Selfie in my office taken by Nishimura Kodo, a Japanese Pure Lang priest and Parsons Fine Arts graduate who happen also to be a trained makeup artist and openly gay - in many ways an unprecedented combination. (He may well be the first openly gay Buddhist priest in Japan.) My friend and fashion-religion collaborator Otto arranged for the two of us to interview Nishimura. A fascinating conversation which started rather formally but ended with smiles all around, I felt we were in the presence of one of the Figures of Buddhist Modernity in Asia that we read about in my Buddhist Modernism class. (We also read an interview with him.) His is such a marvelous story, we'll try to plan a public event around his next visit to NYC. Queer Buddhisms? At Lang, of course!Thursday, April 11, 2019
Pure Land
Selfie in my office taken by Nishimura Kodo, a Japanese Pure Lang priest and Parsons Fine Arts graduate who happen also to be a trained makeup artist and openly gay - in many ways an unprecedented combination. (He may well be the first openly gay Buddhist priest in Japan.) My friend and fashion-religion collaborator Otto arranged for the two of us to interview Nishimura. A fascinating conversation which started rather formally but ended with smiles all around, I felt we were in the presence of one of the Figures of Buddhist Modernity in Asia that we read about in my Buddhist Modernism class. (We also read an interview with him.) His is such a marvelous story, we'll try to plan a public event around his next visit to NYC. Queer Buddhisms? At Lang, of course!