{"id":340,"name":"Bhikshuni Trinlae","url":"https:\/\/www.etis.ee\/CV\/Bhikshuni_Lozang_Trinlae\/eng?lang=ENG","description":"My scholarly work pioneered the use of Moustakas's Transcendental Phenomenological Qualitative Research Method (Moustakas 1994) to empirically discern contemplative constructs and spiritual care characteristics of a millennia-old Varjay\u0101na Buddhist religious tradition in a manner concordant with Madhyamaka philosophy (dependently-existing  conventionally-existing entities as the eidos). Through this work, I began to critically establish conventional characteristics of contemplative practices beyond the scope of textual sources alone, by using such qualitative phenomenological research methods. \r\n\r\nThe phenomenological descriptions represent, in the words of the tradition itself, the subjective nature of experiencing Buddhist Vajray\u0101na meditations expressed in the form of religious rituals and group liturgical practices. This work has helped dispel popular prejudices suggesting such religious practices are merely or necessarily superstitions or a naive form of worship by demonstrating the linguistic and cognitive roles of contemplative symbols in training to develop compassion-based relational behaviors and meditation on the basis of interdependence philosophical and ethical education.\r\n\r\nThis work directly supports a prosperous economy of religious cultural tourism and supports economic vitality and harmonious relations among diverse groups through cultural literacy, appreciation, and promotion of relational intelligence. Current research projects include transcription, transliteration, and translation of 100-year old hand-written scrolls of traditional Buddhist ceremonies of the Sherpa community in the UNESCO heritage site of Sagarm\u0101th\u0101 Mt Everest National Park in Nepal and traditional Nepali bhajan hymns connected with the UN World Heritage site of Swayambhu in Kathmandu.\r\n\r\nMy work has helped provide Asian contemplative traditions gain equitable footing alongside Abrahamic religions in contemporary critical religion scholarship by applying well-known, rigorous research methods to Asian religions while employing research methods familiar to religion scholars and theologians of Western religions and including such persons in my publications audience. There is a long way to go, but I feel that I have at least opened a small chink in what I think of as the \"gold plated ghetto\" of Asian religion scholarship in the Western Academy.  \r\n\r\nIt concerns me that scholarship and research of Asian religion is considered only \"real\" or \"valid\" only if textual hermeneutical, philological, or historical methods are used, or considered \"serious\" primarily when the work is done by a male faculty researcher.  I believe that my research has provided critical historical, philological, and textual details of a Buddhist text but has ventured beyond the text to consider how such text is used in contemporary living Buddhist traditions, and includes direct representation of the voices of a sample of persons comprising such traditions. I don't believe that critically including research of such dimensions of Asian religion lessens the nature of my textual skills; in fact, more may be needed to transcribe and translate oral reports in addition to literary sources. To put it another way, I expect that I would fare at least as good among established male Tibetan textual scholars in Tibetan spelling!\r\n\r\nMy background in physics and education has inspired me to attend to the symbiotic role of the philosophical (theoretical) and living (empirical) domains of religion. Theology and religious studies are not merely a question of \"what\" but of \"how\" and \"why\" - informed not only by primary texts of religious traditions but also contemplative research, philosophy, linguistics, cognitive science, and developmental psychology. I am especially interested in contemplatives processes and lived religion.","link":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/wisar\/author\/bhikshunitrinlae\/","slug":"bhikshunitrinlae","avatar_urls":{"24":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/a6e552d0be54eeacd95314545694a235?s=24&d=mm&r=g","48":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/a6e552d0be54eeacd95314545694a235?s=48&d=mm&r=g","96":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/a6e552d0be54eeacd95314545694a235?s=96&d=mm&r=g"},"meta":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/wisar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/340"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/wisar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users"}]}}