Writing

For more than a decade, I explored the encounter between Buddhism and the contemporary world through journalism and scholarship. I brought a Buddhist practitioner’s perspective into universities, conferences, and scholarly publications, while bringing scholarship from the humanities and sciences to Buddhist audiences.

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Much of my writing examined Buddhist modernism and the ways its ideologies, such as secularism, scientism, mind/body dualism, individualism, and materialism reframed traditional teachings, sometimes distorting or obscuring their meaning. I also explored possibilities for opening a new dialogue between Buddhist contemplative traditions and Western philosophy and the human sciences—one that did not require Buddhist insights to be recast in secular or scientific terms. Drawing on traditional Buddhist perspectives, I challenged deeply embedded Western notions about what is real, what counts as knowledge, and what genuine transformation requires. These inquiries took many forms, including essays, interviews, reported features, talks, and collaborative editorial projects.

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Over time, my inquiry expanded from the cultural and philosophical conditions that shape Western encounters with Buddhism to the embodied conditions that shape them. My work with trauma led me to ask how nervous-system patterns, personal history, ancestral inheritance, and cultural assumptions about mind and body can shape what practitioners hear, understand, and are able to embody.