Gayley, H.

Gayley, H. on the DRL

Professors • Translators • Authors of English Works

Holly Antonia Gayley

Tibetan calendar dates

Dates of birth

Day
Month
Gender
Element
Animal
Rab Jyung

Dates of passing

Day
Month
Gender
Element
Animal
Rab Jyung

Contact information

Website:	Faculty Page // Personal Website

About

Primary Language:	English
Translates from:	Tibetan
Translates to:	English

Primary Affiliation (Workplace)

University of Colorado, Boulder

PhD University

Harvard University

Education

PhD Harvard University MA Naropa University

Biographical Information

Holly Gayley is an Associate Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Her research focuses on the revitalization of Buddhism in Tibetan areas of the PRC in the post-Maoist period. Dr. Gayley became interested in the academic study of Buddhism through her travels among Tibetan communities in India, Nepal, and China. She completed her Masters in Buddhist Studies at Naropa University in 2000 and Ph.D. at Harvard University in Tibetan and Himalayan Studies in 2009. Dr. Gayley's first book titled Love Letters from Golok: A Tantric Couple in Modern Tibet came out in November 2016 with Columbia University Press. The book charts the lives and love letters of a contemporary Buddhist tantric couple, Khandro Tāre Lhamo and Namtrul Jigme Phuntsok, who played a significant role in revitalizing Buddhism in eastern Tibet since the 1980s. Examining Buddhist conceptions of gender, agency and healing, this book recovers Tibetan voices in representing their own modern history under Chinese rule and contributes to burgeoning scholarly literature on Buddhist women, minorities in China, and studies of collective trauma.

Dr. Gayley's second project explores the emergence of Buddhist modernism on the Tibetan plateau and a new ethical reform movement spawned by cleric-scholars at Larung Buddhist Academy in Serta. Her recent publications on the topic include "Controversy over Buddhist Ethical Reform: A Secular Critique of Clerical Authority in the Tibetan Blogosphere" (Himalaya Journal, 2016), "Non-Violence as a Shifting Signifier on the Tibetan Plateau" (Contemporary Buddhism, 2016 with Padma 'tsho), "Reimagining Buddhist Ethics on the Tibetan Plateau (Journal of Buddhist Ethics, 2013), and "The Ethics of Cultural Survival: A Buddhist Vision of Progress in Mkhan po 'Jigs phun's Advice to Tibetans of the 21st Century" in Mapping the Modern in Tibet (International Institute for Tibetan and Buddhist Studies, 2011). (Source Accessed Jul 21, 2020)

Links

Wiki Pages

• Gayley, H. on the DRL
• Gayley, H. on the LIB
• Gayley, H. on the BNW

Buddha Nature Project

Person description or short bio

Expand to see this person's philosophical positions on Buddha-nature.

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All beings have Buddha-nature
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Which Wheel Turning
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Yogācāra vs Madhyamaka
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Zhentong vs Rangtong
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Promotes how many vehicles?
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Analytic vs Meditative Tradition
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What is Buddha-nature?
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Svātantrika (རང་རྒྱུད་) vs Prāsaṅgika (ཐལ་འགྱུར་པ་)
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Causal nature of the vajrapāda
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Other Information

Assistant Professor of Religion, University of Colorado at Boulder

Research Interests

• Buddhism, Religion in Tibet, Religious Modernism
• Gender, Subaltern Agency, Minorities in China
• Buddhist Hagiography, The Role of the Senses in Ritual

Overview

Holly Gayley became interested in the academic study of Buddhism through her travels among Tibetan communities in India, Nepal, and China. She completed her Masters in Buddhist Studies at Naropa University in 2000 and Ph.D. at Harvard University in Tibetan and Himalayan Studies in 2009. During her dissertation research, she spent 2005–6 engaged in field research in and around the Tibetan region of Golok on a Fulbright-Hays Fellowship. Holly Gayley recently completed her dissertation on the life and writings of a contemporary female tertön or "treasure revealer," Khandro Tāre Lhamo, who played a significant role in the Buddhist revival in Golok since the 1980s. Her second project explores the emergence of Buddhist modernism in Tibetan areas of the PRC, particularly in the writings of Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok and scholars at the Buddhist Academy he founded in Serta. Recent Publications

• "The Ethics of Cultural Survival: A Buddhist Vision of Progress in Mkhan po 'Jigs phun's Advice to Tibetans of the 21st Century." In Mapping the Modern in Tibet. Sankt Augustin, Germany: International Institute for Tibetan and Buddhist Studies, 2012.
• "Ontology of the Past and its Materialization in Tibetan Treasures." In The Invention of Sacred Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2008.
• "Soteriology of the Senses in Tibetan Buddhism." Numen 54/4 (2007): 459-499.
• "Patterns in the Ritual Dissemination of Padma gling pa's Treasures." In Bhutan: Traditions and Changes. Leiden: Brill, 2007.

Courses

• Foundations of Buddhism
• Women in Buddhism
• Tibetan Buddhism
• Ritual and Media
• Hagiography
• Ritual Theory
• Buddhist Modernism

Recent Publications

"Reimagining Buddhist Ethics on the Tibetan Plateau." The Journal of Buddhist Ethics 20 (2013): 247-286.

"The Ethics of Cultural Survival: A Buddhist Vision of Progress in Mkhan po 'Jigs phun's Advice to Tibetans of the 21st Century." In Mapping the Modern in Tibet. Sankt Augustin, Germany: International Institute for Tibetan and Buddhist Studies, 2011.

"Ontology of the Past and its Materialization in Tibetan Treasures." In The Invention of Sacred Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.

"Soteriology of the Senses in Tibetan Buddhism." Numen 54/4 (2007): 459-499.

"Patterns in the Ritual Dissemination of Padma gling pa's Treasures." In Bhutan: Traditions and Changes. Leiden: Brill, 2007.

Recent Conference Papers

"Heroine in Troubled Times: The Miracles of Khandro Tāre Lhamo during the Socialist Transformation of Tibet," paper accepted for panel on Buddhist Women Masters at the meeting of DANAM, the Dharma Academy of North America (to be held concurrently with the 2013 American Academy of Religion conference in Baltimore, November 23–26, 2013).

"Constructing the Secular in Buddhist Advice to the Laity in Contemporary Tibet," paper presented at the Thirteenth Seminar of the International Association of Tibetan Studies, hosted by The Mongolian Academy of Sciences in Mongolia, July 21–27, 2013.

• "Eating Monkey Brains: Exoticizing the Chinese Banquest in a Tibetan Buddhist Argument for Vegetarianismm," paper presented on a panel that I co-organized on "The Culinary in Buddhism: Miracles, Medicine & Monstrosity" at the American Academy of Religion conference held in San Francisco on November 19–22, 2011.

• "The New Upāsaka: Lay Ethicization in Tibetan Regions of the PRC," paper presented at a panel on "The Role of the Laity in the Formation of Modern Buddhism: A Cross-Cultural Examination" at the XVIth Congress of the International Association of Buddhist Studies conference, in Taiwan on June 20–25, 2011.

• "Science vs. Superstition: Repositioning Tibetan Buddhism in the PRC," paper presented at a panel that I co-organized with Paul Hackett of Columbia University on "Scientific Buddhism" among Tibetans and their Western Interlocutors at the American Academy of Religion conference held in Atlanta on October 30–November 1, 2010.

• "Satire as Sectarianism: Yogic Triumphalism in Mdo mkhyen brtse Ye shes rdo rje's Babble of a Foolish Man," paper for panel that I co-organized with Annabella Pitkin at Columbia University on Sectarian Articulations: Creative Processes of Lineage Formation for the Twelfth Seminar of the International Association of Tibetan Studies, hosted by University of British Columbia on August 15–21, 2010.

• "Buddhist Ethics as Modernist Discourse: Three Tibetan Voices," paper presented at a conference on Research on Contemporary Tibet: New Challenges, New Methods that I co-organized with Emily Yeh and Carole McGranahan at the University of Colorado, Boulder on February 26, 2010.

• "All in the Dudjom (Bdud 'joms) Family: Overlapping Modes of Authority and Transmission in the Golok Treasure Scene," paper presented at the American Academy of Religion conference held in Montreal on November 7–10, 2009.

• "The Sport of Attraction: Sexuality and Memory in Love Letters between Tibetan Visionaries," paper presented at a conference on Sex and Texts: Representations of Sexuality in Asian Religious Traditions held at the University of Colorado, Boulder on October 15–16, 2009.

• "T-Pop and the Lama: Buddhist 'Rites Out of Place' in Tibetan Monastery-Produced VCDs," paper presented the American Academy of Religion conference held in Chicago on November 2–4, 2008.

Refers to something that is taught for a specific reason, rather than because it is entirely true.

Along with Madhyamaka, it was one of the two major philosophical schools of Mahāyāna Buddhism. Founded by Asaṅga and Vasubandhu around the fourth century CE, many of its central tenets have roots in the Saṃdhinirmocanasūtra and the so-called third turning of the dharma wheel (see tridharmacakrapravartana).

Along with Yogācāra, it is one of the two major philosophical schools of Mahāyāna Buddhism. Founded by Nāgārjuna around the second century CE, it is rooted in the Prajñāpāramitā Sūtras, though its initial exposition was presented in Nāgārjuna's Mūlamadhyamakakārikā.

The state of being devoid of that which is wholly different rather than being void of its own nature. The term is generally used to refer to the ultimate, or buddha-nature, being empty of other phenomena such as adventitious defiling emotions but not empty of its true nature.

The state of being empty of self, which references the lack of inherent existence in relative phenomena.

Tsen Khawoche's "meditative tradition" of exegesis of the Uttaratantra; it is one of two major Tibetan traditions of exegesis, both stemming from students of Sajjana.