Richard Payne is the Yehan Numata Professor of Japanese Buddhist Studies at the Institute of Buddhist Studies in Berkeley, California and the Graduate Theological Union. I spoke with Richard about his new edited volume, Secularizing Buddhism: New Perspectives on a Dynamic Tradition, published by Shambala. Our conversation explores how the discourse of secularization with its binary oppositions such as "religious" vs. "secular" are constructed categories that are influencing how modern people are understanding Secular Buddhism. Richard explains how the legacy of Protestant theological ideas are overlayed on what we now view as "modern" Buddhism, as well as how so-called "traditional" Buddhism is a response to such modernization.
