As part of the 2019 Cleveland Humanities Festival, Mark Blum, professor and Shinjo Ito Distinguished Chair in Japanese Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, will give a talk on campus.
Blum will present “Buddhism and the Natural World: Discerning an Environmental Imperative” Monday, March 25, at 5 p.m. in Tinkham Veale University Center, Ballroom A.
Blum will look at traditional views of the natural world in Indian, Chinese and Japanese Buddhism, where nonhuman sentient life-forms commonly appear as a legitimate voice in the unfolding of truth. The neutral view of non-sentient life and inorganic matter in India takes on greater spiritual significance as one moves eastward in Asia.
From there, Blum will discuss the issue of ecology and environmental ethics in an attempt to clarify the efforts being made to infer an environmental imperative on the basis of Buddhist values.
The American Buddhist Study Center, Cleveland Buddhist Temple and the Case Western Reserve University Department of Religious Studies will co-sponsor this event.
This event is free and open to the public. Register through the Baker-Nord Center for the Humanities website.