Teaching Compassionate Listening in a Religious Conflict Course at a Buddhism-affiliated University in Taiwan

Buddhists have been particularly successful in portraying the Buddhist Dharma as a nonviolent religion. As a result, some high profile scholars attempt to debunk the popular nonviolent image of Buddhism. While scholarship aiming to correct biases in the academic literature is important, in the classroom, scholarship that seeks to identify the violence tendencies of Buddhism, “New Religions,” cults, or other teachings also serves to invoke stereotypes of religion as violent, irrational, or superstitious. This paper presents the teaching methods of a class on Religious Conflict at a comprehensive private university operated by a Buddhist organization in Taiwan. The course curriculum both introduces the scholarship on religious violence in general, and Buddhist violence in particular, but also employs active learning pedagogy in the form of the Compassionate Listening Project curriculum to provide both examples of Buddhist nonviolence and opportunities for preemptive conflict resolution.