Bodiford, W.

William Bodiford

William M. Bodiford is a professor in the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he teaches courses on religion in the cultures of Japan and East Asia, and Buddhist Studies. In addition to UCLA, he also has taught at Davidson College (Davidson, North Carolina), the University of Iowa (Iowa City, Iowa), Meiji Gakuin University (Tokyo and Yokohama, Japan), and ICU (International Christian University; Tokyo, Japan).

He received his Ph.D. from Yale University (New Haven, Connecticut) in the Department of Religious Studies, where he specialized in Buddhist Studies under the direction of Professor Stanley Weinstein. In addition to Yale, he also received graduate training at the Institute of Health and Sport Science (Taiiku Kagaku Kenkyuka), Tsukuba University (Tsukuba, Japan), where he studied the intellectual history of martial arts in Japan under the direction of Professor Watanabe Ichiro, and at the Graduate School of Buddhist Studies, Komazawa University (Tokyo, Japan), where he studied Asian Religions under the direction of Professors Kagamishima Genryu and Ishikawa Rikizan.

His research spans the medieval, early modern, and contemporary periods of Japanese history. Currently he is investigating religion during the Tokugawa period, especially those aspects of Japanese culture associated with manuscripts, printing, secrecy, education, and proselytizing. Although many of his publications focus on Zen Buddhism (especially Soto Zen), he also researches Tendai and Vinaya Buddhist traditions, Shinto, folklore and popular religions, as well as Japanese martial arts and traditional approaches to health and physical culture.

He is a member of the editorial boards of "Cursor Mundi: Viator Studies of the Medieval and Early Modern World" (UCLA Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies), "Studies in East Asian Buddhism" and "Classics in East Asian Buddhism" (Kuroda Institute). (Source Accessed June 30, 2021)

Library Items

Book

Record of the Transmission of Illumination by the Great Ancestor, Zen Master Keizan

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The Denkōroku (Record of the Transmission of Illumination), together with Dogen Zenji's Shobogenzo (Treasury of the True Dharma Eye), is one of the fundamental texts of the Soto School. It is an exceptional record of the Zen ancestors that begins with Sakyamuni Buddha, extends through twenty-eight generations in India and twenty-three generations in China, and reaches to Dogen Zenji and Ejo Zenji. It provides instruction, in teisho format, about the causes and conditions whereby each awakened to the Way that was individually transmitted by the one Buddha and fifty-two ancestors. (Source: Sotozen.com)

Foulk, Griffith T., ed. Record of the Transmission of Illumination by the Great Ancestor, Zen Master Keizan. 2 vols. Tokyo: Sōtōshū Shūmuchō, 2017–2018.

Foulk, Griffith T., ed. Record of the Transmission of Illumination by the Great Ancestor, Zen Master Keizan. 2 vols. Tokyo: Sōtōshū Shūmuchō, 2017–2018.;Record of the Transmission of Illumination by the Great Ancestor, Zen Master Keizan;History;The doctrine of buddha-nature in Japanese Buddhism;Carl Bielefeldt; William Bodiford;T. Griffith Foulk;Sarah J. Horton;John R. McRae;Record of the Transmission of Illumination by the Great Ancestor, Zen Master Keizan;Keizan

Affiliations & relations

• UCLA · workplace affiliation
• Faculty Page // Bio on Terebess · websites