The Half-Female Lord: Non-Duality and Gender Fusion in Asian Art Traditions

First Thursday Lecture Series

The Half-Female Lord: Non-Duality and Gender Fusion in Asian Art Traditions

Instructor: 
Jeff Durham
When: 
March 15, 2013
Time: 
2:00 - 3:00 pm
Place: 
Education Studios
Fee: 
$10 (after Museum admission)

 

Please note day, time and venue changes for this special presentation.

We live in a world constrained by pairs of opposites: mind and body, subject and object, and of course, male and female. To unite these opposites, however, is to generate immense creative energy. From solar power to sexuality, this fused, non-dual energy might be said to keep the cosmos in motion. What is more, some of Asia’s most important philosophical schools, from Vedanta to Buddhism, feature fusion of opposites as their most important doctrine.

Yet the idea of non-duality can seem hopelessly abstracted from ordinary experience. That’s where the collection of the Asian Art Museum enters the story. For many of the non-dual ideas contained in complicated Sanskrit philosophy can be clearly communicated through visual means. This lecture will examine how imagery that combines male and female characteristics can be used to encode and reveal the philosophy of non-duality. From India to Tibet, China and Japan, we’ll see how the genius of Asian art can take us beyond language, into a perceptual realm where apparent opposites reveal their hidden unity.

Jeff Durham is Assistant Curator of Himalayan Art at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. A specialist in Mahayana Buddhist texts and Vajrayana Buddhist art, Jeff trained in Sanskrit and Tibetan at the University of Virginia. Jeff was professor of religion for a decade, teaching at George Mason University, St. Thomas Aquinas College and the University of North Carolina. He is fascinated by the interface among myth, image and experience, and envisions creating the museum’s first immersive mandala exhibition.

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