On September 21, 2002, Asuka Sango gave her endowed chair lecture about her current book project, “Living Thought: Practices of Scholarly Learning in Medieval Japanese Buddhism,” a study of Buddhist scholasticism in medieval Japan. In attendance were President Alison Byerly, Provost Michelle Mattson, faculty from the Religion, Art History, Asian Languages and Literatures, History, Music, and Philosophy Departments, as well as staff from the Academic Technology, Grants Office, and Library. Many of her students also attended the talk, providing insightful reflections. The house was packed!
Yanmiao Wang ‘25 from Sango’s “Religions in Japanese Culture” course finds it particularly interesting that “the scholarly practices of writing, reading, and debating Buddhist doctrinal texts were a significant part of monastic life, as exemplified by the thirteenth-century Tōdaiji monk Sōshō, one of the scholar monks Professor Sango examines. While extremely prolific (he produced 264 titles in his life), he mostly copied and excerpted the texts written by other scholar monks rather than authoring his own, leading some scholars today to dismiss Sōshō as unoriginal. But I marveled at Sōshō’s graceful calligraphy. By writing the sacred text with one’s elegant calligraphy, one would be pacified, purified, forgiven, and thus begin one’s self-reflection to reach enlightenment. These hand-written manuscripts take you back in time to communicate with scholar monks from medieval Japan.”
Erin Mattingly ’26 from Sango’s A&I Seminar, “Buddhism, Society, Science” reflects on what she learned: “The main takeaway from this talk was the conclusion. In the beginning of the presentation, Asuka described her personal experience of coming to America to go to school, feeling completely alienated, and not understanding the new culture. She reflects on this experience, arguing that these moments of unfamiliarity, confusion, and fear are the moments that lead one to cross an intellectual boundary and grow. Now she takes this same approach in her book, crossing a boundary from the modern academic world to the world of Buddhist scholar monks in medieval Japan. This lecture was very powerful and beneficial for me, as a student in Asuka’s A&I Seminar with a research project, to see how we can take a focused research topic and make insights about the larger world, human nature, and life as a whole.”