The Buddha in the Museum

What did James Joyce think of Buddhism?

Topics in this episode include: All Hallows or St. Andrew’s Church?, why Bloom hangs out in a church, the very reverend John Conmee S.J., sectarian scorekeeping, prayers for Gladstone, St. Peter Claver, the Opium Wars, racist poetry, the reclining Buddha statue in the National Museum of Ireland, Leopold Bloom misconceptions about Buddhism, Walter White’s misconceptions about Buddhism, depictions of the Buddha in art, what Joyce did and didn’t know about Buddhism, Buddhism viewed through lens of Western spiritualism, Joyce’s 1903 review of H. Fielding Hall’s A Soul of a People, Joyce’s characterization of Buddhism as a “passive philosophy,” Paul Carus and The Gospel of Buddha, whether or not Buddhism is a religion, the Bill Murray movie that best illustrates Buddhist principles, the Anglo-Burmese wars, U Dhammaloka, Orientalism, Homer’s lotus eaters and Buddhism, the Buddhist symbolism of the lotus, vegetarianism, tales from the Hegeler-Carus mansion, Ecce Homo, and Patrick’s sham shamrock.