Karin Meyers

Associate Professor

karin.meyers@ryi.org

Profile

Karin was born in the United States and was first introduced to the academic study of Buddhism as an undergraduate at Hampshire College. At that time she had the opportunity to study abroad at the Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies in Sarnath and the Buddhist School of Dialects in Dharamsala, India. After college, she worked at the Buddhist Peace Fellowship in Berkeley, CA before entering graduate school at the University of Chicago Divinity School, where she completed her PhD in 2010. She is pleased to have the opportunity to continue her studies in Buddhist philosophy, Tibetan and Sanskrit with Tibetan and Nepali scholars while teaching in the BA and MA programs at RYI’s Centre for Buddhist Studies.

Career

2011-Current	Assistant Professor	Rangjung Yeshe Institute
2010	Visiting Assistant Professor	Coe College, Cedar Rapids, IA (USA)
2010	Visiting Assistant Professor	Allegheny College, Meadville, PA (USA)
2010	PhD (with distinction)	The University of Chicago Divinity School, Chicago, IL (USA)
1996	BA	Hampshire College, MA (USA)

Research Interests

Having studied the problem of free will (and the methodology of comparative philosophy) in light of Buddhist theories of action and causation for her dissertation, Karin’s current research focuses on the intersection of Buddhist theories of meditation and the path and philosophical theory in the Theravāda and Sarvāstivāda Abhidharma and Yogācāra Buddhism.

Publications

• “The Pleasant Way: The Dhyāna-s, Insight and the Path according to the Abhidharmakośa,” Buddhist Philosophy and Meditation Practice, Academic Papers presented at the 2nd International Association of Buddhist Universities Conference. Ayutthaya, Thailand: IABU, 2012: 259-277.
• “Freedom and Self-Control: Free Will in South Asian Buddhism,” PhD Dissertation, University of Chicago, 2010.

Conference Presentations

• “Mindfulness and Direct(?) Realization in the Abhidharmakośa,” American Academy of Religion (Chicago, November 2012)
• “The Pleasant Way: The Dhyāna-s, Insight and the Path according to the Abhidharmakośa,” 2nd International Association of Buddhist Universities Academic Conference (Bangkok, May 2012)
• “Mapping the Territory of the Path: The Place of Dhyāna according to Vasubandhu’s Abhidharmakośabhāṣya,” International Association of Buddhist Studies (Taiwan, June 2011)
• “Memory, Volition, and Moral Formation in Vasubandhu’s Abhidharmakośabhāṣya,” presented at the Congress of the International Association of Buddhist Studies (Atlanta, June 2008)
• “Karma, Cetanā, and Free Will in Buddhaghosa and Vasubandhu,” presented at the American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting (San Diego, November 2007)

Teachings

Post Graduate

• Courses Taught at RYI: Research Seminar II: Tibetan Cultural History and Historiography, Research Seminar II: Ritual and Religious Experience
• Courses Taught at Other Institutions: Indian Philosophy, Intermediate Classical Tibetan

Undergraduate

• Courses Taught at RYI: Fundamentals of Buddhist Philosophy, Mahāyāna Thought, Buddhist Epistemology, Yogācāra Thought, Beginning Sanskrit
• Courses Taught at Other Institutions: Introduction to Buddhism, Indian Religious Thought, Buddhist Ethics, Socially Engaged Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism, Hindu Gods and Goddesses, East Asian Philosophy, Introduction to Religion