Part I. Two short essays in bullet point form [worth 25 points each]
1. Use this excerpt from Jan Willis’s Dreaming Me: Black, Baptist, and Buddhist [Willis exam excerpt ] to respond to the following prompt:
What role does the guru-disciple relationship provide in transforming issues surrounding a sense of “self” in Tibetan Buddhism?
-Cite and interpret at least two phrases from the passage in your response.
-Include 5-7 bullet points.
2. Why were Buddhist nuns compared to “red rust on a cane field?” What do contemporary debates around the full ordination of nuns in the Tibetan tradition reveal about Buddhism’s relationship to education, monastic law, feminism, and rites of passage?
-Include 5-7 bullet points
Part II. One long essay [1-2 pages, 250-500 words] [50 points]
3. Use the Germano article [Germano Remembering the Dismembered Body of Tibet] to respond to the following prompt.
How do Tibetan Buddhists innovate while maintaining a sense of tradition?
In your response:
-Cite and interpret at least two passages from Germano’s article
AND
-demonstrate the relevance of at least four of the following themes:
Cultural Revolution
Terma
Terton
Identity
Nyingma tradition
Pugyel empire
Dark Age
Sarma era
Buddhism and landscape
Demon-taming
tulku
Monasticism
Reform