Instructions:
Write 7 full pages, double spaced in font size 12, plus cover page (your name, course number and title, date, instructor’s name), endnotes, and bibliography. You must insert page numbers as well.
Your response requires review, synthesis, reflection, and critical appraisal of the material we have covered. You are expected to draw material from the lectures, assigned readings, and documentary film. Use of non-course material is fine only if you satisfy the above requirement first. Cite sources in your endnotes (and not footnotes); citation of passages for illustration, including translated original textual passages, is highly recommended to show your engagement but should be in endnotes as well.

USE THIS BOOK FOR QUOTES: The Norton Anthology of World Religions: Buddhism by Donald S. Lopez Jr.

Task:
The focus of the final essay is East Asia with the theme of continuity and change (synthesis, syncretism, or innovation) from Indian Buddhism, especially Mahāyāna branch. We discussed in class four schools of Buddhism in China (two philosophical/doctrinal and two practical) that had no Indian analogue. These schools also spread to Korea and Japan where further developments took place. Given that East Asia was culturally different from India and/or Central Asia, Buddhism could not be transplanted as it was but had to accommodate and adapt to new environment. Discuss some of the East Asian Buddhist developments with attention to the impact of indigenous traditions and their worldviews whenever applicable. Space for Korean and Japanese developments should be less than the space for China for obvious reason that the latter is the birth place of the four schools.

Pertinent questions to ask to get started: How did the sinified schools address the primacy of soteriology that was the hallmark of Indian Buddhism? To break down this question further: How was human potential for ending suffering viewed in East Asian Buddhism? What ideas/theories/rhetoric of Indian Mahāyāna Buddhism were adopted and why? What changes or adaptations were made to the borrowed ideas to meet the local religious conditions and needs? How was meditation practice changed in East Asia? How did devotional, faith-oriented, Buddhism address the issue of soteriology and why?

You are free to organize the material in any way you wish so long as your essay covers some of the key developments in East Asian Buddhism. As you might have learned from the midterm essay writing, you may not have enough space to include everything we covered in class or in the required readings. However, exclusive focus on one or two topics and ignoring the rest may not result in high score because your writing will not reflect enough of the coverage of the course. Lastly, finding a workable frame in which to discuss select topics may let you organize the material with coherence.