Editorial

This volume contains four articles that trace various facets of Mahāyāna Buddhism with a focus on Chinese Buddhism, Śāntidēva, Dōgen, and comparative work. This also includes three collections of conference papers.

The first collection of papers celebrates a special occasion by honoring Professor Rita M. Gross, one of the previous editors of Buddhist-Christian Studies. On Friday, 29 October 2010, at the meeting of the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies held at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion, Atlanta, Georgia, her colleagues and friends presented a collection of papers celebrating her contributions to various scholarly disciplines. Because Professor Gross's contributions overlap significantly with feminist movement and issues of women and religion, the co-convener of the event, along with the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies, was the Woman and Religion Section of the American Academy of Religion. The felicitation panel included Kathleen Erndl, Nancy Falk, Judith Simmer-Brown, Rosemary Radford Reuther, Paul Knitter, and Terry Muck. Professor Gross herself responded to the panel and Professor Miriam Levering, the president of the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies, moderated the session. After the conference, the authors revised the papers for this volume, and Terry Muck was instrumental in getting these papers assembled as a collection.

The second collection of papers—"Buddhist-Christian Mutual Theologizing/Buddhologizing"—is based on the panel titled "Can/Should Buddhists and Christians Do Theology/Buddhology Together?" held on Saturday, 30 October 2010 at the annual meeting of the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies. Four scholars of Buddhism and Christianity—John Makransky, Grace Burford, Wendy Farley, and Amos Yong—joined the panel to speak and share their insights on doing theology and Buddhology together. Each offered reflective thoughts about the possibilities of mutual theologizing among Buddhists and Christians. Their approaches as well as their answers were varied. Terry C. Muck, the vice president of the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies, moderated the session.

The third set of papers—"The Boundaries of Knowledge in Buddhism, Christianity, and Science"—was originally presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies held at the AAR in Montreal in November 2009. The presenters engaged with reviewing articles in the volume edited by Paul D. Numrich titled The Boundaries of Knowledge in Buddhism, Christianity, and Science (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 2008). The collection addresses Buddhist, Christian, and scientific insights on the inadequacies of conceptualization and language for understanding reality.

I am thankful to Professors Terry C. Muck and Paul D. Numrich for assembling the conference papers included in this volume.