Buddhist Responses to Religious Diversity - Theravāda and Tibetan Perspectives - Douglas Duckworth
7. How Nonsectarian is "Nonsectarian"?: Jorge Ferrer’s Pluralist Alternative to Tibetan Buddhist Inclusivism
Buddhist Responses to Religious Diversity - Theravāda and Tibetan Perspectives - Douglas Duckworth
Douglas Duckworth [+]
Temple University
Douglas Duckworth is Associate Professor at Temple University and the Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Religion. He is the author of Mipam on Buddha-Nature: The Ground of the Nyingma Tradition (SUNY 2008) and Jamgön Mipam: His Life and Teachings (Shambhala 2011). He also introduced and translated Distinguishing the Views and Philosophies: Illuminating Emptiness in a Twentieth-Century Tibetan Buddhist Classic by Bötrül (SUNY 2011). His latest works include Tibetan Buddhist Philosophy of Mind and Nature (OUP 2019) and a translation of an overview of the Wisdom Chapter of the Way of the Bodhisattva by Künzang Sönam, entitled The Profound Reality of Interdependence (OUP 2019).
Description
This paper probes the criteria by which Buddhist philosophical traditions are evaluated, particularly those that are articulated in what came to be referred as the ‘nonsectarian’ (ris med) tradition. The essay queries the assumptions of the hierarchical structures of ‘nonsectarian’ traditions and attempts to articulate evaluative criteria for a nonsectarian stance that are not based solely on metaphysical or tradition-specific claims.