Antioch Education Abroad’s Buddhist Studies in India Program Celebrates 30-Year Anniversary
The Antioch Education Abroad Buddhist Studies in India Program celebrated its 30th anniversary recently with a reunion of students, staff and faculty on the campus of Antioch College in Yellow Springs, OH.
The fall semester study abroad program takes place every year in Bodh Gaya, Bihar, India, where Prince Siddhartha Gautama attained enlightenment under the Bodhi Tree. Since then, the site has drawn pilgrims from all the various Buddhist countries and traditions. Program participants have the unique opportunity to live and study in this remarkably diverse city’s Burmese Vihar. AEA’s promotional literature explains:
At the heart of the Buddhist Studies Program is the desire to allow students to inquire into this subject from as many different points of view as possible. Western academic models are systematically used in the core courses, while Buddhist philosophies are tested in the Meditation Traditions course. Students are encouraged to examine their own cultural and intellectual assumptions as they pursue these studies in a challenging and supportive environment.
The reunion was hosted by program director Robert Pryor, his wife Dianeah Wanicek and the staff at AEA. Special guests at the event, which was held this past Memorial Day weekend, included Sayadaw U Nyaneinda, abbot of the Burmese Vihar, and Sister Dharmavijaya and Sister Molini, meditation instructors for the program as well as the founders of the Dhamma Moli Project.
The reunion included social events, morning meditation sessions at the Yellow Springs Dharma Center, a sanghadāna for the monastics, and a panel discussion with participants from each decade of the program.
In addition, the public was invited to join the reunion at a special theatrical screening of the documentary Amongst White Clouds, which was held at Yellow Springs’ Little Art on Sunday, May 24th. The film’s director, Edward Burger, is an alumnus of the program. Guests also screened a short documentary, Dhamma Dana, about Buddhism in Burma by Theodore Martland, an alumnus from this past fall.
For more about the reunion and to look at photographs submitted by attendees, visit AEA’s website for the Buddhist Studies in India Program here. You can also read an informative feature about the reunion in the Yellow Springs News.
