Join us at 6:00 PM Wednesday,
March 20, as Jacob Dalton, Khyentse Chair of Tibetan Buddhist Studies at UC
Berkeley, explores connections between psychoanalytic theory and Tibetan
Buddhist meditation.
Many agree that the Great
Perfection (Dzogchen) tradition marks apogee of Tibetan Buddhist Contemplative
theory and practice. With roots in the late eighth century and still popular
today, its most creative teachings emerged in the eleventh to fourteenth
centuries, inspiring the Tibetan Book of the Dead and countless
other writings. Through extended periods of gazing at the sky or being immersed
in darkness, its practitioners open their vision to “the marginal” and develop
new ways of relating to their experiences. In this talk, Dalton draws on
psychoanalytic writings, from Winnicott to Bion, André Green to Bollas, to try
to understand how these remarkable contemplations might work to transform their
practitioners.
This event is free and open
to the public.
Programming for The
Second Buddha was coordinated by Associate Professor of Asian Studies
Benjamin Bogin through the Skidmore Faculty Scholar Residency, which is
co-sponsored by the Center for Leadership, Teaching, and Learning and the
Office of the Dean of Special Programs; and the Tang Teaching Museum.
About
Jacob Dalton
Jacob Dalton, the Khyentse
Foundation Distinguished University Professor in Tibetan Buddhism at University
of California, Berkeley, holds a joint appointment in South and Southeast Asian
Studies and East Asian Languages and Cultures. He teaches Tibetan Buddhism.
After working for three years (2002-2005) as a researcher with the
International Dunhuang Project at the British Library, he taught at Yale
University (2005-2008) before moving to Berkeley. He works on tantric ritual,
Nyingma religious history, paleography, and the Dunhuang manuscripts. He is the
author of The Taming of the Demons: Violence and Liberation in Tibetan
Buddhism (Yale University Press, 2011), The Gathering of
Intentions: A History of a Tibetan Tantra (Columbia University Press,
2016), and co-author of Tibetan Tantric Manuscripts from Dunhuang: A
Descriptive Catalogue of the Stein Collection at the British Library (Brill,
2006). He is currently working on a study of tantric ritual in the Dunhuang
manuscripts.
See
http://sseas.berkeley.edu/people/faculty/jacob-dalton
Image: Detail from the Lukhang Temple Murals,
Lhasa, Tibet, early 18th century