Peter N. Gregory: "Zongmi's Strategy for Reconciling Meditative Practice and Textual Study"

Peter N. Gregory

Professor Emeritus, Smith College

Bio:

Peter N. Gregory recently retired from the faculty at Smith College, where he had been the Jill Ker Conway Professor of Religion and East Asian Studies since 1999. After receiving his doctorate in East Asian Languages and Civilizations from Harvard University in 1981, he taught in the Program for the Study of Religion at the University of Illinois for fifteen years. He has also served as the President and Executive Director of the Kuroda Institute for the Study of Buddhism and Human Values since 1984, and in that capacity he has directed two publication series with the University of Hawaii Press: “Studies in East Asian Buddhism” and “Classics in East Asian Buddhism.” His research has focused on medieval Chinese Buddhism, especially the Chan and Huayan traditions during the Tang and Song dynasties, on which he has written or edited seven books, including Tsung-mi and the Sinification of Buddhism (1991). He is currently completing a translation and study of a ninth-century Chinese Buddhist text on the historical and doctrinal origins of the Chan tradition.