Back to All Events

Barre Center for Buddhist Studies: Virtual Event - Emptiness and Form: Fiction and the Dharma, In Conversation with Francisca Cho

Buddhist traditions have sometimes characterized the dharma—the teachings of the Buddha—as beyond the realm of language and thought. If this is so, then why have so many Buddhists articulated their understanding of the dharma through literature, in poetry, discourses, plays, and fiction? Might the transformed modes of perception described in doctrinal texts be experienced through literature, through deeply engaging literary texts that blur boundaries between the imaginary, the representational, and the real? Join Ruth Ozeki, Zen Buddhist priest and novelist, and Francisca Cho, professor and one of the most prominent contemporary scholars on Buddhism and literature, as together, they explore emptiness and form, and the many ways that reading and writing literature can teach the dharma.