Events

This talk is organised by the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore; with funding support from the Foo Hai Ch’an Monastery Fellowship in Buddhist Studies.

CHAIRPERSON

Assoc Prof Jack Meng-Tat Chia, Department of History, National University of Singapore

PROGRAMME

ABSTRACTS

Introducing Anātman: A Buddhist Philosophy Zine | Sherice Ngaserin, Yale-NUS College
Anātman: A Buddhist Philosophy Zine is a collaboration between Dr Sherice Ngaserin and 18 Buddhist Philosophy students and alumni from Yale-NUS College. Published by the NUS Buddhist Studies Group and supported by the Foo Hai Ch’an Monastery Fellowship in Buddhist Studies, the volume celebrates the creative “unessays” of students in the course. Each short film, blackout poem, interdisciplinary paper, and literary piece explores the implications of Buddhist no-self on topics such as love, faith, anger, and compassion. 

In this launch event, Dr Sherice Ngaserin will introduce the pedagogical motivations behind the volume and discuss the collaborative process of putting the volume together. This will be followed by flash talks from four Yale-NUS students and alumni whose works are featured in the volume. Mark Jun Hao Tan will discuss “Stories of Faith”, a literary piece that explores Buddhist and Christian understandings of faith. Tesha Sengupta will discuss “The Heart Sūtra and the Problem of Grounding”, an interdisciplinary paper that incorporates group theory to defend Nāgārjuna against the charge of nihilism. Siddharth Chintalacheruvu will introduce “A Short Film on Love”, a film project where he interviews couples at various stages of their relationships to explore the Buddhist conception of love. Lastly, Ryan Yeo will share about “Buddhist Improv: A Guide on Embodying Buddhist Practice Through Roleplaying”, a project that uses improvisational theatre to explore the Saccavibhaṅga Sutta’s argument for the elimination of attachment.

Comparing Buddhist and Christian Understandings of Faith through Narrative | Mark Jun Hao Tan, Yale-NUS College
This presentation explores the work published in Anātman zine, “Stories of Faith“, and its motivations and intentions in trying to understand the very different conceptions of faith in Buddhism and Christianity. Along the way, we will delve into the measures taken to root the work in the real spiritual practice of everyday believers and the personal effort in producing a useful comparison between these religions. Not least among these, we will discuss also the importance of narrative as a complement to theology in faith-based discussions, especially in multi-religious societies such as Singapore.

The Heart Sūtra and the Problem of Grounding | Tesha Sengupta, Yale-NUS College
In this paper, I explore the metaphysical account of reality presented in the Heart Sūtra. Explaining a claim in the Heart Sūtra, Nāgārjuna writes that all objects have relational existence. Couched in grounding terms, the metaphysical position of Nāgārjuna is that nothing in reality is ungrounded (i.e. fundamental) — the existence and nature of everything metaphysical depends on that of something else. Unfortunately, an infinite regress arises. If we cannot find anything whose nature or existence is ungrounded (i.e. not dependent on anything else), then such a view has the potential to lead to nihilism — the view that nothing exists. In my paper, I attempt to present a reading of Nāgārjuna’s metaphysics that avoids nihilism. In particular, I propose that the objects of reality are ultimately grounded in the structure they instantiate and this structure is itself metaphysically fundamental.

The Buddhist Notion of Love | Siddharth Chintalacheruvu, The Lo & Behold Group
This project started with the hypothesis that lovers who have been loving for long enough have subconsciously adopted the Buddhist conception of love — loving without attachment. To test this hypothesis, I interviewed three couples and made a short film on their journeys together. During the interviews, I asked the couples about their past — how they got together and what drew them to each other — their present — what their current conception of love is and how it has changed — and their future — what they look forward to doing or accomplishing together. By capturing their whole trajectory in a relationship, I hoped to capture the essence of what brought together two people, what kept them together, and what keeps them excited for the future. Although loving without attachment is an extremely high bar to meet, I was pleasantly surprised to find that elements of Buddhist love had seeped in to the conception of love that every couple had shared. Specifically, it seemed that love was an excellent tool for each individual to escape, even fleetingly, the confines of their self.

Buddhist Improv: Embodying Buddhist Practice through Roleplaying | Ryan Yeo, 7-Star Cendol, and Kingfishy
Roleplaying is an emerging medium of education that has incredible power. When people roleplay, they learn and empathise by embodying characters, which is a form of knowledge that cannot be gained through other media. Buddhist philosophy, meanwhile, is all about practice: the ultimate goal of every scripture is to help practitioners lead better lives. Thus, I explore how improvised theatre can be an effective tool for education on Buddhist philosophy. I ran a series of improv theatre workshops that focused on Buddhist education. Then, after several rounds of testing and modifying, I wrote a guidebook detailing how you might run such a workshop yourself —and, indeed, how you might run any improv workshop with an educational focus.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Sherice Ngaserin is a lecturer in Philosophy at Yale-NUS College and a faculty member of the NUS Buddhist Studies Group. Her primary research interests lie in South Asian Buddhist philosophy, metaphysics of gender, Ancient Greek philosophy, and innovative pedagogical methods. From 2018-2023, she was the inaugural Yale-NUS Overseas Graduate Scholar and collaborator for a Yale-NUS Grant on Buddhist-Platonist Dialogues. Some of her current collaborations include a Berlin-Singapore project on “Wisdom and Global Traditions”; a project on “Gender Metaphysics in Buddhist Doctrines and Narratives”; and a volume on Buddhism and Neoplatonism that will be published by Chisokudō Publications in 2025. She has also conducted several projects on innovative pedagogical methods. These include collaborating with local game designers on a tabletop role-playing game provisionally titled Everyday Philosophers, and collaborating with Yale-NUS students to publish book volumes such as Anātman: A Buddhist Philosophy Zine. She received her BA (Hons) in Philosophy and Global Antiquity from Yale-NUS College in 2018 and completed her PhD at the University of Michigan in August 2023.

Mark Jun Hao Tan is a final-year student from Yale-NUS College, majoring in Philosophy with interests in the philosophy of religion, metaphysics, ethics, and comparative philosophy. Mark is currently writing his capstone thesis on a comparison between the thought of St Aquinas and Dignāga/Dharmakīrti on what contradictory language expresses about our reality. He also works as a research assistant to Professor Daryl Ooi on the meta-philosophy of pain and care in learning environments and to Professor Andrew Hui on the study of the great Chinese classic The Journey to the West.

Tesha Sengupta is a final-year student from Yale-NUS College, majoring in Philosophy and minoring in Mathematics. She is interested in metaphysics, philosophy of mathematics and logic. She is also interested in Classical Indian and Buddhist philosophy. In her undergraduate thesis titled Grounding Self-Identity Facts, she proposes a novel account that grounds identify facts in facts about essence. She is currently a research assistant and co-investigator for a Yale-NUS Centre for an international and professional experience grant on gender metaphysics in Buddhism and Platonism. 

Siddharth Chintalacheruvu graduated with a BA (Hons) in Philosophy from Yale-NUS College from the class of 2024. Siddharth’s research interests span across Daoist, Buddhist, and classical Indian philosophy. He is specifically curious about the metaphysics and moral philosophy of Eastern schools of thought. In his final year, Siddharth wrote a capstone thesis on the Buddhist doctrine of emptiness and the threat it faces from monism, as well as conducted research on Zen Buddhist practice. He currently works as a management associate at The Lo & Behold Group, where he helps to build and grow restaurant concepts in Singapore. 

Ryan Yeo graduated with a BA (Hons) in Philosophy from Yale-NUS College, where they won the 2024 Philosophy Capstone Prize for their undergraduate thesis titled “The Structural Quotational Account of Phenomenal Concepts”. In 2024, they worked as a Philosophy research assistant at Yale-NUS College to create a course on the Metaphysics of Gender. As an improviser, they are a former member of Yale-NUS Improv, and founder of two active improv troupes, 7-Star Cendol and Kingfishy. They have performed in four international improv festivals, and have designed and facilitated five other improv workshops exploring social issues in the philosophy of games, climate justice, Buddhism, and the philosophy of gender. Their poetry has been published in local anthologies such as Contour: A Lyric Cartography of Singapore and SG Poems 2017-2018, and is forthcoming in the journal SUSPECT.

REGISTRATION

Registration is closed. However, we welcome walk-ins to join us if there are available seats.