Muller, C.

Muller, C. on the DRL

Authors of English Works • Professors • Translators

English Phonetics	A. Charles Muller
Sort Name	Muller, Charles

Tibetan calendar dates

Dates of birth

Day
Month
Gender
Element
Animal
Rab Jyung

Dates of passing

Day
Month
Gender
Element
Animal
Rab Jyung

About

Biographical Information

A. Charles Muller (born September 19, 1953) is an academic specializing in Korean Buddhism and East Asian Yogacara, having published numerous books and articles on these topics. He is a resident of Japan, currently teaching at Musashino University. He is one of the earliest and most prolific developers of online research resources for the field of Buddhist Studies, being the founder and managing editor of the online Digital Dictionary of Buddhism, the CJKV-English Dictionary, and the H-Buddhism Scholars Information Network, along with having digitized and published numerous reference works.

Muller's academic study of Buddhism began as an undergraduate at Stony Brook University, where he majored in Religious Studies under the guidance of Sung Bae Park, a specialist in Seon and Korean Buddhism. After graduating, he spent two years studying in Japan, after which he spent one year in the graduate program in Religious Studies at the University of Virginia. In 1988, he left UVa to return to Stony Brook, where he completed a PhD in Comparative literature, once again with Sung Bae Park as his principal advisor. He also studied Christian Theology with Peter Manchester, Islam with William Chittick, and Postmodern literary criticism with Michael Sprinker and Hugh Silverman. His dissertation, "Hamhŏ Kihwa: A Study of His Major Works," was accepted in 1993, after which he spent six months in Korea as a research associate at the Academy of Korean Studies, before taking up an academic position in Japan, at Toyo Gakuen University.

From 1994 to 2008, Muller taught courses in philosophy and religion at Toyo Gakuen University, during which time he published numerous books and articles on Korean Buddhism, Zen, East Asian Yogacara, and Confucianism. While active in numerous academic organizations such as the American Academy of Religion and the Japanese Association for Indian and Buddhist Studies, he also became known as one of leading figures in the creation of online research resources. In 1995, he set up his web site called Resources for East Asian Language and Thought (still in active service today), featuring online lexicons, indexes, bibliographies, and translations of classical texts. In 1996, he started the Budschol listserv for the academic study of Buddhism, which would, in 2000, become part of H-Net, under the name of H-Buddhism, the central internet organ for communication among scholars of Buddhism. He also initiated two major dictionary projects, the Digital Dictionary of Buddhism and the CJKV-E Dictionary, which have become basic reference works for the field of Buddhist and East Asian studies, subscribed to by universities around the world. His work in the area of online reference works and digitization led him into the field of Digital Humanities, with his principal area of expertise lying in the handling of literary documents using XML and XSLT. In 2008, Muller was invited to join the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Tokyo, where he taught courses in Digital Humanities, Chinese Philosophy, and Korean Philosophy and Religion. He retired from UTokyo in March 2019 and moved to Musashino University, where he is director of the Institute of Buddhist culture and teaches courses in Buddhist Studies. (Source Accessed July 21, 2021)

Links

Wiki Pages

• Muller, C. on the DRL
• Muller, C. on the LIB
• Muller, C. on the BNW

Buddha Nature Project

Person description or short bio

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

Is Buddha-nature considered definitive or provisional?
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All beings have Buddha-nature
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If "Qualified", explain:
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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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Full Name

A. Charles Muller

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Affiliation

Faculty of Letters, University of Tokyo (Originally from Long Island, USA)

http://www.buddhism-dict.net/ddb/ - creator

Electronic Buddhist Text Initiative

Other Information

Resources for East Asian Language and Thought

Contact: acmuller@jj.em-net.ne.jp

Bio from his own website:

Originally from Long Island, New York, I am a Professor in the Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology at the University of Tokyo. I have been living and working in Japan since 1994. My main field of study is Buddhism, but I am also a student of the broader area of East Asian philosophy and religion (Buddhism, Confucianism and Daoism). During graduate school and the first few years after finishing my doctorate, I worked primarily with Korean Seon (Zen) Buddhism. For the past decade, my work has focused on the writings of the Korean scholar-monk Wonhyo 元曉 (617-686), and this has in turn involved me in the study of East Asian Yogâcāra and Tathāgatagarbha thought.

I am especially interested in translating classical East Asian works for the Western audience. I have published a number of works into English, both in book form and on the Internet, which are listed on my publications page.

I have been, since the birth of the WWWeb, quite taken with the possibilities inherent in the digital domain for the development of and sharing of information related to the area East Asian religious/philosophical thought. The exciting challenges and opportunities that are presently available have stimulated me to initiate a few digital-web projects, most important of which at present are the Digital Dictionary of Buddhism and Chinese/Japanese/Korean/Vietnamese-English Dictionary, as well as the rest of the glossaries, indexes, translations, and other guides contained on this site. I am also the founder and managing editor of H-Buddhism, a network for communication among academic specialists in Buddhist studies. Last modified: Wed Nov 4 13:33:00 JST 2009 (Source Accessed October 19, 2011)

• Link for his publications list

• Wikipedia Article

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.