Jasmyne Roberts '24

2023 EAS Winter Travel Grant Recipient

Double Concentration in EAS and Computer Science

Harvard College Class of 2024

"Past Lives: A Buddhist Audio Anthology"

Areas visited: Taiwan and South Korea

This past winter break, with generous support from the Asia Center’s Tao & Cheng Fund and the East Asian Studies department, I set out to Taiwan and Korea with a bag of recording equipment and a list of questions. My goal while abroad was to interview monks and nuns about their journey into religious ordination—their past lives—to demystify their commitment to faith, uncover differences in spiritual lives across geography and temple, and further my own connection to Buddhism. Despite having taken Chinese classes since I was small, and packing as much of my course schedule with East Asian media and culture courses as it could handle, I hadn’t ever had the opportunity to travel to this region. In fact, I hadn’t even traveled outside of the Americas before. So, as I deplaned from the long overnight flight and began my first solo travel experience, I felt clammy from nervous excitement…or maybe from wearing my Cambridge-proof winter coat in mid-70’s Taiwanese weather.

Buddhism has always played a big role in my life: I was raised Buddhist, my aunt is a Buddhist nun, and my favorite summer activity in high school was choreographing dances for my temple’s children's summer camp. However, only in college did I finally begin to explore Buddhism from an academic perspective. After taking Classical Chinese with Professor David Sena, I started to recognize sutra phrases in temple service. Following an independent study with Professor James Robson, I began to learn about the scholastic rift between doctrine and practice as it relates to the East Asian Mahayana tradition. I particularly enjoyed translating sutras and hearing about how they manifested in real monastic communities. As I read parts of The Jataka Tales, a collection of Buddhist literature that explain how the Buddha’s compassion led him into his final reincarnation, I wondered: what about the draw of Buddhism led modern-day people into ordained life? Did they have any obstacles or regrets along the way? By conducting live interviews of monks and nuns, I hoped to educate myself and others on Buddhism beyond doctrinal ideas, connect an ancient religion with individuals' real lives, and explore the multifaceted motivations behind faith.

I stayed in Taiwan for three weeks and in Korea for an additional week. During this time, I visited eight temples: the Four Great Mountains (Dharma Drum Mountain, Fo Guang Shan, Chung Tai Shan, and Tzu Chi Foundation), several local temples (Huayen Lotus Society, Xiang Guang Shan, and Yuan Dao Chan Monastery), and Korea’s Woljeongsa Temple.

Despite resolving to use only Mandarin in Taiwan and Google Translate in Korea, it was actually English that bridged the gap between me and the international monastic communities there. For example, I met monks and nuns ordained in Indonesia, Vietnam, the US, and even Australia who came to East Asia, and others who began their religious journey in East Asia who are now based elsewhere. More interestingly, I met monastics who don’t fit into the neat boxes of religious tradition, such as an ex-Catholic-turned-Buddhist nun who is also a full-time psychotherapist, a genderqueer Japanese-ordained American monastic seeking Taiwanese ordination, and a painter-nun who became ordained after starting a family. This spring, I’ll be putting their stories into an audio anthology—like a documentary series with the visuals turned off—and hope to release it publicly online.

While I thought I was only traveling to research religion, I experienced so much more. After a series of spontaneous introductions, I found myself representing Texas in a Christmastime interfaith parade, touring a factory for floral soap, and making pit stops for scenic hikes with new friends. I’m incredibly grateful for being given this special opportunity to spend a month immersing myself culturally in my area of study for the first time, and beginning a capstone project for my undergraduate academic experience.