thomas tam

2011-2012 CUNY Thomas Tam Visiting Professor

By and

Paul Ong is Professor of Urban Planning, Social Welfare and Asian American Studies at the UCLA School of Public Affairs. In Fall 2010 and Fall 2011, Prof. Ong served as the City University of New York’s Thomas Tam Visiting Professor at the CUNY Graduate Center.

Russell C. Leong is the founding editor of the Asian American / Asian Research Institute’s CUNY FORUM publication, and previously served as the CUNY Thomas Tam Visiting Professor at Hunter College/CUNY.

Read more

2010-2011 CUNY Thomas Tam Visiting Professor

By and

Paul Ong is Professor of Urban Planning, Social Welfare and Asian American Studies at the UCLA School of Public Affairs. In Fall 2010 and Fall 2011, Prof. Ong served as the City University of New York’s Thomas Tam Visiting Professor at the CUNY Graduate Center.

Russell C. Leong is the founding editor of the Asian American / Asian Research Institute’s CUNY FORUM publication, and previously served as the CUNY Thomas Tam Visiting Professor at Hunter College/CUNY.

Read more

Conversation on American Relief in South Asia

By , and

At the suggestion of Executive Vice Chancellor Selma Botman, AAARI was invited to participate in the CUNY’s response to the tsunami disaster that struck South Asia. As different experts from CUNY are beginning the brainstorming process to generate a relevant and comprehensive plan to help rebuild the region, AAARI is taking the initiative to reach … Read more

Introduction to Yogacara Buddhism: Asanga, Vasubandhu and Hsuan-Tsang

By

Hsuan Tsang, the famous Chinese monk from the Tang dynasty, traveled from China to India to learn Yogacara Buddhism. He crossed deserts, mountains, rivers and spent eighteen years before his triumphant return to his country and began the daunting task of translating the sutras and commentaries that he brought back. One of the most important … Read more

Introduction to Agama Sutra: The First Buddhist Scripture

By

The Mahayana school of Buddhism in China often emphasized the role of altruism and disparaged self-salvation. Its sutras were considered to be the first sermons by the Buddha whose profound ideas were too difficult for the ordinary people to understand. To cater to their level, it was said that Buddha then delivered the Agama Sutra for the less intellectually endowed. For more than 1500 years after it was translated into Chinese, Agama Sutra has been ignored by Chinese Buddhists mainly because of this prejudice. More recently, Master Yin Shun has vastly expanded the research started by Lu Jing, and has written many volumes of texts to clarify the origins of Buddhism. This lecture will be based mostly on writings by him and his disciples.

Read more