WEBB, Eugene

This is the Home Page for Eugene Webb,
Professor Emeritus,
The Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies,
University of Washington

Courses & Lectures
CV and Bibliography
Selected publications and lectures
Photography

Courses & Lectures

The purpose of this course will be to introduce Buddhism through a study of its origins in India and its historical development in different parts of the world to the present time. Buddhism has taken many forms in different places and continues to evolve both in its Asian homeland and in the modern West. We will study both Theravada and Mahayana forms of Buddhism as well as the distinctive type of Buddhism that developed in Tibet (known as Vajrayana). To help us understand Buddhist theory and practice in concrete terms, we will also draw on modern western thinkers who have been working to connect Buddhist thought with western psychology and science.

1. Buddhist Origins I: The traditions out of which, and in reaction to which, Buddhism originated in the Indian subcontinent. Pre-Aryan religious conceptions: karma and reincarnation. The Vedas and Upanishads and their Hindu interpretations, both dualistic and monistic. Jain: its concept of the "atman" as individual, unitary, perduring "self"; asceticism and nirvana.
2. Buddhist Origins II: Basic Buddhist Ideas and Their Relation to pre-Buddhist traditions. Sacred rites are useless; there may be gods, but they are useless and are themselves in need of liberation through the dharma of the Buddha. Buddhist practice as a Middle Way between asceticism and indulgence. The Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path. Dependent origination: there is no substantial self (atman).
   
3. Myths of Origin: The mythic life of the Buddha and the question of its relation to history. The mythic story of the birth of the Sangha (the community of monks) and what we can know of the actual history of the rise of early Buddhism in India and Southeast Asia. The Pali scriptures and the Theravada ("Hinayana") tradition. The Buddhist empire of King Asoka.
4. The Origins of Mahayana. Bodhisattvas and Thathagatas. Buddhism spreads to China; its adaptation to Chinese culture. The stories of Hsuan Tsang's journey to the West, Bodhidharma, and King Milinda (Menander). Esoteric Buddhism and Devotional Buddhism. The cults of Amithaba and Kuan-yin. Buddhist eschatology: Maitreya. The nationalist Buddhism of Nichiren.
5. The Flowering of Mahayana. Mahayana philosophy: Nagarjuna's Madhyamika; the idea of Sunyata (emptiness); Vijnanavada (Consciousness Only); Prajnaparamita. Trikaya (the three "bodies" of the Buddha). Tendai and Ch'an (Zen).
6. Buddhism in Tibet. Tantrism (Vajrayana). Syncretism with the pre-Buddhist religion of Bon. The history of monastic power in Tibet: a quasi-theocratic feudalism. The red hat and yellow hat lamas. The Dalai and Panchen lamas as political and spiritual leaders and incarnations of bodhisattvas.
7. Buddhism Comes West. Buddhism and orientalism in the 19th century: the New England Transcendentalists; Fenellosa and Kakuzo; The World Parliament of Religions. Zen in the US after World War II: D. T. Suzuki. Tibetan refugees after the flight of the Dalai Lama in 1959.
8. Buddhism in the West Today. American adaptations of Zen, Vipassana, and Tantric Buddhism. Scientific studies of meditation. Dialogues between Buddhist thought and modern western thought, especially in the field of psychology.

CV and Bibliography

Complete chronological bibliography

Worldview and Mind: Religious Thought and Psychological Development
Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 2009.

Sermon at Church of the Epiphany, Sept. 9, 2007

Talk at Interfaith Thanksgiving Eve Service, Sand Point Community United Methodist Church, Seattle
November 23, 2005

"Eros and The Psychology of World Views"
Anthropoetics, XII, 1 (Spring / Summer 2006).

Phi Beta Kappa Initiation Address
University of Washington, June 9, 2005

"René Girard and the Symbolism of Religious Sacrifice"
Anthropoetics, XI, no. 1 (Spring / Summer 2005).

"Reviving the Openness of Islam"
Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Nov. 11, 2001

Essays on the Doctrine of the Trinity

Essays on the thought of Eric Voegelin

"Ernest Becker and the Psychology of World Views"
Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science, 33, no. 1 (March 1998): 71-86

"Mimesis, Evolution, and Differentiation of Consciousness"
Paragrana: Internationale Zeitschrift für Historische Anthropologie, 4, no. 2 (1995): 151-165

1992 Prague lecture: "Political Symbolism and the Ambiguity of Political Community: An Inherent Dilemma of Politics"

1994 Prague lecture: "Objective and Existential Truth in Politics"

Photos on the present site

Selected Photographs in UW Cities/Buildings Archive

Taj Mahal, Agra, India

Itsukushima Shrine, Miyajima, Japan

Constantinople - Istanbul

Angkor Wat, Cambodia