 2009), and (5). Crossfire: Shingon-Tendai strife as seen in two twelfth-century polemics (Tokyo, 2010), he has also co-edited five books. He is also the author of over fifty book chapters and journal articles, with major academic journals such as Asia Major,  Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies,  History of Religions,  Journal Asiatique, Journal of Asian History, Journal of Chinese Religions, Journal of the American Oriental Society, Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, and T’oung P’ao: Revue internationale de sinologie. Several of his forthcoming books include one on medieval Chinese monastic warfare, another on Buddhism and Daoism’s politico-economical roles in early eighth century, and finally an annotated English translation (with an extended Introduction) of the complete works of the 9-10^th century Korean literary luminary Choe Chiwon 崔致遠.

Rey-Sheng Her

Rey-Sheng Her is currently Deputy CEO of Tzu Chi Foundation. He was a visiting scholar at Harvard Kennedy School, Oxford University, Cambridge University, and Columbia University. He is currently engaged in the theoretical research, discussion and practice of altruism, economy of goodness, and good governance. He has devoted himself to humanistic communication, religious charity, and academic research for many years. He jointly launched the Yin-Cheng Dinstinguished Lecture Series on Buddhism with universities including Harvard, Princeton, Oxford, Cambridge, Peking, UBC, to promote the study of contemporary Buddhism. He is an associate scholar of Harvard FAS CAMLab, a research fellow at the University of British Columbia, a research fellow Renmin University, a distinguished professor at China Global Philanthropy Institute. He also teaches at National Chengchi University, National Taiwan University of the Arts, Hsuan Chuang University, Tzu Chi University, and Tzu Chi University of Science and Technology. Having received his doctorate of philosophy from Peking University, he has lectured at Harvard University, Oxford University, Peking University, Renmin University, University of Hong Kong, University of British Columbia, and the Vatican. His essays on environmental ethics, altruism, and the economy of goodness have been published by the Journal of Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies (OCBS), Cambridge Scholar Publishing Co., and Taylor & Francis Publishing. He has authored the books The Essential Studies of Tzu Chi Buddhism; The Birth of a Poet, Economy of Goodness; From Altruism to Ultimate Awakening; Constructive Journalism; The Moment of Inspiration; Practical Aesthetics of Tzu Chi; Great Love as Running Water: Witnessing the Development of Bone Marrow Transplantation. He has planned and edited books including Describing Love; Universal Values of Tzu Chi Buddhism; and Dialogue between Environment and Religion. His book Economy of Goodness won the 45th Golden Tripod Award. He has been the spokesperson of Tzu Chi Foundation and the head of the humanities department for many years. As a veteran in media, he had studied journalism at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism and was a TV anchor and producer. He has received the Taiwan TV Golden Bell Award multiple times. His film on bone marrow transplantation, Great Love as a Running Water, was the best documentary from Asia and Africa at the 2014 International Emmy Awards.