Dr. Dennis Hirota is a professor in the Department of Shin

Buddhism Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religions, Indian religion or Indian philosophy#Buddhist philosophy, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha. ...

Ryukoku University is a private university in Kyoto, Japan. It was founded as a school for Buddhist priests of the Nishi Hongan-ji denomination in 1639, and became a secularized university in 1876. The university's professors and students founded the literary ...

Kyoto, Japan Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the cit ...

. He was born in Berkeley, California in 1946 and received his B.A. from

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

. In 2008, he was a visiting professor of Buddhism at

Harvard Divinity School Harvard Divinity School (HDS) is one of the constituent schools of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The school's mission is to educate its students either in the academic study of religion or for leadership roles in religion, gov ...

where his studies focused on the Buddhist monk Shinran.Center for the Study of World Religions Past Affiliates
/ref> He has worked extensively as a translator and editor of Buddhist works. He is particularly known for his translation work in ''The Collected Works of Shinran''. He has also published numerous books and articles, in both English and Japanese, on

Pure Land Buddhism Pure Land Buddhism (; ja, 浄土仏教, translit=Jōdo bukkyō; , also referred to as Amidism in English,) is a broad branch of Mahayana Buddhism focused on achieving rebirth in a Buddha's Buddha-field or Pure Land. It is one of the most wid ...

and Buddhist aesthetics.

Resources

The Collected Works of ShinranPodcasts of a six-part lecture series
on Shinran given at the

Institute of Buddhist Studies The Institute of Buddhist Studies is a Jodo Shinshu-affiliated seminary and graduate school, located in Berkeley, California. It is a member school of the Graduate Theological Union, also located in Berkeley. Its mission is to provide graduate le ...

at Berkeley.
''Shinran, Barth, and Religion: Engagement with Religious Language as an Issue of Comparative Theology''

Bibliography

*''Living in Amida's Universal Vow: Essays on Shin Buddhism'' ontributor(

World Wisdom World Wisdom is an independent American publishing company established in 1980 in Bloomington, Indiana. World Wisdom publishes religious and philosophical texts, including the work of authors such as Frithjof Schuon, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Titus Bu ...

, 2004) *''Wind in the Pines: Classic Writings of the Way of Tea as a Buddhist Path'' (Asian Humanities Press, 2002) *''Toward a Contemporary Understanding of Pure Land Buddhism: Creating a Shin Buddhist Theology in a Religiously Plural World'' (State University of New York Press, 2000) *''No Abode: The Record of Ippen'' (University of Hawaii Press, 1998) *''Shinran: An Introduction to His Thought'' (Hongwanji International Center, 1989) *''Tannisho: A Primer'' (Ryukoku University, 1982)

References

1946 births 20th-century Buddhists 21st-century Buddhists American Buddhists American Buddhist studies scholars American people of Japanese descent American writers of Japanese descent Buddhist translators Living people People related to Jōdo Shinshū Pure Land Buddhism University of California, Berkeley alumni {{Buddhism-scholar-stub