Todd Lewis

Sukhavati Traditions in Newar Buddhism

a leading merchant in the Kathmandu Buddhist community, beloved for his social activisim and compassionate ways began losing weight, and was diagnosed as having liver cancer. His death within two months was a blow to everyone who knew him. As we started out toward the ghä! in the procession behind the palanquin, stunned and saddened, a middle-age companion and neighbour paused, took off his hat, held up his hands in afljali, and said in Newari:2

Teaching Buddhism: New Insights on Understanding and Presenting the Traditions

The contributors to this volume of the AAR Teaching Religious Studies series take different approaches to writing about teaching Buddhism. As the subtitle suggests, many of the essays focus on bringing teachers up-to-date on recent developments in scholarship. In their preface, the editors propose that the volume can be used “to revisit some of the key frontiers of knowledge in Buddhist studies, new arenas of study and application, and numerous topics that [instructors] should certainly revise in their presentations to students” (xiv). The volume thus endorses the idea that good teaching depends on familiarity with the best and most current scholarship in the field. There is little interaction with the extensive scholarship of teaching and learning.