Lina Verchery is a writer, scholar of Buddhism, and ethnographic filmmaker
Scroll down for a thematic overview of Lina’s current projects, or access a comprehensive list of her publications, films, and teaching at the menu above.
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| bio |
Lina Verchery 黎娜 is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and scholar of Buddhist Studies who is Senior Lecturer in the Study of Religion at Te Herenga Waka/Victoria University of Wellington. She holds a PhD (Buddhist Studies and Media Ethnography) as well as an M.Div. in Buddhist Ministry, both from Harvard University.
Lina is the Buddhism Program Advisor to the Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Global and executive editor of the Yin-Cheng Journal of Contemporary Buddhism. Lina’s award-winning documentary, experimental, and educational films about Buddhism and connected topics have been screened in festivals and on televisions networks around the world.
Lina’s teaching and research center on how the philosophies, literatures, and practices of Buddhism can illuminate contemporary questions of urgent concern. A trained ethnographer, her areas of expertise include contemporary Chinese Buddhism and Buddhist monastic life, as well as the intersections of Buddhism and film, interspecies ethics, and environmental anthropology.
Lina currently splits her time between Canada and New Zealand. Though presently on research leave, Lina still welcomes inquiries from prospective PhD students whose research aspirations align with her areas of expertise, especially the intersection of Buddhist Studies and lived religion, monasticism, religion and modernity, the environmental humanities, and film/media ethnography.
Lina speaks, writes, and translates between English, French, Mandarin, and Classical Chinese.
| small is
beautiful |
is an interdisciplinary research cluster of writing, video, and multi-media works that draw on the philosophical, literary, and contemplative resources of Buddhism to help us see the world anew through the eyes of its tiniest creatures.
current work
At best we ignore—at worst, we fear and revile—the multitude of tiny beings who creep, crawl, and slither underfoot. Yet insects are not only the linchpin of our human food systems, they are the keystone to the planet’s ecosystem, comprising the vast majority (over 95%) of living creatures on earth. As insect biodiversity disappears at a devastating rate, we must urgently learn to care for and attend to the tiny beings upon whom our lives—and life itself—depend.
HONEYBOUND
HONEYBOUND is a collection of non-fiction essays about the cultural, environmental, socio-economic, and ethical questions of human life refracted through the history of our longstanding interspecies entanglements with apis mellifera, the European honeybee.
Read this essay based on Lina’s longterm fieldwork living in Buddhist monasteries in Taiwan in Animals and Religion, published by Routledge.
Working with disgust
How can Buddhist insights and contemplative practices help us work with aversion, fear, and emotion in general to help us better engage the full breadth of the world around us? Read Lina’s chapter on disgust in Buddhism and the Senses, published by Wisdom.
“Insect Agencies and the More-than-human Human”
Essay in development on how insect agencies have co-created the conceptual ideas and biological realities of what it means to be human, drawing on ancient Chinese religious texts, premodern Chinese literature, and contemporary ethnographic work among Buddhist communities in Taiwan.
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| Buddhism for the more than human world |
is a project cluster that combines Lina’s research and writing, filmic works, and interest in the relevance of Buddhist Studies for current developments in the Environmental Humanities, particularly the more-than-human turn.
Lina’s current major book project is
Buddhism for the More Than Human Realm
Rebirth, Ethics, and the Dharma Realm Buddhist Association
For several decades, scholarship on modern Chinese Buddhism has focussed almost exclusively on Humanistic Buddhism: a modernist movement spearheaded by several twentieth-century reformers who promoted renjian fojiao 人間佛教, “Buddhism for the human realm.” Against the movement’s this-worldly, presentist, and humanistic focus, traditional Buddhist communities — especially those espousing literalist understandings of karma and rebirth — have been dismissed as superstitious, unscientific, and un-modern. Buddhism for the More-Than-Human Realm draws on over a decade of multi-sited ethnographic research with one such traditionalist Buddhist organization: the Fajie Fojiao Zonghui 法界佛教 總會, a monastic order active in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Australia, the United States, and Canada. It argues that Fajie’s non-modernist, and non-humanistic cosmology opens alternative horizons of moral engagement with the non-human world, while challenging how we think about “modern” Buddhism itself.
In addition to its relevance for the academic study of contemporary Buddhism, in which the major significance of Fajie has been sorely overlooked, Buddhism for the More-Than-Human Realm argues for the renewed salience of Fajie’s traditional cosmology in light of the current environmental crisis. Scholars have begun to note that many of the cutting-edge ideas animating influential innovations in the Environmental Humanities — such as the “ontological turn,” the new materialism, indigenous epistemologies, and actor-network theory — often recapitulate so-called “premodern” epistemes. Using Fajie as a case study, the book challenges the normative ways we periodize Chinese Buddhism in general, thus troubling the very notions of “traditional,” “premodern,” “modern,” and “postmodern.”
Lina’s bilingual documentary film, LA TRAPPE/THE TRAP, explores the worldviews of Buddhist monastics and Catholic fishermen through the eyes of the creatures that unite them: lobsters.
Seemingly divided by culture, language, and religion, these communities nevertheless share more than meets the eye. Available free of charge in both French and English for classroom and personal use at the link above (and here) thanks to the National Film Board of Canada.
The Personal and the Planetary
Buddhism, Climate Change, and Anthropocene Time
As climate change becomes an increasingly dominant preoccupation in our daily lives, what can ancient Buddhist ideas about deep time illuminate about our present circumstances? Available open-access here.
Both Like
and Unlike:
Rebirth, Olfaction, and the Transspecies Imagination in Modern Chinese Buddhism
is an in-development book project that argues that asceticism, properly understood, is a practice of pleasure.
Written to make the philosophical, historical, and ethnographic insights of Buddhist Studies accessible to a broad interdisciplinary audience, The Sweetness of a Bittter Life moves beyond the mainstream interest in mindfulness to show how Buddhist theories of asceticism can help us radically rethink current notions of consumerism, restraint, and pleasure. As ecological precarity intensifies around the world, the need to reduce consumption is urgent. Rather than frame this in terms of loss or sacrifice, The Sweetness draws on Buddhist theories of asceticism to show how restraint can intensify pleasure, advancing our scholarly understanding of asceticism while promoting the kind of paradigm-shift required to inspire and sustain change in the world.
The sweetness of a bitter life
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| new courses |
Lina’s courses are animated by the conviction that academic education is both intellectually and existentially transformative. They approach historical sources with rigour and curiosity, connecting the insights of the past to our own contemporary contexts and lived experiences.
Meditation
Mindfulness
& Modernity
This course is an overview of the advent and development of Zen (Chinese: Chan), a form of Buddhism centred on the practice of meditation. Using both primary and secondary sources, we cover the premodern origins of Buddhist meditation in India, the institutionalisation of Chan in China, and its subsequent transnational journey throughout Japan, East Asia, and the world. We consider the influence of Zen on the modern mindfulness movement and on widespread secular interest in meditation and wellness.
Major sub-themes include the question of religious experience; history and genealogy; Zen theories of language; Zen modernism and its influence in psychology, neuroscience, and medicine. Throughout the course, we highlight the continual processes of translation, change, and adaptation that have characterized Zen Buddhism since its beginning.
The Words and the Writer
A PRACTICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL WORKSHOP SERIES FOR WRITERS
The central thesis of this workshop series is that writing is not just the evidence of learning; it is a transformative part of the learning process itself. The workshops are organized around process questions—why write? who is writing for? what are we doing when we write?—as well as pragmatic techniques to gain confidence with academic writing and develop one's authorial voice.
The workshops cover practical diagnostic skills for academic writing, as well as larger tools for reflecting on the writing process as a practice of intellectual edification and creative discovery. Broad themes include working with both discipline and creativity; the importance of “bad” writing; working more by working less; getting curious about procrastination; as well as a number of diagnostic tools for academic writing, including how to find an argument, understanding the work of a title, reverse outlining, and creating a diagnostic abstract.
These workshops actively engage the broader philosophical and procedural questions of writing in light of the prevalence of Artificial Intelligence and ChatGPT, technologies that give us an unprecedented opportunity to clarify and crystallize the uniquely valuable practice of writing as a process rather than a product.
Meditation Practicum
This is an eleven-week meditation practicum—offered in conjunction with Meditation, Mindfulness, and Modernity—that introduces eleven forms of meditation practice, ranging from traditional religious forms to modern secularized methods. Guided instruction, introductory readings, and audio-visual aids are provided, and participants are required to keep a weekly meditation journal over the eleven weeks. Adopting both a constructive and critical approach, we connect our personal observations to the broader cultural, historical, socio-religious contexts of contemplative practice.
Buddhist Contemplation and the Narrative Imagination
Drawing on three of the most celebrated texts of the Mahāyāna Buddhist tradition, this course considers the psychological, contemplative, and ethical functions of storytelling and imaginative practice in the Buddhist scriptural tradition. This is a seminar-style reading group that meets once a week. We read three classic Buddhist scriptures together: The Holy Teaching of Vimalakīrti, The Bodhicaryāvatāra (Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life), and The Lotus Sūtra, attending to themes including gender, embodiment, play, performativity, authenticity, and intersubjectivity.
Desire and Deprivation:
The Body in Asian Religions
This class contends that desire and deprivation are two sides of the same coin. Drawing on Asian religious sources and contemporary academic theory on the body and embodiment, we examine extraordinary religious practices of bodily desire and deprivation, including celibacy, sexual virtuosity, self-mortification, and the quest for physical perfection. We explore the ambivalence of the body as both an obstacle and a gateway to self-realization. We consider how notions of gender, morality, and social belonging are constructed and expressed through the body, and connect these insights to our own contemporary contexts and lived experiences.
Buddhism,
Women,
& Gender
This course is a critical exploration of the role that women, gender and imaginaires of the “female” have played throughout Buddhist history, from the premodern to the contemporary period. We engage a variety of sources, ranging from traditional scriptural and doctrinal perspectives, to autobiographical and ethnographic accounts of Buddhist women’s lives. Throughout, special attention is paid to issues of women’s agency, both past and present, and how these voices enrich and challenge current debates in gender studies and feminist theory.
Imaging the Ineffable:
Introduction to Buddhism and Film
In this introductory course, we explore how the language of cinema can help us expand our understanding of religion. In addition to watching films about religious topics, we will also use religion as a lens to interpret a variety of films in multiple genres — documentary, dramatic, animation, experimental, horror, comedic, ethnographic — asking in each case how the cinematic medium can illuminate existential questions of “ultimate concern”. In addition to using film to critically expand our understandings of “religion,” we will also learn the foundations of filmic language and cinematic analysis. Instead of a final exam, students may elect to either write a final paper or create an original video-essay.
Jump to: Bio | Small is Beautiful | Buddhism for the More-Than-Human World | New Courses | Contact
| contact |
lina.verchery@vuw.ac.nz
Jump to: Bio | Small is Beautiful | Buddhism for the More-Than-Human World | New Courses