Preface

by Chua Yi Lin

1 course instructor. 8 visiting experts. 18 students, of which 4 were exchange students. Topics in Buddhist Philosophy was bound to invite many ways of learning from and relating to one another. For some of us, this was familiar territory: having encountered the Questions of King Milinda in Yale-NUS College’s Common Curriculum, I was reminded, once more, of a chariot emerging in the mind’s eye, coming together, and falling apart… all to explicate the concept of no-self. Subject matter experts—having spent their time taking courses or working on theses related to Buddhist thought—were also almost always present, sharing with us what they found enlightening whenever we found something perplexing. For others, a peripheral interest in Buddhism was enough of a push to plunge in; thrust into unfamiliar waters, we had to learn how to keep our heads above water. 

Fortunately, we were thrown many life buoys. In pedagogy, Dr. Sherice Ngaserin introduced the class to accessibility tools like Script Change, giving us the room, at any point in time, to interject with the words ‘Pause’ or ‘Rewind’ to get the time and space to process and clarify things raised during the seminar. My coursemates also became the rising tide that lifted all boats; they would arrive to class with an eagerness to engage, and I would be buoyed by their enthusiasm. Comments would fill our assigned readings before class, offering many questions and answers about what was stated, interpreted, and contested. While Mark was the curious exception who escaped the plague of Google Docs glitching and making our usernames appear as “Couldn’t load user”, I thought it was fitting that most of us became temporarily nameless as the course progressed; as we unpacked more topics linked to the implications of no-self, we functioned like interdependent units, individually and yet also collectively tinkering with different aspects of Buddhist thought each time we cross-referenced previous readings, comments, or discussion threads generated by this learning community. This reliance on one another was also clear in our Collaborative Google Docs. For instance, Josh was the first to volunteer for the speech-to-text interpretation that happened every seminar, with his choice of blue text on our shared Google Docs becoming a class ‘legacy’ practice. Whenever I struggled the two notetakers assigned to each section struggled with capturing all that popped up during particularly fast-paced discussions, he, alongside many other coursemates, would show up in the form of an Anonymous Wombat, Llama, or some non-human animal and step in, populating empty space with points that were articulated but not typed out in full and in blue. 

Student-facilitated discussions also never failed to be dynamic, accessible, and thought-provoking. When discussing the Vaibhāṣikas’ and Vasubandhu’s responses to the Problem of Contact, the class could not contain our laughter when Ryan used a marker to draw two fingers in contact to emphatically prove their point that two things touched (kindly refer to our Telegram group chat Bunch of Selves(?) for the photo). When Chelsea, our in-house Literature major, interjected with “What did we just do??” after a few Philosophy majors laid out an argument in the form of modus tollens, Gunnar would explain that premises help in breaking down an argument and identifying exactly which part we disagreed with. I remember reacting in awe and relief when, after weaving in Zhuangzi’s and Ludwig Wittgenstein’s ideas to explain the Heart Sūtra, Shikhar proceeded to deliver his profound finding that “Everything is empty because everything is full. Accept the nonsense. Don’t care if it’s true or false - just vibe ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.” Given that I took way too much time reading, re-reading, and not understanding the Heart Sūtra, the conclusion finally clicked for me — grasping for solutions to the problem of suffering is the problem, and  letting go of my need for a definitive interpretation was part of embracing the Mahāyāna notion of emptiness. In truth, classes often left me sitting with (and savouring) the little revelations set off by the things mentioned by Dr. Ngaserin or my coursemates.

This course may have ended in 2023, but the causal links connecting me to you, us to one another, and ideas to the material, do not cease immediately. I find the raft analogy helpful: after gathering and binding these texts and contributions to make a raft, we cross our small, metaphorical river of suffering. We depended on this raft, even coming to learn to steer our own ships when, high up in the Cendana Rectors' Common, we shared our play with Buddhist thought or Buddhist-inflected versions of time, action, memory, space, feeling, and relationality. There were so many projects I thoroughly enjoyed hearing about. Some went all in to embody ‘graphic design is my passion’: a photojournal on Buddhist architecture; an arthouse-style zine featuring different individuals in their spaces; a board game with Enlightenment tokens and Buddha cards. Others became collectors and creative documentarians: an Instagram page with meticulously curated photos, captions, and stories; a film with video interviews of couples; a literary anthology of Buddhist concerns; a tiny and thoughtful journal with written notes, printed photos, and a music playlist. A handful delivered written pieces responding to questions of personal and existential relevance: an examination of the Inclusion Problem through a relational account of gender as empty; a selection of stories on faith; a Buddhist reflection on love songs today; a illustrative ‘grounding’ of the Heart Sūtra with analogies and mathematical sets. We did not hold back on being playful too: a stop motion on Buddhist self-defence; a set of revised pages from a self-help book; a reworked Taylor Swift song on karma; a Buddhist guide to improvisation with a funny transcript included. These ‘wares’ that came on board became prized possessions; they all had flair and heaps of care put into their creation, curation, and presentation...

Here is where the raft analogy begins to crumble. After crossing over to safety on the further shore, my clinging onto the weight of these unessays constitute a stubborn reluctance to let go. But allow me to cherry-pick another analogy brought up by Dr. Ngaserin in class: the right view is like a snake. For the Buddhists, it is not enough to grasp the right view—one must also grasp it in the right way to not be bitten by the snake. Just as there are many different ways to handle a snake and use a raft, through different representations and styles, this collection of unessays gave shape to the many conversations surrounding Buddhist thought. In leafing through these examples, I hope you glimpse into the delight I felt experiencing each item. Regardless of one’s familiarity with Buddhist thought, these creative and personal responses to Buddhist ideas express and encapsulate many different ways of being, living, and relating that one might not find so unfamiliar after all.