Richard K. Payne is Professor Emeritus at the Institute of Buddhist Studies in Berkeley and an ordained Shingon priest. In this conversation he talks about how he came to Buddhist studies, from growing up near the Japanese American community in the South Bay to training on Mount Kōya while researching the tantric fire ritual, or homa, which became the center of his scholarly career.
From there we turn to his new book, Tantra Across the Buddhist Cosmopolis, and the questions it raises about how religion gets studied. Payne argues that ritual comes before the doctrines used to explain it, possibly reaching back to the earliest human work of keeping a fire alive. He describes practice and doctrine as two semi-autonomous systems rather than belief dictating behavior.
He also makes the case that Buddhism spread through multidirectional networks of monks, merchants, and pilgrims, not one-way arrows on a map, and that tantric Buddhism was once widespread across Southeast Asia, where Atisha spent as many years studying as he later spent in Tibet. We also discuss why tantra can’t be neatly defined, his alternative approach of context, use, and designation, and what “transgressive” really means. We close with how Buddhism reached the West already framed as psychology, and what that framing leaves out: the body, the social world, and the idea that the Buddha mind is not confined to the meditation cushion.
Richard's webpage: https://rkpayne.wordpress.com
Some books authored or edited by Richard:
Tantra Across the Buddhist Cosmopolis: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/tantra-across-the-buddhist-cosmopolis-9780195368475?lang=en&cc=us
Oxford Encyclopedia of Buddhism: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-oxford-encyclopedia-of-buddhism-9780190256890?cc=us&lang=en&
Language in the Buddhist Tantra of Japan: https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/language-in-the-buddhist-tantra-of-japan-9781350152090/
Secularizing Buddhism: https://www.shambhala.com/authors/o-t/richard-k-payne/secularizing-buddhism-9781611808896.html