New Books in Buddhist Studies

By Marshall PoeReligion & Spirituality Buddhism

New Books in Buddhist Studies episodes

November 04Meta-Theory, with Brendan Graham Dempsey
Today I sit down with Brendan Graham Dempsey, Director of Research at the Institute of Applied Metatheory, where he thinks about human meaning-making systems. It’s rare that I have someone on the pod who doesn’t specialize in Asian traditions, but I thought a conversation with Brendan might help crystalize some of the ideas we’ve been discussing so far this season. We talk about what kind of spirituality is possible after postmodernism, the advantages of an integrative worldview, and how to decide which perspective should win out over others when they’re in conflict. In our conversation, it is apparent that Brendan and I are coming at this from different directions, but ultimately we discover some common ground.
If you want to hear scholars and practitioners engaging in multidisciplinary conversations about Asian religious, medical, healing, and mystical traditions, then subscribe to Black Beryl wherever you get your podcasts.
If you would be willing to help support the pod so we can pay our bills, please look us up on Substack and become a member! Each month our guests share downloadable PDFs of articles, book chapters, and other materials in our members area. Check it out!
One last thing: we are planning an “Ask Me Anything” episode in the future, so reach out via Substack or my website here and let me know your questions. Ok, on with the show!
Resources relevant to this episode:
Discussion of Pierce’s publication in Metamodern Theory and Praxis: here
Brendan’s main website: here
Evolution of Meaning: here
Ω (Omega): here
Subscribe to Black Beryl Substack to unlock our members-only benefits, including a chapter from Brendan’s forthcoming book Evolution of Meaning (PDF).
Pierce Salguero is a transdisciplinary scholar of health humanities who is fascinated by historical and contemporary intersections between Buddhism, medicine, and crosscultural exchange. He has a Ph.D. in History of Medicine from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and teaches Asian history, medicine, and religion at Penn State University’s Abington College, located near Philadelphia. See here.

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59 min
October 16 Living Chinese Philosophy: Zoetology As First Philosophy with Roger T. Ames (SUNY Press, 2025)
Contrasts classical Greek ontology ("the science of being in itself") with Confucian "zoetology" ("the art of living"). In Living Chinese Philosophy: Zoetology As First Philosophy (SUNY Press, 2025), Roger T. Ames uses comparative cultural hermeneutics as a method for contrasting classical Greek ontology ("the science of being in itself") with classical Chinese "zoetology" ("the art of living"), which is made explicit in the Yijingor Book of Changes. Parmenides, Plato, and Aristotle give us a substance ontology grounded in "being qua being" or "being per se" (to on he on) that guarantees a permanent and unchanging subject as the substratum for the human experience. This substratum or essence includes its purpose for being (telos) and defines the "what-it-means-to-be-a-thing-of-this-kind" (eidos) of any particular thing, thus setting a closed, exclusive boundary and the strict identity necessary for a particular thing to be "this" and not "that." In the Book of Changes, we find a vocabulary that makes explicit cosmological assumptions that are a stark alternative to this substance ontology. It also provides the interpretive context for the canonical texts by locating them within a holistic, organic, and ecological worldview. To provide a meaningful contrast with this fundamental assumption of on or "being," we might borrow the Greek notion of zoe or "life" and create the neologism "zoe-tology" as "the art of living" (shengshenglun). This cosmology begins from "living" (sheng) itself as the motive force behind change and gives us a world of boundless "becomings": not "things" that are but "events" that are happening, a contrast between an ontological conception of human "beings" and a process conception of what the author calls human "becomings." The Host's reading notes: "Being qua being" modality of dealing with change and no-change prioritizes no-change, mistakes stability as eternity, confuses order with hierarchy; zoetological paradigm of change and no-change encourages complexity-enhancing modes of how change happen, nurtures difference-enriching modalities of encounter, decodes stability as adaptability, and considers order as emergent, evolving patterns of co-living and becoming-with. If you are interested in continuing the conversation with Prof. Ames, please contact the host ([email protected]) for Prof. Ames's email address.

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1 hr 4 min
August 16 Echoes of Incense on the Shikoku Pilgrimage with Don Weiss
Amy Chavez talks to Don Weiss, currently mid-way through the Shikoku Pilgrimage — Japan's 1,300 km Buddhist route that has been walked for almost as many years. Pilgrims share their journey with Kobo Daishi, patron saint of the 88-temple circuit and founder of Shingon Buddhism in Japan. Don explains his "gratitude pilgrimage," what it means and why he is undertaking it. Along the way, he speaks with fellow pilgrims and priests at a number of temples to assess the experience for international visitors. While the 88-temple route faces challenges — from local depopulation to overtourism — Don finds common ground in conversations with priests about how overseas visitors might help keep the tradition alive, and what temples can do in turn to make the route more welcoming to those coming from abroad.
Don's book Echoes of Incense, about his first trip around the ancient pilgrimage route decades ago, is available as an e-book on Amazon in English and Japanese.
You can follow Don on his gratitude pilgrimage via his You Tube Channel: Just Walk
The Books on Asia Podcast is co-produced with Plum Rain Press . Podcast host Amy Chavez is author of The Widow, the Priest, and the Octopus Hunter: Discovering a Lost Way of Life on a Secluded Japanese Island, and Amy's Guide to Best Behavior in Japan.
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39 min
August 08 Jin Y. Park and Sumi Lee eds., "Korean Buddhism: Selected Readings from Primary Texts" (U Hawaii Press, 2026)
Today we're looking at a book that fills a gap that has existed for a long time. Korean Buddhism: Selected Readings from Primary Texts (U Hawaii Press, 2026), edited by Jin Park and Sumi Lee and published this year by the University of Hawai'i Press, is the first comprehensive introduction to the Korean Buddhist tradition built entirely around primary sources. Bringing together twenty-five foundational texts spanning the seventh to the twenty-first centuries, each translated and introduced by a leading scholar, it offers an unparalleled window into the intellectual and spiritual heritage of Korean Buddhism.
The volume opens with the towering figures of Wŏnhyo and Ŭisang and, over the course of the book, introduces readers to other foundational figures such as Chinul and his influential synthesis of sudden awakening and gradual cultivation, Hyech'o's pilgrimage to India, the great nineteenth-century Buddhist reviver Gyeongheo, and pioneering nun and feminist Kim Iryŏp.
Each selection is accompanied by a scholarly introduction that places the text in its historical and doctrinal context. Together, the readings explore the full breadth of the Korean Buddhist tradition, covering doctrine, philosophy, meditation, pilgrimage, monastic life, interreligious debate, social engagement and reform, feminism, and the distinctive character of Korean Buddhism itself.
Whether you are a scholar, a practitioner, or simply curious about Korean Buddhism, this volume provides an ideal gateway to exploring its greatest thinkers, texts and ideas. By bringing together the writings of its most influential figures throughout the span of fourteen centuries of Korean Buddhism, this volume puts on full display the richness, sophistication, originality, and complexity of one of the world's great yet vastly underappreciated Buddhist traditions.
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1 hr 45 min
July 12 Stephen G. Covell, "The Teaching and Teachings of Temple Buddhism in Contemporary Japan" (U Hawaii Press, 2024)
How have Buddhist teachings come to be in modern and contemporary
Japan and how are they taught? This pioneering work seeks to answer
these questions by highlighting the public teachings of Temple Buddhism
institutions, in particular Temple Buddhism kindergartens and Buddhist
secondary schools and colleges. The community outreach provided by these
Buddhist facilities is far greater than any other with the possible
exception of funerals yet until now it has received little attention
from scholars of Japanese religion.
After determining what is taught in Buddhist education and how,
Stephen Covell introduces readers to a select group of monks who undergo
some of the most grueling practices in Japanese Temple Buddhism to
determine if the public-facing teachings of Buddhist education are
unique or similar to those of elite Buddhist practitioners. The
teachings and sites of teaching examined here include but are not
limited to classical doctrinal studies and temples focused on the
education of Buddhist clergy. Covell uncovers the arguments made by
priests involved in morals education, the dharma talks of famous
ascetics, and the ways in which laws and legal codes have changed
Buddhist education. He looks at what is taught on the ground, online,
and in popular texts to discuss the current teachings embraced as
Buddhism within the institutions of Temple Buddhism. Among his numerous
findings is such teachings and worldview are remarkably similar to those
of New Religions and Buddhist lay movements as outlined by Japan
religion scholars and government bodies in charge of education.
The Teaching and Teachings of Temple Buddhism in Contemporary Japan (University of Hawaii Press, 2024) will
be welcomed by students and scholars in Japanese religious studies and
early childhood and higher education as well as those interested in
current Buddhist practice and teachings in general.
Dr. Victoria Montrose is the James B. Duke Assistant Professor of Asian Studies and Religion at Furman University. Her recent research, “From Disciples to Dissidents: Student Protests and Reform Movements in Meiji-Era Buddhist Universities” was published in the Japanese Journal of Religious Studies in late 2025.
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57 min
July 06Meditation Sickness and the Dangers of Buddhist Practice with Pierce Salguero
Pierce Salguero joins us to discuss his new co-edited volume, Meditation Sickness: A Sourcebook on the Dangers of Buddhist Practice. While modern mindfulness frames meditation purely as a wellness tool, the Buddhist tradition has long recognized its inherent psychological and physical risks. We explore multi-tradition historical texts, the anatomy of practice crises, and the ethical responsibility of teachers and app developers to provide something along the lines of informed consent.
Key Discussion Points & Timeline
Contrasting modern wellness marketing with historical accounts of meditative danger; the book provides a sourcebook for Dharma teachers, clinicians, and serious practitioners.
Multi-Tradition Mapping throughout covers Pali, medieval Chinese, Japanese, and Tibetan sources, many of which we touch on.

Traditional sources diagnose destabilization and even offer a range of physical, energetic, and lifestyle remedies to mediate crisis: whether they would be a good fit for today’s practitioner is another matter.
Challenging the modern claim that adverse effects only happen to the unprepared or mentally fragile.

Classical lineages show that severe physical ailments and mental destabilization can happen randomly, even to advanced practitioners.
The hidden risks of unmonitored, commercialized meditation apps.

Why creators have an ethical duty to move past treating meditation as a risk-free panacea and offer clear safety guardrails.
How different cultures draw the line between a spiritual breakthrough and clinical pathology.

The ongoing project of integrating traditional remedies with modern psychology and neuroscience.
Links & Resources Mentioned
The Book: Meditation Sickness: A Sourcebook on the Dangers of Buddhist Practice.

Guest Website: here (Includes the book's introduction).
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1 hr 24 min
June 27Cultivating Consciousness: A Conversation with Ronald E. Purser on Mind Space (2026)
What does it mean to connect with mind and space without the typical baggage of contemporary meditation trends? In this episode of the New Books Network, Matthew Joseph O'Connell sits down with author and practitioner Ronald E. Purser to discuss his timely new book, Mind Space: Discovering Meditation Without the Meditator (Dharma Publishing, 2026).
Drawing from his decades-long engagement with Tarthang Tulku’s seminal 1977 work, Time, Space, and Knowledge, Purser offers a refreshing, experimental, and surprisingly playful guide to understanding our structural realities. Rather than preaching a prescriptive self-help routine, Mind Space serves as an experiential commentary that invites readers into a radical, non-dualistic inquiry of how we inhabit our lives.
Key Themes from the Episode
Beyond McMindfulness: How Mind Space transitions away from corporate, present-moment-focused trends and pivots toward a deeper, more expansive territory of human freedom.

The Anatomy of Mind and Space: An etymological and philosophical breakdown of mind as our generative source of knowledge, and space not as a passive, empty container, but as an active, alive, and accommodating dimension.

The Myth of the Inner Manager: A critique of the reflexive, modern impulse to over-manage every facet of our internal lives, and how to cultivate a state of un-management.

Digital Colonization: Confronting the psycho-physical compression, social comparisons, and anxiety induced by modern screens, and how the acceleration of time flattens our capacity for deep meaning.

The Playfulness of Inquiry: Why true contemplative practice thrives on curiosity, experimentation, and humour rather than rigid, sombre discipline.
"Space is not a thing. It is what permits experience to be experienced at all. When we realize space is projecting space into space, our rigid focal settings begin to thaw." — Ronald E. Purser
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1 hr 14 min
June 26 Benjamin J. Nourse, "The Power of Publishing in Early Modern Tibetan Buddhism"(Lexington Books, 2025)
The Power of Publishing in Early Modern Tibetan Buddhism (Lexington Books, 2025) is a rich exploration of the history of Tibetan books during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Looking at this ‘golden age’ of book production, Benjamin Nourse focuses on two core topics: What was driving Tibetan publishing in the eighteenth century, and what happened as a result of that growth? How should we understand Tibetan Buddhist ideas and practices related to religious books?
Through individual chapters on publishing in Lhasa, Qing Beijing, Derge, Chone, and Labrang, Nourse shows how Tibetan books operated simultaneously as religious objects, political tools, and markers of cultural authority. Across each, we see books being used in different ways: as a way of cementing the authority of the Fifth Dalai Lama, as part of Beijing’s emergence as a major center for Tibetan Buddhist publishing, and as objects that people engaged with through reading, chanting, translation, and ritual practice.
This book should naturally appeal to those interested in Tibetan Buddhism, religion, and early modern Asia — but it is also a valuable contribution to book history, print culture, and the study of how the production of books can shape political authority and religious practice.
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1 hr 17 min
June 05Bruno Shirley, "Religion, Gender, and Politics in Medieval Sri Lanka: The Reconstruction of Buddhist Kingship, ca. 1070-1215" (ARC Humanities Press, 2026)
Dr. Shirley's monograph, Religion, Gender, and Politics in Medieval Sri Lanka: The Reconstruction of Buddhist Kingship, ca. 1070-1215 (ARC Humanities Press, 2026), is now available open access, thanks to the generous support of the Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation. This book offers a radical
reconsideration of the Poḷon-naruva period, long understood to be a
turning point in the history of Theravāda Buddhism. Histories of this
period have been overwhelmingly based on a series of literary accounts
written long after the fact. But by drawing on textual, inscriptional,
numismatic, and material evidence from within the period itself, the
book reveals how the intellectual and social histories of Buddhism,
politics, and gender were inextricably intertwined in Poḷon-naruva. In
particular, it argues that debates over what it meant to be a “good
Buddhist king” were intrinsically debates about Buddhist masculinity and
about the proper relationship of gender to power.
Link to purchase/download the book here.
Bruno M. Shirley is a lecturer in Buddhist Studies at
Heidelberg University, Germany. He completed his MA in Religious Studies
at Te Herenga Waka/Victoria University of Wellington, NZ, and then PhD
in Asian Literature, Religion, and Culture at Cornell University in New
York, USA.
Dr. Shirley is a historian of religion, gender, and
politics in early second-millennium Sri Lanka and beyond. As an
academic, he is interested in what it meant to understand oneself as
“Buddhist” in medieval South Asia. His research explores a wider range
of evidence—from royal inscriptions, to monastic disciplinary codes, to
elaborate poems—in order to expose the cracks and fissures between
competing visions of Buddhism.
Resources referred to in the interview:
Alastair Gornall, Rewriting Buddhism: Pali Literature and Monastic Reform in Sri Lanka, 1157–1270. University College London Press, 2020.

Day, Tony. “Ties That (Un)Bind: Families and States in Premodern Southeast Asia.” The Journal of Asian Studies 55, no. 2 (1996): 384–409.

Gunawardana, R. A. L. H. Robe and Plough: Monasticism and Economic Interest in Early Medieval Sri Lanka. University of Arizona Press, 1979.
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1 hr
May 14 Jue Liang, "Conceiving the Mother of Tibet: The Early Literary Lives of the Buddhist Saint Yeshe Tsogyel" (Oxford UP, 2026)
Conceiving the Mother of Tibet: The Early Literary Lives of the Buddhist Saint Yeshe Tsogyel (Oxford UP, 2026) is the first comprehensive study dedicated to the literary tradition surrounding Yeshe Tsogyel, revered as the foremost matron saint of Tibetan Buddhism. It traces the emergence and development of a rich body of narratives about Yeshe Tsogyel during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, focusing on the Tibetan Nyingma Buddhist tradition. Through careful textual analysis, the book constructs an emic (insider) Tibetan Buddhist theory of gender and female religious eminence, examining how Yeshe Tsogyel's multifaceted identities--as a devoted disciple, tantric consort, sky-goer (dakini), and spiritual mother--embody a dialectic that shifts back and forth between Tibetan women's social and cultural marginalization and a Buddhist discourse of soteriological inclusivity.
Jue Liang queries these texts for their social and religious functions, especially where ambivalence and contradictions abound. However, these ambivalences do not necessarily disadvantage women in Tibetan Buddhism. Operating with ambivalent, sometimes competing, discourses on womanhood, Nyingma Buddhist theorists in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries created a space for a flexible treatment of gender, where they traverse between theological terms and embodied reality.
Ultimately, Conceiving the Mother of Tibet not only illuminates the unique position of Yeshe Tsogyel within Tibetan Buddhist literature but also offers a methodological framework for understanding localized theories of gender. This approach highlights alternative ways of being and acting in the world as embodied agents, providing valuable insights for the broader field of Buddhist studies.
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1 hr 15 min

About New Books in Buddhist Studies

From the publisher's feed

This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field.