Book Talk: Mountain Dharma by David DiValerio

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C21’s Critical Asian Humanities Reading Group presents a book talk by UWM History professor David DiValerio about his newly published book Mountain Dharma.

This event is free and open to the public.

• Thursday, October 2, 3:30 PM
• 939 Curtin Hall, 3243 N Downer Ave

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About Mountain Dharma: Meditative Retreat and the Tibetan Ascetic Self

A groundbreaking exploration of individual long-term meditative retreat in Tibetan Buddhism, Mountain Dharma tracks developments in ascetic discourse and practice from the twelfth century to the twentieth. David M. DiValerio provides a comprehensive reading of texts that offer instruction on the eremitic endeavor, comparing how dozens of authors have treated six key orienting concerns: place, people, food, sources of danger, the spiritual lineage, and time. The book traces a genealogy of the Tibetan ascetic self, demonstrating an increasing tendency to adopt practices that contrast the meditator with earlier generations of enlightened masters, defining the latter-day retreatant as a being in time. By viewing instructions for how to live in retreat as technologies of self, this book sheds new light on how the history of this tradition has been driven by evolving notions of personhood.

Methodologically innovative and richly sourced, Mountain Dharma sets a new standard for the historical study of asceticism.

About the Author

David M. DiValerio is associate professor of history and religious studies at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. He is the author of The Holy Madmen of Tibet (2015) and translator of The Life of the Madman of Ü (2016).

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