Tag: Matthew Kapstein

[rev_slider alias=”tsadra-blog”]

Matthew Kapstein

  • IABS 2011: Reporting from Taiwan (Gene Smith Panel)

    IABS 2011: Reporting from Taiwan (Gene Smith Panel)

    Convened by Michael Sheehy and Jeff Wallman of TBRC, “Gene Smith: His Life and Work” was the first panel I attended at IABS 2011 Congress.

    Michael Sheehy gave a formal presentation entitled “Banned Books, Sealed Printeries and Neglected Dkar chag” that described some fascinating research on the history of Takten Damchö Phuntsok Ling Monastery (where Tāranātha passed on) and its printery. He recounted three separate attempts to rescue the woodblocks of Jonang texts from the Phuntsok Ling printery by three different Tibetan lamas over several centuries following Tāranātha’s death. It is not until the efforts of Losal Tenkyong (blo gsal bstan skyong), a Zhwa lu Tulku who was close to Jamgon Kongtrul, that the printery doors were unlocked and a dkar chag of the texts found there was created.

    (more…)
  • Kapstein at Nītārtha Institute

    Kapstein at Nītārtha Institute

    Western Washington University – Bellingham, WA –

    Just last week at Nītārtha Institute’s 2009 summer program, professor Matthew Kapstein, translator of such seminal works as The Nyingma School of Tibetan Buddhism, taught five two-hour morning classes on a text by Klong chen rab ‘byams pa (1308-1364). This course began what will be a yearly tradition of Western scholars teaching at the Nītārtha summer program. The crowd that assembled each morning for Kapstein’s course included a large contingent of Naropa University students, former Naropa students, professors and other dharma practitioners. This summer’s program attracted several scholars in the area of comparative philosophy and the milieu was full and rich with the sharing of ideas between fascinating eclectic minds. Philosophy of mind professor Matthew Mackenzie (CSU) was in attendance for the month; a practitioner and scholar I predict will have an interesting influence on the formation of Buddhism in the West. I will try to provide here a few comments on the text, some of the interesting highlights of Kapstein’s translation choices, and a few notes on my impressions of the course. If anyone reading this would like more information, the Tibetan text, etc. please do contact me: Marcus@tsadra.org

    (more…)