The English-language translations of Jorge Luis Borges’s Spanish-language works undertaken by the author and Norman Di Giovanni went above and beyond what is generally perceived as acceptable in traditional Western practices. Their work, together with Borges’s thoughts on translation itself, garnered criticism from within Western Translation Studies for its rejection of the status of the original text and the blurring of the distinction between author and translator. Yet the pair’s actions and Borges’s views on translation cease to appear scandalous under the light of Buddhist philosophy, particularly through the use of the Buddhist principles that all phenomena are impermanent and interdependent. This thesis will seek to use these ideas to legitimize the actions of Borges and Di Giovanni. To do so, it will trace the history of opposing and convergent theories from Western philosophy and describe our Buddhist concepts in detail. In order to better understand Borges, it will examine the array of philosophies that influenced the writer and how they both align themselves and differ from Buddhist ideas. This thesis will end by directly applying impermanence and interdependence to the translation practices of Borges and Di Giovanni and considering what potential effect legitimacy for such practices would have on translation overall.

The English-language translations of Jorge Luis Borges’s Spanish-language works undertaken by the author and Norman Di Giovanni went above and beyond what is generally perceived as acceptable in traditional Western practices. Their work, together with Borges’s thoughts on translation itself, garnered criticism from within Western Translation Studies for its rejection of the status of the original text and the blurring of the distinction between author and translator. Yet the pair’s actions and Borges’s views on translation cease to appear scandalous under the light of Buddhist philosophy, particularly through the use of the Buddhist principles that all phenomena are impermanent and interdependent. This thesis will seek to use these ideas to legitimize the actions of Borges and Di Giovanni. To do so, it will trace the history of opposing and convergent theories from Western philosophy and describe our Buddhist concepts in detail. In order to better understand Borges, it will examine the array of philosophies that influenced the writer and how they both align themselves and differ from Buddhist ideas. This thesis will end by directly applying impermanence and interdependence to the translation practices of Borges and Di Giovanni and considering what potential effect legitimacy for such practices would have on translation overall.

While much of Nāgārjuna’s writings are aimed at deconstructing fixed views and views that hold to some form of substantialist thought (where certain qualities are held to be inherent in phenomena), he does not make many assertive propositions regarding his philosophical position. He focuses most of his writing to applying the prasaṅga method of argumentation to prove the importance of recognizing that all phenomena are śūnya by deconstructing views of phenomena based on substance. Nāgārjuna does, however, assert that all phenomena are empty and that phenomena are meaningful because śūnyatā makes logical sense.1 Based on his deconstruction of prevailing views of substance, he maintains that holding to any view of substance is absurd, that phenomena can only make sense if viewed from the standpoint of śūnyatā. This thesis grapples with the problem that Nāgārjuna does not provide adequate supporting arguments to prove that phenomena are meaningful due to their śūnyatā. It is clear that if saṃvṛti is indiscernible due to its emptiness, saṃvṛtisatya cannot be corroborated on its own terms due to its insubstantiality. But how does viewing phenomena as empty make them meaningful? Scholars who base their understanding of how meaning is established in Nāgārjuna’s thought based on Candrakīrti’s interpretation of his twotruths formulation, which grants both paramārtha and saṃvṛti truths their distinctive truth-values, tend to prove the distinctive truth of saṃvṛti in terms of its linguisticallybased, conventional status.2 I am critical of this approach and argue, instead, that an explanation of how phenomena are meaningful due to their emptiness is found in the Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra’s (PPM)’s use of metaphoricity. Rather than seeing the two truths as distinctive, I argue that saṃvṛtisatya and paramārthasatya both make sense based on their metaphorical relationship in that they are both śūnyatā and that phenomena point to, or are metaphors for, the all-inclusive śūnyatā of reality akin to understanding of ākāśa in the Prajñāpāramitā Sūtras which although experienced cannot be cognitively grasped. / Religious Studies and Arabic / D. Litt. et Phil. (Religious Studies)

The present academic studies on Wang Wei usually focus on his landscape poems and claim that these landscape poems imply Buddhism. Their methods usually analyze Wang Wei’s Buddhist tendencies from his life experience. But it needs more textual analysis to prove that the relationship between his poem and Buddhism. The Introduction section provides the relationship between the Buddhist principles and Wang Wei’s Buddhist poems. The Buddhist principles were figuratively represented in Wang Wei’s poems by describing certain images from Buddhist Sutras. Chapter 1 presents the analysis of the couplets of each Buddhist poem through their connection to Buddhist doctrines. Chapter 2 summarizes the characteristics of Wang Wei’s Buddhist poems and emphasizes the use of Buddhist philosophy as a poetic image.

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Some form of absolutism has generally been the majority view within philosophy and in other traditions, and it is common to take absolutism for granted without providing rational arguments or empirical evidence in support of it. However, such attitudes are not viable if we want to avoid dogmatism. In this paper, I question absolutism and the closely associated correspondence theory of truth through the writings of Goodman and Nāgārjuna. I first describe Goodman‟s philosophy with a focus on his works dealing with „worldmaking‟ and multiple true versions. Subsequently follows an outline of Nāgārjuna‟s philosophy, in which he intended to show that the notion of an essence, an inherently existent entity or relation, is incoherent and that essences would be incompatible with experience. I then reflect on the relation between absolutism and relativism, and propose that the philosophies of Goodman and Nāgārjuna make it possible to transcend both. The paper ends with a discussion on the notion of knowledge in the absence of absolute entities and essences. From the works of Goodman, Nāgārjuna, and Bohm, I put forward the idea that an aspiration for a greater good and fitting is more general than a desire for knowledge of entities, and that it is therefore important to be aware of the larger context in which any given entity appears so that it can be seen to what extent further inquiry and use of it can lead to a greater good and fitting.

Hans-Georg Gadamer rejects objectivism, the position that an interpreter may come to a single correct truth concerning any particular object, in favor of interpretive pluralism. What is not clear is how Gadamer grounds this position. This ambiguity leaves Gadamer open to multiple objectivist counters, ones which he would not wish to allow. The following argument, using a comparative and analytic approach, takes two concepts, pratītyasamutpāda (interdependence) and śūnyatā (emptiness), as they are deployed by Nāgārjuna to provide Gadamer with this much needed anti-objectivist foundation. Specifically, the new foundation is anti-realist in which interpreters and objects of interpretation are metaphysically empty, or devoid of independent existence, and are ultimately dependent on their “position” in a cultural and historical horizon. If there is no metaphysical object apart from the interpreter’s engagement with it, then there is no stable phenomenon to which objectivists may appeal.

The Tibetan practice of bcud len, or 'extracting the essence', has been for long a neglected aspect of Tibetan medical and spiritual knowledge with scattered evidence and little certainty regarding its origins or the extent of its effective presence, either in the past or at currently. In this study, seventy-three texts have been identified and tabulated. Of these, sixty-seven have been summarised and commented on, and five of these, each representative of one type of the practice, have been translated in full. All but a handful of these texts have not been translated previously. The research findings suggest that, whatever its influences from Indian, Chinese or other medical cultures, bcud len soon evolved into a distinctively Tibetan method of life enhancement, with teachings that emphasise both spiritual and medical aims and the use of indigenous Tibetan remedies, accompanied in some cases by particular rituals. The content of the texts indicates that the term bcud len can be applied legitimately to practices involving ritually empowered pills and elixirs which are ingested, respiratory and yogic exercises, dietary restrictions and rituals involving mantra recitation, visualisation and yab yum union with a consort, in that all these are considered to be means of obtaining 'the essence'. The teachings offer extensive material for those interested in the evolution and contemporary practice of Tibetan medicine, especially its botanical aspects, and for historians of ritual. In particular, the texts provide ample evidence of the lineage tradition in Tibetan religious culture, citing examples of transmissions through gter ma, whereby teachings are preserved in secret to be recovered at a future date by a gter ton or treasure revealer. The final section contains conversations with Tibetan doctors, lamas and contemporary practitioners of bcud len in Asia and the West that complement recent ethnographic studies in the field testifying to the continuing vitality of the tradition.

Cette étude est consacrée à l’analyse de la coexistence de la réalité et de l’imaginaire dans l’œuvre d’Apichatpong Weerasethakul. Les modalités de rencontre et de croisement de ces deux dimensions dans un film ou entre des films sont éclaircies à travers des observations pratiques et détaillées. Partant de l’analyse de l’influence de deux cultures différentes – la sensibilité autochtone thaïlandaise et la tendance du cinéma expérimental occidental – nous envisageons d’une part les modalités de captation des scènes de la vie réelle et d’autre part la manière de découvrir et de révéler le côté invisible qui entoure ce champ visible. La narration filmique est représentée de manière diverse en déviant de la règle classique. Dans le processus de formation d’une histoire, des matières hétérogènes sont englobées et des textes divers sont connectés. Par ailleurs, l’univers flexible et libre de Weerasethakul présuppose toujours des temps multiples virtuels, caractéristique essentielle que l’on retrouve dans toutes ses œuvres, des courts-métrages aux installations en passant par les long-métrages. Par conséquent, la distinction entre la dimension réelle et la dimension irréelle/surréelle perd en clarté ; la ligne de distinction est quasiment annulée. Le réalisateur propose ainsi une autre vision du monde se basant sur la tradition bouddhique thaïlandaise qui pourrait sembler absurde du point de vue du rationalisme moderne de l’Occident. En traversant ainsi les discussions autour du monde hybride de Weerasethakul, cette étude a pour ambition de démontrer que son cinéma (re)trouve la beauté et la puissance de la réalité à travers l’imaginaire. / This study is about the analysis of the coexistence of reality and imagination in the work of Apichatpong Weerasethakul. The modalities of encountering and crossing of these two dimensions in a film or between films are clarified through practical and detailed observations. On the basis of an analysis of the influence of two different cultures – the Thai indigenous sensibility and the tendency of Western experimental cinema –, we search on the one hand the modalities of capturing the scenes of real life, and on the other hand how to discover and reveal the invisible side that surrounds this visible field. The narrative of his films is represented in a diverse way by deviating from the classical rule. In the process of forming a narrative, heterogeneous materials are embraced and various texts are connected. Moreover, the flexible and free world of Weerasethakul always presupposes virtual multiple times, an essential characteristic that can be found in all his works, from short films to installations to the feature films. Therefore, the distinction between the real dimension and the unreal / surreal dimension loses clarity; the line of distinction is virtually canceled. The filmmaker thus proposes another view of the world based on the Thai Buddhist tradition that might seem absurd from the point of view of modern rationalism of the West. By crossing the discussions around the hybrid world of Weerasethakul, this study aims to demonstrate that his cinema (re)finds the beauty and power of reality through the imagination.

The purpose of this study was to investigate environmental sensitivity among environmental professionals in a culture that is assumed to hold an ecocentric perspective. Nine Tibetan Buddhist environmental professionals were surveyed in this study. Based on an Environmental Sensitivity Profile Insytrument, an environmental sensitivity profile for a Tibetan Buddhist environmental professional was created from the participants demographic and interview data. The most frequently defined vaqriables were environmental destruction/development, education and role models.