Buddhist Studies in India

Leadership

The Buddhist Studies Program's strength comes from a combination of diverse and highly qualified faculty, and a very low student:faculty ratio. A combination of Western and Eastern instructors is utilized in order to ensure a continuity of American educational patterns, as well as access to the indigenous philosophies in their genuine form. Western faculty are responsible for the organization and evaluation of coursework, while the Asian teachers present perspectives of the traditions being studied. This variety of intellectual and cultural viewpoints creates a stimulating milieu in which genuine inquiry occurs.

Program Director

Robert Pryor, who will be directing the program in Bodh Gaya, received a B.S. from the University of Michigan, an M.A.T. from Antioch University, and attended the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, where he studied Anthropology and South Asian religions. After spending four years in India doing research on Buddhist history, culture, and meditation, he designed the Antioch Buddhist Studies Program and has taken groups of students to India as Program Director since 1979. In 1987, he founded Insight Travel, which offers pilgrimages to Buddhist and Hindu sites in northern India, Nepal, and Tibet. He served as consultant for the BBC documentary, “In the Footsteps of the Buddha.” His interests include: South Asian cultures, pilgrimage, the history of Indian Buddhism, meditation and Buddhism in the West.

 

Academic Faculty

Erick D. White received a B.A. in Religious Studies, Summa Cum Laude, from Amherst College and an M.A. in Anthropology from Cornell University.  He is presently a candidate for the Ph.D. in Anthropology at Cornell University where his dissertation is titled, “Sociality, Charisma and Syncretism: The Subculture of Professional Spirit Mediums in Contemporary Thailand.”  While a student at Amherst, Erick was a participant in the 1986 program in Bodh Gaya and since 2003 he has served on the faculty.  He has been the recipient of several academic grants and awards including a Fulbright Fellowship for dissertation research in Thailand.  Erick has had considerable teaching experience as both a Teaching Assistant and Instructor in Asian Studies and Anthropology at Cornell University.

History of South Asian Buddhism
Erick D. White (see above) will teach History of South Asian Buddhism.

Hindi Language
Upma Dixit received a B.A. in English (honors) and Political Science from the University of Rajasthan, Maharani College, Jaipur and an M.A. in English literature from the University of Rajasthan, Jaipur.  She has taught as a member of the English Faculty at the Gyan Vihar School of Engineering and Technology, and as an English and Computer Teacher at the Jaipuria Bal Vidyalaya, Jaipur.  Upma has a Post Graduate Diploma in Computer Application from the University of Rajasthan, and has worked as a web designer on a project for the Birla Institute of Scientific Research.  She has been a Hindi language instructor in the Intermediate and Advanced Hindi Language Programs organized by the American Institute of Indian Studies for American university students in Jaipur.   She has taught Hindi language with the Antioch Buddhist Studies program since 2006. 

Dr. Pema Tenzin is a research scholar and editor at the Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies in Sarnath, India.  Born in the Tibetan cultural zone of northern India, he is a native speaker of the language.  As part of a project to restore to India the work of classical Indian Buddhist scholars Dr. Tenzin has translated texts by Acharya Asanga and Dipankara srijnana from Tibetan back into Sanskrit.  He has extensive experience working with western research scholars, and is highly skilled as a translator and teacher of Tibetan.  Dr. Pema Tenzin has been teaching Tibetan language with the Antioch Buddhist Studies program since 1995.

Buddhist Meditation Traditions

Seminars in this course will be led by Robert Pryor, Program Director.

Health Coordinator and Yoga Instructor                                                                                    Dianeah Wanicek received her B.A. in fine Arts and spent several years as an art instructor and visual artist.  She is certified as a yoga instructor by the Kripalu Institute, and she has also trained in Yantra Yoga, a Tibetan form of yoga practice.  Dianeah has taught Hatha Yoga at Antioch College and led workshops in Spirituality at Antioch McGregor.  She has been practicing Vipassana and Tibetan Buddhist meditation for the past twenty years, and is a founding member of the Yellow Springs Dharma Center -- a Buddhist meditation center in Yellow Springs, Ohio.  Since 1990 Dianeah has been a director of Insight Travel and has led pilgrimage groups to India, Nepal, and Bhutan.  She served as the Health Coordinator and Yoga Instructor on the Fall 2002, 2004, and 2006 programs. 

 

Vihar Manager

Wanda Weinberger received a B.A., Cum Laude, in Religion from Tufts University. She holds dual citizenship in the United States and Belgium, and has worked in a variety of administrative positions on both sides of the Atlantic since her graduation. Most recently she served as a Prospect Research Coordinator at the Childrenís Hospital Foundation, National Medial Center, Washington, D.C. She was a participant in the 1993 Antioch Buddhist Studies program in Bodh Gaya, and has returned to India several times to follow her interests in Buddhism and South Asian studies. In 2003 she completed her training as a Yoga teacher in an intensive program with Yoga Arts, Byron Bay, Australia. Wanda served as the Teaching Assistant and Dorm Advisor on the fall 2000 and 2001 Antioch Buddhist Studies programs, and in 2006 she returned to the program as Vihar Manager.

 

U Hla Myint was born and educated in Myanmar (Burma).  He became a novice monk at the age of ten and a fully ordained bhikkhu at twenty.  After completing the traditional academic training for monks in Burma he practiced Vipassana meditation at the Mahasi Thathana Meditation Center in Yangon (Rangoon).  He then taught Vipassana under the guidance of Sayadaw U Pandita at this center where he was especially helpful to foreign meditators.  After twenty-two years as a monk U Hla Myint became a householder, and now has a wife and two children.  He lives in Pyin Oo Lwin near Mandalay in the Shan Hills where he primarily works on translation projects for Sayadaw U Pandita.  U Hla Myint also spends some of his time assisting Sayadaw U Pandita at Panditarama Meditation Center near Rangoon. 

Zen

Rev. Ekai Korematsu was born and raised in Japan, but began his formal Zen practice while a university student in California where he was affiliated with the San Francisco Zen Center.  In 1979 he returned to Japan for formal monastic training at Eiheiji the principal Soto Zen monastery.  Returning to America in 1983 he founded Kojin-an which later became the Oakland Zen Center.  At the request of his teacher Narasaki Roshi he returned to Japan in 1987 to become the director of an International Zen monastery, Shogoji, in Kyushu.  From 1994 to 1996 he was again at Eiheiji, and was also the Practice Director at Zuigakuin Temple in Yamanashi Prefecture.  At present he lives in Melbourne, Australia, where he is the founder and Director of Jikishoan Zen Buddhist Community. 

Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche is the abbot of Ka Nying Shedrup Ling Monastery and the founder of Rangjung Yeshe Institute, a college for Buddhist Studies in Boudhanath, Nepal.  Born in Tibet and educated at Rumtek Monastery in Sikkim under the guidance of H.H. Karmapa, he is the holder of Drikung Kagyu and Nyingma lineages.  Rinpoche is a scholar and master of both Dzogchen and Mahamudra practice.  He has taught meditation and philosophy to many Western students, while also super­vising a large shedra or traditional monastic training center in Nepal.  He regularly teaches in Europe and North America where he has meditation centers in Denmark, Germany, and California.  Rinpoche is the author of several books including The Union of Dzogchen and Mahamudra, Indisputable Truth and Present Fresh Wakefulness.