Lecture
LUCIP Lecture: The Wind in the Sails: Vīrya in Bodhicāryāvatāra
- Date
- Tuesday 13 August 2024
- Time
- Series
- Centre for Intercultural Philosophy events 2023 - 2024
- Location
-
P.J. Veth
Nonnensteeg 1-3
2311 VJ Leiden - Room
- 101
Join Zoom Meeting
https://universiteitleiden.zoom.us/j/68680012342?pwd=YVlBMnc5Q1p1ZU0yQ0ZQbzhYWFovdz09
Meeting ID: 686 8001 2342
Passcode: K?3LuWAt
The Leiden University Centre for Intercultural Philosophy (LUCIP) is pleased to welcome Prof. Jay L. Garfield, Doris Silbert Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Philosophy, Logic and Buddhist Studies at Smith College.
Abstract
The Wind in the Sails: Vīrya in Bodhicāryāvatāra
This paper examines a puzzle concerning the role of vīrya (commitment) on the path of moral development in the 8th century Indian Buddhist philosopher Śāntideva’s How to Lead an Awakened Life (Bodhicāryāvatāra). We can summarize this puzzle in three related questions: (1) why is the quality of commitment a distinct quality to be cultivated, as opposed to an adverbial qualification of all the other qualities enumerated on the bodhisattva path? (2) why is the stage at which one cultivates commitment placed after those in which one cultivates generosity, proper conduct, introspective vigilance, conscientiousness, and patience on the on the one hand, and before those in which one cultivates meditative absorption and wisdom on the other? And (3) what exactly is commitment anyway? We argue that these questions can only be properly answered in light of the distinction Śāntideva draws between egocentric and non-egocentric conative attitudes. Commitment is central to the bodhisattva path because, unlike desire (even desire for the good), it offers a sustained non-egocentric motivation for moral action.
About
Jay L. Garfield chairs the Philosophy department and directs Tibetan Studies in India program. He is also visiting professor of Buddhist philosophy at Harvard Divinity School, professor of philosophy at Melbourne University and adjunct professor of philosophy at the Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies. Academicinfluence.com has identified him as one of the 50 most influential philosophers in the world over the past decade.
Garfield’s research addresses topics in the foundations of cognitive science and the philosophy of mind; metaphysics; the history of modern Indian philosophy; topics in ethics, epistemology and the philosophy of logic; the philosophy of the Scottish enlightenment; methodology in cross-cultural interpretation; and topics in Buddhist philosophy, particularly Indo-Tibetan Madhyamaka and Yogācāra.
All are welcome!