This course surveys the major religious traditions of India, Southeast Asia, China, and Japan. We begin our survey with a consideration of world indigenous (including Native American) religions, whose ancient, nature-and-land-based belief systems continue to shape and find expression in contemporary Eastern religions. Our survey will then study the ancient roots and contemporary expressions of Hinduism in India. We then turn our attention to Buddhism which, after originating in the teachings of the Buddha in the sixth century BCE, spread eastward into China and Japan, where it still exists alongside Daoism, Confucianism, and Shintoism to this day. As an example of interreligious dialogue, Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh’s book Living Buddha, Living Christ will guide us in tracing the common ground Buddhism and Christianity share, along the way also introducing various Buddhist meditation techniques.
