Eben M Yonnetti | University of Virginia (original) (raw)
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Publications by Eben M Yonnetti
Journal of Global Buddhism, 2024
This article examines how Tibetan Buddhist teachers’ and communities’ responses to the COVID-19 p... more This article examines how Tibetan Buddhist teachers’ and communities’ responses to the COVID-19 pandemic have facilitated the contemporary global transmission of this tradition. Based upon fifteen months of ethnographic research in Taiwan, I examine how one community, the Bhumang Nyiöling Buddhist Society, was introduced to and adopted practices to the deity Parṇaśavarī, a protectress against pandemic illnesses, in response to COVID-19. Drawing upon Deleuze and Guattari, I introduce the concepts of spiritual deterritorialization and reterritorialization to describe the processes whereby divinities in the Buddhist cosmos are unbound from specific geographies and expand their intercessory powers across new contexts. I argue that the introduction of Parṇaśavarī practices to the Bhumang Nyiöling community during the COVID-19 pandemic serves as a vibrant example of how processes of spiritual deterritorialization and reterritorialization can play a powerful role in the broader transmission of Tibetan Buddhism globally, particularly when catalyzed by critical moments of crisis.
Master's thesis at the University of Colorado Boulder, 2017 This thesis examines the role of tra... more Master's thesis at the University of Colorado Boulder, 2017
This thesis examines the role of translation and the formation of Vajrayāna Buddhist subjects in religious transmission through an analysis of the tantric Buddhist ritual practice, the Sādhana of Mahāmudrā (SOM). Reported to be revealed as a Mind treasure (དགོང་གཏེར་) by the Tibetan reincarnate teacher Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche (ཆོས་རྒྱམ་དྲུང་པ་; 1940-1987) while on retreat in Bhutan in 1968, and subsequently translated into English by Trungpa Rinpoche and his student Richard Arthure (1940- ), the SOM played an important role in the early process of the transnational transmission of Vajrayāna Buddhism to the ‘West.’ Nevertheless, after more than fifty years of practice by individuals and communities around the globe, the role of the SOM in this process has yet to be studied. Moreover, scholarship on the role of Vajrayāna rituals in contemporary religious transmission is also in its nascency. In this thesis, I aim to address this lacuna through a study of the revelation of this text, its strategic translation, and its role in the making of Vajrayāna Buddhist subjects. Given that the SOM emerged at a pivotal moment as Trungpa Rinpoche re-evaluated how to best teach the buddhadharma in the ‘West,’ I argue that its partially domesticating translation was a strategic means of inducting ‘Western’ students into a foreign ritual world. As such, I argue that the SOM was a skillful method to introduce ‘Western,’ non-Buddhist students to the Vajrayāna through an iterative process of ritual enactment and training in a subjectivity both described and prescribed within the text. As such, in this thesis I analyze the important role that the SOM played in the early formation of Vajrayāna subjectivities as Vajrayāna Buddhism came to North America and in preparing the ground for the later teachings that Trungpa Rinpoche would introduce to his students. This thesis informs my broader research question: how are new subjectivities created in the process of religious transmission across radically different cultural contexts? More generally, it contributes to emergent conversations around performativity in Buddhist ritual practice and will also prove relevant to those working on the intersection of ritual practice and religious transmission in other traditions.
This article investigates the growth of online religion through a study of Ocean: The Vast Teachi... more This article investigates the growth of online religion through a study of Ocean: The Vast Teachings of Chögyam Trungpa. Opened to the public in the spring of 2015 with a series of courses, practices, and gatherings, Ocean describes itself as an online site of practice, study, and community dedicated to the life and teachings of the Tibetan Buddhist reincarnate teacher Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche (1939/40-1987). Closely examining Ocean’s history, design, and programs, I illustrate how Ocean exemplifies a shift from religion online primarily comprised of individuals consuming information toward the increasing presence of spaces that support more participatory, accessible, and interactive relationships among their users. I draw upon Heidi Campbell’s concept of “networked religion,” to examine Ocean as a novel space for the study and practice of Tibetan Buddhism that is both becoming entangled with users’ offline religious lives and practices and a new site for the negotiation of participation and authority.
Tibetan Buddhism has numerous detailed and diverse traditions of ritual music that play an integr... more Tibetan Buddhism has numerous detailed and diverse traditions of ritual music that play an integral part in religious practices. Despite the prominence of such performances in Tibetan Buddhist life, spectators and researchers alike have frequently misunderstood them based purely on physical observation. As a religion that focuses on the cultivation and development of the mind, any analysis focusing only on physical description is significantly flawed. Music in Buddhist practice is at a base level a sound offering. On a higher level, however, it is much more. If done with the proper motivation, musical performance during ritual is a method to wipe away one’s own negative Karma and attachment to the realms of desire. Additionally, the traditional field of ritual music and structure is constantly undergoing change and revision in the contemporary context. This paper will examine the structure and role of ritual music in Buddhist performance as well as briefly overview the various instruments and orchestration used during ritual. Finally, it will examine the ongoing variations and changes to Buddhist ritual practice through the different instrumentations, alterations and new compositions that demonstrate how ritual music remains both a traditional and a fluid entity in a constantly changing world.
Conference Presentations by Eben M Yonnetti
Presented at 2017 Rocky Mountain/Great Plains Regional AAR on panel “Ethics and Ritual Practice i... more Presented at 2017 Rocky Mountain/Great Plains Regional AAR on panel “Ethics and Ritual Practice in the Formation of Tantric Buddhist Subjectivities”
Abstract:
This paper examines the formation of Vajrayāna Buddhist subjects through the enactment of the tantric Buddhist ritual practice (Skt: sādhana; Tib: !བ་ཐབས་), the Sādhana of Mahāmudrā (SOM). Revealed by the
Tibetan reincarnate teacher Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche (1940-1987) while on retreat in Bhutan in 1968, the SOM was widely transmitted by Trungpa Rinpoche and played a central role in the transnational transmission of Vajrayāna Buddhism to the ‘West.’ The primary soteriological goal for practitioners of tantric Buddhist visualization practices is to realize their innate enlightened nature (Skt: sugatagarbha; Tib. བདེ་བར་གཤེགས་པའི་.ིང་པོ་) by means of visualizing an enlightened deity. Requisite for the efficacy of such
practices, however, is the necessary devotion to one’s teacher, who is understood to embody the enlightenment of the meditational deity. In visualizing the realm of a deity and one’s place within it, practitioners simultaneously train themselves to embody a particular tantric Buddhist habitus through the reiteration of norms in ritual practice, a process I call ‘Vajrayāna subject-making.’ Following ritual theorists, such as William Sax, who discuss ritual as a powerful means for creating selves, relationships, and communities, I analyze the SOM as a method of inducting and instructing tantric Buddhist subjects. Through enacting what Davis (1991) called the ‘ritual universe’ of the text, I argue, practitioners of the SOM shape themselves into tantric subjects who embody the appropriate affective disposition and accept the hierarchical, epistemological, and ontological truth-claims of that ritual universe. This paper informs my broader research question: how are new subjectivities created in the process of religious transmission across radically different cultural contexts? More generally, it contributes to emergent conversations around performativity in Buddhist ritual practice and will also prove relevant to those working on the intersection of ritual practice and religious transmission in other traditions.
Presented in February 2016 at HSC IV in Austin, TX Abstract: The Sādhana of Mahāmudrā was rev... more Presented in February 2016 at HSC IV in Austin, TX
Abstract:
The Sādhana of Mahāmudrā was revealed as a mind treasure (dgongs gter) to Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche while on retreat at the monastery of Paro Taktsang (spa gro stag tshang), Bhutan in 1968. Transmitted widely among Trungpa’s students, the Sādhana of Mahāmudrā has become a cornerstone of global Shambhala Buddhist teachings and practice. Integral as a visual aid to this practice has been the Sādhana of Mahāmudrā thangka painted by Sherab Palden Beru (1911-2012). The first artistic representation of the visualization in the Sādhana of Mahāmudrā, this particular thangka still hangs above the protector shrine at the Boulder Shambhala Center and remains the depiction widely used within the Shambhala International community and on Shambhala Media’s printed materials. Using the thangka as a window into the practice text, this paper analyzes elements of the confluence of Kagyü (bka' brgyud) and Nyingma (rnying ma) teachings in the Sādhana of Mahāmudrā. In particular, this paper examines several of the deities depicted in the thangka in order to explicate the unique interplay of the Kagyü mahāmudrā and Nyingma mahā ati (atiyoga; rdzogs chen) teachings that permeate this liturgy. Through this discussion, the author hopes to contribute to emergent conversations around non- sectarian (ris med) Buddhist practices.
The full version of a presentation given at the 2015 American Academy of Religion Rocky Mountain-... more The full version of a presentation given at the 2015 American Academy of Religion Rocky Mountain-Great Plains Regional Conference.
This paper explores the relationship of Buddhist vernacular liturgical practices and the translations that enable them. Buddhist practitioners reciting The Heart Sutra at a Shambhala Center in Manhattan may not contemplate their temporal distance or degree of linguistic separation from the text’s original iteration. In such a case, what is accepted as a seamless translation of word and meaning from the past to the present, actually depends on an active process of interpretation by one or several translators in various contexts. This process is especially important when examining religious liturgical texts employed as means of spiritual growth. Nonetheless, there is a significant gap in critical dialogue among translators of Tibetan liturgical texts regarding their methodology and role as translators. This paper builds on Venuti’s (2008) work challenging the invisibility of the translator, bringing his arguments into dialogue with the field of Tibetan liturgical translation. Venuti asserts that the dominant mode of contemporary translation mistakenly values a transparent translator’s ‘domestication’ of a text into the translated language. I question how Venuti’s arguments apply to the translation of Tibetan liturgical materials and discuss potential consequences of this method on the practice of these texts. I argue that Venuti’s advocacy for visible translators that bring the reader to a ‘foreign’ text are, in fact, beneficial in the context of Tibetan practice texts. This paper informs the broader question at the heart of my ongoing research agenda: How does the translation of Tibetan practice texts impact their efficacy in religious practice? Through this paper, I contribute to emergent conversations about the role of translators in Tibetan Buddhist practice, which began at the unprecedented Tsadra Translation & Transmission Conference in October 2014. More broadly, issues that I highlight in Tibetan practice texts will prove relevant to those working in the translation of other liturgical texts.
Book Reviews by Eben M Yonnetti
The Pacific World: Journal of the Institute of Buddhist Studies, 2021
Despite the rapid growth of Tibetan Buddhism in the last thirty years among Chinese peoples in ma... more Despite the rapid growth of Tibetan Buddhism in the last thirty years among Chinese peoples in mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and throughout the international Chinese diaspora, Han practitioners and their Tibetan Buddhist teachers have remained a relatively understudied part of Chinese religious life. As the first monograph devoted to this subject in nearly a decade, Joshua Esler's Tibetan Buddhism among Han Chinese marks an important step toward filling this gap in our understanding of the contemporary Chinese religious landscape. Rooted in extensive fieldwork, including more than eighty interviews conducted in Beijing, Dechen/Diqing, Lijiang, Hong Kong, and Taiwan in 2011, Esler provides an intimate and richly detailed account of some of the ways in which Tibetan Buddhist teachers and Han practitioners are adapting Tibetan Buddhism to contemporary Chinese societies. Primarily focused on the lived experiences of Han practitioners, Esler's aim throughout the book is to document how Tibetan Buddhism acts as a medium that does not so much actively erase Han practitioners' previous worldviews, but rather absorbs "their compatible elements, sharpening them into something that contributes to overall clarity within the new worldview this faith provides" (p. xv). In this way, Esler argues, Tibetan Buddhism does not displace "but is instead adapted in light of the remnants of other worldviews" (p. xv). Moreover, 1.
Journal of Global Buddhism, 2024
This article examines how Tibetan Buddhist teachers’ and communities’ responses to the COVID-19 p... more This article examines how Tibetan Buddhist teachers’ and communities’ responses to the COVID-19 pandemic have facilitated the contemporary global transmission of this tradition. Based upon fifteen months of ethnographic research in Taiwan, I examine how one community, the Bhumang Nyiöling Buddhist Society, was introduced to and adopted practices to the deity Parṇaśavarī, a protectress against pandemic illnesses, in response to COVID-19. Drawing upon Deleuze and Guattari, I introduce the concepts of spiritual deterritorialization and reterritorialization to describe the processes whereby divinities in the Buddhist cosmos are unbound from specific geographies and expand their intercessory powers across new contexts. I argue that the introduction of Parṇaśavarī practices to the Bhumang Nyiöling community during the COVID-19 pandemic serves as a vibrant example of how processes of spiritual deterritorialization and reterritorialization can play a powerful role in the broader transmission of Tibetan Buddhism globally, particularly when catalyzed by critical moments of crisis.
Master's thesis at the University of Colorado Boulder, 2017 This thesis examines the role of tra... more Master's thesis at the University of Colorado Boulder, 2017
This thesis examines the role of translation and the formation of Vajrayāna Buddhist subjects in religious transmission through an analysis of the tantric Buddhist ritual practice, the Sādhana of Mahāmudrā (SOM). Reported to be revealed as a Mind treasure (དགོང་གཏེར་) by the Tibetan reincarnate teacher Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche (ཆོས་རྒྱམ་དྲུང་པ་; 1940-1987) while on retreat in Bhutan in 1968, and subsequently translated into English by Trungpa Rinpoche and his student Richard Arthure (1940- ), the SOM played an important role in the early process of the transnational transmission of Vajrayāna Buddhism to the ‘West.’ Nevertheless, after more than fifty years of practice by individuals and communities around the globe, the role of the SOM in this process has yet to be studied. Moreover, scholarship on the role of Vajrayāna rituals in contemporary religious transmission is also in its nascency. In this thesis, I aim to address this lacuna through a study of the revelation of this text, its strategic translation, and its role in the making of Vajrayāna Buddhist subjects. Given that the SOM emerged at a pivotal moment as Trungpa Rinpoche re-evaluated how to best teach the buddhadharma in the ‘West,’ I argue that its partially domesticating translation was a strategic means of inducting ‘Western’ students into a foreign ritual world. As such, I argue that the SOM was a skillful method to introduce ‘Western,’ non-Buddhist students to the Vajrayāna through an iterative process of ritual enactment and training in a subjectivity both described and prescribed within the text. As such, in this thesis I analyze the important role that the SOM played in the early formation of Vajrayāna subjectivities as Vajrayāna Buddhism came to North America and in preparing the ground for the later teachings that Trungpa Rinpoche would introduce to his students. This thesis informs my broader research question: how are new subjectivities created in the process of religious transmission across radically different cultural contexts? More generally, it contributes to emergent conversations around performativity in Buddhist ritual practice and will also prove relevant to those working on the intersection of ritual practice and religious transmission in other traditions.
This article investigates the growth of online religion through a study of Ocean: The Vast Teachi... more This article investigates the growth of online religion through a study of Ocean: The Vast Teachings of Chögyam Trungpa. Opened to the public in the spring of 2015 with a series of courses, practices, and gatherings, Ocean describes itself as an online site of practice, study, and community dedicated to the life and teachings of the Tibetan Buddhist reincarnate teacher Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche (1939/40-1987). Closely examining Ocean’s history, design, and programs, I illustrate how Ocean exemplifies a shift from religion online primarily comprised of individuals consuming information toward the increasing presence of spaces that support more participatory, accessible, and interactive relationships among their users. I draw upon Heidi Campbell’s concept of “networked religion,” to examine Ocean as a novel space for the study and practice of Tibetan Buddhism that is both becoming entangled with users’ offline religious lives and practices and a new site for the negotiation of participation and authority.
Tibetan Buddhism has numerous detailed and diverse traditions of ritual music that play an integr... more Tibetan Buddhism has numerous detailed and diverse traditions of ritual music that play an integral part in religious practices. Despite the prominence of such performances in Tibetan Buddhist life, spectators and researchers alike have frequently misunderstood them based purely on physical observation. As a religion that focuses on the cultivation and development of the mind, any analysis focusing only on physical description is significantly flawed. Music in Buddhist practice is at a base level a sound offering. On a higher level, however, it is much more. If done with the proper motivation, musical performance during ritual is a method to wipe away one’s own negative Karma and attachment to the realms of desire. Additionally, the traditional field of ritual music and structure is constantly undergoing change and revision in the contemporary context. This paper will examine the structure and role of ritual music in Buddhist performance as well as briefly overview the various instruments and orchestration used during ritual. Finally, it will examine the ongoing variations and changes to Buddhist ritual practice through the different instrumentations, alterations and new compositions that demonstrate how ritual music remains both a traditional and a fluid entity in a constantly changing world.
Presented at 2017 Rocky Mountain/Great Plains Regional AAR on panel “Ethics and Ritual Practice i... more Presented at 2017 Rocky Mountain/Great Plains Regional AAR on panel “Ethics and Ritual Practice in the Formation of Tantric Buddhist Subjectivities”
Abstract:
This paper examines the formation of Vajrayāna Buddhist subjects through the enactment of the tantric Buddhist ritual practice (Skt: sādhana; Tib: !བ་ཐབས་), the Sādhana of Mahāmudrā (SOM). Revealed by the
Tibetan reincarnate teacher Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche (1940-1987) while on retreat in Bhutan in 1968, the SOM was widely transmitted by Trungpa Rinpoche and played a central role in the transnational transmission of Vajrayāna Buddhism to the ‘West.’ The primary soteriological goal for practitioners of tantric Buddhist visualization practices is to realize their innate enlightened nature (Skt: sugatagarbha; Tib. བདེ་བར་གཤེགས་པའི་.ིང་པོ་) by means of visualizing an enlightened deity. Requisite for the efficacy of such
practices, however, is the necessary devotion to one’s teacher, who is understood to embody the enlightenment of the meditational deity. In visualizing the realm of a deity and one’s place within it, practitioners simultaneously train themselves to embody a particular tantric Buddhist habitus through the reiteration of norms in ritual practice, a process I call ‘Vajrayāna subject-making.’ Following ritual theorists, such as William Sax, who discuss ritual as a powerful means for creating selves, relationships, and communities, I analyze the SOM as a method of inducting and instructing tantric Buddhist subjects. Through enacting what Davis (1991) called the ‘ritual universe’ of the text, I argue, practitioners of the SOM shape themselves into tantric subjects who embody the appropriate affective disposition and accept the hierarchical, epistemological, and ontological truth-claims of that ritual universe. This paper informs my broader research question: how are new subjectivities created in the process of religious transmission across radically different cultural contexts? More generally, it contributes to emergent conversations around performativity in Buddhist ritual practice and will also prove relevant to those working on the intersection of ritual practice and religious transmission in other traditions.
Presented in February 2016 at HSC IV in Austin, TX Abstract: The Sādhana of Mahāmudrā was rev... more Presented in February 2016 at HSC IV in Austin, TX
Abstract:
The Sādhana of Mahāmudrā was revealed as a mind treasure (dgongs gter) to Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche while on retreat at the monastery of Paro Taktsang (spa gro stag tshang), Bhutan in 1968. Transmitted widely among Trungpa’s students, the Sādhana of Mahāmudrā has become a cornerstone of global Shambhala Buddhist teachings and practice. Integral as a visual aid to this practice has been the Sādhana of Mahāmudrā thangka painted by Sherab Palden Beru (1911-2012). The first artistic representation of the visualization in the Sādhana of Mahāmudrā, this particular thangka still hangs above the protector shrine at the Boulder Shambhala Center and remains the depiction widely used within the Shambhala International community and on Shambhala Media’s printed materials. Using the thangka as a window into the practice text, this paper analyzes elements of the confluence of Kagyü (bka' brgyud) and Nyingma (rnying ma) teachings in the Sādhana of Mahāmudrā. In particular, this paper examines several of the deities depicted in the thangka in order to explicate the unique interplay of the Kagyü mahāmudrā and Nyingma mahā ati (atiyoga; rdzogs chen) teachings that permeate this liturgy. Through this discussion, the author hopes to contribute to emergent conversations around non- sectarian (ris med) Buddhist practices.
The full version of a presentation given at the 2015 American Academy of Religion Rocky Mountain-... more The full version of a presentation given at the 2015 American Academy of Religion Rocky Mountain-Great Plains Regional Conference.
This paper explores the relationship of Buddhist vernacular liturgical practices and the translations that enable them. Buddhist practitioners reciting The Heart Sutra at a Shambhala Center in Manhattan may not contemplate their temporal distance or degree of linguistic separation from the text’s original iteration. In such a case, what is accepted as a seamless translation of word and meaning from the past to the present, actually depends on an active process of interpretation by one or several translators in various contexts. This process is especially important when examining religious liturgical texts employed as means of spiritual growth. Nonetheless, there is a significant gap in critical dialogue among translators of Tibetan liturgical texts regarding their methodology and role as translators. This paper builds on Venuti’s (2008) work challenging the invisibility of the translator, bringing his arguments into dialogue with the field of Tibetan liturgical translation. Venuti asserts that the dominant mode of contemporary translation mistakenly values a transparent translator’s ‘domestication’ of a text into the translated language. I question how Venuti’s arguments apply to the translation of Tibetan liturgical materials and discuss potential consequences of this method on the practice of these texts. I argue that Venuti’s advocacy for visible translators that bring the reader to a ‘foreign’ text are, in fact, beneficial in the context of Tibetan practice texts. This paper informs the broader question at the heart of my ongoing research agenda: How does the translation of Tibetan practice texts impact their efficacy in religious practice? Through this paper, I contribute to emergent conversations about the role of translators in Tibetan Buddhist practice, which began at the unprecedented Tsadra Translation & Transmission Conference in October 2014. More broadly, issues that I highlight in Tibetan practice texts will prove relevant to those working in the translation of other liturgical texts.
The Pacific World: Journal of the Institute of Buddhist Studies, 2021
Despite the rapid growth of Tibetan Buddhism in the last thirty years among Chinese peoples in ma... more Despite the rapid growth of Tibetan Buddhism in the last thirty years among Chinese peoples in mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and throughout the international Chinese diaspora, Han practitioners and their Tibetan Buddhist teachers have remained a relatively understudied part of Chinese religious life. As the first monograph devoted to this subject in nearly a decade, Joshua Esler's Tibetan Buddhism among Han Chinese marks an important step toward filling this gap in our understanding of the contemporary Chinese religious landscape. Rooted in extensive fieldwork, including more than eighty interviews conducted in Beijing, Dechen/Diqing, Lijiang, Hong Kong, and Taiwan in 2011, Esler provides an intimate and richly detailed account of some of the ways in which Tibetan Buddhist teachers and Han practitioners are adapting Tibetan Buddhism to contemporary Chinese societies. Primarily focused on the lived experiences of Han practitioners, Esler's aim throughout the book is to document how Tibetan Buddhism acts as a medium that does not so much actively erase Han practitioners' previous worldviews, but rather absorbs "their compatible elements, sharpening them into something that contributes to overall clarity within the new worldview this faith provides" (p. xv). In this way, Esler argues, Tibetan Buddhism does not displace "but is instead adapted in light of the remnants of other worldviews" (p. xv). Moreover, 1.