Buddhism and the Senses

“This volume brings together the work of specialists in a range of Buddhist traditions and advances research on embodied or “lived” Buddhism in innovative ways. Categorized by sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch, the individual essays probe ambivalences in Buddhist attitudes toward the physical senses, which Buddhist teachings have characterized both as snares for the ignorant and as vehicles of cultivation and insight. The difference between delusion and awakening, the authors find, involves not only the mind but also sensory experience. Nuanced and engrossing, this collection will delight scholars and students of Buddhism as well as anyone interested in religion and the body.“–Jacqueline I. Stone, Professor of Religion (emerita), Princeton University, and author of Right Thoughts at the Last Moment: Buddhism and Deathbed Practices in Early Medieval Japan

Robert DeCaroli is a professor of South and Southeast Asian Art History at George Mason University. He is the author of Haunting the Buddha: Indian Popular Religions and the Formation of Buddhism and Image Problems: The Origin and Development of the Buddha’s Image in Early South Asia, as well as numerous articles and book chapters. Recently, he co-curated Encountering the Buddha: Art and Practice across Asia at the National Museum of Asian Art. He has been awarded a Getty Research Institute Fellowship and the Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Research Fellowship.

Donald Lopez is an Arthur E. Link Distinguished University Professor of Buddhist and Tibetan Studies in the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Michigan. He is the author of numerous monographs, translations, and edited volumes on South Asian Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism, and the European encounter with Buddhism. In 2014 his Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism (with Robert Buswell) was awarded the Dartmouth Medal of the American Library Association for best reference work of the year. In 2000 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

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