Search

This article revisits the Ninth Panchen Lama's (Choekyi Nyima, 1883–1937) controversial exile in China and Inner Mongolia between 1924 and 1937. As the most renowned political dissenter of the then-nascent Tibetan state and the second most important religious leader for Mongolian and Tibetan Buddhists, the Ninth Panchen Lama played a significant role in the early-twentieth-century Chinese, Tibetan, and Mongolian political and spiritual worlds. Academic scrutiny of the Ninth Panchen Lama's association with China has facilitated the scholarly understanding of the "subimperialist" policy that the Chinese Nationalist government devised to replicate the Qing Empire's success in managing Mongol and Tibetan territories. Assisted by newly released sources and a shifting focus away from Chinese statesmen to the Tibetan monk, this article reassesses the power that the Ninth Panchen Lama wielded on the Sino–Mongol–Tibetan frontiers and his collaboration with the Chinese Nationalist government. This article argues that despite possessing many cosmetic features of the Qing-style relationship centering on the mutually agreed reinterpretation of an established status quo within a hierarchal framework, the alliance between the Ninth Panchen Lama and the Chinese Nationalist government was a venturesome entente based upon shared objectives that were audacious, contentious, and bore little resemblance to Qing precedent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With Buddhism's integration into the global market economy, the trade in Buddhist commodities is booming. I ask how the value of such goods is measured, communicated, and contested by the diverse range of actors who buy and sell them. The analytical framework draws on recent conceptual developments in the fields of religion and of technology to develop Jens Beckert's typology of value. While Beckert draws on Durkheim's sociology of religion to differentiate between physical and symbolic values, I take the example of a powerful Buddhist technology, the Tibetan prayer wheel, to demonstrate the entanglement of materiality and belief in the different types of value ascribed to religious goods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Context: The Sanjiangyuan region of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau—also known as the "Three Rivers' Headwaters"—is the origin of the Yellow, Yangtze, and Mekong Rivers and therefore the key water source for hundreds of millions of downstream residents. Protecting this region's ecosystems is a key priority for sustainable development in China and Asia. An important social dimension of Sanjiangyuan is the long-established and widespread presence of Tibetan Buddhism, particularly as manifested in the large number of monasteries throughout the region. However, the influence of cultural factors on environmental change remains largely understudied here. Objective: We focus on two types of spatial associations—point-point and point-area features—to quantitatively investigate the effects of Buddhist monasteries on land use/cover change (LUCC) in surrounding landscapes. Methods: We conduct a spatially-explicit analysis of Sanjiangyuan for two periods, 1990–2000 and 2010–2015, to identify and quantify the influence of the presence and spatial distributions of Buddhist monasteries on LUCC compared to village communities that lack monasteries. Results: We found that the presence of monasteries is highly correlated with the preservation of natural ecosystems, specifically of grasslands and forests. Within monastery buffer zones with radii between 1 and 10 km, 7.13–9.30% more grassland area and 7.14–7.47% more forest area remained around monasteries compared to villages. This contrast decreased with increasing distance to the monastery/village. Overall, built-up areas were also much smaller around monasteries than around villages, while unused land was more commonly transformed to forests and grasslands around monasteries. Conclusions: These findings strongly support the idea that Buddhist culture, as manifested through its physical institutions and communities, are instrumental in achieving desired landscape conservation outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This section presents an interview with Buddhist monk and photographer Matthieu Ricard. Topics discussed include mind training in Tibetan Buddhism, the connection of spirituality and creativity to Tibetan culture, the lessons that the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic taught the public about collective well-being, and the way he intends to use his photography to demonstrate the beauty.

Chinese folk songs remain largely unheard-of outside China. The broad purpose of this essay is to bring one peculiar form of folk songs that is commonly circulated in Northwest China--Hua'er--into the spotlight. The essay attempts to reveal four types of female images as observed in romantic Hua'er, which is followed by an analysis of the gender relationship mirrored from the images and characterized by male-dominated hierarchy. Additionally, two ideas are offered as interpretation on the construction of the gender hierarchy. One is the impacts of Islam and Tibetan Buddhism which are two principal religions in Northwest China; the other is the joint force generated when they are each combined with Chinese Confucianism. Though Hua'er has been listed into the Intangible Culture Heritage of UNESCO for more than a decade, the scholarship on it remains limited and new perspectives have yet to be explored. I believe this article makes a contribution in this regard by taking the gender perspective which is presently rare in Hua'er study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The snow leopard (Panthera uncia) inhabits a human-altered alpine landscape and is often tolerated by residents in regions where the dominant religion is Tibetan Buddhism, including in Qomolangma NNR on the northern side of the Chinese Himalayas. Despite these positive attitudes, many decades of rapid economic development and population growth can cause increasing disturbance to the snow leopards, altering their habitat use patterns and ultimately impacting their conservation. We adopted a dynamic landscape ecology perspective and used multi-scale technique and occupancy model to better understand snow leopard habitat use and coexistence with humans in an 825 km2 communal landscape. We ranked eight hypothetical models containing potential natural and anthropogenic drivers of habitat use and compared them between summer and winter seasons within a year. HABITAT was the optimal model in winter, whereas ANTHROPOGENIC INFLUENCE was the top ranking in summer (AICcw≤2). Overall, model performance was better in the winter than in the summer, suggesting that perhaps some latent summer covariates were not measured. Among the individual variables, terrain ruggedness strongly affected snow leopard habitat use in the winter, but not in the summer. Univariate modeling suggested snow leopards prefer to use rugged land in winter with a broad scale (4000 m focal radius) but with a lesser scale in summer (30 m); Snow leopards preferred habitat with a slope of 22° at a scale of 1000 m throughout both seasons, which is possibly correlated with prey occurrence. Furthermore, all covariates mentioned above showed inextricable ties with human activities (presence of settlements and grazing intensity). Our findings show that multiple sources of anthropogenic activity have complex connections with snow leopard habitat use, even under low human density when anthropogenic activities are sparsely distributed across a vast landscape. This study is also valuable for habitat use research in the future, especially regarding covariate selection for finite sample sizes in inaccessible terrain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within a variety of contemplative traditions, non-dual-oriented practices were developed to evoke an experiential shift into a mode of experiencing in which the cognitive structures of self-other and subject–object subside. These practices serve to de-reify the enactment of an observing witness which is usually experienced as separate from the objects of awareness. While several contemplative traditions, such as Zen, Mahāmudrā, Dzogchen, and Advaita Vedanta emphasize the importance of such a non-dual insight for the cultivation of genuine wellbeing, only very few attempts in contemplative science have turned toward the study of non-dual-oriented practices. This article starts from a recently developed theoretical cognitive science framework that models the requirements of a temporary experiential shift into a mode of experiencing free from cognitive subject–object structure. This model inspired by the enactive approach contributes theoretically grounded hypotheses for the much-needed rigorous study of non-dual practices and non-dual experiences. To do so, three steps are taken: first, common elements of non-dual-oriented practices are outlined. Second, the main ideas of enactive cognitive science are presented including a principled theoretical model of what is required for a shift to a pure non-dual experience, that is, an experiential mode that is unbound by subject–object duality. Third, this synthesized theoretical model of the requirements for the recognition of the non-dual is then compared with a specific non-dual style of meditation practice, namely, Mahāmudrā practice from Tibetan Buddhism. This third step represents a heuristic for evaluating the external coherence of the presented model. With this, the aim is to point toward a principled enactive view of non-dual meditative practice. In drawing the implications of the presented model, this article ends with an outlook toward next steps for further developing a research agenda that may fully address the concrete elements of non-dual practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present studies investigated how particular religious beliefs shape compliance with preventive measures in adherents of Gelug and Nyingma schools of Tibetan Buddhism. In Study 1, Gelug and Nyingma monks were asked to report their compliance with various infection prevention measures surrounding COVID-19. Results showed that the former group showed higher compliance with public health guidelines than the latter. Extending beyond self-report measures, Study 2 added a behavioral outcome measure and observed the same effect. Together, our results provide the first empirical evidence that various Tibetan Buddhist traditions are related to different degrees of compliance with precautionary measures against COVID-19. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The mandala has a unique charm in Beijing's architectural culture. Its form is mainly the Vajrasana Pagoda monomers and the mandala group combinations. It is not only a historical testimony to the prosperity of Tibetan Buddhism in Beijing, but also a model of the integration of diverse culture, which has great research value. First, the definition, symbolic connotation and architectural form of the mandala are explained, then the general situation of the Vajrasana Pagoda and mandala's group of Beijing are researched, and the developmental characteristics of Beijing mandala are summarized. Finally its distribution and reasons for prevalence are analysed and explored. Through the research and combing of the Beijing mandala, a clear understanding of its development context and overall situation is obtained, and the foundation for the in-depth study of their architectural form in the future will be laid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through ethnographic fieldwork, Lewis discovers that the more critical question that must be asked first is: how do Tibetans explain human suffering? Herein lies one of the important contributions of the book: Lewis argues that Tibetans do not accept trauma as an analytical framework with which to make sense of their experiences of pain and loss. Lewis presents the Tibetan concept of a "spacious mind" as a radical alternative to "Western" - North American and Western European - biomedical and psychological discourses on trauma, suffering, healing, and recovery. [Extracted from the article]

Seizing on the opportunity provided by the Dalai Lama recently hinting at a female successor, this paper delves deep into theorizing a female Dalai Lama. It offers an intersectional tool to examine how such a conception not only overturns patriarchy pertinent in Tibetan Buddhism, but also disrupts the heteropatriarchal religious traditions beyond Tibetan Buddhism. Moreover, it brings to light affirmative imagination for feminist thinking and intervention premised on the understanding of feminisms as engaging with structures of power and systems of oppression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After Buddhism was transmitted to Tibet, it became localized and absorbed various religious and cultural elements. Subsequently, when Tibetan Buddhism was transmitted to different countries and regions, it again became fused with local customs and beliefs, to form diverse types of Tibetan Buddhism. The object of this research is the Intermediate-state ritual regularly held for the deceased at Nona Hwatsang Center which belongs to the rNying ma lineage, which combines Chinese Buddhist doctrines with Tibetan Buddhist methods, and incorporates the form of religious activity of Han people. Past research on the Chanting-Service Ritual focuses on discussing religious thought and hospice care. This paper discusses how the perception is dynamically constructed and destroyed during the intermediate state by "incurving" the three-time sound and images in the ritual. The distinctive part of the Intermediate-state ritual is the gurus with high authority performing religious functions through playing the dead gurus' videos. The videos are used to imitate and present the sounds and images so that they might be heard and seen during the intermediate state, as instructed by the authoritative scriptures. In addition, the lay group guides the deceased's consciousness to dynamically perceive the sounds and images from the perspective of the Threefold Contemplation for self-liberating. Furthermore, in this research, Gilles Deleuze's theoretical structure of images is adopted to discuss the individual perceptions constructed dynamically through the interaction among various elements and karma during an individual's life. However, the deceased should realize the common perception of Buddha nature, which is constructed in Buddhist doctrines and has the effect of destroying the individual perceptions, and the mind's journey to the Pure Land. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Meidaizhao, located in Tumote Right Banner, Inner Mongolia, is currently the only existing Tibetan Buddhist temple in China where "man and god live together, city and temple are combined". Meidaizhao has a long history and profound background, and its architectural space is unique. While maintaining the connection with the believers, it also symbolizes the unique religious culture and has very important research value. This article investigates and sorts out the overall layout and spatial relationship of the buildings in the Meidaizhao temple from the perspective of ritual. Through the analysis of the mutual relationship between the space and the ritual behavior in the temple, it explores the rich meaning and etiquette characteristics of the buildings of the Meidaizhao temple. It also exemplifies the deep connection between architectural space and ceremony. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Each of our two thinkers ties his approach to his tradition's spirituality, Schillebeeckx retrieving the mystical "dark nights" (175), and Chopel, after his return to lay life, retrieving the sexual yogas, thereby generating a state "beyond language and thought" (205). Anyone seeking a reliable roadmap through the thought of Schillebeeckx and/or Chopel should study Jason VonWachenfeldt's finely crafted book. VonWachenfeldt's "bridge concept" and third idioms bring "into interrelation" what are the "distinctive" viewpoints of Schillebeeckx and Chopel (17). [Extracted from the article]

The purpose of this article is to map the points of contact, as well as the irreducible differences, between the Catholic tradition of victim soul spirituality and the Tibetan practice of gcod (chod). Victim soul spirituality develops in the framework of an Anselmian theology of the atonement, where the individual practitioner offers herself as an expiatory victim to God's wrath so to appease God's justice that requires reparation for the sins of humanity. A practice that knew its heyday in the Counter-Reformation period and enjoyed its highest degree of popularity in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, victim soul spirituality, has virtually disappeared from contemporary Catholicism in the wake of the Second Vatican Council. At the same time, many Western practitioners of Buddhism have grown more interested in the practice of gcod (chod), which consists of a symbolic offer of one's body to demons and other malevolent beings that seek to thwart one's progress toward nirvāna. Developed originally by the female mystic Machig Labdron (1055–1149), gcod is analogous to victim soul spirituality as it reflects a sacrificial dialectic where individual practitioners can appease supernatural entities that can sustain or thwart our spiritual progress. At the same time, a close analysis of the two practices will reveal significant points of divergence, as the two traditions rest on radically distinct claims concerning individual subjectivity, soteriology, and the nature of ultimate reality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Capuchin missionary Domenico da Fano (1674–1728) presented a report to the Propaganda Fide in 1713 based on his experiences in the Tibet mission from 1707 until 1711 when this mission was temporarily abandoned, principally due to lack of funds. The Report (Relazione) was the first detailed description of Tibet by a resident European observer since 1624, and it resulted in new funding and manpower for the mission, in which da Fano served as Prefect in Lhasa from 1714 to 1722. In the introduction to this first English translation of da Fano's Report , we assess the background of the Capuchin mission and da Fano's contributions to it and touch on some of the highlights of the Report and its detailed account of the economy, agriculture, lifestyle, and politics of Tibet. Special attention is given to his conception of Tibetan Buddhism as having many similarities to Roman Catholicism, and especially to his view of the Buddhist Three Precious Objects of Refuge (dkon mchog gsum ; triratna) as analogous to the Trinitarian doctrine of Christianity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is a case study of a lay Buddhist community that employs a business model called "living hall" (Shenghuo guan 生活馆) to facilitate the practice of Tibetan Buddhism among its members. The living hall model is explored in the context of the politics of religion in the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the dynamics of Tibetan Buddhism among Han Chinese in the past decades. The author investigates the model's origin, its implementation in a contemporary Buddhist community, and its interaction with the discourse on Buddhism in the PRC. The article joins a recent academic endeavor to illuminate the different modalities in which lay practitioners carry out Buddhist practice outside the sphere of institutionalized Buddhism. The article sheds light on the delicate dynamics between religion and state control in the PRC and the role of entrepreneurs and materiality within lay Tibetan Buddhism. 文摘: 本文是关于佛教居士群体的案例研究。该群体通过采用生活馆的商业模式促进了藏传佛教汉族信徒的修行。对生活馆模式的探索基于过于几十年内中华人民共和国的宗教政治环境，以及藏传佛教在汉族中的动态演变。作者考察了该模式的起源、它在当代佛教居士群体的实施，以及该模式与中国佛教主流话语的互动。本文顺应近期的学术努力，旨在阐述佛教居士在制度化宗教领域之外的不同佛教实践。本文揭示了宗教和国家控制之间的微妙动态，以及在藏传佛教居士中企业家和物质性的作用。 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the work of Nāgārjuna as interpreted by later Madhyamaka tradition, including the Tibetan Buddhist Tsongkhapa (1357–1419). It situates Madhyamaka skepticism in the context of Buddhist philosophy, Indian philosophy more generally, and Western equivalents. Find it broadly akin to Pyrrhonism, it argues that Madhyamaka skepticism still differs from its Greek equivalents in fundamental methodologies. Focusing on key hermeneutical principles like the two truths and those motivating the Svātantrika/Prāsaṅgika schism (i.e., whether followers of Nāgārjuna should offer positive arguments or should proceed on a purely "negative" basis), it argues that the Svātantrika commitment to mere conventional practice is robust and allows for a skepticism consistent with the scientific practices we must take seriously in the modern world. These findings are put forth as an illustration of what the Western tradition might gain by better understanding of non-Western philosophy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents various institutional responses of Buddhist groups and leaders to COVID-19, adding a focus on how Tibetan Buddhist practitioners in China have responded to the pandemic. In particular, it examines the predicament of practitioners of Tibetan Buddhism. The article focuses on the material characteristics of Tibetan Buddhism and how they were manifested among Han Chinese urbanites during the pandemic through (1) a teleological inquiry, which looks into the concept of merit (sk: puñña, ch: gongde) 功德, and (2) an organizational inquiry, which explores the modalities in which Han Chinese groups practice Tibetan Buddhism in the socio-political sphere of the Chinese state. Within this inquiry, the article deals with a Buddhist community based in Shanghai and an individual account of pilgrimage in Tibet. Based on these two case studies and their contextualization, the article aims to assess how the COVID-19 crisis has affected the practices, modalities and religious technologies of Tibetan Buddhism practiced by Han Chinese. The article argues for a degree of resilience of lay practice in Tibetan Buddhism; it stresses that while some aspects of the practice called for accommodations and change, the particularities of the practice have pre-existing conditions (such as state regulation on religion and the physical distance of their religious authority) which could accommodate the practical, sociological and psychological implications of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Perhaps most significantly, rather than the usual watershed years of 1949, 1966 and 1978, Willock shows how the Three Polymaths constructed an alternative "timeline for Tibetan Buddhist history ... that ignores the standard historical sequencing of events" (p. 38) promoted by the state. In turn, the reform era is cast not as an end of ultra-leftism, but as the start of a new Buddhist epoch, the I Yang-dar i period or "Era of the Dharma's Rediffusion" (p. 38) during which time "these three men took up the charge of transmitting Buddhist knowledge after a period of tyranny and destruction" (p. 67). And while they may quibble with some of the sweeping statements Willock makes about the Mao era, one hopes that historians of the PRC will also give serious consideration to this pioneering study. [Extracted from the article]

In the simplest terms dream is the imagination sequences seen during sleep. It is the spiritual events that one sees with his soul and realizes with his mind. Depending on the structure of faith and culture, each nation and religion has its own dream motifs, assumptions and traditions of expression. Throughout the history of civilization, religious beliefs, traditions bearing religious identity, mystical customs and lifestyles played specific roles in understanding and explaining the dreams. During this time, with the formations, mysterious structures and features, dreams have become an important material in the art, folklore and literary works of the societies in which they had involved. The importance given to dream in Turkish culture is reflected in our literature. Studies on this subject are mostly focused on dreams in divan, dreams in mesnevi, dream motifs in Turkish folk poems and modern literature. The use of the dream as a literary element has gained frequency mainly in the post-Islamic period. As for the pre-Islamic dream texts, there are no data on the inscriptions, which are the first known written documents of Turkish. Therefore, the first dream texts in our written sources can be traced back to the Old Uighur period. These religions adopted (Buddhism, Manichaeism, Christianity, Tibetan Buddhism) were reflected in their literature; so that there were some Buddhist, Manichaeist and a small number of Christian Uighur manuscripts. Buddhist Uighur literature, which consists of translation works, most of which belong to Buddhist chapel, dates from the 9th century to the end of the 14th century. At the beginning, translations were made mostly from Sogdian, Tocharian and Chinese, while in the last period there have been translations from Chinese and Tibetan Buddhism. During the historical periods of the Turkic language, the periods before the Karakhanid/ Islamic period haven't been discussed much; a detailed and complete study of dream motifs in the Old Turkish texts before Kutadgu Bilig has not been studied yet. As is known, most of the manuscripts from the Old Uyghur period are translated works with Buddhist content. The dream texts and motifs presented in the article are also generally seen in these texts. In this article, dream motifs in the texts of the Old Uyghur period, the second phase of the Old Turkish period, and especially in the texts of the Buddhist Uyghur Literature, will be presented together with the examples identified. The dream pieces in mentioned works and their translation to Turkish have been provided and evaluated. The motifs in the detected dream texts were evaluated under different categories according to their interpretation in the text: I. Motives of birth prophecy; II. Motives of reaching the holiness of Buddha; III. Motives of herald of death; IV. Motives that point to the good end and good news; V. Motives that signify the reward earned after repentance and the right path; VI. Motives that point to salvation and purification from sins; VII. Motifs used in disease diagnosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the Tangut translation of Dharmakīrti's Nyāyabindu. The Tangut translation of the treatise from the Tibetan text provides opportunities for us to pursue two objectives: it is a source that allows us to probe into the history of the rise of Tibetan Buddhist scholasticism in the Tangut State; it also enables us to make sense of the Tangut Buddhist language used to translate Tibetan Buddhist doctrinal and philosophical texts. The paper argues that the Tangut translation was based on the Tibetan version, either translated or revised in the late eleventh century by Rngog lo tsā ba Blo ldan shes rab (ca. 1059–1109). The translation embodies an effort by the Tibetans to introduce a monastic curriculum of presumably Gsang phu ne'u thog monastery in the Tangut State around the twelfth century. A part of the paper is a textual-critical study of the Tangut translation and the Tibetan original, which reveals certain connections between the Tangut and Tibetan Buddhist scholastic languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on Tibetan thangka and thangka painters in Amdo Rebgong (Qinghai, China), who are caught between a state-fostered tourist market promoting Tibetan thangkas as folk art and an intermediate market where clients pursue the religious authenticity and efficacy of thangka paintings. My study rejects any simple dichotomy of sacred object and commodity and views the object biography of Tibetan thangkas as contingent on the sites of thangka within the complex structure of the art market, the context of the actual exchanges, and the specific relationships forged between painters and their clients, an important narrative that has been missing in previous studies of Rebgong thangka art and its commodification. I argue that commodification should be understood as a strategic process where some Rebgong painters tactically participate in the market in order to authenticate their religious identity, preserve a cultural tradition, or establish artistic authority within and beyond Tibetan communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies of belonging and community formation often emphasize commonality of values, emotions, and feelings. This article highlights the importance of practices that create relations of distance between members as well as closeness. Drawing on fieldwork in institutionalized Tibetan Buddhist communities in northeastern Tibet (Amdo/Qinghai), I focus on everyday practices of respect and faith that materialize community by putting monks, reincarnate lamas, and laity "in their place." This can include the most quotidian of acts, such as standing when someone enters a room. I argue that such practices of "feeling apart" and their refusal are central to individual negotiations of religious belonging and to the dynamic, ongoing process of community formation. The importance of these practices becomes particularly apparent when, as is the case in northeastern Tibet, seemingly taken-for-granted relations of belonging and the emotional style that enacts and creates these relations are felt to be precarious. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article contributes a Buddhist studies perspective to the question of what it means to be human. By analyzing a collection of letters written to a young Tibetan Buddhist lama, I trace the contours of a humanizing project that grounds the youth within the lived experience of the human life course that his elder has traversed. I also analyze epistolography as a medium for humanistic formation within Tibetan Buddhist monastic education. This textual study, though rooted in the context of a single epistolary relationship in early modern Tibet, illuminates the search for human wisdom that is fundamental to Buddhist childhoods across historical and cultural contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses role of the faculty of "mindfulness" in the Tibetan Buddhist worldview and praxis by focusing on the tradition of the Great Perfection or Dzogchen. Topics include information on "classical Dzogchen" as represented by works of Longchen Rabjam Drime Öser; interaction between models of memory and religious praxis; and reflections on scope A, "core Dzogchen," level of "autoconversion" at which mind "turns back to itself" and stability is obtained in "auto-lucidity".

Dialogue-based learning is an inclusive pedagogy that leverages epistemological pluralism in the classroom to enhance cross-cultural education, encourage critical thinking across modes of inquiry, and promote novel contributions in applied ethics. The framework emerged from the Buddhism-science dialogue and our experiences teaching science courses for Tibetan Buddhists in India through the Emory-Tibet Science Initiative. Buddhism and science are two modes of inquiry that emphasize critical inquiry and empiricism, yet navigating complementarities and points of friction is challenging. Our proposed framework aims to raise awareness of onto-epistemological assumptions to convert them from obstacles into assets in dialogue. In drawing attention to epistemological orientations, our framework demonstrates that receptivity to other ways of knowing fosters clarity in one’s own views while creating space for new and enriching perspectives. In this article, we contextualize the Buddhism-science dialogue, explore the development of our dialogue-based learning framework, and demonstrate its application to a novel exchange about the COVID-19 pandemic. Broader aims of the framework include increasing scientific literacy and advancing transdisciplinary research.